Young Writers Society

Chapter 2

Jason woke up to be in his own house, it was dark out, so he assumed that it was night. The familiar scent of old caramel candles filled the house, and a warm and cozy feeling overwhelmed him, he was home. The pain had still left a horrible ache in his entire body.

He shifted his head after he was aware of his surroundings, and found his brother in a chair next to his bed. He had dark colored hair like Jason’s that reached out to cover his ears. He gazed calmly at his brother with his dark jade eyes and held a red, leather bound book. Jason recognized it nearly instantly as one of his mom’s.

Jason furrowed his brows. Their mom would never leave them alone with that book, they could read it if they wanted to, but they were never allowed to have it to themselves.

“Aaron? What’re you doing?” Jason asked.

“You better be prepared man, prepared to lose your life, or to protect it. Be ready to run, they are coming man, the Numbers are coming for you, me, and Mom. We all have to run, I can’t believe this is happening again, and you don’t even know about any of this yet, about all this shit that we all have to go through, and all the back breaking crap that Mom has to do now,” he said with his voice turning into a murmur during the progression of the sentence.

Jason had seriously thought, for the first time, that his brother had lost his mind.

“W-What are you talking about dude? Are you alright?”

“We’re splitting up…if we all stay together, and one of us get caught, all of us will be too, trying to save each other, or trying to kill the ones who took us apart,” he said, a little more sanity in his voice.

“There’s a backpack at the door waiting for you, please be practical of how you use the items in it, and I should see you in a few weeks.”

His brother moved his hand to pat Jason’s shoulder slowly and reassuringly. Then his hand left his shoulder and Jason’s vision went black once again.

Once woke up to his house again during the day. He quickly leapt off the bed and searched for his family, with so many questions that he came up with, he decided not to think anymore. He had white bandages that covered his singed body, it felt similar to being struck by lightning, not that he would know.

The house was empty, not as in that there were no people, but it was literally empty. There were no furniture or any necessities outside of his room. It seemed like they had been evicted out of their own house.

Soon after, Jason noticed a piece of paper on the desk next to his computer mouse as he walked past to double check his room. It was exactly like the sticky notes that she always contacted him with, he read the small note:

Connect the flash drive to the computer. I took the liberty to listen to it by the way. ~ Mom

Jason slammed the table with his fist in frustration, they had the time to write him a note, but no time to actually tell him what was going on.

He felt betrayed by his own family, deceived into dealing with the dangerous people that were coming for him. He never felt so lost, why can’t all of us just stand against them or something, why can’t we just deny them of all the accusations that they throw at us? He almost smiled at the thought; the scenario could’ve made a perfect plot for a story.

He reached in his pocket to get the flash drive out to where he could see it. It wasn’t there, he just realized the fact. Instead, he found it oddly in the back pack that he found next to the doorway that his brother told him about.

He gave a good look at the glass port, then realized that it was the same size as the entering port on a computer, he just didn’t realize sooner because he didn’t want to look at an object that brought back certain painful memories.

“No way,”

He rushed to quickly plug it in, careful not to accidentally snap off the fragile, thin glass. In a few frustrating moments, the computer was able to start up and read the drive. The menu that was displayed was unusual, it would usually show up an option menu, but it showed only one option.

[Play Audio]

When he clicked it, the entire screen went black, and then a single red colored emblem seemed to be burnt onto the screen.

A voice exited out of the microphones.

“The Numbers are a split race from that of which were considered Humans, but were eventually casted out secretly by the human Government; they were misunderstood as a group of power crazed people, that hunted down large beasts for sport and enjoyment.” Jason only could listen to the metallic voice as it continued to explain, “but in truth, the Numbers were only protecting themselves from these monsters, whose only purpose seems to be to wipe out the Numbers from the face of the planet. The humans were only caught in between the crossfire of the many battles.”

Is this real life right now? This is a joke, right? How would this even be possible without anybody knowing about this? Jason thought as he listened to the black screen emulating the robotic voice.

“The Numbers are a grim race; they then were forced to use their nearly magic like technology to make a world using only materialistic data that was engineered to copy Earth’s environments and conditions so they could live there. Now, they remain in the dark from humans, using their advantages in knowledge to hide and sneak into the human world to kill any remaining Rires left from the war. Many rumors of humanoid beings exist in the human world, due to the coming and leaving of the Numbers. Because of their avoidance of Humans, many humans turned the Number’s existence into a myth and created stories that still exist in their world until today.”

He was overwhelmed; he hadn’t had the slightest clue how this involved him. He didn’t even know if he should even believe in this nonsense.

The emblem on the computer faded, then the screen when back to its starting menu.

The Play Audio Option wasn’t on the screen anymore. Jason pulled the flash drive out of its port quickly. He really didn’t want a notification letting him know that the computer was going to explode in 10 seconds, which in this case, wouldn’t surprise him at all; even if his mother had survived it already.

Someone knocked on the door.

Jason panicked a little bit, but then organized his thoughts quickly. Aaron said that they’ll be coming for him, and with the town evacuated, there could only be one possibility.

It had to be them.

Jason didn’t know what to expect on the other side of the door, men in black suits? That would definitely fit this situation, although he could only guess.

He thought about simply running or not answering the door at all, but he realized that both had grave consequences, so he decided to greet them and have a chance of making peace if possible. He took measures nonetheless; he grabbed a metal pole from his room. His mom always had it there, and said that it would come in handy if an intruder broke into the house, oh how she couldn’t be any more right.

He approached the door cautiously with the pole gripped in his hand so tightly that his knuckles turned white. He was never so nervous of opening a door in his entire life, not even when he was four and thought that a monster lived in the closet of his apartment.

Sweat broke on the side of his face as he got nearer to the door, and his hands loosened up because of a coming numbness that was starting to take effect. He quickly cracked open the door with his right hand while holding the pole out of view of the guests in his left.

“Y-yeah?” he said with a slightly quivering voice.

He was greeted with three teenagers; they were all dressed in casual clothing, as if they were hanging out as a bunch of friends, or about to go to school. There were two guys and one girl, the two guys were tall and looked a lot like a couple of football fans, and the unusually thin girl, that wore tight jeans, sent a chill down Jason’s spine with her cold expression.

“We’re here for you,” the guy with a rolled up long-sleeved shirt said,” are you coming with us willingly?”

“Uhhhh, well it depends, where are you going to take me again?” Jason asked, calming down due to the realization that kids his age instead of full grown men were at his doorstep.

The group looked at each other as if they had a small silent exchange of words.

“The Gann of course,” the girl answered again for the guys.

“Where is that?” he asked.

“Uhhh, you don’t already know?”

Jason shook his head, “I don’t have a clue about what you’re talking about,” he said, which technically wasn’t a lie.

Jason had only found out about 2 minutes ago, but he guessed the same idea was known between them.

“Does the Government of Numbers ring a bell? We’re here to arrest and capture you,” the thin girl said calmly.

“Yeah, it would be much easier though if you come easy and stop playing dumb dude,” the guy with a red t-shirt said agreeing.

He couldn’t believe it, how would kids be official police for the race of people that had created a world on their own out of computer data? Jason thought as he leaned against the side of the door, slightly nauseated.

But that had been a mistake, the guy on Jason’s right caught a glimpse of the metal pole that was about to slip out of Jason’s grip, and alarmed the other two with a sharp glance. Jason hadn’t noticed their actions until the guy of the group smashed the front of Jason’s door into pieces.

He had no time to react, let alone block the silver object with his pole. He doubted anyway that he could’ve blocked the thing that knocked down a metal door anyway. The best he could manage was fall backwards, completely stunned. His shirt was luckily that only thing that was cut along with the door, “W-what were you trying to do? Are you crazy?” Jason yelled. He luckily had the backpack next to him across his back, so he was just about ready pick it up and run. But they weren’t done yet.

The two guys slashed at Jason at simultaneous speed with full built Axes that they probably used to smash the door awhile ago. Their Axes missed Jason by half an inch and dug into the ground of the house, Jason didn’t bother to say anything else.

He got the message.

A few seconds later, he made his way to the back yard and around to the front yard by using the pathway on the side of the house. As he tried to, he dodged a full 4 and-a-half foot sword that the girl apparently made out of thin air also. He did it by sliding his body under the blade as she swung. He used his metal pole to keep the blade from falling on top of him when she tried to pin him down with the flat side of her sword. He then sprinted for his life down the road as he was chased by the group.

They seemed to keep up with him perfectly fine, almost as if the speed that they were traveling was only a jog in the park, only with axes and swords in the palms in their hands.

They laughed and grinned at Jason as he ran only a little ahead of them. “Are you seriously running dude?” a guy asked from his right side as he easily caught up with Jason,” it seems like he is,” the other said.

They were right.

Jason was losing the race horribly, and he couldn’t keep running at full speed much longer.

The group of taunting teenagers were soon shutup by the sound of an unsettling roar in the direction of his school. The group snapped their heads in the direction which gave Jason a perfect chance to escape their sight without being noticed; Jason took it as opportunity although the sound alarmed him just as much. He slipped out of sight in a crevice in between empty houses that had been packed closely together.

As they realized that he was gone, a loud yell came from someone.

“Idiots! Forget him! He’s a much less danger than the Rire!” a loud bellowing voice said. He didn’t sound like anyone in the group that had just been chasing Jason, but he was glad that he was there to save him.

Jason continued to creep his way through a narrow path that led behind the houses, as he reached the end of the crack, an electrical shock forced his body to drop to the ground. It was the same tremendous pain that had he had unfortunately experienced in the school parking lot. He gripped his torn T-shirt tightly as the pain went on for a long, oppressing few seconds. He knew he couldn’t scream here, just like he did back then, otherwise they could find him again.

“Are you in pain again?” a familiar voice asked. He couldn’t quite answer in the fear of yelling, so he only could only muffle a few puffs of pain as an answer. April was sitting at the staircase’s foot as she studied Jason with a puzzled look.

“Why is that?” She asked nearly with a rhetorical tone, “Never mind that, did you listen to my flash drive yet?” the pain calmed down as her sentence was finished.

“Yeah, with the Numbers crap,” Jason answered as he pulled it out and threw it at April weakly when he slackened up his right hand. The black chip hit the ground next to her with a small tick. He pulled himself up quickly but stumbled and almost fell over, but he repositioned his leg in time to catch his balance.

The small backyard was plain and only had dead and brown grass on the ground. There was a porch up the stairs that April was sitting on that had what used to be white but now rusted furnishings.

“Is the beasts in that story called Risers, or something?” he asked.

“Rires, yeah, they’re some ferocious beasts,” she answered, ”how’d you know? I didn’t realize that I included such petty details in the message,” she said as she picked up the black flash drive and started to clean it. “You did, I just didn’t care enough until now” Jason stated, ”someone back there called them that, I just overheard.”

He dusted himself off with an annoyed look on his face, the dry grass clung to his clothes. “So are you ok with all of this? Now that you’ve seen it first hand?” she asked curiously, “Any last questions or statements?”

Jason asked the questions that he had in his head the entire time he was running, “What happened to my family? Where are they?” he asked frustrated because he couldn’t blame April for all of this, but then his mind came to a conclusion that he didn’t realize until now.

“Your family members are fine, all they’re doing now is being held in the Gann, the Gann, in case you didn’t know, is a place in the our world where they hold people that are waiting for the Governments decision on what to do with them, its similar to a place where you basically wait to get judged of being guilty, or not,” she explained, adding the ‘not’ a little later than Jason would’ve liked.

Jason wasn’t satisfied with the simple answer, “Why am I and my family getting involved in all this? We’ve done nothing wrong-” another roar, this time much more enraged, echoed through the city. Jason still didn’t want to believe that there were monsters like that in this world, but if that was true too, he definitely didn’t want to come across one.

April’s expression shifted, “Let’s go inside, this isn’t the best place to talk in peace,” she said as her face reverted back into a calm, more confident girl.

Jason had one more question to ask, “by the way April, why are they called Numbers out of all things?” he said before he took one more step.

She turned around for a moment, “The explanation is more like a history lesson, so lets just discuss it inside, if possible with you,” she said, with a gesture within her eyes.

Jason agreed with a silent nod and followed April into the abandoned apartment building.