I Must Find You
I must find you before he does . I must find you, I've looked for you my whole life
Jess
I
My horrible life started when I was… well born, really. When I was 7, my parents got divorced. I was super depressed so my mum made me go to counseling. Mainly because it was free. When she asked me to tell me how I’m feeling and why I didn’t say anything. The only thing she got out of me was that I was sad, and that was easy to tell. I was supposed to go there each week on a Sunday afternoon until I was elated. After my first session, I had a feeling it was going to be like this each time. But it wasn’t. On the second time, she sat me down on a bean bag and sat in front of me smiling. “Today we’re going to do something different.” She said in a soft kind voice. She handed me a plain white book with lines. I looked at the first pages, there were blank pages then all the rest were lined with a short line at the top. “‘It’s a diary, we’re going to decorate the front with heaps of things you like and you're going to write in this every day.” I nodded. She got a piece of paper and a pen. “ Write down everything you like”. She said. She gave me the pen and paper and I started thinking of the things I like.
blUe 3 red panta pin pon drawin sushi
Blue 3 Red Panda Ping Pong Drawing Sushi
“Alrighty, so all we have to do is decorate this piece of paper with everything you just wrote down.” I looked at her confusingly. “Now,” I asked, “she speaks, hooray. Yes now, here's some pencils and felts and-”she had stopped. I had already grabbed a pencil and started drawing and writing. The drawing was my thing, you know. It was the one thing I loved. I drew a border first. flowers and hearts all mixed in with the curls and swirls. I grabbed coloured pencils and threw things everywhere. I liked to do that. Pretend I was a true artist. In the middle of the page, it was blank. I stared at it for a while then had a thought. I started drawing a red panda cub sitting down. I knew all about them. I knew how to draw them properly. As I finished the shading I looked up at her. I realised now she had a kind face. To kind you’d think it was fake. “Perfect, like seriously perfect.” She started. Her eyes were worried and she was smiling too hard. She had lied. I studied her face. I went from her eyes to her neck where I saw something horrifying. I saw a scar, like claws, three lines along her neck. Hardly seen, but never forgotten. She caught
I unlocked my lock on my bike and peddled away from the consular's apartment. I was never going back. Not after what I heard.
Half n hour ago.
“I see you have noticed my scar,” She had said calmly, “Long story, about a year ago, But you wouldn’t understand. I would be in jail if anyone found out.” she continued. My mum was always worried about me coming here by myself, so she gave me a recording device, ‘just in case’ she had said. I pressed the recording button. “ What do you mean,” I asked her like I had no idea what she was talking about. Only thing is, I did. In school last year they had this safety term. A girl got kidnapped from our school and went missing for a whole week. They found her in bad condition, she had nearly died. After that, all the parents were trying to unenroll their students. So all the teachers taught the kids for a whole term as their project about how to defend themselves, what to do if you need help and what never to do. And before you know it the bralianer twins are kidnapped. They never found them, though, I guess I feel pretty sorry for the bralianer family. The lady was talking but I wasn’t really listening. She looked at me and snapped her fingers. “Yeah” I responded quickly. “I kind of get it, what did you do” I quickly added. “I’m not going to jail kid, did you hear me”. She answered. “ I’ve held it in all these years I can hold it in more, it's okay, don’t let her get to your nerves.” She whispered to herself. “ You know, every once in awhile I have to remind myself of what happens, tell the whole story again. When no one’s around of course. “ She continued. “Yeah, I’m gonna go now,” I said calmly as I opened the door. “ Yes, Yes go now” She waved me off.
I was out the door about to ride off when I heard a talking voice below me. I bent down and heard it a bit louder but couldn’t make out the words. I walked around the house towards the voice. Finally, around the back of the house, I found a little gap in the wall with metal bars. There used to be a window there, obviously, as there was a glass spiked border. I peeked through the metal bars and saw an empty room with a wooden table in the middle, a couple of blankets on the floor in the corner. I turned my eyes to the door in the corner where two girls were sitting against a wall. They were bruised and wearing torn brown clothes. Was it who I thought it was, I don’t really know what they look like anymore, I wasn’t really friends with them but of course I know what they look like. The bralianer twins.
I heard footsteps coming from behind the door. I pressed the button on my recorder and backed up a bit as the door started to open. OH. MY. G- “Okay what are the rules when I take off the duct tape, undo the handcuffs, ooh, this is so funny, you can’t even talk,” She laughed at herself. I pressed my recorder and sat back. “ Okay, so the rules are, no screaming, no making any sounds and no trying to escape. You know what happens if you disobey any of these rules. Don’t you,” She whispered to them. She ripped off the duct tape of the first girl. She stood straight and tall but I could see a little flinch. She ripped the next duct tape off the other girl. “Good, now I’ll take the handcuffs off.” She whispered as she unlocked the handcuffs of the first girl. She stood for a bit. I wondered why. The girl walked over to the table, sat down and folded her hands. Eva - my counselor - looked at the second girl and scanned her face. She slowly undid the handcuffs off the second girl. The second they were off the girl grabbed Eva by the neck and tried strangling her. “ Must...I...remind...what..happe...you...not...foll...rules” She whispered between her breaths, gasping for air. The girl let go. “ Let me remind you what happens when you disobey me.
Suddenly I backed away. That's what must have happened to the other girl. As I backed away I knocked the bin down. “ who's there” she yelled. She swung around and looked me in the eye. I felt as though I had seen those eyes before. I couldn't think about anymore. “ you” she shouted. Something in her voice didn't seem right. I ran back to my bike, unlocked my lock on my bike and peddled away from the consular's apartment. I peddled as fast as I could and ran in through my door. I grabbed the phone and dialled 911. After I yelled into the phone what happened and what the address was, I put the phone down and when I turned around the whole family was staring at me. Obviously, they were eavesdropping on my conversation. My mum told me that night that I was a very smart and good girl. Then whispered into my ear, “why don't we go out for ice cream tomorrow after school.”
I wake up the next morning fresh. “ get up Jess” my little brother Toby yells through the hallway. I hear him yelling my other brother's names down the hall. 7:45. I have to be ready at 8. I jump out of bed and chuck some clothes on. I was about to walk out the door when, “ no, no, no, you are not wearing that to school” my mum stopped me. I looked at my outfit in the mirror. What was wrong with this long brown dress and a pink t-shirt. As I was looking at myself, my mum was chucking clothes everywhere. “ first-day impressions honey” My mum explains. She’s that type of mum, you have to look good, it all has to match, after you look good then it’s about what's on the inside. My school doesn’t really have a school uniform, they only have a sports uniform. The only thing I like is the jumper, and it’s the only thing my mum likes. “ Okay, this is alright, but seriously, I’m going to buy some clothes for you today while you at school, this is the only good thing you have.” she continued. I store at what she was proposing. Black short shorts, a blue singlet with lace at the top and bottom and my oversized school sports jumper. I put them on and looked in the mirror. Wow, for once I actually look good.
“Ooh, who is she trying to impress, the teacher” two girls walked past me giggling. I walked into class and sat down. Our school was different to other schools. It was all open, one big building with a hallway and all the classrooms. They had no doors, everyone could see what you were doing. We had a lot more fun, though. We got to choose what we did and everything was first class. Everyone got their own school laptop for them personally, there was a filter to play games, though. They would tell us stories of what happens when you don’t get a good job. The rubbish truck driver, mailman, supermarket counter. No one wanted to be those, everyone wanted good jobs and get paid lots of money, they said. At the sound of money, everyone went bonkers. The teachers also told how we get good jobs, how we can’t just be a doctor or be a lawyer. We have to go to school and learn as much as we could. So now the teachers just let people do what they want. I try to learn and work hard. One day I want to travel the world and be an airplane hostess.
Name: Emma, Age: 6, Likes: Art, Pink, Soccer, 2, Sloth, Dislikes: Rats, swimming, blue, 7, writing, Describe yourself in one word: Colourful. “Cool,” I answered after I had skim read it. Suddenly the ground starts to shake. Earthquake. “Earthquake, everyone gets down.” The teacher screams. Everyone went crazy and ran around the room. An alarm started to go off. Instantly I ran to the door and sprinted to the field. I stopped before someone looked. I looked back and grabbed Emma’s hand. And sprinted to the field. We were there in a second climbing up the ladders to the emergency exit. She stared at me the whole time. “How did you get here so quickly.” She stammered to me when we had reached the top. “ It’s not that far to get here you know. You probably passed out for 20 seconds from shock, yeah, I think you did, I had to drag you across the field.”I replied. That was close. “You know, I don’t think we should be friends, I thought, maybe, if I had a friend I could go back to being normal like when it was just me and my mum. But it's even harder with you around.” I continued. She stares at me with cold eyes. “ You wouldn’t understand, not for a while anyway, if you're still al- well my friend, I guess.”, “We should get going, I can see the wave coming.” I quickly changed the subject. She spun around quickly to follow my eyes. On the top of the wave, I could see a small figure. My eyes zoomed in and focused on the figure. “Lucas” I groaned. “ Who?” She asked. “Oh, I said that out loud, never mind, just someone I know. Come on we need to go, now.” I answered. This was definitely hard to keep her away. She needs to be careful. We ran up toward the hill. We both kept looking back towards the school. They were gathering everyone onto the court. This was ridiculous. So many people were going to die, we need to get as far away as possible. When we reached the top of the hill, all we could see were small black figures. “ Who is that on top of the wave, over there
Every day I wonder what would happen if I actually had a friend, maybe I wouldn’t be such a nerd. I would have fun at lunch. I would have playdates and sleepovers with them. Right at that moment as I was thinking I heard the break 1 bell go off. I sat at my desk and reached over to get my writing book. I like to do things the old way, everyone just wants devices and uses screens. So anti-social. Also, because I get sore eyes. We had our own little areas, with a desk and lots of space to put things. In the middle of the classroom was the shared space where students sit when they are working with others. As I bent down to get my pencils I felt cold down my back. I shot straight up to find ‘the popular girls’ laughing with a silver bucket in Patrisha’s hands. I reached my arms to my back to feel what it was. Ice, ice that was melting down my back. The teacher would ask why my back was wet, and I would try, to tell the truth, and she would say I was lying, and I would get in trouble. I waited for the “ Jess, what are you doing” from my teacher Juliana. But nothing came so I looked up.
There Juliana was waiting while the other girls were still laughing, behind her was a boy and a girl. I sat straight feeling confident. Finally, one of the girls noticed and whispered to the others. They sat down guiltily looking down. Everyone moved over to the mat. “Thank you, I would like to introduce the new students, they're a bit late for the first day but that doesn't matter.” The teacher started. The boy and girl came into better view and stood at the front. All the girls looked at the boy as if he was a superstar. Which he wasn’t. I thought he looked like my brothers and every other boy in this class. The ugliest thing in my life. The boys all just wanted to be his new friend. “ this is Wes and-” She tried to continue. “ Hi wes”, “I’m your new best friend, Wes”, “Wes, you can hang out with us if you like” The whole class shouted at him. He seemed like he loved the attention. Bang. Smash. Bang. Bang. Noise filled the room so suddenly. Gunshots fired everywhere, I saw Juliana lying on the floor out cold, blood on the floor.
The new girl dragged me down. I don't know why I just stood there, but it seemed like the bullets purposely missed me. “ Hey, I'm Becca, you?” She asked. Had she forgotten what was happening? I answered anyway, “Jess”. Out of the smoke, I saw a black figure. He walked into the classroom. A black mask on his face, black clothes. He walked to a table with kids hiding behind it. I noticed that he had only shot Juliana, everything else he missed. He bent down looked at the kids then moved onto the second table. He did this to every table, he got to the one Becca and I was hiding behind. He looked me in the eye. Suddenly he grabbed my hands and pulled me out of the classroom. “La he conseguido” he shouted. I had no idea what he was saying but as we walked down the hallway men came out of classrooms. I guess telling them to come or something. I struggled and tried to wriggle my hands-free. I screamed and shouted but no one came.
Everything was black. I heard no noise apart from the quiet engine of a car. I was carried and pushed around for hours. Traveling from some place to some place. I was finally let free and out if the bag. I looked around. “Sit”’ the man said. I sat down slowly and looked around. “je peux vous entendre à travers la porte , entrer” he shouted. I quivered. “What did you say to them,” I asked scared. “I told them I can hear them and they can come in. Nothing to worry about.” He replied kindly. Entrer. Where do I know that from? Spanish class, it means to enter. Suddenly a lady burst through the door. She wore black high heels, a long flower dress and her long blonde hair hung down her back. She didn’t seem like she was a bad guy or lady should I say. “ I just got back from earning some money. I need to change, these clothes make me look like I'm some normal lady, who has a normal job, I don't like it, I'm not normal. I'm special, right honey.” She cried loudly. She stopped and looked at me. “ is that, oooh, please tell me it's Jess” she said happily. Guess I was wrong. She is bad, just like the rest. “ Yup, it's me, Jess. The 7-year-old girl you kidnapped.” I replied.
“Bring them in, both” she yelled. The door creaked open and two blindfolded women were pushed in. I was pushed onto a chair and tied up. Legs and arms were behind the chair and my mouth was duct taped. The two ladies stood still. “ what are your names, you know mine” I asked to break the silence. “Jess, oh my god, is that you.” One of the ladies called. “ did I say you could speak. “ did I say you could speak. Be quiet ” take the blindfolds off, maybe that will shut them up” a man shouted, there were about 6 other people in the room, excluding me and the two ladies they held hostage. “ That is the stupidest idea in the world if anything we should put a blind on the little girl.” The lady shouted at the other men. “ I’m not a little girl, I’m seven, nearly eight,” I said quietly to myself, only it wasn’t to myself, the lady heard me. “ Don’t talk back to me like that, be quiet.” She shouted at my face. “ Stop telling us to quiet, we can talk and shout as much as we want, if you were smart you wouldn’t have us somewhere where we can escape easily or people could hear us, so who cares, we can talk as much as we want” the same lady who asked if I was alright lady shouted. “ I don't like it when people talk without me saying they can, I like it to be my WAY!!!” The bad lady screamed.
The shouting and screaming at each other had carried on for about ten minutes now, I just sat there, not knowing what to do. I was about to get up and try to untie myself when everyone was distracted but I blacked out before I could even finish my thought. My eyes caught a small glimpse of a fist thrown at my face before everything went dark and there was nothing there. The last thing I heard was “thanks a lot, now we have clean all this up, get them out of here, leave her there.” The bad lady ordered. “ Why are you doing this to us, Emma , what did.. I do to you” The other girl whispered, who hadn’t spoken till now. I recognized her voice, she was-And all was gone. Noise, sight, Smell, Touch and taste. My thoughts disappeared with a click. Gone.
Eva
II
20 years ago. My life has been ruined since I was a little girl. My mother, Father and I lived happily in a small house close to a new school. We had like a million pets, well not really, but we did have an Alaskan Klee Kai named Zac an Australian Silky Terrier named Casey and a Black Norwegian Elkhound named Ashton or Ash for short. We also had a two girl bunnies, the younger one was Tilly, she had light brown fur with white polka dots, the slightly older one was Richie, she was all black with little white paws, we named her after Richie Mccaw. We had lived here for about 3 years now since I was 1. It was nearly the end of the holidays and I wasn’t eager to get to school. I liked to stay home with my mum and play games and look after the animals. Sometimes if it was nice she would take me to to the park. But those days were over. The school was lurking ahead, I only had the rest of the weekend and then my life would completely change. I thought that maybe since I wasn’t going to be around much after this weekend mother and father would take me to a movie like I’d always wanted to. I became excited when mother said we were going out. I was jumpy all throughout the car ride and when we arrived at the shopping center I thought my mother had read my diary. I was so happy I was about to scream until we got to the traffic light and instead of turning left we kept going. At the next traffic light, we turned right, into the big store section. “Mother, we are going the wrong way, I’m pretty sure,” I told her politely. “Where did you think we were going, this weekend is going to be rough you know, there's a lot of money we have to spend for you to go to school.” She replied. “Then I won't go to school, that's a good idea” I commented. “Honey, it's not that simple, everyone has to go to school when they turn 6,” She continued “it's the law, you can only stop going to school when you are 17, that's 12 years until you can stop going to school. But school is fun” After that we didn't talk. I sat in the car drawing for an hour while my mum was in the store. The next day after I labeled every book and pencil, mother dropped me off at the school not far. We decided to walk as it was a nice day and the school was only a kilometre away. But I wish now that we took the car because for ten minutes we walked in silence. Mother was like this sometimes when she was upset, that's how I know just to stay quiet, father likes to talk about the most random things you could think when he's upset, he says to distract and to think of the good things. I wish mother was like that, it would feel more comfortable.
We had arrived at the foot of the school, it was a big building. It was an ‘O’ shape, there were classes all around the outside and on the inside was the field, the playground the court and surrounded by a fence was a pool. That was one thing to look forward too. As I walked in the classroom everyone greeted me welcomely , no one knew each other apart from a few people. I sat down on one of the chairs surrounding a white board and desk. I was sitting next to a girl with long brown plaits, glasses and smiling at me really hard. I was kind of creeped out but I smiled back. “Do you want to be my friend.” She asked. She suddenly had a worried look on her face and leaned back. “I don’t even know your name” I replied, I didn’t want to hurt her feelings. She smiled like she was relieved and leaned forward again. “Oh, whoops, I’m Emma and you're…” She asked
“I’m Eva, so we’re friends.”
“Course, but there’s a couple thing I need to ask you as well”
“Like”
“Basic information”
“I already know one thing about you”
“What’s that”
“You're really brave. I would have never asked anyone, I’d freak out and humiliate myself”
“Oh, what does humiliate mean”
“People will think I’m weird”
“Cool, I hope I never humiliate myself” We laughed together. The teacher had walked in suddenly. Everyone had to wear the same clothes, including staff. It was extremely ugly to me, I liked to wear out there things, colourful, patterns, but our uniform was just black with a red strip in the middle. The girls had skirts and the boys had shorts, that was the only difference. The school was really weird. The teacher started off with us filling out a sheet;
Name Eva
Age 6
Likes Skating, Wolves, Orange, 8, Maths
Dislike Elephants , Running , Pink , 4 , writing
Describe yourself in one word Kind
As I filled out the sheet I became aware that no one else had started. Oops. Everyone was copying letters of a new piece of paper being handed out. My mum had already taught me how to write a little bit. I pretended to keep writing. “ cool stuff, look at mine,” Emma asked me. I looked over at her sheet. It read;
Name: Emma, Age: 6, Likes: Art, Pink, Soccer, 2, Sloth, Dislikes: Rats, swimming, blue, 7, writing, Describe yourself in one word: Colourful. “Cool”, I answered after I had skim read it. Suddenly the ground starts to shake. Earthquake. “Earthquake, everyone get down”, The teacher screams. Everyone went crazy and ran around the room. An alarm started to go off. Images flashed through my head, I saw him coming. Instantly I ran to the door and sprinted to the field. I stopped before someone looked. I looked back and grabbed Emma’s hand. And sprinted to the field. We were there in a second climbing up the ladders to the emergency exit. She stared at me the whole time. “How did you get here so quickly”, She stammered to me when we had reached the top. “ It’s not that far to get here you know. You probably passed out for 20 seconds from shock, yeah, I think you did, I had to drag you across the field”,I replied. That was close. “You know, I don’t think we should be friends, I thought, maybe, if I had a friend I could go back to being normal like when it was just me and my mum. But it's even harder with you around”, I continued. She stares at me with cold eyes. “ You wouldn’t understand, not for a while anyway, if you're still al- well my friend, I guess”, “We should get going, I can see the wave coming”, I quickly changed the subject. She spun around quickly to follow my eyes. On the top of the wave I could see a small figure. My eyes zoomed in and focused on the figure. “Lucas”, I groaned. “ Who?”, She asked. “Oh, I said that out loud, never mind, just someone I know. Come on we need go, now”, I answered. This was definitely hard to keep her away. She needs to be careful. We ran up toward the hill. We both kept looking back towards the school. They were gathering everyone onto the court. This was ridiculous. So many people were going to die, we need to get as far away as possible. When we reached the top of the hill, all we could see were small black figures.
“ Who is that on top of the wave, over there”,
“Ah…., Where? You must be imagining things, there's no one there apart from on the ground ”, I said it too fast and she noticed. She had that suspicious look on her face.
“Let’s go”, I whispered as I broke the silence. As we walked, well her running, me walking, images flowed through my head. He was after me. I had to protect Emma. I felt that connection with her. I knew her from somewhere, but where. Her voice reminded me of my first injection. She was there every time, I know it.
“Emma”
“Yes”, she gulped.
“You know what I'm going to ask, don't you”
“Maybe…”
She looked down, remembering everything that happened in the one week before her birthday. We knew each other then, we were best friends. The ground shock as the wave it the mountain and raced up. We continued to walk, though as the silence continued we walked faster until eventually we were jogging.
“Wow” she suddenly commented. I looked at her and store into her blue eyes. “Speed, Strength, Fortune teller. You can do lots. You're a Jade, that’s right, that's why you wear that jade necklace that I made for you still.” She continued. She suddenly pulled her a necklace that was hiding under her top. “ I still wear it too. One of my ‘brothers’, not really but he has the same powers as me, we can read people’s minds, move things with our mind and talk telepathically, he is coming now.” She told me. I moved silently across the ground as we walked in circles. “I’ll go get him it will take him hours to get up here” I whispered in her ear as I ran past down the hill. I took me a couple seconds to back down and then up again. When we were back to Emma, he was staring at me, Emma just nodded and he straightened his body. “Hi, I’m Jacob” He smiled and reached his hand out. I shook his hand. “Nice to meet you Eva” He continued. I was about to ask him how but I remembered. He giggled to himself. I pulled my fist and him, “I will hurt you, you know I’m serious” I scowled at him. They both stood in front of me, Emma suddenly punched him and they closed their eyes together. As sparkles appeared around me, I heard the scream of Jacob. I couldn’t see anything, but then the light went away. As my eyes adjust, I find Jacob lying on the floor with Emma still standing, head in her hands.
“ I’m sorry, they, they can control me, I, can’t help it!”
“What do you mean, Emma are you okay”
She was still holding her head in her hands, “Go away, Get away from me, No!”
“Emma, what’s going on, what happened to Jacob”
She started screaming and fell to floor at her brother's side. “Me, I did this to him, help me Eva”
A small trail of blood poured from her nose. She sniffed and turned around. I bent down to her, her eyes were bloodshot and her veins became visible which made her skin go purple. Her face darkened as she fell to the floor. She reached her hand to her neck and pulled something out. “ They're trying to track us, quickly let me see you're neck”
“ Why?”
“ I will explain on the way, hurry”
I bent down and flicked my hair over my shoulder.
