What's left behind

“Wake up kids! Time for breakfast!” A familiar voice called out to them. The sunlight coming through the windows hitting their eyes, the slightly cold morning air of autumn, everything was great, just as usual.

“Wake up now, the food will get cold!!” the kids woke up to see that Jaiden was gone.

“Where’s Jaiden? He was sleeping right here, wasn’t he?”

“Maybe he got up before us and went to eat”

“Maybe. Well, we should get up too. Wouldn’t want to keep the food waiting”

The kids got up from their beds. The house was still foreign to them so after stumbling through rooms for a while, they found a washroom. They freshened up and then went down to eat.

“Your finally awake. I thought I’d have to drag you down here. Where’s Jaiden?”

“We thought he woke up early and came down”

“That’s weird. I haven’t seen him at all. Have you seen him dear?”

“No, I haven’t. Come to think of it, Jacob, Randy and Drake are gone too. They might’ve gone outside for some fresh air. You know how kids are.”

“Well, I guess its fine. They’ll probably come back soon anyway. Well then, we should eat before it gets cold. Sit down now”

Emily and Jean sat down, worry clawing at them. They knew something was wrong last night but they never expected that the boys would just disappear. Hours passed, Mr. Joestar went to work, Mrs. Joestar cleaned around the house. Emily and Jean couldn’t sit around waiting so they went out to look for the boys. They went around the town, asking people if they had seen any of them. Then they went to the forest, back towards the cabin. Their worry and fears increasing with each step, they made it to the cabin. Or at least they should’ve. Where once laid the rubble of rotting wood and old, cracked stone, there now was nothing. Not even a trace of the cabin. It seemed as if it never existed. Wild plants were spread around as if undisturbed for decades.

Their faces had lost all color. Emily fell to her knees, tears ran down her face. Jean wants to console her, to say something, anything but nothing came to mind. He was just as devastated as she was. 4 of their good friends had just disappeared in the middle of the night. Regret, fear, self-loathing, such emotions are common in times like these. But they felt nothing of the sort. Even their sadness had started to fade away. In just a minute, they went from bawling their eyes out to wondering where they were.

“Uh, this might sound strange but why are we in the forest?”

“How would I know? I was just following you around all day. Don’t tell me you were wandering around mindlessly”

“How foolish Jean, it was you who brought us here.”

“Well I don’t remember any of that. Anyways we can play these games later. Let’s go back home. We should also thank the Joestars on our way back. They did let us sleepover last night.”

“But why were we there in the first place? I just can’t seem to remember”

“Wasn’t it because it was already so dark out and there was that broadcast about suspicious individuals in our neighborhood? They let us stay because it would’ve been dangerous to be out at that hour”

“Oh yes, now I remember. Well then, lets head back”

And just like that, both of them got up and returned back to the town, they travelled down the hills, through the dimly lit trees, orange sunlight shining through the gaps in the treetops. Emily stared back at Jean, the light illuminating her beautiful straight black hair, complementing her face. “Come on silly, hurry up!” Seeing such a beautiful sight in front of him, Jean felt a warmness in his chest.

The sun had just set. Mr. Joestar came back home from work.

“Honey!! I’m home! Where are the kids?”

“The kids? They… left. Yes, they left soon after I left for work. Their parents must be worried about them. But listen to this, I think the boy has a crush on the girl. Isn’t that lovely?”

“Ah, young love. We were once like that too.”

“Oh stop it you. But watching them does make me want kids of my own. Maybe we should adopt one”

“That’s exactly what I was thinking. Let’s adopt one and we’ll shower him with lots of love”

“DAMN IT!! Why is that thing here? Why now?!?”

“Calm down Adolph. Yelling won’t help us now. Explain what that thing is and what we should do” Randy was quick to jump in. He felt time was of the essence and acted accordingly.

“You’re right. That is a very special being. It has shown signs of basic intelligence. It seems to understand patterns and can recognize things its seen before. I call him “The Eye” because of his giant eye. It isn’t bad that he’s here. Its pretty easy to get rid of him as he’ll probably run away once he sees us. What’s bad is that he is inside my house. I have a lot of dangerous things in there and it would be devastating if he accidentally damaged anything in a state of panic, especially if he sees us.”

“So what you’re saying is that we need to get it out of there while making sure it doesn’t destroy anything. Easier said than done. Any ideas?”

“Can’t we just use bait to lure it outside?” Jaiden proposed the first thing that came to his mind.

“That would work if we had anything to lure it with. Which we don’t”

“Can’t we just scare it and lead it outta the back or smth?”

“That… is… actually a good idea. We can scare it by throwing rocks and making noise and lead it away towards the back. My boy Jacob you are a genius!”

“No shit sherlock homeless. Let’s get to work”

“Not to alarm you all but it seems that your voices have completely changed. We’ll need to see exactly what changed for each of you. But that comes later. Let’s think of a plan”

The boys quickly made a plan. They would lead The Eye towards the back exit by making noise on the right and front of the house, carefully controlling the noise level to slowly lead it outside. After planning all that the boys sneaked towards the house and put the plan to action. Or at least they would’ve if not for the fact that The Eye had already noticed them planning and just left without panicking since it had a clear escape route.

“That is quite a nice plan and all but he already left guys. I didn’t want to tell you because it seemed like you were having such fun planning.” Drake said as soon as they finished planning. The boys looked at Drake and then at each other. They let out a sigh and gave Drake a little scolding.

“Well then, now that this has been dealt with, we should hurry on inside. I need to check up on any damage and you guys need rest”

The boys had finally reached Adolph’s house. It seemed like a house kids would draw, the classic box shape with a triangle on top and 2 windows in the front. It was made from dark brown wood with plain windows. The door was a lighter brown but still fit in nicely. It gave off a homely impression, simple but safe. The door opened and Adolph stepped inside.

“Welcome friends! To my humble abode. Make yourselves at home. We have a lot to discuss after all”

Chapter 5 End