STAGE: Dallas County Pirates High School

TIME: 3:48 PM

Bianca’s Memory Bank: Accessing Memory…

I crossed my arms and pouted my lips to the side, annoyed that he left me to be the only person in the classroom. Surely, my annoyance at the situation was childish and trivial. However, pointing it out did not make me less annoyed. “What a weird kid...” My mind could barely muster the strength to rationalize his behavior. He must have really gotten under my skin for me to say such things under my breath. 

Collecting my books, I tried squeezing them into my pack as best I could. This war between myself and the backpack lasted far longer than I anticipated, long enough to wonder how my bag could even manage to fit so much in the first place. Eh… I could chalk it up to having good strength. Indulging myself, I flexed my arm. It felt nice. But I had work to do, so I smacked it. Oh, God. What was I doing? I looked like a complete nutter. I was not raised to be some beast of burden, let alone to marvel at the fruits of strife. Thankfully, no one was here to see any of it. Maybe me being here by myself was a blessing in disguise. No hypothesis was needed. 

But then I realized something horrid, “Crap! Now I gotta take out my hoodie!” Painfully, I took out my ‘carefully’ packed books one by one, all in an attempt to retrieve my yellow hoodie. You guessed it. I again engaged in a drag-out war with my backpack in the process. Did the bloody thing become tougher? It took a while, but I was able to free my hoodie, unpacking and packing it all the same. However, it felt empty. Not my pack. My pack was heavy as all hell. No, looking back at where he sat and seeing no one there made me feel remorse. Why? He was a weird kid, a rude ruffian, and his hair was interesting, to say the least.

I doubt anyone would miss him if he did not show up to places, as his presence was lacking. Worse yet, whatever intelligence he had was being sucked away by that idiot box he clung to. Why could kids not just read books anymore? However, as I watched that empty seat where Kieren would be sitting, I imagined if the class was still in session. I thought about him filling out his quiz so quickly yesterday. Those stares of his, I could still feel them. And curious yet, I wanted to know what he found so interesting about me. So, I turned off my calculator and used the black screen as a mirror to look behind me, as I often did. That was how I would sneak glances to see him, often writing out each answer for tests so swiftly yet elegantly. Indeed, there was more than met the eye to him. That boy had genius swirling somewhere in his head. Yet where it was, I could not tell half the time. 

Nostalgic, I became drunk off my thoughts, making my way to the front of the school and unhooking my bike. Doing so reminded me of yesterday. The day that I bumped into him. I wish it was just an expression, but it was both figuratively and literally. Admittedly, it was also my fault for the collision due to not stopping. I could have simply chosen to go around him. But my stubbornness got in the way. Who was this boy, this child, to get in my way? Well, it did not matter anymore. I got onto my bike and rode off-campus while straying away from my usual speed due to the poor weather.

Whizzing through the wet streets, I eventually reached the narrow dirt road. It was muddy by this time, but my momentum helped me slice through the sludge-like dirt. The light on my bike shone a visible path for me as I approached our humble estate. I knew what it looked like. I knew what it was. It was luxurious at the gate. A security camera was propped on the upper corner. Cautious, I slowed down on the slippery road as the camera displayed a red dot, motion sensors analyzing a would-be trespasser. Do not fret, little camera. You did not get it wrong. That was precisely how I felt. On the other side of that camera was a guard watching me, confirming my identity as if he had never seen my face. I really was nothing more than a stranger in this place. 

The gates slowly opened. I slipped through and continued on that same dirt road until yellow and orange lights illuminated in the distance. The road was slowly turning into something else entirely. The lights appeared as blurry orbs of gold, dancing in the faraway distance. As for what they represented, I was too far away to tell and too uninterested to care. Not to mention, the raindrops on top of my glasses were slightly making everything obscured. I just wanted to get dry. The closer I got, the orbs became clearer, forming together into a building. The yellow and orange lights were just tricks of my poor vision.

Simply put, they just were interior lighting. The building itself was made of cubes stacked on top of cubes. That was how I described the architecture when I was younger, juvenile but yet it still accurately describes it after all these years. What a pity. My younger self appeared to have more imagination than I did now. Was this what it felt like to get older, as they say? 

Either way, it was approaching me rapidly. Slowing my bike was not an option in our driveway. I had gained so much momentum that even reversing my peddling was not enough. I was sliding faster and faster towards… home…

STAGE: The Knowles Household

TIME: 4:12 PM 

A sleepy water fountain sat in the center of the middle of the front lawn, overflowing due to the rain picking up. It was a beautiful bit of architecture. I wish I could have enjoyed it, but there were just so many things now that should have caught my eye, and yet… I threw my bike off in the front yard and rushed under the entrance shelter. Right beside me was a plant patch set on top of a high-rise, dark marble surface with stones making up the outline. Spotting the one stone lighter than the rest, I grabbed it, flipped it over, and made use of the key that had been stuck underneath. 

“I’m home!” I announced when I made it inside. Unsurprisingly, the response was silence. How many times did I do that, I wondered. How many times did I enter the house expecting something warm and cheery? There were no such things at this estate. I must have been thinking of somewhere else. An honest mistake, there was one person who constantly made me regret allowing my mind to conjure up such unpleasant fallacies. I heard a familiar humming originating from the kitchen and making its way down the hall. It was him. It was Geoffrey, my butler by day and uncle forever. He approached me, wearing a white dress shirt with black slacks with an apron over it. The words ‘GOOD COOK’ were carefully stitched onto the gaudy thing. Despite his professional attire, the one thing throwing everything off, aside from the apron, was the house sandals he had slipped on over his socks. 

My Uncle was a weird man, but he was family. He lived with us because you do not abandon family, no matter how much you want to. Falling on hard times, he needed a place to stay when he went through some financial hardships back in London. We managed to give him a room but at the cost of becoming our immediate family’s butler—such a weird, abnormal thing for my mother to decide. Dad agreed as long as Geoffrey would be working for the house’s sake. Still, it was just another thing that separated my family’s life from normalcy. Poor man… At least Geoffrey seemed to enjoy doing all of the cooking and household cleaning. He always had a love for cooking, and not to mention he was a bit of a neat freak. 

“Hey, Geo,” I began.

“My favorite niece,” Geoffrey's heavier, proper dialect would have confused most people, but to me, it was a slice of home that I would have loved to forget. “How are you today?” 

“You mean your only niece?” I chuckled. “I’m good.”

“Good. Dinner shall be ready shortly. Shall I bring your belongings upstairs?”

“No, thanks. I will be in the study for a spell. I’m going to be busy with some research for the fair.”

“Ah yes, your favorite time of the year,” the cunning butler smiled at me. His face was always hiding something through those pleasant cheeks of his. “Well, I won’t keep you waiting any longer.” 

To match him, I gave Geoffrey a cheeky smile before heading to my room on the second floor. There, I changed out of my school uniform and into my casual, indoor attire. Admittedly, it was not that fancy. Very sloppy, an oversized sweater with a graphic of the United Kingdom flag printed on top and gray shorts with two different colored fuzzy socks were my vestments of choice. One thing I liked to reassure myself with, the sloppier the fit, the comfier I could sit. Thankfully, my strict clothing expectations only extended to my outside appearance. Out there, there were appearances that needed to be maintained. I was not representing just myself but my family. 

Here, however, was one of the few times I could break away from being forced into wearing something overly proper, like my polo and khakis. And thankfully, it did not have to be that sickening pink. Had it been a couple more minutes with that pink polo, I would have puked just from the color alone. There was no drop of pink in my room except for the prison jumpsuit they made me wear. Bookshelves took up most of the walls, making my bedroom a small library, a fifteen-year collection in the making. One section was dedicated to all the books I read from my early childhood until the end of primary school. Another section was to middle school years. I still needed to make room for the books I would read in high school and beyond. However, another bookshelf was simply not going to fit here. There would be a need for some serious interior design to prepare for the next ‘motherload’ of books. A telescope pointed outside my window, even though there was not much to see in such a spacious, gated community. On occasion, I would look through the telescope from time to time and fantasize about living in a bigger world than this one that I was trapped in. A world that was larger than my room and even the entirety of London would be the ideal place. A world that interrupted my typical routine of dealing with strict parents and going to school only to be referred to as the ‘Know-all.’ That would be nice, but such things just did not happen in reality. Nothing like anything of the sort would rescue me from this prison. So, I used books to help me dream and the telescope to imagine those fettered dreams that I had consumed—such a dull and aimless hobby, in retrospect.

Exhausted with it all, I plopped onto my bed and logged into my laptop. Blog articles containing a list of science fair project ideas littered my screen. It grew tiresome seeing the numerous variations of making baking soda volcanoes. My eyes could not help but drift to the side of the screen. A thumbnail to another blog article caught my attention. The image showed the same man from the front cover of my book, the one that prompted me to come up with my original science fair idea. The text above read “The Tenth Anniversary of Professor Jeroham Freeman’s Disappearance.” Intrigued, clicking the thumbnail redirected me to a blog article uploaded only a few moments ago. These things were always strokes of paranoia but fun to read. However, this go around was a tad bit different. The image featured within the article showed a green minivan being pulled up by a tow truck and out from a body of water. From what I can make out based on the context of the image alone, the vehicle drove off the overpass of a road connected to a freeway.

It was gnawing at me as I could feel an itch on the back of my neck, one that, no matter how much I scratched, I could not quell. My hair stood up, and goosebumps raised. It must have just been cold that eve. I looked over the image, inspecting it further. The setting was familiar the more my eyes focused on it. After several minutes of inspecting the photo, I gave up. Guessing would only get me so far. Thus, I redirected my attention to the start of the article. Clearing my throat before reading aloud, “This day, ten years ago, Professor Jeroham Freeman mysteriously disappeared,” I read to keep myself awake. I was exhausted after all. I could feel the weight of my body increasing, and the bed just felt so good on my strained limbs. I was melting.

“After the well-known professor – and head of the theoretical physics department at the University of the Sciences in Dallas – had business conflicts with his associates, he disappeared soon after, leaving behind his wife and two children. All that was found the following morning was Freeman’s minivan plunged into Bluebonnet Lake. No body was recovered, nor were traces of his whereabouts. Law enforcement drained Bluebonnet Lake to find evidence of Jeroham's fate but to no avail. Forensics assume he is deceased elsewhere.” How horrid! Yet there were so many grammatical errors and case problems that I took it as nothing more than gossip. However,… One portion of the text heavily stuck out to me. “Jeroham’s spouse asks for her and their children’s identities to not be revealed.”