Imperium

Chapter 4

She looks at me from top to bottom. Her mouth slightly opens, her body not moving, as she stares wide-eyed at me. I can hardly see her breathing. She doesn't even look to see if Josh is with me.

It is as if she knows exactly where Josh is. This gives me hope that he is home. If he isn't, she would at least be looking to see if he was with me.

"Who is it, honey?" Mr Brown asks from the inside.

He glues himself to the tv screen; he doesn't even bother to look at my direction to see who it is.

Mrs Brown gulps as she moves again whilst looking at me. Her eyes are red, and there are bags under them. This is proof that she has been crying and has had little sleep.

"It's S-Sh-Shaun," she stutters.

Mr Brown gets up in a rush to get to us both. He doesn't even turn off the television, he just throws the remote aside and gets up.

When he reaches me his mouth drops, he looks at me with eyes wide open. His mouth opens, but he releases no words from his mouth.

Mrs Brown keeps nudging Mr Brown with her shoulder. He tries to nudge him out of his shock. Her attempts come to prevail, but Mr Brown still says nothing. He keeps looking at me.

"Can I come in?" I ask, noticing that none of the two will say anything.

"Yes dear, come in," Mrs Brown now says, as they let me in.

I sit down on a brown couch, it feels good to sit down on a couch that isn't navy for once. This seems to be my mother's favourite colour because everything at home is that way.

"Do you want some water dear?" Mrs Brown offers.

I just nod, and she walks to the kitchen. I look around to see a vase, the flowers in the vase are dried up and dead. Fish float with their mouths open in the fish tank, they must have starved to death.

They must've been too busy to look after them. Mr Brown also has bags under his eyes, sleep is something they have deprived themselves off.

Mr Brown hasn't shaved his facial hair, he usually looks just like Josh. Now his facial hair has messed up that fact.

"Is Josh home?"

I turn to look at Mr Brown, who immediately shifts his gaze to the floor after I ask the question.

Mrs Brown comes back from the kitchen with a glass in hand. I send all the water running straight down my throat in one drink.

"Is Josh home?" I repeat, this time alternating my gaze on both of them.

"Joshua isn't home," Mrs Brown states, "in fact, he hasn't been home in 2 weeks."

"2 weeks?!"

"Yes, he went to school one morning, and he didn't come back," Mrs Brown sobs.

"You disappeared with him, it shocks us you're here being that Josh is..." Mr Brown's gaze runs to the ground again as he says this.

"Is...?" I ask immediately after he stops talking.

Mr Brown changes the television to a news channel. A woman is reading the news.

They have reported several people missing in the town of Mac. Now, one man has claimed responsibility to it all.

The government was working on a project, they haven't revealed what project this exactly was but one of their scientists turned on them and stole their latest research.

This is the same man who has claimed responsibility for most of the kidnappings in the town of Mac. It is still unknown who has exactly is responsible. In other news...