アパート

The ringing of my alarm shot through me like a bullet, the little red box at my bedside table reveling in my pain. I could hear its cackling laughter. Its cry sounds like a siren, exploding with the force of a flash-bang ready to blind me for life.

My fist slammed against the smooth plastic, bringing relief as I rolled over, throwing up a small screen from my enke.

“Ten in the morning? What the hell…” Two hours sleeping through my alarm, that was new. I could already imagine the complaints from my neighbors. Only insane people had physical alarms these days.

A sheen of microscopic ice seemed to coat my floor as I willed myself out of bed. There wasn’t too much to my apartment, a simple light gray room with light sneaking through the giant window looking fifteen floors down towards the ground. Posters hung on the wall, stuffed animals cluttered my desk, and a pile of old-world junk had built up in the corner. Not the most innovative room in the world or anything, but it was mine and mine alone.

One shower later, and I collapsed back in bed, shoulders aching. There was a throbbing to every move I made. It was like little hammers were pounding against my bones, little gremlins punishing my sins yesterday…

“Shit, call Caspial!” The brain fog lifted, a small crack just large enough for me to remember yesterday's events.

“Calling Sir. Know it all,” I held my breath as the call went on. Surely this was all an overreaction, a garbled call that I’d misheard due to stress. “Contact unavailable. Your contact’s enke is not connected to the internet.”

“Call Kat.” Surely she’d know. Caspian had to just be in a meeting.

“Calling…” I held my breath, heart pounding.

“Asta! Where the hell are you? Classes began hours ago.”

“Kat, thank you…” I breathed a small sigh of relief, tension still grasping my heart. “Have you heard from Caspian? Anything at all?”

“Nothing. He’s not here at school either… you don’t think something happened to him, do you?”

“I don’t know Kat! Sky with you?”

“Haven’t seen him but with Sky that doesn’t mean much.”

“Thanks, I'll call you back in a second.” Before she could say a word, I hung up, pulling up Sky’s contact info faster than I could blink.

“Hello?” His droll feminine voice came out, a hint of boredom snuck in.

“Have you seen Caspian?”

“Not since last night. We got separated after a bit down there, I assumed the security guards brought him up as well.”

“No one’s seen him Sky, not me, not Kat, not anyone. Can you see Mr. Perfect skipping a day of school and rejecting all my calls?”

“No…” In the seconds of silence that followed, I could hear his fingers rapidly tapping some kinda table. “Asta, I don’t think he left the school last night. I just ran a smart scan of the cameras leading out of campus, there's no sign of him.”

“Nothing?” I screamed, immediately slapping a fist over my mouth. I could ask him later how he had access to the cameras. There was a snakiness with every word I spoke. “Surely there has to be some sign.”

“After we left, there's no activity until six am. Unless you know of another way off campus the cameras wouldn’t catch.”

In my two years here, I’d expired campus in and out looking for secrets and hidden caverns. There weren't any that lead outside. “Ask around, I’ll see what I can do on my end.”

With that call done, I tossed my call log aside. My heart beat like a drum. I could feel flames coursing through my blood, boiling with suspense.

“Call the…” My voice trailed off as my notifications dinged. In my frenzy, I’d completely forgotten about Caspian's message. I could feel my eyes grow wide as I looked at its contents. “What the hell are you doing here?”

Within his message, Caspian had managed to send nearly a hundred gigabytes of data: videos, files, documents, everything. I clicked on a random video and watched the data load slower than a snail.

“This data has been corrupted. Please try again later.”
“What do you mean corrupted!” I slammed my fist against the bed. Luckily my sheets were a bit softer than a concrete pillar, barely sinking into the fluff–no nanomachine healing needed.

Caspian’s words about Sky made sense now. If there was a single human on this planet able to decrypt this, it’d be him.

I mentally typed up a quick text to Sky, data included, before collapsing back in my bed. “Call the police.”

“Calling…” I took a slow breath, barely able to keep still as they picked up. “Hello, this is the Iero police, how can we help you today.” The voice on the other side sounded shrill yet kind, an older lady clearly its source.

“I’d like to report a missing person.”

“A-a missing person? Can you give me their name and any other information you have?” I could understand the shakiness in her voice. Iero wasn’t the kind of place where people disappeared.

“My brother, Caspian King. We’re students at Protel University and were exploring the catacombs of the building last for a club project. W-when he sent me a weird call before completely disappearing. I’ve asked everyone I know and checked with the school. He didn’t come up last night!”

“Oh dear, I’ll make a report immediately. Can I get your name?”

“Asta King.”
“Thank you dear, hopefully, this is all a misunderstanding and we can find your brother soon. Let me go see what I can find.”

“T-thank you.” I tossed my head back against my fluffy white pillow, breathing shallow as my head filled itself with a slow jazzy tune. The hold music filled my brain, calming my nerves in the waves of uneven yet steady notes.

Iero wasn’t a place for conspiracies and danger, I had to put faith in this behind a misunderstanding. People didn’t just disappear, hell, there hadn’t been a disappearance I knew of since Mom… No way it could happen twice to the same family.

“Hello Asta, this is the director of the Iero police.” Gone was the kind lady from before, replaced with a gruff masculine tone.

“Yes, hello? I said, my words coming out like a bullet. “Did you find anything?”

“We have taken your account into consideration and will be with you soon. Goodbye.”
“Wait–”

“Call disconnected.”

“What do you mean, call disconnected? What the hell?” So much for the grand Iero police.

I tossed my blankets back over my stomach, hugging my pillow like a teddy bear. Tomorrow, they’d call and say everything was fine, that Caspian had just gotten lost temporarily, we could laugh at this whole stupid misunderstanding.

I felt myself drift off, welcoming a quiet dream.