In a small estate, in the suburbs of the country, a man was mixing various chemicals on a small lab. His phone suddenly rang, startling the man.
He hurriedly dropped the conical flask he held and ran towards the sitting room and answered the call. "Hi, Mr John! Pleasure for you to contact me", the man said trying to suppress his happiness.
"Mr John, we are ready for your presentation. I still have somewhere to go you know", the man that appeared to be in his twenties said.
Soon after, they connected through video conferencing. Mark promptly displayed his screen and began the presentation he prepared prior. Ten minutes later, he was done and looked at the young man on the screen expectantly.
"Is that all of them?" John asked expressionlessly. Mark frowned his face and scanned his presentation file again. "Yes sir, this is what I wanted to show you. Don't you like it?"
John subtly rubbed his forehead and looked at Mark boredly. "Alright, we'll get to you later. See you…" Mark hurriedly interrupted him. "Wait, hold on. There is still one more I want to show you", he said as he desperately tried to locate the documents in his desktop folders.
"Mr Mark, I don't have the time for all of these. By the time you find the document you are looking for, ping me okay?" Mark, who was silently panicking, began opening random files in a bid to find what he was looking for.
'Jesus, where the hell is that file? Why are you doing this to me?' Mark went to his documents folder and began another search. "Look, Mr Mark, listen, if you find the thing you are looking for, just call me okay? There's no need to….. hold on a sec. Pause for a minute!" John suddenly said, causing Mark to stop abruptly.
This document you just opened? What is it for?" John asked again as he looked at Mark's screen. Mark took another glance at the opened file on his computer in confusion. It was the document Sophia emailed to him two days ago.
"No, it's nothing. It's just some dumb research one of my students did recently. It's not that much of…" John interrupted Mark. "Dumb? This is phenomenal. Wait a second. These findings are phenomenal. It's amazing! Did you say it was one of your students that wrote this?" John asked with interest.
Mark checked the document again and creased his forehead. Why was this thing garnering the interest of this guy? "Yes, no sir. One of my students wrote this, but it was based on my supervision. I… gave her the ideas on these… findings" Mark said shakily.
"Send me a copy of this document pronto. I've gotta look into it. If these findings are as good as they appeared, Mr Mark, you are going to be famous!" John excitedly said to Mark.
Mark double checked the file again. Could it be that these things that the girl wrote were the real deal? When she sent those documents to him, he didn't think much of it. He had already presumed it was just another crap student to mail to him, just like last time.
Right after ending the call, he stood up and slowly paced around. "This girl is really something. I cannot believe what I thought was trash was golden", he muttered.
If I send this research, and it actually gains recognition, I will get a freaking award. This prospect was made Mark a little giddy. He began daydreaming about his life after his fame. The streaming contracts, the respect, the houses, the cars…
As he was thinking about it, his face turned solemn. If he did this, it means he was taking advantage of that little girl that spent probably all her life gathering these findings. For a minute, he felt guilty about it. He just shunned the girl in school, telling her that this research was not good enough. By now she was probably miserable.
Sighing, he sat on his couch and wrote a short message to the principal. Just then his phone started ringing. It was from the principal. What a coincidence. He answered the call. "Hello."
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Throughout the evening, Sophia lay on the couch watching TV, but her mind was not focused on it. Beatrice saw her state and could not help but feel bad. She brought a bucket of ice cream and handed it to Sophia. "This will make you feel better Sophie", she said solemnly. Sophia took it and flashed her with a weak smile. "Thanks", she croaked. "If there's anything else you need, I'm always available okay?" Beatrice said and left the parlour, leaving Sophie alone with her thoughts.
Having no energy to do anything, Sophia closed her eyes and drifted slowly. Her mind went to many things, her research, her family, her friends, the mysterious audio on her computer. Wait, the mysterious audio in her computer!
She stood up and walked to her room and took out her MacBook before returning to the parlour, while the TV was playing a cartoon indistinctly.
Opening the laptop, she located the audio file from the recycle bin function. Luckily, it wasn't deleted yet, so she restored it. She used a music player and played the audio again.
"If you are.... listening to... this... voice James... I want you to... and ... but please, don't... Sophia!"
Frown slowly creased on her forehead as she thought about the audio. Who sent it, and why was it sounding like it was warning her of something?
The audio mentioned James. This name sounded familiar. Sophia then remembered where she had heard that name. Two years ago, a new boy came to her class named James. Although he was a bit shy and clueless, he was friendly and cool-headed.
They were friends for a while until suddenly, he stopped coming to school. The reason for his sudden disappearance was a mystery to her, but ever since, she never thought of it again
Until now.
"If you are listening to this voice, James, I want you to do something, and please, don't do something Sophia" she tried to fill the gaps, trying to make sense of the audio.
Maybe she was overthinking it. Maybe it was a sick prank by her neighbours or her schoolmates. But none of them knew James, which brought her back to square one.