I stared up at the blue sky as I laid back down on the trampoline. It felt nice just to feel the wind on your skin. Being a city boy, I relished in the peace that the countryside brought.

Just as my eyes were getting heavy, Lucas jumped back onto the trampoline. The force sent me flying into the air and he swiftly slid beneath me. I slammed on top of him. “Miss me?” He asked, still acting suave despite the pain.

“Not really.” I grinned and rolled off of him. We looked into each others eyes.

He'd been having this certain look on his face as of late. With dead eyes staring at me. It was actually kind of uncomfortable. I shifted. “What's wrong?”

He just smiled and brushed my bangs back. “Nothing's wrong.”

“Why are you touching my hair?”

He snapped his arm back to his side. His face flushed. “N-nothing. Hey, um, can I show you something?” He jumped off the trampoline.

Something about all that felt kind of off, but I followed after him. We walked slowly through the messy house filled with trash and discarded fast food wrappers. His parents were like that; living in near filth. Had this been my house, my mother would probably have burned it down a long time ago.

The stairs creaked wildly under our feet. I remember him once telling me that before the house had a farm on it, it was a rehabilitation center. Supposedly the place was haunted, but I'd never seen any ghosts. Or proof of this so-called hospital.

Honestly it was probably just another one of his pathological lies.

Suddenly he stopped at the very last door on the right hand side. Then he spun around to face me. His hand flew up and fell on my right shoulder. “Ready?”

“Yeah?”

“Is that a question?”

“I mean…” I backed away from him. “Why are you acting weird?”

“I’m not.” He spun back around before I could add anything to that and swung the door open.

His room was, not surprisingly, completely trashed. You could hardly see the floor under the mound of clothing that covered it. He let go of my hand only briefly when we got to his bed so he could dig around underneath it.

When he got back up he dragged me down onto the bed beside him. He then balanced the pale green metal box he'd gotten from under the bed on his knees. “I wanted to show you this,” he said.

“Okay.” I observed it's dents and chipped paint. Apart from how old it looked, I didn't understand the significance. “What's in it?”

“So you know how this place used to be a hospital, right?”

“Sure.”

He tapped the metal top with the nail of his index finger. He leaned over and whispered, “this box was in the war vets room.”

“Really?”

“Yeah! It was all he had left of his family.”

I looked between him and the box. “What's in it?”

“I tossed it out, but there were a bunch of pictures and military stuff in it.”

“What war?”

“World War II!” He started laughing.

“W-what?”

“No!” He leaned forward. “Haha! You should look at your face! I totally got ya!”

“Huh?”

He sat back up. “Oh my God! Too funny.”

I cocked a brow at him. With all these lies, there was an undefined line between these stories and reality. When I didn't say anything back to him, he ignored it and pulled up on the chain around his neck. I stared at the small, solid brass skeleton key as he inserted it into the metal box.

The metal creaked as he pulled the top open. The inside was full of scribbled notebook paper. I could barely read what any of what it said. “What is it?”

It was like he shut down. He stared at the contents of the box with a blank expression without a word. Minutes of uncomfortable silence passed before he slammed the metal box shut. “I’m sorry.” He locked it again. “I… shouldn’t have done that.”

“What do you mean?” I looked at the box again. “What’s in there?”

“They’re…” He paused. “They’re... story… ideas. Remember how you liked writing in elementary school? Didn’t you and Keith have a whole series?”

“Yeah.”

“What was that called again?”

“I don’t really remember. I think was about a penguin and a polar bear? Why are you asking? Also, I thought you didn’t like Keith.”

“I don’t. Keith is a dick.” He placed the box beside him furthest away from me. “Marcus is even worse. I hate them.”

He glared into the clothing on the floor. “You didn’t tell me,” I started. “What happened the last day of school?”

“Nothing happened.”

I pulled my knees to my chest. “Really?”

“Really.” He snapped. “Stop asking.”

“I’m just trying to help you. You’ve been so weird lately.”

“I’m not-” He stopped, pressing his face into an open palm. “Look, they were just story ideas I was going to show you, but I changed my mind.”

“You’re writing?”

“I changed my mind.”

*

“Yo!”

I jolted awake. My knees slammed against a hard surface, bringing me fully to my senses. Once I remembered where I was and what I was doing there, I sat up straight in the chair. “What?” I yawned.

“You fell asleep." Out of the corner of my eye I saw him grin. "So, I know his road is somewhere around here, but I don’t know where exactly.”

I glanced out of the truck window. I hadn’t actually left the city in months. Seeing flat fields going for several acres covered in snow reminded me just how lonely the country really was. “Freider Road.” I pointed ahead of us. “Just turn down this road and it’ll be on the left.”

“Alright.”

We drove down the road in silence. Once we got onto Freider, it would take another fifteen minutes before we reached the farmhouse. “Hey…” I started.

“What?”

“Do you… remember when we made a comic back in elementary school?”

“Yeah?”

“What was it about?”

“I dunno. Wasn’t it a superhero comic or something?”

“Wasn’t it about a penguin and a polar bear?”

“Was it?”

“I really can’t remember. My mom might have kept them somewhere.” I paused. “What happened the last day of school in seventh grade?”

I lurched forward as he slammed on the breaks.