Chloe sat with her little sister, pua at a table in a kid's park joint, eating ice creams.
"I wonder why they call it the underdark keys?", Chloe said.
"I don't know", pua replied.
"And you're not curious?"
"Not really want to know about the stone"
Chloe sighed and said, "you know what would be nice? If someone invented a device where you could look this shit up, that would be great"
Pua hit her arm and said, "the iPhone, girl, you can look things up there"
"Forget it", Chloe groaned, "I don't have time for those businesses"
"What businesse"
"Like the 'none of your business' businesses"
Pua sighed, "you should be a gangster,Chloe", she said.
"Don't call me a gangster", Chloe said.
"You're rude, so you're like a gangster"
"I said don't call me that, I'm not a gangster"
"You can call anybody a gangster, Chloe, it's like saying they're cool"
Chloe looked at her. "You think a gangster is cool?"
"Yeah, it's like calling a dude a player, except I say gangster"
"Where are you learning this rotten languages,pua?"
"I ain't saying you're in a gang, but you're my gangster"
"Pua, you know what? Someone's gonna slap some good grammer into your mouth and that's gonna be me!"
Pua kept quiet.
"Don't make me have to be an asshole about this, pua, you want some gangster, I'll give you one, now let's go get some free icecream"
Chloe put on her hoodie to hide her face, pua smiled and got up and they walked away to the icecream truck.
Sophe and Charlotte walked to the dinner to get some cool cool food.
"I had a nightmare", Charlotte said, "it was my sister,calli"
"You have another sister?", Sophe asked her.
"Yes, but she's dead now, she was eleven,my parents grieved so much for her and they started showing my siblings and I extra love and care, they don't want to lose us too"
"What killed her?"
Charlotte sobbed.
"It's cool, you don't have to tell me", sophe told her and hugged her, Charlotte sobbed on her body.
Moments later, sophe had a meet-up with Chloe as they sneaked to the principal's office.
"Remind me why we're sneaking into the principal's office,sophe", Chloe said.
Sophe's voice was low. "Listen, Charlotte came crying to me that her dead sister appeared in her dreams, what was the name again? Calli! So I assumed calli attended this school her files must be in the black list"
"So many weird stuffs going in in this town"
"We'll defect it at its own game that it's playing"
Sophe pulled out her hairpin and used it to unlock the door.
"Come one, hurry", she said, "they're securities everywhere"
They started searching through files in the black list shelves.
"Found a file!", Chloe said, "calli bretts!"
Sophe grabbed the file from her and flipped through, a picture fell from it.
"I think that's her, sophe", Chloe said, "read the writings"
Sophe reads, "On the year 2021, eleven year old calli bretts disappeared without a trace, she found a red stone in the bushes the day before her disappearance..."
Sophe and Chloe looked at each other.
Sophe continued reading, "... everyone was calling calli, there was textes coming through her phone but the text did not sound like her, what might have happened to her...?
Sophe turned the picture upside down to read the writings on it, it says, "... November 2022, calli bretts dead body was found in the bushes with a note 'see you soon, soonest perhaps, when we all get to resurrect'"
Courtney and nergus walked into the sitting room and tripped over the toys all scattered all over the house. Nergus helpes Courtney up.
"You okay?"
"Yes", Courtney said.
Pua ran downstairs with more Toys.
"Honey, why are they toys everywhere?", Courtney asked her, "you promised to keep them away when you're done playing with them"
"So?", Pua said, "you didn't keep your own promise, mom, you didn't take me to get icecreams like you promised, instead you sent Chloe, and who says I'm done playing with them anyways?"
Courtney and nergus exchanged looks.
"Pua, dear", nergus said to her, "you know this is a living room and someone could walk in any moment"
"Yeah", pua said, "you just did"
Meanwhile sophe and Chloe are having lunch in the dinner. Chloe had been examining the way sophe ate.
"Got a pretty good appetite for someone who's been hurt", Chloe said.
"If I stopped eating anytime someone tried to hurt me, I'd be a skeleton", sophe said.
"You're already thin, sophe , so eat more. Forget Eugene"
Sophe looked at her. "You don't know about my past", she said.
"Do I?"
"Come on, Chloe, I wanted to tell you earlier but the further down we got the less necessary it felt. It's like a history I wanted to forget, it's ugly"
"I know now, seems like both of us sort out careers with their share is tough days, because we're both crazy"
Sophe laughed.
"So you left Eugene and came here?", Chloe asked her.
"I was asked to leave", sophe said.
"Asked?"
"Ordered. So I picked up myself and my remaining part, he had three ex who wanted to ruin my life, so I got a song for him"
Chloe raised an eyelid, "a song? I didn't know you could sing"
"Well, desperate times calls for desperate measures. I gave them a scar to remember me by, and my annoying family, All I wanted was to lie in bed hoping I could fall asleep before I fall apart. Your mom's a cop, right, Chloe? And you know what a cop fears most?more than getting shot?"
"Prison?"
"No, getting locked up with everybody you put away, relationships are so confusing, I feel like my whole life has been one big error, Chloe, a mind always want to forget but a heart wants to remember. I used to feel like maybe I wasn't real, like I was made up of nothing"
Chloe put her head down. "I'm really sorry you're not feeling good, sophe, so will you still investigate calli's death? I know calli's family house, I've been there once or twice, they live in a weed farm"
Squall walked to them.
"Sophe, I came to look for you", squall said.
When they arrived at the weed farm, two men and a woman were working there in the farm, the woman approached them.
"Who are these now, Chloe?", She asked Chloe.
"They just moved here", Chloe said and turned to them, "sophe, squall, this is Roxxy, Charlotte's counsin"
Roxxy stood, looking at them.
Squall was getting uncomfortable with all the stare. "Is this a staring contest?", Squall said.
"You guys got a last name?", Roxxy asked them.
Sophe giggled. "That's a first"
"You got a last name?", Roxxy repeated.
Squall stepped forward.
"You got a problem?" Squall asked her.
Chloe came to stand before them "okay, okay, we got off to a really bad start here but I think we can turn this around"
"You ever been in a car?", Roxxy said to Squall.
"You ever been on life support?", Squall said back. Charlotte came running to them.
"Woah, woah, take it easy, guys", she said and hit Roxxy to leave.
"Percent", squall cursed.
Sophe, Chloe and squall sat in Charlotte's family house, Charlotte placed some bottles on the table, with a plate of crackers.
"Help yourselves", she said.
"I talk with a clear head, I'll stick with this cracker", sophe said.
"Okay"
"I want to ask you something, Charlotte", sophe said, "Calli you talked about, how did she got missing?"
Charlotte cleared her throat, "calli was diagnosed with an illness and it was eating her uo slowly. She was so thin when I last saw her in the hospital bed, calli was always talking about a man in white that was always appearing to her in her sleep, the next thing Calli started reading the holy bible constantly and told us to teach her to pray to the man in White. On one of my visits to the hospital calli lay on the sickbed, she asked me to pray for her, she was clutching onto a red stone that was beside her and it looked very attracting, she started talking about accending to meet the man in white and I was totally speechless"
Sophe dranked from the bottle.
Flashback
Calli was shivering in the hospital bed, clinching onto a red stone. "I want to accend, Charlotte", she said, "then I get to meet him"
Charlotte couldn't think of anything to say but, "remember that night we hanged out when you said you saw a man in white, white face and white beard, then you asked if it was God..."
Calli nods, tears fell from Charlotte's eyes. "...he said, 'if you think I'm God, that's who I must he's. So when you see this guy in your dreams again, you should go with him, we'll catch up later. What's that stone in your hands, calli?"
"I found it in the bushes"
Presently.
"That was the last time I set my eyes in my sister, she just disappeared, we were all calling her cell and we started receiving strange messages from her phone, the next year the cops found calli's body, there was blood all over her face and her legs were broken, there were bruises all over her body, we didn't know what happened to her", Charlotte said, quietly.
"Could be the stone", sophe said, "she probably didn't know the stone under her pillow held her destiny"
Sophe poured herself some more and gulps.
"Charlotte, we're sorry for the loss", squall said.
"We're getting over it now", Charlotte said.
"So when are we gonna smoke the peace pipe?", Sophe said, a bit drunk.
Charlotte turned to her. "You do that?"
"Oh, Charlotte, I'm sorry about that with your counsin, my attitudes got bad when I get mad or tired", squall apologized.
"Don't drink with me if you're weak because I don't stop until the liquor stops me", sophe said.
"Oh, I didn't know you smoke, sophe", Charlotte said, "we got a weed farm"
"Do you need to add to it, Charlotte?", Chloe said, disapproving.
"Me and Roxxy, we got off to a bad start and I'm sorry about that", squall said and drank a little drink from the Glass. Sophe turned to her, "you need a refill?"
"No, get it away from me", squall said and pushed her hand off.
Sophe giggled, "I just want you to get a little nuts too"
"Well, I have a future", squall told her.
"Should I get some weed for you, sophe?", Charlotte said, "you smoke weed?"
Chloe got up. "No, we were just leaving, unless you want to see R.I.P on your name the next days", she said.
"Let me asked you something,guys" , sophe said , weirdly, "what is going on in thus town? In general nowadays? I mean like your generation, sometimes life is about risking all for a dream no one can see but you. Seriously I'm up for a change, because the stone is a threat to our very existence"
"Times up, sophe , you're nuts", squall said and got up.
"When I was a kid", sophe said, drunkenly, "at least I know who I was. I thought I did but nobody knows nothing"
Sophe starts coughing, Chloe grabbed the bottle from her.
"Sophe, I told you stop taking this things, you'll snap one day. You think high school is about drinking and getting laid?", Squall said, trying to get her to stand up, "come on, guys, help me get her up"
"I want more and I know I shouldn't by I can't help it", sophe screamed as Chloe and squall pulled her away.
"Eugene took my dignity from me, now you're taking my drink from me!", Sophe cried, they pulled her away.
Moment later when sophe's head had cooled down, sophe and squall dropped over at the diner to finish their lunch.
"I basically lost my shit", sophe said, ashamed of herself when she recalled what happened at Charlotte's earlier.
"What can I say?", Chloe said, "I'm shitty too sometimes"
Chloe got up and ataritying the robes of her boots.
"Are you leaving?", Sophe asked her.
"I got some shit at home to deal with", Chloe said, "I got to get home before my parents get back, they asked me to watch over pua and I left her alone at home.
When Chloe got home, she tiptoed in, her sad was sleeping on the couch with bottles of beer on the table, her mom was not yet back from the station, Chloe tiptoed to Pua's room and peeped in, pua was standing, facing the mirror and talking to herself.
"Is that a chocolate chip? You think you're some badass, huh? Run up on my boy? Sneakbup and ambush him? That's a bad move, boy, because me and him we're tight, you make a move on him you best make a move on me too. I'm calling in some gangs and gun blazing, I'll kill you then, shithead"
Chloe pushed the door open, pua turned to her.
"What're you looking at, pua?" Chloe said.
Pua turned back to the mirror.
"I'm thinking about dyeing my hair, Chloe" pua said.
"What colour?", Chloe asked her.
"Amber"
"I don't think mom and dad will permit, and anyways I like your hair this way, the colours' great"
Pua turned to her.
"You think my hair colour is great?", She said , smiling.
Chloe smiled. "Yes. Brown's great, just be yourself"
"I like that"
"What?"
"Be myself"
Chloe nods. "Be yourself, pua"
Clude walked sophe home from the dinner.
"Thanks for walking me home and for the payment at the diner, If I get home, I'll pay you back", sophe said to him when they were almost approaching sophe's house.
"No, no need ", Clude said, "it's just ive never seen you smile so brightly like this before"
"It's because I'm about to quit smoking", sophe said, "it's hard, I know, very hard, I need a break. My family's got me a therapist"
"It's easy to put up a habit and difficult to quit, right?", Clude said.
"Eugene worsened everything. He made me started drinking more, sometimes we just can't fix things and all we do is suffer the consequences, this bad habit is affecting my brain that I get mentally disturbed sometimes, last time I checked the doctor said I had 60 percent risk of getting a brain cancer, sometimes I get panic attacks", sophe said.
Clude was quiet.
"I'm sorry", he said, "I know that no Matter how much you changed, you still have to pay the price for the things you've done"
Sophe started coughing, Clude hurried to buy a bottled water.
"Here"
"No", sophe said, "you got a cigarette instead?"
"No, I'm sure you need this"
Sophe held Clude's shirt.
"Please...", She cried, "just one"
Tears were pouring down her eyes.
"Sophe, I can't do this to you, I'm also doing my best to make you quit, you need this water more, it'll help you", Clude told her.
Clude opened the bottle, sophe drinks almost half the Bottle, she felt good.
"How'd you feel?", He asked her.
Sophe took a deep breath. "Better."