Chapter Five | Curious
Rey usually slept throughout the night, but the night before was a weird one. He'd had a little too much to drink before bed and, try as he might, needed to get up to go to the bathroom. He was quick about it, but when he went back to the warmth of his blankets something just felt off about the room.
It didn't stop him from going right back to sleep though.
First thing the next morning, Rey noticed that the feeling of tension was gone, so he didn't think anything of it until later.
It was a Saturday morning and Soren had made chocolate and banana muffins as well as a loaf of something called "zucchini bread," which sounded absolutely weird to him. Soren promised that it was going to be great, but Rey would determine that later. For now, he had something else to grumble about.
Cleaning.
He hated cleaning his room, especially when it was on a Saturday. Saturday was meant as a day of fun and games, but with Christmas coming up, Soren said that he couldn't get them any of the gifts they wanted until some of their other things were cleared out or put away.
Soren was usually fair as a brother, but this felt like cruel and unusual punishment.
Still, Rey decided it was better to comply than try and fight his oldest brother on this one. He really wanted these things for Christmas and, if he knew his brother, Soren would deliver as long as Rey and Dorian both held up their end of the bargain.
So, the boys set off to work.
"Don't forget to check under the beds too! Last time you shoved everything under your beds, and that isn't cleaning!" Soren called after them as the two scurried to their room.
Rey tackled his side of the room while Dorian tackled his. Most of Dorian's stuff was tangled cords and on their shared work desk while Rey's inventions mostly littered the floor. On his hands and knees, he scoured the ground for all of his batteries and tools.
"Don't forget to put your stuff in the bins, Rey," reminded Dorian. "Yours is the bottom two since you're short and mine are on top because I'm tall."
"You're not that much taller than me," Rey grumbled as he shuffled on his knees to the drawers and pulled them open to organize his batteries and tools. Everything had a "proper place," but putting things back was never really Rey's strong suit. It was a painstaking process, but he and Dorian both were making good headway.
It wasn't until Rey made it to the edge of his bed chasing a few stray batteries that he dared to glimpse under at the atrocity in the shadows. Already, he knew he wouldn't get to any of his inventions later today. There were stray nuts and bolts, screwdrivers, and even a few toys that he noticed right off of the bat.
This was going to be a monumental task, and he didn't like it. The young boy groaned and laid down on his stomach and began pulling out the various totes and things that were just laying there. Three handfuls in, he noticed something that he had forgotten about for such a long time.
It was his stuffed lion toy.
It was something he used to love playing with when he was younger and a toy he hadn't seen in over a year.
This is where it went, he thought as he pulled it out from behind the leg of his bed. As he did, he felt his heart sink as his fingers were immediately met with stuffing on one side. He pulled it out and examined his once beloved toy and instantly noticed the gaping gash in the back where the patch had completely been ripped away. Shoulders slumping, he felt more determined than ever to find the piece of missing fabric rather than clean the wires and bits up from his previous endeavors.
Try as he might and after pulling everything out from under the bed, the patch was nowhere to be found. It was so weird. It was one of the patches he remembered Soren putting on because it was a starry blue fabric that was very soft. The longer he looked at it, the more curious he felt himself get.
How could a whole patch just go missing? And why were the threads cut? Rey knew enough about crafts and creation to know the difference between tearing, snapping, and cutting threads and wires. What had happened to his toy?
"Ow! Rey! You're supposed to be cleaning, not making more of a mess," scolded Dorian, whose area was still untidy because he'd gotten distracted looking at his old video games. He'd stepped backward onto one of Rey's more robotic toys that had made its way into Dorian's area.
"Sorry, Dorian. I was just trying to find the patch. Have you seen it? It's blue and has stars on it," stated Rey.
"The only thing I've seen is your toys all over the ground. Come on! We can still have movie night if you hurry," Dorian scolded as he handed Rey the toy. Rey sighed and took the toy. He was about to put it away into one of the totes that slid under his bed when he noticed something else odd.
In the claw hand of the toy, he noticed what looked like a piece of tissue wrapped in a dark brown cloth. Confusion set in as he plucked the fabric off of the fingers of his toy and examined the folded fabric. He pulled out the piece of tissue and examined both the fabric and the white torn piece that had what Rey thought looked like a few specks of blood on it.
His curiosity was getting the better of him, and he hated a mystery he couldn't solve.
"Hey, Dorian. Did you cut your foot when you stepped on this?" asked Rey as he held up the tissue piece to his older brother.
"Me? No. Why?" asked Dorian as he continued to put away his things slowly but surely.
"Well, I found a bit of blood on this tissue piece. It was in this fabric all wrapped up," stated Rey. Dorian, for the first time, stopped what he was doing to go over to Rey and see what it was he was talking about.
"Well, that's weird. No, I didn't cut myself. And where'd you get that?" Dorian reached for the other fabric piece, but Rey managed to keep it snatched away.
"It is the thing the bloody tissue was in," he explained. "And you don't need to see with your hands."
"Well, then you're not getting my help in figuring out what it is," retorted Dorian.
"What are you two going round about?" He didn't need to speak loudly to get their attention. The usual thunderous voice of their older brother, Soren, startled them and they whipped around to see him standing there with a laundry basket on his hip and a confused look resting heavily on his brow. "And you two are supposed to be cleaning, not making more of a mess."
"I tried to tell him!" Dorian interjected. "But Rey is over here pulling everything out from his bed and getting distracted!"
"You're one to talk! And I was cleaning under the bed, like Soren asked, unlike you getting distracted with your old games," Rey retorted in defense. "And I only got distracted because I found this thing here."
Rey stood up and held out the blood speckled tissue fragment and the little cloth piece, placing it into Soren's hand after huffing over to him.
Soren, keen hazel eyes used to taking in information all at once, accepted Rey's offering and examined it quickly. He was a bit alarmed that he spotted a bit of blood on the edges of the tissue and perplexed as he noticed that the fabric Rey had brought him looked like it had been sewn into a tiny pocket.
"Was the tissue in this thing?" he asked, to which Rey nodded. "And neither of you are hurt or recognize it?"
"No and no," replied Rey. "And a patch from my toy is missing too." Rey hopped over the totes and snagged his stuffed lion from the ground and was back at Soren's side in an instant. "The blue patch is missing."
Rey was right. The blue starry patch was missing from the lion that Soren had fixed a few years ago. He remembered it because it was such a pretty material and had a different texture than the other patches he'd used for Rey's lion. He felt his own curiosity mounting, but there had to be a reasonable explanation.
"Weird. And you haven't found it?" asked Soren. The youngest boy shook his head and gazed up at Soren with those pale blue eyes they didn't share. He sighed and gave his younger brother a reassuring pat on the shoulder.
"Well, we'll get a new patch next time we're out. Okay? As for this thing here, I would say don't worry about it. It probably got caught on something and you just didn't notice," stated Soren. Rey stared at Soren disbelievingly, but Soren raised his finger to keep his brother focused. "Until we can investigate further, you'd better finish cleaning your room. I'm getting my chores done for movie night. It'll be lonely there all by myself."
"No!" Rey and Dorian cried in unison as they immediately scurried back to their room to work doubly hard.
In the meantime, Soren brought the laundry to the bathroom where their washer and drier unit sat and examined the two pieces Rey gave him further. Sure enough, the piece of tissue had something that looked like blood on it. It was so odd. It was too small of a piece to have come from him cutting himself shaving, and the cloth had odd but tiny stitching.
If he didn't know better, he'd say that it looked like a pocket meant to hold the piece of tissue.
But why would that be a thing? This pocket was so small.
Nothing could be this small and need pockets, right?