Young Writers Society

THE SILENCE

I know a lot of stories, some of them are things that have happened to my friends, some of them have happened to people on the other side of the world, some of them have happened to me. Some of them are fairy tales, some are nursery rhymes, some are hilarious laugh-your-head off tales of people falling of a tree while planking, some of them are stupid tales of evil dinosaurs from the past taking over the future world...but some (and very few) are true. The story I am about to tell is true, and it happened to everyone. Every man women and child over the face of the earth, everyone has a different version, this is mine, and it’s probably the scariest and most real. So, five years after the events you are about read of happened I turn on my light, close the curtains, grab my laptop from its hiding place under my bed and sit down on my chair at my desk and write...every single thing that happened.

And it’s all true.

1

I woke up to the sound of nothing, nothing at all. The thick smell of smoke filled my nostrils as I took my first waking breath of the morning. I quickly grabbed my hanky which was sitting on my bedside table and covered my mouth with it. Weird, I thought, there must be a fire in the hills somewhere. It was awfully quiet for a Tuesday morning, usually the house is buzzing with the sound of my mum yelling at my little brother Jake to stop squirting milk out of his nose and my dad complaining about the state of the economy. I climbed out of bed and looked in the mirror. My boring brown hair had become a bird’s nest ready to be swarming with little creatures. I sighed, got my bush and combed through my hair making it sit somewhat straight. I then dawdled to the toilet for my morning wee. As I sat there answering to the call of nature I contemplated why the house was so quiet. I pulled my pants up, went to wash my hands, then go to the kitchen. I then remembered I forgot to flush so I raced back to the bathroom and pushed the button several times just to make sure. Finally I walked into the deserted kitchen, glanced at the clock and knew I would be late for school again.

“Mum! Where are you?” I shouted to the empty kitchen. I was pondering over why I hadn’t seen, smelt or particularly heard any of my family this fine Tuesday morning. It was a curious thing as my parents never left without at least telling me. I went out the front to see if the car was in the car port. It was, so where were they? I had to find them. I thought they might be at my neighbour’s house as that is where we go if anything is wrong. I thought that maybe they were at my neighbour’s house as that is where we go if something is wrong. I didn’t want anything to be wrong but you never know. So I went to the neighbours and knocked on the door. It slowly opened and standing in front of me was my mum and the rest of my family with jack and Jill behind them.

“Ahhh, I’ve been looking for you everywhere! Thanks to you lot I had to postpone my daily yoga ritual which was supposed to start five minutes ago!” I said tapping my wrist.

They didn’t respond, they just stood there waving their hands and moving their lips yet no noise was coming out.

“Well are you going to say something or would you prefer to just stand there looking like weirdos?’ I said to them really annoyed. “Is this some kind of practical joke or something? Cause it isn’t that funny if it is!” I exclaimed.

Suddenly Jake turned around and ran off somewhere. He returned thirty seconds later with a pencil and some paper. I was confused as to why he did this but he ignored my look, put pen to paper and wrote.

WE CANT SPEEK!! Dont no why!! DONT PUT YOR HANKY DOWN!!!!

“Idiot!” I said as I snatched the piece of paper out of his hand, looking at my six year old brother’s poor spelling.

They were still all just staring at me until my mum came up and hugged me tightly and started to cry without making any noise. It was weird, her mouth was moving, tears were streaming down her face but no sound was coming out of her. They’re serious, I thought, I was absolutely dumbstruck. How? When? Why not me?

“Mum, don’t cry, it is going to be alright.” I tried to comfort her. I know you may I think I was jumping ahead a bit. It might of been a prank, a pretty stupid if that, it could of been just our family struck with some illness, I didn’t know, but they looked serious, so I knew at that moment I had to find out if anyone else was mute.

“We will figure something out.” I said seriously not knowing what it was we had to figure out. She loosened her grip on me and slumped to the ground.

My dad went to kneel next to her and opened his mouth to speak before closing realising nothing was going to come out. My neighbour, Jack and his dear wife Jill sat down next to my mum and started to cry a bit as well. It was very sad and I felt really terrible, like it was my fault. Five words were ringing in my ears although no-one had spoken for a while. Don’t put your hanky down; those five words were ringing like the bells of Big Ben in my head. I quickly tightened my hanky which was covering my face so as not to breathe in any air. It must be something to do with the air that made them not able to speak, I thought to myself. This couldn’t go on. Not one single bit, something had to be done. I got everybody back inside and closed the door nice and tight.

I got everybody to stop crying and made them some tea. I then went to get a new hanky from Jill’s medicine cupboard as mine was getting rather dirty and sooty.

“Ok everybody, don’t panic. I am going to figure something out, okay” I told them hoping that all would be okay. “Why don’t you guys stay here and I will go and see if it has happened to anybody else and you try and figure out why.”

My Mother tore the piece of paper out of Jake’s hands and took the pencil. She started to scribble something frantically then held it up so I could see.

DON’T YOU DARE! YOU’RE STAYING RIGHT HERE!

“But I need to know why this is happening and how.” I said angry at my mum’s command. Her nostrils were flaring when I said that and she started writing again.

No you are not going anywhere and that’s final!!

I huffed loudly; there was no way I was going to be able to leave. They were only doing this to themselves, I was their only hope, they were stuck in the middle of the sea and I was their lifeboat; but they were shrugging me off. Like mum did with her spray ‘n’ wipes to the muck and grime, just shrugging it off. I had to do something...For their sake.

It was one o’clock when I got up out of bed. The whole afternoon I had been thinking about what to do. I had finally come to the conclusion that tonight I was going to sneak out and disappear. There must be a reason for what was happening and I was determined to find out why. I packed my bags, grabbed my passport and phone and snuck downstairs. I found mum’s bag and rifled through it looking for some money. I saw her wallet and took out a whole bunch of notes and coins. I dropped my bags and finding a piece of paper and a pen I wrote my family a note.

Dear mum, dad and Jake,

I have decided to leave and find out what is going on. I know that you don’t want me to go but I have to. Please don’t try and stop me or call the police. Don’t worry at all about me as I will keep in touch. I hope I am able to find out what is going on and the reason behind it. Take care and don’t let anything bad happen.

Love Elena. XOXO

I was about to leave but then I realised I had forgotten something. I crept back upstairs and grabbed a picture off my bedside table. I tiptoed back downstairs and picked up my bag. I opened the front door and stepped outside, poked my head through the door and looked up at my house and my family sleeping. Tears were welling in my eyes as I said goodbye, closed the door behind me and walked off; not taking a second to look back.

***

Street lights were flickering on and off; police sirens were wailing in the distance and helicopters were flying overhead. Newspapers were dancing in the wind to the beat of the cricket’s song as I walked down the silent and deserted street. The hanky that I had grabbed yesterday was now tied around my face like a train robber’s mask, so I didn’t have to hold it all the time. The streets were still smoky but now the smell wasn’t of smoke, it was more of a chemical smell. For clothes I was wearing my tie-dye shirt with a big woolly jumper because it was spring and nights were still rather cold. On my legs were my tracksuit pants and on my feet were my Reeboks. I had been walking for over an hour and was approximately fifteen minutes away from the city of Perth. I lived about fifty kilometres away from the CBD because apparently mum didn’t like the hustle and bustle of the place. As I turned onto the esplanade I saw the silhouette of a tall man running straight towards me. I immediately ducked behind a dark blue Mazda to hide. Trust no-one, I thought. The man had a tilted run, like he was dizzy. Every step he took I got more and more intense. In a matter of seconds he had run past me He suddenly stopped, had he seen me? I thought. He didn’t turn around though; he clutched his chest and slowly fell to the ground. Out of my hiding place I jumped and sprinted off towards him. I didn’t know much about first-aid but the Friday night movies had taught me that if anyone did this they were experiencing a heart attack.

“Are you okay?” I asked frantically.

The man looked shocked at the sound of my voice.

“You lost your voice as well?” I asked and then realised he wasn’t going to answer. I took him in my hands started shaking with fear.

His face was slowly fading away and his breathing was getting shorter until finally his head rolled back and he stopped breathing. I started to cry, people were dying, and for all I knew it was because of this voice thing. The man had a welcoming, friendly face and he looked about twenty or so. He was wearing a nice button up shirt and jeans. I imagined his family, his friends? They had no idea he was dead. What the heck was going on in this city, this world? I leaned over and closed his eyes then walked off.

It was early morning and the air had started to clear up; it was no longer filled with that thick, chemical smoke. I lowered my hanky cautiously just in case I could still get infected by whatever it is. I had lowered it down fully and tested it out. Great I can still talk. I had been walking for hours when I came to the heart of the city and I was rather hungry so I decided to eat the crackers that I had in my bag. By the time I had finished I was really knackered so I went to find a place to rest. I wanted to sleep out of the way in order to avoid as many people as possible. I found an old warehouse situated out of the way from the main road and snuggled down. My sleep was not a peaceful one, with images of my parents at home unable to speak, the empty streets and that poor man who had died right in front of my eyes.

I woke up sweating not just from the heat of the midday sun but from the memory of last night. I sat in silence for ages, just thinking about what I should do next. I had no idea and was starting to wonder if leaving my family and doing this was such a good idea. More thoughts trailed to my family and my friends. What were they doing now? Were they copping? What about school and normal life, did that exist anymore? Because from the looks of it, it didn’t.

My thoughts were interrupted by a noise coming from outside. I looked up feeling scared. What was it, had somebody found me? No, they can’t have been looking for me. Nobody knew I was here. I got up and grabbed my bag, ready for a quick getaway. There was a loud bang which made me freeze. Then out of nowhere somebody jumped on me and slammed me to the ground.

“Get off me, stop attacking me.” I screamed at the person. The sound of my voice must have surprised them as the person’s grip on me loosened.

“That’s better, now do you mind letting me get up.” I asked my attacker.

The person got off me and I stood up. I turned to face the attacker and saw that it was a boy. He looked to be older than me by a few years and was rather tall. The boy stared at me, probably not quite sure what to make of a strange girl hiding out in a warehouse.

“Well are you going to apologise or are you going to stand there starring?” I asked annoyed by the boys silence before remembering that he may not be able to apologise. “Or are you not able to?”

The boy smirked, “no I am able to, I just don’t want to.”

I smiled back at him, “aren’t you a charmer.” I said with very heavy sarcasm, “well if you aren’t going to apologise then I may as well leave.” I said picking up my bag from where it had fallen when I got slammed to the ground. I walked outside not quite sure where I was heading when I heard footsteps behind me. I quickly glanced over my shoulder and saw that it was the boy following me. As I quickened my pace the boy quickened his too. I started to run and the boy ran too. He kept following me and following me and I was starting to lose my breath. Man I was unfit, I thought, should have listened to my sports teacher about slacking off. I stopped, mainly because I was out of breath but also because I couldn’t take being stalked any more.

“That’s it cut it out.” I said facing the boy. “You, a complete stranger, attacks me and doesn’t apologise, then you follow me for no reason, scaring the bloody life out of me, so I think it is about time I get an explanation!” I shouted at him.

The boy for the first time looked sorry, “I am sorry. I shouldn’t have stalked you. It was wrong and I am sorry that I attacked you.”

“Thank you, I appreciate it but you still haven’t told me your name or why.”

The boy looked nervous “Umm I don’t know if I can tell you that.”

“Excuse me. Did you just say that you can’t tell me? So you do all that stuff to me but don’t even tell me your name.” I said aghast.

The boy shrugged and looked at the ground.

“Fine then, goodbye. And don’t you even think about following me.’ I said turning around. I walked a few meters when I heard him call something out.

I turned around to face him, “Come again?”

He paused for a while and took a quick glance at a daisy on the grass on which he was standing. There was a long strip of them situated just outside the warehouse.

“That’s my name,” he finally said.

“Caleb.”

2

“Lovely,” I said, turning around again and walking away.

“That’s my name, Caleb.” He said for the second time.

I turned around and walked towards him.

“I gathered,” I said once I had reached him. I held out my hand for him to shake, “well please to meet you Caleb I am Elena. How do you do?”

Caleb grabbed my hand and shook it. “Oh not bad. And you dear Elena?”

“Well apart from the slight fact that most people don’t seem to be able to talk and the city is falling apart I am not bad.” A small smile crept along Caleb’s face. It was the first joke I had made for a while and it felt good to be smiling again, even if it didn’t last.

“So do you know what is going on?” I asked him.

“I have some theories and ideas but I can’t talk about them here.” He told me. “Come and follow me.” He said, I wasn’t sure whether to trust this guy but thought if he has some answers what is the worst that can happen. So I followed him and led me to a small house about five minutes away from the warehouse.

“Here we go. Make yourself comfortable.” He told me as bolted the door tight and lit some candles.

The house was small and cramped and had a weird smell about it. It had only two rooms, with a kitchen and living room as one and a bedroom with a small bathroom leading of it.

The house was damp, dark and rather messy. Obviously a home that didn’t see many mops and brooms I thought to myself as I sat down.

“So do you live here by yourself?” I asked him.

“I do now.” He replied as he finished of lighting the candles. “Me and my parents used to live here,” he said as he walked over to a small red, torn up couch in the corner of the living room we were in. “About six months ago my parents....” he paused and looked at a little pebble on the floor. He kicked it and it went flying across the room into the wall nearest to me; then it bounced off and came to a stop at my feet. As Caleb stared at the floor I noticed a tiny flicker in his eyes. His face was blank and it looked like he was thinking of a dark memory from the past. For the first time I took a long hard look at him. His face was bubbly but there was something very cold and serious about it. He had jet black hair and deep green eyes with a splash of blue and brown. He wore a plain red shirt with a long black coat and cargo shorts. He had a New York cap turned backwards and no shoes on. He looked rough and ragged and there was something about him that sent a shiver up my spine.

“My parents...” He continued.

“Your parents what, Caleb?” I asked curious and feeling terrible for him.

“Nothing, never mind, it don’t matter.” He snapped at me.

“Oh, okay. That’s alright, I understand.”

“No you don’t!” He accused me instantly.

“Sorry,” I said apologetically, he was right I don’t really know about what happened or how he feels, I can only imagine. He walked to the kitchen and boiled up some water over the stove, he then grabbed a tin of soup out of a cupboard and started to heat it up on the stove.

“So why did you attack and follow me?” I asked him.

Caleb turned to look at me. “I don’t know I just heard something and was curious. As to stalking you, well I wanted to know what you were up to.” He said shrugging.

“Right, so do you stalk people often?”

He looked aghast at the suggestion.

“I’m joking.” I told him smiling.

Caleb made a face at me and turned back to the soup. After awhile he came and sat opposite me at the table and started talking. “So you wanted to know what has happened right?” he asked me.

I nodded and leaned towards him eager to find out more.

“Well I have my ideas and theories. I am not sure how accurate they are or if they will help but I do have some.” He told me.

“I don’t care how far off from the truth they are I just want some info.” I explained to him.

He nodded, “okay then if you really want to know I will tell you, just wait a second as I get something.” He told me getting up and rushing to the next room. He is longer than I expected and the water starts to boil, so I took it off the heat and make some tea.

“Sorry, I couldn’t find the box.” Caleb says from behind me holding up a small, brown wooden box.

I turned to look at him and smile. “No problem. The water was boiling so I made some tea. Not sure how you like it though.”

He shrugged “don’t really care, thanks.” He said taking the cup.

We sit back down and he puts the box on the table.

“Now, my grandad was a teacher at university and when he was about fifty or so he was teaching a young man named Nathan Midaren. Nathan was twenty when my grandpa taught him and my grandpa always knew something wasn’t quite right about him. That was twenty years ago and now this Nathan guy is forty and known as Prof. Midaren. He’s one of the most well known scientists in the world.”

“Yeah, I’ve heard a bit about him” I said

Caleb nodded at me and then continued, “Anyways, one day my grandpa was telling me about using your talents for good and all that sort of stuff and he was using Nathan as an example. He told me Nathan was an extremely talented student but grandpa always knew he was dangerous on the inside. My grandpa went on about what he does. Apparently Nathan was in Asia somewhere but my grandpa never found out where. Anyway, Nathan and his colleagues where doing some experimenting on how to my grandpa passed a year ago so I never found out the rest of it. My guess is that the sudden loss of voices has something to do with the research going wrong or something.” He paused; opened the box and got out some pictures and newspaper articles and passed them to me. “Here; these are some articles and pictures about Nathan.”

I looked at the picture on top. It showed a young, blonde haired, attractive man wearing a long white coat standing in front of a tall, old building smiling next to an old man. I studied the face of the young man who I assumed was Nathan, it was happy and smiling yet his eyes portrayed a darker side of him. The picture was faded a bit showing that it had been handled a lot without much care. Despite that, it was in full colour and very good focus.

“Flip it over,” I heard Caleb say.

I did what he told me and written on the back was,

From left: Nathan Midaren, Rowley Knowles in front of the University of NSW, 4/8/89.

“They were in New South Wales?” I asked, “Not Western Australia?”

“Yeah,” Caleb answered casually, “My grandpa was born there and so were my parents. They moved here before I was born.”

I nodded and took a sip of my tea which was now cold. Immediately I squirted it out of my mouth and it went all over Caleb.

“Thanks,” he said sarcastically as he wiped his forehead with his hand.

“So, Rowley’s your grandpa then?” I was pretty sure already but I asked just to make sure.

“Pretty much,” replied Caleb.

I looked at the next piece of paper on the pile. It was a newspaper article headlined,

Bright Uni student on his way to greatness

It was pretty much just an outline of how successful Nathan was. One of the quotes from it was from Rowley Knowles, Caleb’s Grandpa, ‘This young man has the greatest mind I have ever taught. He has the ability to change the world of science forever.’

“Must be pretty smart.” I said with a laugh.

“Genius,” Caleb agreed as he got up to take the soup of the stove. He got out two bowls and evened out the soup between them.

“Here, hope you enjoy.” He said holding out a bowl towards me.

“Thanks, I’m sure I will.” I replied grabbing the bowl eagerly and holding it close to my chest in order to feel its warmth.

We both gulped up the soup quickly, glad that we had something warm in us.

“So tell me Elena, why are you here?” Caleb asked once he had finished his soup. “Surely there is a reason why a respectable girl like you is out in the city all on her own.”

I put my bowl down and turned to face him. “Do you really want to know the reason why I am here?” I told him.

He nodded and said that he did, so I told him everything. All the stuff about my parents, me sneaking out, how I got here and why. I told him everything because even though I had only just met him I trusted him. It was strange but it was true.

Once I had finished Caleb sat in his chair for a while doing nothing. It wasn’t bad; me and him, just sitting there in silence. There were loads of questions I wanted to ask him but I didn’t really want to ruin the peacefulness of the occasion. Besides, I was pretty tired, I didn’t have a great sleep last night so I just sat there staring at the ceiling.

“Um...” Caleb finally spoke, “I’m gonna go to bed. You can sleep on the couch if you like. Unless you’ve got somewhere else to stay.” He said as he got up and walked towards the bedroom door.

“Really, I can stay here?” I asked extremely grateful.

“Yeah, sure I’d love to. I get lonely sometimes.” He replied as he approached the door to his bedroom.

“Thanks loads. You’ve really helped me out. Just one thing before you go though.” I said.

“Yeah, what?” He asked

“Do you know how many people this mute thing has affected?” I asked him.

“I’m not that sure but I reckon that it is a lot.” He replied as he went to his room. I assumed it was a lot too.

I sighed, oh well at least I have a place to sleep tonight that isn’t a cold, abandoned warehouse. I went to the sofa and fell asleep straight away.

***

The next morning I woke up to find Caleb going through the brown box of his, looking at the papers.

“Hey.” I said as I walked over to him, rubbing my eyes clear of sleep.

“Good Morning. Have a nice sleep?” he asked looking up from the box.

“Yeah I did thanks.” I went to sit down next to him. “What are you doing?”

“Oh I am just seeing if there are any more clues to what’s happening.” He replied.

“I see. And have you missed any clues?” I said hoping there would be some more information.

Caleb shook his head. “Oh there are some eggs in the pan if you want some.” He told me suddenly.

My eyes lit up as I suddenly realised how hungry I was. I went over to the stove and found two fried eggs, put them on a plate and went back to the table.

“So what are we going to do?” I asked when I had finished my eggs, “I mean we can’t just sit here all day doing nothing.”

Caleb nodded, “you are right, but what exactly are we going to do; I don’t know.”

I thought for a moment, what two teenagers could do about a problem as big as this? Nothing was the answer. Well at least that is what everybody would have told us. But I wanted to do something. I had promised my parents I would help to fix this, I would find out what is wrong and why it is happening. I was determined to find the answer. I thought of my family back home. They would be worried sick about me. I wanted to just give up on this and go home to my parents, but I knew that wasn’t an option. I wanted to do something, no; I had to do something. The city, the country or even the world for all I knew couldn’t stay like this.

“We have to do something.” I said under my breath with my fists clenched.

“Pardon?” asked Caleb.

Not so under my breath, I thought to myself.

“We have to do something. I don’t know what at the moment but we can figure that out later.” I told Caleb.

“Yeah but how can we possibly do something?” Caleb said not very enthusiastically.

“You have all this information about Nathan and what he was up to, surely we should use it for something instead of just sitting on it.” I told him.

“I am not sitting on it.” Caleb said offended by my comment. “I am just trying to figure out all the details.”

“Yeah and how long is that going to take?” I shouted at him, “you have had all this stuff for months yet you still haven’t figured everything out, so the only way to do that is get more information.”

Caleb didn’t say a thing but looked absolutely gutted. He was obviously thinking that I had little thanks for what he had done to help me or the world. I barely knew him for god’s sake and I had accused him of being stupid for not doing anything about the info he had. It wasn’t my fault though. This guy had all this information for ages and wanted to get to the bottom of this but wasn’t prepared to find the rest. I didn’t get it though, it wasn’t as if this guy was the type who would run-away at the first sign of danger, what; with the army shorts and all. He looked like a friggin military commando guy. It was strange though because he had his long brown coat on so he looked like Dr. Who and let me tell you, a Dr who coat and army shorts do not go down well together. Just a bit of fashion advice just in case, you didn’t know. Caleb lived all by himself, had no parents and attacked strangers. So there must be a reason why he didn’t want to leave.

“Why don’t you want to go out and get more information?” I asked him, nice and calmly.

Caleb shrugged his shoulders, “It’s just that you don’t know what’s out there.”

I smirked, was this guy for real? “So what? I had no idea what was out there when I set out but that didn’t stop me and do you know why?” I asked him.

Caleb shook his head.

“It is because I want my family to live like normally again. I want whoever did this to pay, not because they caused everybody to be unable to speak but because they didn’t give them an option. My parents were devastated when they found out that they had lost their voices so I am going to help give theirs back.” I paused and stared him down, “so are you coming with me or not?”

“Where?”

“I dunno, anywhere. Just as long as it’s out of this death hole.” Caleb looked offended so I quickly added “No offence.”

“It’s alright.”

“Ya coming?” I asked after a long pause of silence. Caleb just stared at the ground and didn’t reply. I walked over to my bag swung it over my shoulder and marched out the door.

I had walked a good half way down the block when Caleb shouted out my name.

Man this guy likes to shout at people as they are walking away from them.

I turned around and gave Caleb the evil eyes, “what is it this time?” I asked annoyed.

“No offence; but you’re going to need help.” He told me smiling.

“Oh so you are offering to help me now?” I was a bit confused about his sudden change of mind but I was more than happy for company.

“Yep, that is the plan.”

“Well in that case we are going to need some provisions and you are going to need some clothes.” I told him as I started walking back to the house.

Back at the house Caleb packed a bag full of clothes and personal items and I stocked up on canned food. I also grabbed two sleeping bags, two big one litre drink bottles and the brown box. As I was packing a medical kit Caleb walked out with a big stash of notes.

“I think that all of this will be helpful for getting around.”

“We haven’t forgotten anything?” I asked as I gave his brown box to him.

“Nup, I’m pretty sure we have it all.” He confirmed.

With that, we picked up our bags and left.

“So where to?” I asked Caleb after we had been walking for awhile.

“Well, I wasn’t supposed to tell you this but look...” He said as he pulled a card out of his coat.

In his hand was a small, blue credit card.

“That yours?” I asked curiously.

“No, I stole it from my mum before she....before she left.”

“Your parents left you?” I asked shocked.

“They had to.” He answered defensively.

“Your parents had to leave you?” I asked with arms folded and a raised eyebrow.

“What would you know? Not everyone’s life is a fairytale. Just because you have a perfect life in the country doesn’t mean we all do! They left me for a reason and it’s not one you’re going to find out.” He attacked me.

“Okay, okay. No need to get all feisty at me.” I said throwing my arms up in the air.

“You are right; it isn’t your fault so I shouldn’t blame you.” He said looking me in the eyes.

“So where to?” I asked again.

“Well I was thinking how about we try somewhere in Asia.” Caleb said, “We could try and figure out where Nathans lab is.”

I thought about that idea for a moment and wasn’t too keen on going to a different country, I hadn’t ever been overseas with my parents; let alone without them.

“Why don’t we try and get more information first instead of running all around Asia trying to look for a possibly deranged guy’s lab.” I told Caleb, “maybe your grandpa had a college that knows some stuff about Nathan.”

“Maybe, but I am not sure. Let me think.” Caleb told me and started walking in silence obviously deep in thought.

We walked for a few minutes in complete silence taking in the surroundings. I had been to the city quite a few times and it had never looked like it did at that moment. It was mainly barren with only a few people scurrying around quickly trying to get back inside. Most of the shops were bordered up and the ones that were open weren’t getting good business. The emptiness sent shivers down my spine.

“Are you cold?” Caleb asked seeing my shiver.

I turned to him, “No, just a bit surprised and shocked.” I said looking around at the streets.

Caleb following my look nodded, “yeah it is a bit scary. How one minute it’s a bustling, noisy place and the next it is empty and quiet.”

“Do you think that it is like this everywhere?”

Caleb shrugged, “more than likely. People are too scared as to what they might find so they stay inside. They are hiding from the truth.” He turned away and we continued to walk in silence.

Maybe Caleb was right and everybody was just hiding from the truth. But just because the truth may not be good doesn’t mean we shouldn’t know what it is. Does it? I didn’t think so.

As we walked I noticed that Caleb seemed to be glancing from side to side, like he was looking for something.

‘What are you doing?” I asked. “Looking for something?”

“Yeah, just an ATM, to get some cash.” He replied, than continued looking.

“You know the pin?” I said and pointed to the card which he held in his hand.

“O’ course. Want me to tell you? Then you can subtract money whenever you want?”

“Sure, thanks.” I said.

“Okay.” He said then leaned in close to me and whispered it in my ear. His breath was ice cold and smelt of bean soup.

“You didn’t have to whisper in my ear you know.”

“Hey.” Caleb said, “They’ve lost their voices, not their hearing.” He said with a cheesy grin.

I was thinking of an awesome comeback and was about to open my mouth when....

“There!” He yelled out, before I could say it.

I looked to where he was pointing and saw an ATM. We both rushed over to it and Caleb drew out a wad of hundred dollar notes.

“That should keep us covered for a while.” He said putting them in a small compartment in his bag.

“Yeah it should.” I said smiling at him glad that I had found somebody who was able to help me.

It was about 1.30 in the day and I was hungry. My stomach was growling and I was starting to lose energy. I wanted to stop but didn’t want Caleb to think I was weak so I kept going.

I was about to drop down from exhaustion when Caleb suggested that we stopped and ate something. I more than willingly agreed with him so when we came to the next bench we both quickly sat down and ripped open a loaf of bread.

Now let me tell you something bread alone isn’t very nice but hot, squished bread which had been sitting in your bag for hours is even worse. So we ate our hot bread in silence and washed it down with warm water.

“So I’ve been thinking about what you said about finding a college of my grandpas and I think I know one.” Caleb told me once we had finished our meal.

My eyes lit up glad that we were onto something, “really?”

“Yeah, I am pretty sure my Grandpa mentioned him a few times. Just let me have a look.” Caleb said bending to look through his bag. “Here we go let’s see what’s in here.” He said as he straightened up holding his brown box. He rifled through several pages until he came to a rather yellow piece of paper. “This Elena; is a letter that my Grandpa wrote to my mum about ten years ago.”

He handed the letter to me and I read it.

Dear Rebecca,

I am writing to inform you about a new position I have been offered in the department of biological study. It is a very prestigious role and one that I am very privileged to accept. I will be the assistant head of the apartment and will be working under the extremely good natured, smart Professor Litwood. Professor Litwood is a master of the field and one that I am hoping to learn a lot from. He has even offered me a chance to live with him as my place is still getting refurbished after the fire. I am looking forward to it and hope that you will be pleased to hear about this great news as this is what I have always wanted to teach. I do hope that you are well and that little Caleb isn’t giving you too much trouble.

Love from Dad.

RBKnowles

P.S. here is Professor Litwood’s address in case you need to contact me.

123 Rumberry Street, Sydney.

“Wow this is great.” I said excitedly handing the letter back to him.

“I know.” He responded, “The only problem is that he might not be living there now.”

I considered this, “you’re right but I reckon we should give it a go. And if he isn’t there anymore then we may be able to find somebody that does know where he lives.”

“Yeah, okay.” Caleb agreed getting up and putting back the brown box.

“So that means we will have to find a way of getting there. To Sydney I mean.” I told Caleb as we started walking again.

Caleb nodded, “that’s the hard part.”

***

We had banked down in a bordered up shop with a sign that read

MITCH’S BUTCHER for the night and we were hoping to figure out how to get to Sydney. It reeked of meat in the butcher as you would expect and all the chairs had been turned up. There was paper everywhere and the smell of off meat in the air. We were wrapped in our sleeping bags with no mattress’s or anything, just the cold floor.

“I don’t think the airports will be in action.” Caleb said.

“Hm...” I thought aloud, “True, but they’re worth giving a look.” I told him.

“True, but if they aren’t then...?” He said without finishing his sentence

“We’ll hijack a plane and fly to Sydney ourselves.” I suggested with a grin.

Caleb laughed, “Do you know how to fly a plane?”

I pretended to looked shocked at the idea, “of course. I mean how hard can it be? It is just like driving a car.”

“And have you ever driven a car?” Caleb asked playing along.

“Details, details.” I said swishing my hand around.

We both laughed hysterically for countless minutes until we fell asleep. I dreamed of what was going to happen to me, I saw visions of me holding Cal in my hands, dead, I dreamt of Cal holding me in his hands...Dead

***

I woke up soaked. It was raining and the cracks in the roof must have let the rain in.

“Ewwww...” I screeched.

“What is it?” Caleb asked obviously annoyed.

“All this water everywhere!” I yelled pointing at it all over me.

Caleb snorted. “You woke me up because you’re a bit wet!”

“Hey! It’s not like I wanted to wake you up! You just heard me yell!”

“So did half the city” Caleb said under his breath.

“I can hear you,” I said as if Caleb was the dumbest person I had ever met.

“Go back to sleep,” he replied completely ignoring me as he rolled over and faced the wall.

“I can’t sleep like this!” I said angrily.

“Shut up,” Caleb said calmly and softly.

“CAL!” I screamed at him.

“What, did you just call me?” Caleb said rolling over to face me.

“Cal; something wrong with that?” I asked smugly with my arms folded.

I was expecting a big reaction from him but he just said “No, I like it; call me that whenever you want,” and went back to sleep.

***

By the time I woke up the water had dried and I could finally sleep, but there was no point because sunlight was already pouring into the shop window. I looked over at Cal but he wasn’t in his sleeping bag; his sleeping bag wasn’t there either. I peered around the shop looking for any signs that he was among me, like his bag or that little wooden box. None of that was there though.

“Where are you Cal?” I huffed.

I wandered outside but there was no sign of him.

“Cal?” I called out.

There was no reply so I started walking down the street. There! I thought as I spotted a head sitting on a bench on in a park. I ran over and stood in front of him.

“What are you doing here?” I said with hands on hips.

“Watching the world go by,” he replied tilting his head to the side so he could see past me.

Throwing my hands up in the air I said, “There is no world to watch go past. Der!”

“Yes there is, look at the dragonfly over there.” He said pointing behind me.

I quickly spun around to see it but there was nothing there.

“Oh, it’s gone.” Cal said while I was still facing the other way.

“Idiot!” I yelled at him, stamping my foot on the ground and running off.

“Wait up!” Cal called out.

I turned around to face him.

“What?” I said annoyed.

“I was actually out here waiting for you to come and find me.”

“Why?” I asked curiously.

“Cause I’m ready to go to the airport to check out the scene there. Go grab your stuff let’s go,” he explained.

“Okay, why didn’t you just say that in the first place instead of annoying me,” I questioned.

“Cause I’m annoying,” Cal replied with a wink and a smile.

I smiled back at him as he got up and we walked back to the butcher.

***

“So, you know a guy who knows a guy who knows a guy who can fly us to Sydney?” I asked Cal just to make sure.

“Yep, as I said like, a billion times, my friend has a friend who works at the airport. He’s friends with one of the pilots who can get us there.”

What are the chances of that? I thought to myself. Caleb and I were now walking in the direction of the airport. Cal had told me about five times we could get to Sydney but I had asked him over and over again if he was telling the truth because I didn’t believe him.

“I’m guessing this guy can speak?” I asked.

Cal gasped, “Ah...”

I was absolutely crushed, so close but yet so far. This was terrible. Cal must have seen the look on my face because he suddenly jumped up, “Just messing with ya!” He yelled then he laughed his big head off.

“Why you little!” I yelled at him then started chasing him.

Cal swore then sprinted like a steam train away from me. I immediately chased after him, we got tired but at least we got to the airport quicker.

***

We were just about to enter the airport when I heard the familiar sound of my phone. I pulled it out of my bag and flipped it open. It was a text message from my mum that read,

Please, please, please, please, please come home Ella. We can lay low until this thing blows over. There’s been news reports with people holding up cards saying don’t panic or leave home...

So that’s where everyone is, I thought.

“You coming in?” asked Cal.

“Just a sec,” I replied then went back to reading.

Please Ella, I promise if you come home this whole thing will stop. You don’t need to be scared and you didn’t have to run away...

Run away, me? They’re the ones who are running away...from the truth.

We miss you and we know you miss us too. Please El, we want you back :’(

Love Mum XOX

“Come on!” Cal called out to me.

I ignored him then quickly punched in a reply to mum that I wasn’t returning.

He was already inside and climbing the stairs when I walked in. I looked around; it was the same scene as everywhere, deserted and a wreck. This was different in one way though, there were dead bodies everywhere. It was disgusting; there was no blood though but it was petrifying, they were just laying there. How? When? Who? All these questions were running through my mind as I looked up at Cal, standing on the second floor watching over me.

“Sad, ha...?” He said.

“And you just ignored them.” I added

“There dead,” he said with a confused look on his face. “What was I supposed to do?”

I thought about this for a second and knew that he had a point. I didn’t say anything, just walked up the stairs to Cal.

“I’m always right,” He said

“Shut up!” I said as I walked straight past him; not looking him in the eye.

We walked through the security gates and up the stairs to the departure lounges.

“Do you actually know where we are supposed to meet this guy?” I asked scared that we were just walking around aimlessly.

“Of course I do.” Cal said offended.

“Okay, okay. Just wondering.” I told him.

We stopped near Dome cafe, or at least what was left of it. There were tables and chairs all over the place and people strewn over the floor dead.

“God.” I said in shock. It wasn’t as if the rest of the place didn’t look like that but seeing it in a cafe just made it so much worse.

“Come on.” Caleb said as he grabbed me by the shoulder and dragged me along.

“Okay, I’m coming. At least I show a bit of heart.” I told him as I pulled out of his grasp.

“If we both showed some heart and compassion we would still be downstairs having funerals for all those poor dead people.” He said as he walked.

I didn’t bother to reply knowing he was right but also that I wanted to give funerals to all of them. I knew their family wouldn’t get a chance to.

We arrived at departure gate 3 because that’s where Cal had ‘apparently’ been told to meet the friend of Cal’s friend’s friend. We waited for ten minutes but he still hadn’t arrived.

“Are you sure he’s coming?” I asked. The place was starting to freak me out and I wanted to get out of there as soon as I could.

“Yes, I’m sure.” Cal said obviously a bit annoyed.

We waited for about fifteen more minutes and were just about to give up when a man suddenly appeared from the plane bridge. This man was short and stocky and didn’t look much like a pilot.

“You must be Caleb Knowles.” The man said looking Cal up and down.

“Yes I am and you must be Mark Lowan.” Cal said.

The two males stared each other up and down for a good minute when I cleared my throat drawing their attention to me.

“You didn’t say anything about an extra passenger.” Mark said annoyed. His voice was husky and very deep. He was holding a cigarette which didn’t make him look very good and I definitely did not want to fly to the other side of the country with him.

I didn’t like this guy at all but I managed to keep my cool. “Hi I am Elena, please to meet you too.” I said holding out my hand for him to shake.

Mark didn’t take it and turned back to Cal, “I can’t take her. It’s too dangerous.”

“You will or I won’t pay you.” Cal threatened.

“You should have told me though. You have no idea the risk I am taking just flying you; but two passengers? Seriously.” Mark said still glaring at Cal.

“I don’t see why it is such a big deal. You fly both of us over, what’s wrong with that?” Cal asked confused at this guy’s decision not to take me.

Mark sighed, “Fine, but I expect extra.”

“Whatever, if you insist,” Cal conceded. He then pulled out a bunch of twenty dollar notes. “This good?” Cal asked.

Mark wafted through he notes counting under his breath.

“Yep,” Mark replied, “Follow me.”

He led us back down the stairs and out through a big door marked AUTHORISED PERSONELL ONLY. It led out onto the tarmac where about 60 huge planes were scattered all over the place. I noticed a much smaller plane ready and waited.

I leaned in close to Cal so Mark couldn’t hear me, “That ours?” I asked

“Sure is,” Cal replied with a stupid smile on his face.

Joy, I thought sarcastically to myself as we hopped on. It’s gonna be a bumpy ride.

***

“Thank god that’s over.” I said to Caleb as we walked out of the plane at the tarmac of Sydney airport.

The plane ride had been terrible with so much turbulence all the time because of the smoke in the air and not much room to move around due to the size of the plane.

I needed a good stretch and was very happy to be moving my legs again.

“I reckon.” Caleb responded while cracking his neck.

“Come this way kiddies.” Mark told us as he hopped of the plane.

As we followed mark inside the airport I had a sudden need to pee.

“Umm I need to go toilet.” I told the other two.

Caleb sighed. ”Fine, but be quick.”

“Hey you can’t rush nature.” I yelled at him whilst running to the toilets.

I pushed open the bathroom door and rushed into a cubicle. Ahhh so much better, I thought as I let my bladder go. Looking in the mirror as I was washing my hands I noticed how horrible I looked. My brownish hair was all tangled and I had dirt all over me. I washed my face and tried untangling my hair without much luck. Oh well, I thought, it’s good enough. I walked out of the toilet to catch the end of Mark’s sentence.

“But apart from that no more favours from me.” I heard mark say.

“It’s alright, thank you for getting us this far.” Cal said.

“What’s going on?” I asked a bit confused.

“Well Mark was just saying how he is going to take us to Professor Litwood’s house but that is it; he won’t do anymore favours.” Cal explained to me.

“Oh I see.” I turned to Mark, “that is really nice of you thanks.”

Mark shrugged, “no problem.” He turned around and led us to the front of the airport and into an abandoned car. “Should be able to hotwire it,” he said to no-one in particular.

“You know how to hotwire a car?” I asked impressed.

“Hey, just ‘cause I’m fat, small and smoke doesn’t mean I don’t know anything about cars. I am a pilot,” Mark stated.

I didn’t reply; there was no need to start an argument. Cal and I watched Mark try to hotwire the car. He mucked around a bit with it so Cal and I went and walked over to the front of the car and sat on the bonnet. I was missing my family so much and was expecting a reply from them soon. The previous message I had sent to them said

Hi mum, I’m not coming back and you’re the ones running away. I’m trying to save you guys but all you can do is tell me I’m wrong and doing silly things. Well to bad. I do miss you as well and I wish I could return to you but I have to figure this out. I’m Sorry, Love El.

I knew it was a bit harsh what I said but it was the truth. I must have been looking a bit sad and lonely because Cal tried comforting me,

“Are you alright, you look…lonely.” He asked.

“What?” I asked because I wasn’t quite expecting his question. “Oh…yeah, I’m fine just a bit sad, I’m missing my family.”

“I know what you mean,” Cal said

I was about to reply when Mark lifted his head and banged it on the top of the car.

“Ow! That hurt; car’s good, hop in.” He said opening the door to let us in.

“Thanks,” I said, “For everything.”

“No problem, anytime. Only if you pay me though,” he said pointing at us and then laughing.

I had changed my mind about this guy, he was alright. We drove for about half an hour but it seemed like forever. I was so anxious to get to Professor Litwood’s house that I had to stop Mark so I could pee every few minutes. By the fifth time Mark had had enough.

“GET OUT!” He yelled, “This is ridiculous!”

“I’m terribly sorry. It won’t happen again, promise.”

Mark sighed then mumbled something under his breath. All I caught was teenagers, pee and nuisance.

3

I knocked on the door of 123 Rumberry Street, Sydney and an old worn out man appeared at the door. He looked us up and down then pulled out of his back pocket a piece of paper and a pen. I looked down and sighed, he can’t talk; great. I felt an elbow in my rib and looked up. Cal was pointing to the piece of paper Professor Litwood held in his hand.

Who are you? What are you doing here? I was about to say something when Cal but in.

“Hi, I’m Caleb Knowles and this is my friend Elena; what’s your last name Elena?”

“Molinelli.” I told Caleb

“Elena Molinelli. It is nice to meet you.” Caleb said to Professor Litwood.

Professor Litwood scribbled something on his notepad, yes but why are you here?

“We are here to ask you if you know anything about Nathan Midaren. We are aware that you taught at uni with my grandpa Rowley Knowles.” Caleb explained

Professor Litwood’s eyes seemed to light up at the mention of Caleb’s grandpa. Yes, I taught with your grandpa and I did know Nathan but not well, Litwood wrote.

“Oh, but do you have any information on what Nathan might be doing now? If he has a lab anywhere?” Caleb asked.

Litwood nodded and signalled us to come inside. We walked inside and what we saw was truly amazing. It was like a mini lab inside Professor Litwood’s lab with test-tubes filled with weird coloured liquid, diagrams of animals and the solar system, loads and loads of books with weird titles like ‘the life and times of a Mung bean’, ‘at home with carnivorous beasts’, ‘how to be an echidna in just 21 days’ and many more scattered all over the place but the most weird thing of all was the live monkey enclosure in the back corner of the room.

‘Wow this place is amazing.” I said in absolute awe.

Litwood smiled at me and nodded which I took as a thank you.

“So do you have information for us?” Caleb asked obviously not the slighted bit interested by the room.

Litwood nodded and got out a file with papers in it. He shuffled through them twice before resting on one. He pulled it and handed it to Caleb. Caleb read it to himself and then handed it to me. I tried to read it but the writing was too hard to decipher.

I handed it back to Caleb, “here you read it, and I have no idea what it is saying.”

Caleb sighed and cleared his throat. “Dear friend, I am writing to inform about a certain ex student of the college. This ex student is Nathan Midaren, he is exceptionally bright and talented if his grades are anything to go by. He wrote to me recently informing me about a lab he was opening in Beijing, China. I thought that you might be interested due to the work you have done over there. He has invited me to a party to celebrate the opening and i was wondering if you would willing to accompany me as I am sure you will find the trip very interesting. In his lab he will be researching the science behind why some people are born mute and as I know you have always enjoyed this study I am sure you are more than a little curious. I do so hope you can join me in Beijing and I look forward to awaiting your reply.

With love, from Simone Fitzpatrick.”

“So, he’s in Beijing.” I said so happy that we had found where he was at last.

“From the looks of it.” Caleb agreed with a massive grin on his face.

“So now all we need to do is get to Beijing.” I said, knowing that that would be difficult, very difficult.

Caleb nodded, “but we will get there, trust me.”

And I did.

Professor Litwood offered to let us stay with him for the night so the two of us set up in the lounge room which was upstairs. We placed our sleeping bags in between a large chest and a big plasma TV. Even though I was really tired after the day of travelling I couldn’t seem to fall asleep no matter how hard I tried.

“Cal. Are you awake?” I asked turning to face his dark silhouette.

“Yeah.” Cal replied.

“Can’t sleep either?” I asked.

“Yeah, too much on my mind.”

“I know exactly how you feel. Whenever I close my eyes I think of my family at home, of little Jake wondering what is going on, of my parents worried not just for them but for Jake and for me. And I keep wondering if leaving them was the best idea. I mean I think it is but to tell you the truth I wish I was back at home chasing my brother around the kitchen table and my parents were kissing me good night.” I told Cal, glad to have let what was bugging me for days out.

Cal came over to sit next to me, “It must be hard for you to be away from your family for so long.”

I nodded, “I know that it shouldn’t be but it is. I mean I should be lucky that I have a family when some people don’t but I do miss them.” I said looking Cal in the eyes.

Caleb lowered his head and fell silent. I probably shouldn’t have said what I did but I couldn’t help it, I wanted Cal to know that he couldn’t keep ignoring the fact that he is on his own. I heard a weird choking noise coming from cal and it took me a few seconds to figure out that he was crying.

“Cal, are you alright?” I asked him gently. “I didn’t mean to upset you.”

Cal looked up. Embarrassed to be seen crying he quickly wiped his tears away with the sleeve of his shirt.

“No, I’m fine.” He responded quickly.

“Okay then.” I said not wanting cal to think that I was pushing him.

We sat in silence. I looked at Cal, he seemed to be staring of into some distant memory that I couldn’t reach. He looked sad and it scared me as I had never really seem him like that before, I had seen him angry, annoyed, agitated and happy but never sad. There was the thing in his eyes that I had seen the first time I’d mentioned his parents, that serious, hard looked, the one of confusion, coldness and loneliness.

“It’s not fair is it?” Cal said suddenly.

“What’s not?” I asked confused.

“How one minute somebody can love you and swear that they will always love you and the next minute they have disappeared never to return again.” Caleb said still looking off into the distance.

“No, that’s not very fair.” I said quietly.

“I enjoyed at first the freedom and independence but after a while I got lonely. I was scared and worried. I couldn’t explain what I had done to make them leave, still not really sure. I never want to feel like that again.” Caleb started crying again.

“You don’t need to feel lonely anymore. I will make sure of that. You have helped me so much and I will make sure I help you.” I told Caleb, “I’m your friend.

“Thanks.” Caleb said and smiled through his tears.

He leant on my shoulder and at first it was a bit weird but it felt nice as well. It was strange for someone like Caleb to open up to me but I didn’t mind. It meant that he trusted me and I liked that. We had to trust one another anyway if we were going to figure out what was going would just get up and answer it himself but the person, whoever it was kept on banging. I figured the person would go away if no-one answered and for about five minutes there was silence so I was sure they had gone. Suddenly though, there was a loud sound; a bit like smashing wood. Oh god, I thought as I heard footsteps walking around searching for something. They were flipping things over and trashing the place. I couldn’t see but I could hear. Professor Litwood must be awake by now, I thought. Cal and I were placed upstairs so we couldn’t really hear everything but I was still surprised that Cal wasn’t awake yet. I shook him and shook him but he didn’t wake up. I heard silence down below and I was scared that whoever it was had heard me. I was proved right when I heard someone walking upstairs. They must be looking for Professor Litwood but I couldn’t take any chances. I couldn’t leave Cal out in the open for all to see. If I did the people would most definitely take him away and interrogate him about Professor Litwood. No way was I going to be responsible for Cal being taken away and maybe even killed. The right thing to do was to hide him so that’s what I did. I grabbed him by the arm and started to drag him towards the chest on the side of the room.

“Hey! What are you doing?” Cal screamed as he woke up.

“Shut up!” I hissed.

A person’s feet suddenly appeared at the top of the stairs; or should I say, people. At first there was only one man there but behind him two more men appeared. The first man was tall and gruff. He was bald with dark shades and a suit on. He was very official looking, like a spy or a bodyguard. He turned around to face the men behind him who were tiny and skinny with big crops of hair. They wore the same suit and sunglasses as the big guy though. He nodded at the people behind him and they walked forwards. Quickly, I looked around and noticed a window leading outside. It must have been about a six and a half metre drop from here to the ground but that was a risk I was willing to take. Underneath the window was a large rope. I don’t like to use the word genius lightly but I’m a genius! I had a plan and it was the only way out. I leaned over and whispered it in Cal’s ear. He nodded reluctantly although I don’t think he liked the sound of my plan. The skinny guys were closing in on us and the big guy looked at me with evil eyes and got terrified. It was now or never to get our plan into gear.

“Hi,” I said with a little wave. “Yes, I can talk and yes I’m absolutely terrified of you but please spare our lives.” I was trying to look cute but the big guy just raised an eyebrow and ran towards me.

“Now Cal!” I yelled quickly ducking away from the big dude.

Cal pulled tight on the rope like I had instructed. The three men tripped up and fell on the floor. I ran towards the window with Cal behind me. It was latched and the three men were getting up. They were now standing up. There was only one thing to do. I pulled out my inner warrior and smashed the window with my fist. Glass shattered everywhere and one bit cut my hand. I looked at Cal then climbed out. Down I fell and landed on the grass below. Cal was just climbing out when I looked up to see him. The sunlight blinded my eyes; it must have been about ten o’clock. Long sleep, I thought. Cal landed hard on Professor Litwood’s petunias. I was a bit worried but then I realised that the men were climbing out the window as well. What gives, I thought and ran off down the road with Cal trailing behind me.

***

“We have to go back.” I said.

“Back?” Cal asked, “To the place where we nearly got kidnapped?”

“All our stuff is there,” I half complained, half stated.

“They probably took it all anyway,” Cal said.

“Even the wooden box?” I asked.

“I did say everything...didn’t I?” Cal asked rhetorically.

This was bad; really bad. They took everything, that means they took my phone, with the messages that mum was sure to be sending, our clothes, our sleeping bags, our food and the most important-although it may not seem to be, it was to me-the little brown box. That object had everything we needed to keep going in it. All we knew was that Nathan was somewhere in Asia, easy peasy. He was only one of the four billion or so people living there. I sat down on a nearby park bench. We had run for about fifteen minutes until we were pretty sure we were safe. The park was ginormous, perfect for every kid in the neighbour. It was empty though, alone, sad; like it had lost its colour just because no-one was playing in it. Just like I needed my family to be happy, what if I had lost my colour, I thought. I realised though that everywhere I went and looked everything was in black and white. I put my head in my hands and sighed. Cal sat down next to me and patted me on the back.

“At least we have this,” he said pulling his credit card from his pocket. “And this,” he pulled out his wallet and opened it. In it were a big bunch of hundred dollar notes. “All we’ve really lost is the box and your phone, the other stuff we can b-”he paused for a second. “Do you mind stealing from shops, it’s not like anyone’s going to use it at the moment. It will leave us with heaps of money for the plane to Beijing.”

I lit up, that’s right. Nathan was in Beijing, so that narrowed down where he was.

“So...you don’t mind,” Cal asked.

“Ha?.... what? Um sure yeah?” I said absentmindedly not really sure what he had just said.

“So you do mind if we steal from shops?”

“Oh...Dude, we just jumped out of a six metre window away from three big-well one big man. We’re pretty much fugitives, I think stealing is-you know, a bit; well, actually,” I had changed my mind, “Yeah, okay.”

“Cool, let’s go.”

Where? I thought but didn’t say as Cal would probably call me stupid or something so I just stood up and followed him.

After walking for what seemed liked years, we were about five minutes from the Sydney Opera House, but this was no time for sightseeing, we had to find a way out of Australia, we could take a plane, but how were we gonna find one? We could canoe; but we knew that was ridiculous, we would have to sleep on them, live on them and we just didn’t have the strength. Cal even had the crazy idea of swimming. When he did we both laughed like crazed Hyenas on laughing gas. We had no idea what we were going to do, so as we rocked up to the Opera House we were stuck.

A loud honk ran out over the ship. I knew what that meant, we were approaching Hong Kong. Over the past week a lot had happened; we had met up with a guy named Lance somewhere on the Sydney Harbour after walking for hours. He was thirty six and he told us that ‘apparently’ he was the only guy who could talk in Sydney. He was proved wrong when the three of us found a medium sized ship called Ocean Warrior IV. Onboard were three men and a woman who could all talk. Five people in Sydney could talk was what we saw on the news that night. It was very strange and a bit scary watching the news with people holding up signs. Cal and I had told the people all about Nathan and how we were looking for him and everything. Steve, the captain of the ship who was forty, Aaron, Steve’s best friend forty as well, Marion, the women who was thirty three and some other guy that appeared to be called Frog had had a meeting about what to do. They told us they would be glad to sail us to China for a small fee; they wanted to stay with us until Nathan got defeated. We had agreed and here we were, sailing the seven seas, saving the world. Over the past week I had become very fond of Frog, he made me laugh and he seemed to talk a lot when I was around. I felt sorry for him, all the others, including Lance and Cal always ignored him. I found him fascinating though and liked to hang around him. He had kept me company over the last week and I thought I had kept him company as well.

I was standing on the giant deck of the ship watching the water lap up against the boat like a giant wave smashing against a rock when Frog came up to me,

“We’ll be docking in Hong Kong soon,” Frog said.

I didn’t say anything; I just kept looking out at the ocean.

“Do you ever miss your family?” He asked.

I turned to look at him, “Heaps” I said.

“Who are you really Frog?” I asked. He had told me phony stories on countless times but I was really hoping to get a real answer this time.

Frog looked down then started crying. I wrapped my arms around him. It felt awkward but I think I made him feel a bit better. The sound of shuffling feet came from behind me. I turned and saw Cal standing in front of the door to the cabin. He had a cold, empty look on his face. I must admit I had probably spent more time with Frog then Cal for the past week and I felt a bit bad. When Cal saw me looking at him he ran into the cabin.

“Cal!” I yelled as I ran after him.

Damn.

“Anyone seen Cal?” I asked, bursting into the kitchen to find Steve chopping onions

“I think he went into the bedroom,” Steve replied pointing his knife towards the bedrooms.

I ran into the bedroom but couldn’t find him on his bed. Where is he? He can’t have gone far. I looked in the bathroom but he wasn’t there, so I went up on deck and looked for him. He wasn’t there either. I went down to the engine room which was dark and gloomy and smelt like rat urine. I looked around and was about to give up when I saw a dark figure in the corner.

“Cal, is that you?” I said as I made my way over to the huddled figure.

I knelt down beside him. “Cal what’s up?” I asked.

Caleb looked up at me.

“Piss off”

“Okay, fine then,” I said, “But don’t get all angry at me ‘cause I’m not spending time with you and then ignore me when I want to spend time with you.”

“You only came to apologize, after that you’ll go back to that jumping friend of yours.” Cal replied.

“His name is Frog!” I exclaimed.

Cal rolled his eyes at me.

“Fine!” I yelled throwing my arms up in the air and storming off.

“And don’t come back!” Cal called out from behind me.

“I don’t want to!” I yelled back at him. If he doesn’t want to spend time with me now then that is his problem not mine, I walked into the bedroom and flopped down on my bed.

I tried to avoid Cal as much as possible after our big fight, but it’s a bit hard to stay out of each other’s way when you are stuck on a boat. The tension between us didn’t do much for the mood of the ship; it made everybody else act funny. We were about to arrive in Hong Kong in a few days and things between Cal and me were still bad. The day before we were due to dock in at Hong Kong Lance pulled me over and spoke to me.

“Elena things can’t keep going on like this between you and cal. I don’t know what happened nor do I want to know but it has to get sorted out because I am not going to go travelling with two people who don’t talk to each other. So go and talk to him and sort it out.” Lance said.

So that night I went and looked for cal. I found him lying in his bed looking at a photograph. As I heard me came in he quickly tucked the photo into his pocket.

“Sorry I was just leaving.” Cal said hurriedly getting up from his bed.

“No don’t leave. I want to speak to you.” I said.

Cal didn’t say anything but sat back down on his bed so I sat down next to him and held his hand. I sighed and prepared myself to speak.

“Look I know that things have been weird between us but they shouldn’t be and I want to sort them out. If we are going to figure what Nathan is up to we need to work together. We need each other to survive. We’re both alone and I don’t want that. We keep each other company but lately we haven’t been. We’re like a two piece puzzle, at the moment both pieces are missing and we’re just nothing. I don’t want to sit and sulk about our fight because I would much rather be getting on with what we came here to do. So....thanks for, letting me talk.” I got up to leave but Cal pulled me down.

“Stay, please. You’re right, we do need to stay together and I am feeling pretty lonely so can you just stay a little?” Cal asked.

I said nothing; I didn’t have to because I knew that actions speak louder than words. I reached over and gave Cal a big hug. He hugged me back and we started laughing with tears streaming down our faces. We didn’t have to speak; sitting there listening to each other’s breath, holding hands and being slowly rocked by the gentle sway of the boat was all we needed to know we were back and stronger than ever.

4

After docking in Hong Kong we searched for any signs of transportation to get us to Beijing. Eventually we found a minivan with keys in the ignition and a full tank. Just our luck, I guess. The streets of Hong Kong were not deserted. There would be us and about five other people on the street at once. No-one was talking though. So there we were us the seven talkers from Australia; cruising along the Jinggang’ao Expressway, or at least that’s what all the signs said.

Marion was in the driver’s seat with Steve next to her. They were fighting over the radio; there was no point though because everything was in Cantonese. Lance, Frog and Aaron were on the middle section talking about life and who knows what. Cal and I were in the very back and were thinking of a plan after we got to Beijing. It would take about two days to get to Beijing provided we rested overnight somewhere so it was very boring in the car.

“Hey guys how about a game of I spy?” I suggested.

A loud groan rang throughout the car and Cal looked at me with a ‘seriously?’ look on his face.

“What?” I shrugged, “it’s fun.”

Cal just rolled his eyes and turned to look at the window.

Eventually, at about quarter to nine we arrived at a small roadside hotel. According to the signs we were at Zhengzhou. We got out of the car only to find ourselves in the pouring rain. We all quickly rushed inside to the warmth. The owner of the hotel couldn’t speak but he gave us three rooms for us to share. I slept extremely well that night as there were no more rocking back and forth or damp warehouses to keep me from a peaceful slumber.

***

We got up at the crack of dawn to insure that we would get to Beijing by nightfall.

So back in the car all seven of us hopped and away we went once again speeding down the Jinggang’ao Expressway. We drove the whole day, passing little farming towns and villages with lots of nice people waving at us. They might not be able to speak but the Asians are still happy, I thought with a smile.

It was about six P.M when we arrived in Beijing and we were all extremely happy to get there. We drove to a main street and got out to stretch our legs.

“So where exactly is the lab that we are looking for?” Steve asked me.

That was a good question; we had no idea where in Beijing the lab was. “Ummm I am not sure actually.” I told Steve.

“Great so we are suppose to look in every building of every street in Beijing.” Steve said with a hefty sigh.

“Basically.” I shrugged.

Caleb came and stood next to me. “Looks so different to what it normally does.”

He said looking out over the street.

“You’ve been here before?” I asked cal.

Cal nodded, “Yeah; once when I was about ten.” He shook his head in disbelief, “I can’t believe it. It looked so different back then. All these streets were packed with people, cars, bikes.”

I looked around the place. It was horrific, and I didn’t mean just here, every place, Perth, Sydney, Hong Kong and Beijing. There were still about ten people in sight of me but that was all.

“Maybe we could find an information desk or something,” Aaron put forward.

I put up my index finger, “now there’s a good idea,” I said. “Mind you; there probably wouldn’t be anyone there and if they are what are the chances of them being able to speak?”

“True, but they have maps and everything behind the desks so we could just grab one of those.” Aaron replied.

I sighed, “Why am I always wrong?” I asked nobody.

We all broke out laughing.

We walked around aimlessly for a couple of minutes before Lance spotted an information desk. We rushed towards it; sure enough, no one was there. Frog ran around to the back and stepped inside.

“Hey” he said, “There’s a computer here. I’ll go on Google and look it up.”

“Awesome; try Beijing LabNaM,” Marion said.

“How do you know that?” I asked suspiciously.

Marion seemed a bit worried, “Ah...heard about something on the radio once, yeah.”

“Hm...” I thought about that. Why did she look so worried when I questioned her? No one spoke for about half a minute which was a bit awkward.

“Found something.” Frog said, breaking the silence, “It says that it is located somewhere on the Jintong East road, Chaoyang Beijing China.”

All our faces lit up at the sound of the address.

“Great!” Cal exclaimed. “Well what are we waiting? For let’s go there now.”

“Hold up mate, we need to know where to find it first.” Lance told cal.

Frog went to a book shelf and pulled out a map of Beijing. “Here we go.” Frog said spreading it out on the floor of the information centre. We searched for Chaoyang and finally found it.

“Now, where’s the minivan?” Asked Cal.

We all looked at each other. Uh, oh. This was terrible. Unlike Hansel and Gretel we had forgotten to leave a trail so we knew where to go. Frog rolled up the map and stood up, “we will have to spread out.” He said.

So we all split up in different directions looking for the car. It took us a while until we Lance found it. “Here guys, I found it!” he shouted out to the rest of us.

We all rushed to the car, jumped in and drove off. Somehow I ended up sitting next to Marion; which was nice because even though I had had a go at her earlier she still talked to me. I enjoyed talking to another girl as I had mainly been surrounded by guys for the past few weeks. Marion told me about her previous marriages and how each and every guy she had been with were total jerks. She asked me about my family and my school life and I told her about how my family lived in the country and pretty much just life.

It was probably only a ten minute car ride but we got lost heaps of times so it ended up being about thirty minutes. We came to a stop near an L shaped building. The vertical bit of it was sticking up at least 50 metres high, so from the front it looked like a normal high rise.

Caleb whistled, “That is one impressive building.”

The whole exterior was tinted glass, so we couldn’t see through, and it looked like a sculpture. ‘An architectural miracle’ is what my Dad would say. He would love this; travelling the world. He loved a good adventure. Marion walked up to the entrance. It was a gigantic chrome, revolving door. The rest of us followed after her until we were all safely inside. The inside was just as impressive as the outside with a beautiful marble floor, a water fountain in the foyer and a big ascending spiral staircase leading to the next level. We walked towards a door marked Reception. Marion looked back at us and indicated that we should go through. We all nodded in agreement and walked through the door. Inside the reception area was amazing. There were glistening green and blue mosaic tiles covering the wall. It had a glass roof so you could see to the next floor; it was a bit hard though because long bronze tubes were dangling off the roof, it was absolutely jaw dropping. To the left of us was a big lift with an out of order sign on it. Well, it was in Mandarin but I was guessing it said out of order. No one was at the desk so we all walked around to the back of it and searched through desks and papers. In one of the draws I opened I found a little laptop. I pulled it out and flipped it open, luckily it worked. On it was LabNaM domain so I clicked it but up popped a log in page.

“What do you want!?” Someone snarled from the lift entrance.

We looked up to see the speaker.

“Nathan Midaren,” I gasped. I could recognise him from the photo that Cal had showed me from when we had first met.

“That’s Professor Andrew to you missy,” he answered.

“Andrews?” I asked.

“LabNaM. Lab of Nathan Andrew Midaren,” He replied. “Anywho, get out of my lab you stupid snoops! You should be back in your homes crying in silence! You’re not going to find out anything from me!”

I stepped forward. “You have wrecked the lives everyone in the world, no; you’ve wrecked the world” I said angrily. “You’re gonna pay!”

Nathan snorted at that then started laughing. “You’re funny” He said.

I was outraged. We may be just your seven average Joe’s, but we were determined and fearless average Joe’s.

All of a sudden an ear piercing laugh came from the behind us. I turned around to see a figure standing in the door we’d come through. I couldn’t tell who it was but he or she was quite tall. The person stepped forward. She was wearing a skirt, unless the person was a cross dresser. She pulled out a gun and aimed it at us.

“Time to go!” She cried as she fired the gun.

We all ducked but we didn’t need to as it was a terrible shot, hitting one of the pipes dangling above our heads. We stayed sitting down behind the desk as shot after shot was fired.

“Here, Elena!” Cal yelled tossing me a gun.

I don’t know where he had got it but I think I knew how to use it. I had played my little brothers Xbox quite often and knew that it was a pistol. I didn’t want to shoot back, what if I hit her? What if she died? That would make me a murderer, I would be sent to Juvenile Detention or Gaol or something. I couldn’t do that, no way. I watched as another shot fired straight past my head. This time it was from Nathan, he had grabbed a gun and fired that one. I didn’t know why I did what I did next because it was pretty stupid, all knew was that I had dragged these people in to this and it was my job to get them out, even if that meant sacrificing myself. I looked around at the worried, scared faces of my friends. This was it, I thought. I said goodbye to my family in my head and dropped the gun on the floor.

“Bye,” I whispered to Steve and Cal who were sitting beside me.

Steve picked up the gun and went to speak but I stopped him with a yell,

“Stop!” I shouted. Nathan and the women stopped firing and pointed their guns at me.

“That’ll make a good front cover on the paper.” Nathan said, “Some random young, girl who thinks she is so brave sacrifices herself but her friends end up dying to.”

“Shut up!” I yelled. “Kill me if you want, but don’t hurt my friends. I dragged them into this so I deserve to die.”

“No you don’t,” said Frog appearing from his spot next to Cal.

I waved my hand at Frog to get down but he ignored me.

“How ‘bout I save you the bickering and kill you both,” said the women.

I stepped forward and stuck my hands out like the Christ the Redeemer statue. Nathan lifted his gun in the air and fired. I jumped at the sound. I saw Frog move in front of me so I pushed him off the desk.

“Sorry mate,” I said.

Nathan lowered his gun and walked towards me with it pointed at my heart the whole time. I gulped, looking down the gun barrel I wondered what would happen when I died. I heard muffled yells and shuffling feet behind me. I looked to see Cal, Steve, Aaron and Lance tied in knots with rope. Marion wasn’t there though and Frog was still being tied up. He kicked the women and ran towards the desk. He dived in front of me in a second that felt like hours. I was about to stop him but at that moment Nathan fired the gun.

“No...!” I cried as Frog fell to the ground. I ran towards him but was held back by the women’s hands. In an instant I was tied up and sitting next to Lance and Steve in the group. There was nothing I could do. A choked back tears that were starting to pour down my face. I wouldn’t give Nathan the satisfaction of seeing me cry.

I tried to shuffle over to Frog but the lady wouldn’t let me. Nathan walked over to the lift, pressed the down button and stepped inside. I looked at the distressed faces of my friends and grabbed Steve’s and Lance’s hands. They did the same to Cal and Aaron who were sitting next to them. We’re going to live, of course we are, and they won’t kill us. A few minutes later Nathan appeared out of the lift.

“Get up and go into the lift!” He ordered. We obliged and walked inside. We were taken up to the roof where a big cage was. Nathan untied our knots and pushed us inside then locked the door. He went back down the lift for a few minutes then came back up with Frog’s body in his arms.

“For memory,” he laughed then walked to the edge of the building.

A loud chopping noise could be heard from the clouds and suddenly a big red helicopter appeared and landed on the roof next to us.

Nathan pulled out a walkie talkie from his pocket and spoke something into it. After half a minute the women appeared from the lift. Nathan and her hopped into the chopper and flew way. The women pulled her mask off as the helicopter disappeared into the clouds, it was Marion...

Steve walked over to the wall of the cage where Frog was laying. Frog being out of the cage with blood dripping from his chest and us not being able to go to him was torture. Steve kneeled and put his hands together, whispering to himself, he was praying.

“Say it out loud.” I choked. Steve looked at me.

“God; look after Jack.....Frasog where ever he is. He was brave and noble and had a good heart. He didn’t deserve this fate but I am sure that he will be taking care. He will always be in our hearts, not just for what he did today but for what he did in life and how he led it. We hope that you grant him mercy and that he lives a good after life. Amen” Steve finished up and closed his eyes. All five of us were silent for a moment in our own memories of Frog.

“Jack?” I whispered through tears, “I never knew he was Jack, or why he was frog.” Everyone looked at me. Cal walked up behind me and wrapped his arms around me. We just stood there for about three minutes; Cal comforting me, me crying as well as Aaron. Steve staring at the ground with eyes closed and Lance lying on the floor with his arms on his chest.

“We need to find a way out.” Cal said letting go of me and walking around the perimeter of the cage. “That is the most important thing at the moment. There is no point mourning if we are all dead too.”

We looked up at our surroundings. We were trapped. More trapped then we had ever been. The cage was metal and there was no chance of escape.

“Yeah...but how?” Lance asked.

Cal thought about this for a minute, “well let’s see what tools we’ve got and that might help decide the best way of escaping.”

I was too tired and shocked to bother with anything let alone something like trying to get out of a big metal cage. Everything was starting to go black and blurry I was losing me balance. That’s all I remembered.

“Elena, Elena.” I heard a voice call me, “wakey, wakey.” I opened my eyes and saw that Aaron was standing over me.

‘What happened?” I asked groggily getting up.

“You fainted.” Aaron explained, extending out his hand to me.

“Oh really?” I grabbed Aaron’s hand and lifted myself up.

Aaron nodded, “yep sure did.”

I looked around the cage and saw a torch, two pairs of socks and a ball of wire. A packet of chewing gum and a few rusty nails.

“It’s not much we know but it is something.” Cal said to me following my gaze.

“Figured out a way to escape yet?” I asked not wanting to stay in the cage any longer.

Cal shook his head, “but we will, I promise.” Cal told me giving me a smile.

It reassured me and I knew that no matter what that this group of people will find a way out.

It was night time; about eleven thirty and boy, was I pooped. I had been trying to figure a way out. But, it was just too hard. We had nothing, nothing at all. Well, except for the...objects. I looked at them again although I could hardly see them, then I remembered one of the objects was a torch. A walked over and picked it up turning it over in my hands. I turned it on and flashed it at the other objects. I stared hard at them for a while contemplating what they could be used for. For a while I sat there, and then an idea came to. I rushed over to Cal and shone the torch in his eyes.

“Get up! I’ve got a plan! Quick, wake the others!” I shouted in his face.

Cal hearing my words quickly jumped up and ran to wake the other three.

After we had all gathered in a huddle in order to stay warm (just like penguins do in the middle of winter so they don’t freeze to death) I told them my plan.

“I like it, I like it a lot.” Lance said nodding.

***

Our plan was to wait until someone came by and see if we could trick them to let us out of the damp, dark cage in which we were held. I knew it probably wouldn’t work considering that we had to wait until someone came but-this was the top science lab in the world; other people would surely be looking for answers. After waiting for about three days we were verging on death. We had no food, just a measly pack of chewing gum and we had pretty much eaten all of that. I was sort of glad Marion was gone because that meant that we could share out the chewing gum easier. It was early morning when I heard a loud boom rang out over the silent city of Beijing. It sounded like a bomb but mind you, I only vaguely knew what the sound of a explosion was from Friday night movies like men in black and die hard, even though my dad would always go on and on and on about it being too old for me and la-di-da-di-da.

I looked at Cal and winked. Someone had blown up the inside of the bank of China, which was the building next to us. After about five minutes there was a loud ringing coming from the bank, the intruder alarm. We couldn’t see who had broken in but we were dead silent and straining our ears so we could pick up any sounds coming from down below. We could hear shuffling of footsteps running towards LabNaM and we were prepared for anyone. As we saw the sign on the elevator rise, level 1...2...3...4...5...and so on Cal and I lay down on the cage floor acting dead. Lance did the same but buried his body under Cal’s. Steve buried his head under me so it looked like Steve had lost his head when it was actually Lance’s. Aaron stuck his tiny head through the bars of the cage and relaxed his body...he looked the most dead out of all of us. The elevator was now rising even faster and by five levels, 80...85...90...95...100...105...110...115...120...125...130, until it slowed to a stop at our level, 140...143...145...146...147...148......149.........R. I was pretty sure R meant roof. I had my eyes closed but I could still hear the ding of the elevator door open and the distinct clonk, clonk of big black boots. I heard six of them, so I was pretty sure there were three people outside the cage.

“OOOHHH,” one of the people said.

He walked towards the cage

We had escaped, from the cage at least, now we had to escape from the building. Cal went forward to see if there was anybody still there. He signalled us forward into the elevator. We went down to the ground floor and slowly made our way out. It was easier than I thought as there wasn’t anybody at the desk or on guard. I saw our pack backs exactly where we had left them; behind the reception desk.

We started to make our way to the car before realising that it wasn’t there. We didn’t think about the guys taking our car, we just assumed it would be there. We all looked at each other.

“What are we going to do?” Aaron asked. We all shrugged, we had no idea.

Digadigadigadigadigadigadiga. We all jumped at the sudden noise. We looked around for the horrifying noise but couldn’t find a source. Digadigadigadiga. There it was again. Something hit the ground making the earth shake under our feet.

“They’re shooting at us from the roof!” Cal screamed, “We have to get out of here.” Cal ran over and grabbed my hand pulling me along with him.

“Over to that building.” Lance shouted pointing across the road. All five of us started running to the building with guns firing at us. We made it to the building unscarred.

“Why didn’t we notice the guns before?” Steve said running a hand through his hair.

No one answered. My heart was beating like crazy and I wanted to get out of there before something worse happened.

“We have to keep moving.” I told the others, “They will know we are here and come looking for us.” Nobody moved they just stood there staring at me.

“Come on guys, move it!” I yelled at them. We crept out of the building keeping an eye out for people with machines guns. They didn’t seem to be there, they must have been trying to get in to the building another way to surprise us. We stayed in the shadows of other buildings as we shuffled down the street in single file with Steve leading. “Where are we going to go?” I whispered to Cal who was behind me.

Cal just shrugged his shoulders and continued to look forward. Bekoo, Bekoo. The noise had started up again but this time it was slightly different. I turned around and found that they were running after us and firing guns. “Run!!” I screamed at the others.

I broke out into a sprint. Bekoo, bekoo, bekoo. The noise was getting louder and I knew that they were gaining ground. I bullet hit right next to my foot causing pieces of gravel to bounce up into my face. I quickened my pace as I spat gravel out of my mouth. I cursed, this was terrible. I had a stitch and my foot hurt like a piece of glass was sticking right through from the sole to my ankle but somehow, I kept going. They had to give up sooner or later.

I passed Lance who was bending over, out of breath. I pulled him up and ran with him by my side. A bullet whizzed past my neck making me freeze for a moment. We had to get out of the way if we stood a chance of surviving. I saw a narrow doorway up ahead and knew that was our only hope.

“We need a distraction!” I shouted at Caleb who was running next to me. Cal looked confused so I indicated to the doorway.

There were a pile of crates stacked up high just ahead. Perfect, I thought to myself. I pointed them out to Cal and he stuck his thumb up without looking at me. I let go of Lance and told him to run by himself for a while. I legged it over to the crates dodging bullets that were fired at me. I hid behind them catching my breath. This better work, I told myself. I waited for the rest of my group to be past the crates. Then I pushed the crates over with all my might causing a blockage in the road. The men from the lab stopped unable to get over them. Ha! in your face suckers, I saw Caleb get everybody in the doorway successfully. I ran over to door and with a final glance back I ran through. I find the others waiting for me in a little alley, out of breath and kneeling over in exhaustion. I stopped to catch my breath and felt the pain in my side. “Come on guys let’s move.” Cal said to us.

We all groaned in unison, but stood up and followed Cal down the alleyway. It was rather narrow so we could only walk in single file but it was full of plants and ornaments. Buddha was sitting in a corner next to a birdbath. There was a vine climbing up the wall and onto balconies blocking out half the sun. We came out into the bright sunlight onto a wide street. “Where to now?” Aaron asked.

“Well we should try and find a car and get out of here.” Steve said squinting in the sunlight.

“Yeah but how are we suppose to get out of here without getting killed?” Lance asked looking around nervously. “I mean they’re sure to have found out where we are and it is only a matter of time before they find a way around to get us.”

“Well in that case we better leave right now.” Cal told him. He started walking off down the road. I looked at the others and then ran to catch up with Cal.

“Do you actually have any idea where you are going?” I whispered to him.

“No, but so what we need to get as far away as possible from those guys.” He whispered back at me. I sighed; he was right we did need to get out of Beijing...but how?

“Look, even if we find a car how are we supposed to start it without any keys?”

The others had caught up to us by now. Cal was looking around intently.

My foot was throbbing like mad but I knew that I couldn’t stop and see to it until we found a car or safe place to rest. We walked for about an hour and came to many cars but all were locked, had no keys or didn’t work. None of us knew how to hot wire a car either so we had to find a car which was unlocked and had keys in it. We really were looking for a needle in a hay stack.

We were just about to give up when we came to a massive car park. All our faces lit up into a smile. We rushed around checking each car without much luck.

“Guys quick I’ve found one.” Lance called from the opposite side of the car park.

I hobbled over as best as I could on my sore foot. Lance was standing before a medium sized car with five seats, just enough for us now that Marion had betrayed us and Frog had, had...

The car was a red Suzuki with a number plate that had all sorts of Chinese symbols on it. I tried to open the front door but it was locked.

I gave Lance a sympathetic glance as if to say ‘sorry mate, doors locked. Nice try.’

Caleb came up behind Lance and put a hand on his shoulder, “We can fix that.” He said biting his top lip with excitement.

Oh...dear god. What’s he gonna do this time?

He took out the torch from his back pocket. “Stand back.” He warned us before throwing the torch at the driver’s seat window. The window caved in with a massive crash. I winced as glass shattered everywhere covering the driver’s seat like little teardrops on the floor. “Well, what are you waiting for? Hope in.”

I looked at Cal and rolled my eyes.

“Hey! That’s my job,” He said pointing at me. “At least we’re in now so don’t you go rolling your eyes at me!”

He had a point, we were in so his idea had worked I guess, sort of.

“What about the massive pile of glass?” I asked him, “We have to get rid of it.”

Cal thought about what I said for a second and I could tell he was about to speak when I butt in ahead of him.

“Yeah, only flaw in your plan. We have a massive pile of glass in the driver’s seat of a car.” I told him with a smile.

“We might be able to take the seat out.” He told me opening the door and inspecting the seat.

“And then what? Whoever is driving has to sit on the floor?”

We thought about what to do for a while, luckily Steve appeared with a broom.

He walked over and held the broom out for one of us to take.

I grabbed the broom and started sweeping the glass out of the car. I couldn’t get all of it out but there was a towel in the back so we spread that over the seat just to make sure that nobody would get cut.

We finally hopped in and drove away. Steve was in the front seat, of the big red car!

Once I was comfortable I took my shoe and sock of and inspected my foot. It was disgusting; all purple and swollen. There blood was all dried up and the skin was all gross.

“You need to put something on that.” Cal said leaning in to take a look at it.

“I know, but what? I mean it’s not as if we have a big supply of medical equipment, is it?” I told him.

Suddenly Aaron piped up from the front, “Hey! Look what I found in the glove box! A medical kit filled to the brim.”

I looked at Cal with a huge, cheesy grin. We were very lucky, besides the fact that one of our friends had betrayed us and the other had...Died, that’s what had happened to Frog or as I had recently found out, Jack. As we were driving towards wherever Steve wanted to take us but from I could tell we were heading north I remembered Frog. I never did know why he was called Frog. Remembering him brought back so many memories. I wanted to find out what had happened to Jack to turn him to Frog. I knew Steve knew so I decided to ask him.

“Steve,” I whispered nervously.

“Yeah, what is it El?” He replied.

“Who was Jack? Was he a good man?”

Steve thought about this for a second, or at least that’s what it looked like he was doing.

“Jack Frasog was a very good, caring, terrific man. He didn’t deserve to die, but he is in a better place now.” Steve said.

I looked at the floor of the car after Steve spoke until I was good enough to speak.

“Why Frog?” I asked, “What did he do to be called Frog?”

“When Jack was five we found him on the deck of our ship crying. We didn’t know what he was there for and by that time he was scared out of his wits.”

“Wait a minute, if he was five when you found him, you must have been quite a bit older than him.”

“Frog never told you how old he was?” Steve asked. I shook my head. “Twenty-five,” he said. There was a pause so I waved my hand to urge Steve on. “Oh, okay. We picked him up and took him in as our own child. He was a sweet young lass was Frog. Always had a smile on his face and never asked about his real parents. We didn’t tell him anything and he didn’t remember anything before he was five. When he turned fifteen he decided to find out who his parents were. We stupidly told him that we were his real parents. ‘Who?’ He said. ‘You and Aaron? Gay much?’ I told him that he was adopted yes, but that I knew his mother. He wanted me to prove this so I ran out onto the deck of the ship but realised we were sailing towards Sydney from our original home...Hobart. I told him I would find her when we back to Hobart but he said that we had to turn around and go back home. We told him it wasn’t going to happen and so he went really mad and attacked Aaron who was driving at the time. He turned the ship around and sailed it right back home. There was nothing we could do because he had tied us up. We thought he was a crazy child and for about five days we were petrified. When we arrived in Hobart we moored and we had to start looking for Frog’s mum. We searched for weeks throughout Tasmania but didn’t find her. Frog went nuts. Ran away, that’s what he did. Now we had to find him. Wasn’t easy, tell you that right now, extremely hard ‘twas. Eventually we found him in just out of Hobart. He didn’t want to come with us so I ran after him until I grabbed him and dragged him onto the boat. He was strong Frog, so strong that he tried to claw away and eventually did. He tripped up when he was running off the ramp to ship and fell into the ocean badly gashing his leg. He climbed up the ladder but didn’t take our help. He couldn’t run so he hopped, buy did he hop. ‘E hopped all the way around Hobart until he could hop no further. He hopped so much he fainted. When he awoke he found out his leg was fixed because we had fixed it. He didn’t know where we were so he jumped away. He was so used to hopping on one foot that he had forgotten how to run and jumped and leaped everywhere he went for five months flat out.” Steve had finished talking but I was still in another world, the world of Frog.

“Nah,” Aaron said. “If you take the two middle letters out of his last name you get Frog.”

“Well, that to, but the story of Frog is that...well, I already told ‘ya ‘aven’t I?”

I turned to look out of the window, thinking of Jack Frasog. We were out of Beijing now and in the countryside. I could only see a few houses scattered over the place and no people at all.

5

“HEY!!!!” Cal yelled. “Look out!”

I looked up to see a truck in the same lane heading straight towards us. Steve swerved to avoid it but the truck had the same idea. Steve skidded and swerved even more until we were in a different lane and facing the other way. The other car was now heading straight for the side of us, the side were Cal was. He dived in front of me so the impact was less. SMACRASHOPAKOOO. We collided with the car and I got knocked to the window. All of a sudden our car was engulfed in blood red flames.

“OUT, OUT!” I screamed. No one hesitated; we all rushed out of the car immediately and ran off, everyone except Cal.

“CAL!!!” I cried. I sprinted towards the car and flew the door open.

“My leg’s trapped!” Yelled Cal.

I looked around to find where his foot was caught.

“Under the seat!” Cal shouted.

I climbed in and peered under the seat. I winced at the sight of Cal’s foot. It was completely cut open and blood was seeping out all over the floor. It was a horrific thing to see but I had to put it behind me and free Cal. I felt a hand on my back as I climbed in onto the seat and reached under the seat. Blood went all over my hand as I pulled his leg free. It was beyond boiling as the fire climbed into the car and onto the seat. The hand on my shoulder was now trying to pull me out of the car. I struggled frantically so not to give up. Cal’s foot was now nearly free but I was being dragged out by a stranger’s hand. I tried to grip something but the nearest thing was the car seat, which was..., on fire.

I grabbed it not thinking. My hand started to burn and I yelped in pain. My gas mask slipped of my face as I turned to see Caleb being dragged away too by some other man. The air was black with smoke and I was finding it harder and harder to breath. I couldn’t hold on much longer due to the pain coming from my arm and the shortage of clean air getting to my lungs. I didn’t want to give up I had to try and get this guy of me. I kicked my leg at him not sure if I hit him or not. As I kicked I noticed the fire was growing and beginning to reach the bottom of the car. I realised that the car was going to explode if the fire reached the petrol. We would all die.

“Stop!” I screamed. “The whole car’s going to explode!”

The man snorted. “You isn’t ‘gonna trick me like ‘at girly.” His voice was very English. It sounded a bit Cockney, but; I never did listen in Society and Environment.

I kicked him again and this time he yelped loudly in pain as my leg made contact with the man’s stomach. He let go of me quickly and tried to regain his balanced. I let go of the seat and dashed over to the man. I punched him in the face with all the effort I could summon. He fell backwards and collided with the truck. Satisfied I rushed over to where Cal was being tackled by another guy. I tried to pull the guy off Caleb but he was too strong for me. I did manage to draw his attention away from Cal giving him a chance to free his hands. Cal elbowed the guy in the face causing the man to fall backwards onto me. I pushed the guy to the ground and Cal kicked him in the face.

Cal grabbed my hand and we ran. The others had already disappeared into the vegetation. We ran into the bushes and didn’t stop or look back. I noticed Cal slowing down and limping.

“Stop.” I told him coming to a halt once we were a way in to the bush and could no longer see the road.

“No we have to keep going.” Cal told me.

“You can’t possibly go anywhere on that foot, you will just make it worse.” I said to him. “Besides it is getting dark and there is no way those two guys are going to follow us or are able to.”

Cal sighed knowing that I was right. I sat down and stretched my legs. My hand was excruciatingly painful and badly burned.

“You need to put some water on that.” Cal told me.

“Yeah but firstly we need to look at your leg.” I went over to him, “I need you to pull up your pants.” I asked him.

He reluctantly pulled up his pants revealing a badly battered, bloody and bruised leg.

“Nasty.” I told him scrunching up my face in disgust. I tried to remember what I had learnt from a first aid course I took in year seven. Not much I am afraid to say but I was pretty sure you’re supposed to cover a cut with something.

“We need to cover it to stop infection and bleeding.” I looked around to find something. I reached into my pocket and took out my hanky that I had put in there. I tore strips of the bandage, opened my backpack and got out some water. I poured water over the cut to clean it and then started wrapping the strips around the wound. I could see Cal wince in pain making me more cautious. My hands were shaking heaps but I finally got it done.

“There that should help it but you will probably have to change the bandages soon.” I told Cal once I had finished.

“Thanks heaps.” Cal said smiling at me. “Now we have to do your arm.”

“What... Oh yeah my hand, right.” I looked down at it. It wasn’t too bad, stang a bit but not too much.

“You need to soak it in water.” Cal told me.

“Yeah.” I unscrewed the water bottle and poured water onto my arm. It stang so badly making me cry out in pain.

“You okay?” Cal asked looking concerned.

I nodded gritting me teeth. Once I had finished with the water I covered the burn with sleeve. I wasn’t sure if that was the best idea but I didn’t know what else to do.

“We should try and light a fire before it gets really dark and cold.” Cal said trying to get up but not able to.

“Yeah, good idea.” I said standing up, “but you are staying here.”

“Fine, I will see what we have in terms of food.”

So I set off in search for some fire wood. While I was walking I realised that we had probably lost Aaron, Steve and Lance forever. They were stuck out in a Chinese bush with nothing, all because of us. It was too dark to go searching now but we definitely had to find them at first light. I kept on looking for wood but unfortunately I didn’t know what type of wood was best for a fire so I just grabbed any random pieces of twigs and sticks. I went back to Caleb making sure that I didn’t get lost on my way. I found him going through his pockets.

“Here, I have some wood.” I put the wood down on the ground. “Do you have anything to light it with?”

Caleb nodded and held out a lighter to me.

“Great.” I took the lighter and started to light a fire. It took me a few goes but I finally did light one. I finally sat back and rested. The events of the past few days started to sink in slowly. I realised just how big a thing it was we had gone through. I thought of Frog and Marion. All those memories come pouring back into my head and I couldn’t stop them. Frog laughing with me on the boat, Marion talking to me about her exes, Frog stepping in front of me to save my life and his limp body next to the cage.

I never imagined any of this would happen when I first set off all those weeks ago. I never meant for anybody to die for me. I thought of professor Litwood and what happened to him after we left. I hoped he was alright.

The moon was visible through the trees and was casting a bright light. I yawned; the last few hours had really tired me out. I turned to see Caleb’s sleeping face in the moonlight. I lay down and fell straight to sleep.

***

There was fire everywhere; on the walls, the trees, the floor and me. I was burning up. I turned to find Frog standing to my right. I tried calling out to him but no words come out. He wasn’t looking at me and I couldn’t get his attention. The flames were engulfing me. I tried to move but some invisible force was gluing me to the spot preventing me reaching Frog. Frog looked at me and I saw the pain in his face as he noticed the flames around me. He reached out to me but all of a sudden a giant metal cage come down around him stopping him in his tracks. The fire was up to my chest and the pain was so terrible. The air was black and filled with soot. Flames were licking at my throat. There was no chance for me. I was going to be burnt alive...

I woke sweating and gasping for air. My hand went to my throat and felt around for flames or heat. Finding none I took my hand away and sat up. The memory of the dream was still thick in my mind. It brought back the terror of the last week and the pain I had gone through. Frog was dead and seeing him in my dream just made it so much more real. I couldn’t stand it, I felt sick in the stomach. The walls I felt around me were slowly closing in and suffocating me. And the tears that I had been holding in for the past weeks finally fell. I sobbed and sobbed. My throat hurt, my head throbbed and my stomach was in great pain. I kneeled over and held my stomach in agony.

I thrashed at the ground with my hands. I rolled myself into a ball and continued crying.

“Elena, Elena.” It was Cal. He had finally woken up.

“El, what’s wrong?” I felt him come over and kneel beside me. “El, please El, are you alright?”

I lifted my head and saw through all my tears Cal’s face in front of me. Seeing his face made me a bit better.

“Come on El.” Cal said scooping me up and hugging me, “it’s going to be okay.” He reassured me. We hugged for a while and it made me feel a lot better.

I sat up and let out a big sigh. “I’m sorry.” I wiped my tears away.

Cal looked confused. “For what?”

I shook my head, “For this.”

“God El, don’t be so stupid.” Cal sighed, “It’s not your fault. You shouldn’t be ashamed to cry after what we’ve been through.”

I smiled; glad that Caleb understood. “Thanks. That makes me feel so much better.”

“No problem.” Cal smiled back at me. “Now let’s have breakfast then find the others.”

I smiled at him.

“Always thinking ahead,” I said to Cal, “Always thinking ahead.”

I checked Cal’s leg after breakfast. It was no better than it was the day before.

“You won’t be able to walk.” I told him.

“But I have to.” He complained.

“You are not going anywhere.” I told him sternly, “Not unless you want to damage that leg anymore.”

Cal shrugged, and muttered something under his head,

“What was that?” I asked.

“YES MUM!” Cal shouted me. “Sorry,”

“Nah, it’s alright. I understand, I’m sorry too.” I replied before quickly adding, “You still can’t come though.

Cal sighed.

“Yeah, I didn’t think so.” I said. “Now we have to find the others somehow but it will be hard as they have a big head start on us and probably aren’t injured.” I realised how hard finding the others would be.

“But mind you they probably don’t have any food and are lost.” Cal pointed out.

“So they are walking around in country that they don’t even know...lost.” I told him, “doesn’t really make things easier.”

“maybe not but that means that they are probably going to come back this way sooner or later or they will simply not go any further.”

I thought about that for a moment. He was right they would try and head back they way they came. “Okay so I suggest that instead of going further into the bush we head back to the car or at least what is left of the car and wait for them to come. I mean it will be easier for you to manage then walking around blindly in the woods.”

Cal nodded, “okay but the guys might still be there or they may have brought reinforcements.”

I shrugged, “A risk we will have to take.”

We set of back to the road and the burnt cars. We fashioned a walking stick out of a long stick for Cal. He said it made him feel like an old man. That made me laugh.

“You look like one.”

Cal laughed. “I know, you should get a shirt made for me, I can imagine it now.” He said holding his available hand out in front of him as if to present something. “I look like an old man.” He really was a strange boy.

It was still a slow walk due to the countless amounts of hills we had to go over but the stick made it easier for Cal. It took us a while to find the way back but after a while we found a trail of blood.

“Hey look it must be yours.” I said to cal pointing out the blood to him. So we followed that right up to the road. When we got to the tree line we stopped.

“Wait here.” I told cal, “I want to see if there is anybody there.” I left cal leant up on a tree and slowly made my way to the cars. The sight was quite amazing. The cars had stopped burning and all that was left was the frame of the car covered in soot and dust. I crept around to where the two cars had collided and standing right in front of me was....

“Lance!” I shouted.

“Elena!” Lance replied with a smile as bright as a star and wrapped me in a bear hug. “It’s so good to see you.”

He stepped back and looked me up and down, “my you are quite a sight aren’t you.” He laughed. “Guys, guess who it is!” he called over his shoulder. Steve and Aaron appeared from behind a tree and I saw their faces both light up when they saw me.

They rushed over and swallowed me in a massive group hug.

“Oh El, we were so worried about you...And Cal,” said Steve.

“Where ya hiding ‘im? He’s okay inn ‘e?

“Yeah, yeah he’s hiding in the trees.” I pointed in the direction Cal was standing in. “I will go and get him.” I walked over to where Cal was propped up by the tree.

“Well guess who I found.” I told him.

“Who? Tom Cruise” Cal smirked.

I ignored his comment and went on. “The others.” I squealed excitedly.

“Nah,” He replied sarcastically.

“Yeah.” I smiled still ignoring him. “Come on.” I lead him to where the others were standing by the cars.

The others surrounded us and hugged us, well except Cal. He said it wasn’t right. I got a bit squished by the men but it was nice.

“What happened to you guys?” Aaron asked once we had stopped hugging. Well, I was hugging, they were sort of mashing potatoes, and by potatoes I mean me. “How did Cal get injured?”

I told them what happened to us after the car crash. How Cal got injured, about the two guys and the night in the wilderness.

“So what about you guys?” I said once I had finished, “where did you get off to?”

Aaron, Lance and Steve looked at each other. They hesitated, obviously embarrassed.

“So...” I said.

Steve cleared his throat and began.

“As soon as the car crashed we all jumped out and started running. We ran straight into the bushes and just assumed you were following. By the time we realised you weren’t behind us we were too far in to the bushes and were lost. We looked around for you but we knew that you were too far away. It was getting late and we were really lost. We didn’t know which way the cars where, where about north was or anything. We decided to start a camp and hold it out to morning. It was tough, you see we aren’t suited for the wilderness we prefer the sea. So we spent a cold, damp, scary night out in the middle of nowhere.” Steve paused and looked around. “The next morning we decided that our best option was to head back or at least try to head back. It took us a while as we didn’t have the slightest clue where to go but we followed our gut instinct and found ourselves back here. But let me tell you it was no easy task, we only arrived here about ten minutes before you.” Steve smiled, “we are glad to see you Elena, let me tell you.”

Cal raised his hand. Steve looked confused but nodded at him.

“Did you miss me?”

The three seamen laughed. “Yes Cal.” They said together.

“Well what are we going to do now?” Lance asked. “I mean we are in a bit of a pickle as we have no car, have no idea where we are or where we are going.”

We all fell silent. Lance was right; as much as I didn’t want to admit it. We couldn’t go anywhere as we didn’t know where to go. I thought back to everything I heard and read about Nathan and his lab. All of a sudden I remembered something.

“Moscow.” I shouted out.

“What?” the four men said in unison.

“Nathan is in Moscow. You know in Russia.”

Cal looked at me, “Are you sure?”

“Positive.” I nodded. “I remember one of those big guys talking to each other about it when we were stuck in the cage.”

“Okay so we go to Moscow.” Steve said.

“Yeah only problem is, does anybody know which way Moscow or Russia is for that matter?” Lance asked looking around the group.

“Well it is North West from Beijing so we just need to figure out where we are from Beijing and there you go.” Steve said matter-of-factly.

I went and sat on one of the car seats that wasn’t burnt or ruined letting the men sort out the problem. I was cold, tired and sore all over and I just wanted to be back at home with my family. I must have fallen asleep because when I woke up it was getting dark and the moon was starting appear.

“Just in time El, we know where we are and how to get to Moscow.” Caleb told me.

I got up of the seat and went over to the other four only to find that there where in fact five people. “Who’s this?” I asked.

“This is our ticket out of here.” Lance told me smiling. “He can’t speak but gave us this map telling us that we are in Hohhot and if we continue to travel down this road it will take us to Mongolia which will lead us to Russia then we just go to Moscow.”

He showed me the map which had a clear marking of which roads we had to take.

“Nice.” I said, smiling. “But we don’t have a car.”

Steve had a massive grin on his face. “This man has let us use his car.”

“He doesn’t use it anymore so he gave it to us hoping that we will be able to find Nathan in it and make him speak again.” Cal said.

The man led us to his car and gave us the keys. So we thanked the man and promised him we would find Nathan and get his voice back.

Then we piled into the car and drove off into the great unknown.

6

I woke up in the uncomfortable position of having someone’s foot in my face and an elbow in my side. I rolled over in order to get the foot out of my face only to end up facing someone’s rear end. I sighed. We had been driving for hours and I’d had close to zero hours sleep due to the lack of room. I sat up moving the sleeping bodies off me. I glanced out the window trying to see through the darkness but all that I could make out was where the road stopped and the bushes started. It was really late and we had been driving for about a week on a remote road in what seemed like the middle of nowhere but according to the map was Russia. It was hard driving through a country that you don’t know with a map that’s out of date. But it wasn’t the getting lost or the getting through country borders that was the problem. It was the lack of resources such as food, water and petrol that let us down. The problem wasn’t that we couldn’t steal or wouldn’t. It was the fact that we didn’t have many places to steal from. So we had a shortage of food for a couple of days and the rationing had caused quite a few arguments in the group. Mainly between Aaron and Steve but it still created some unwanted tension within the group. All of a sudden we swerved and I banged into a body which I’m pretty sure was Aaron’s.

“Careful.” I shouted at Steve as the car swerved back the right way.

“Sorry.” He said apologetically.

“It’s okay.” I told him. “Do you want me to drive?”

Steve paused in thought. “Can you?”

“Umm I’ve had a few lessons.” I said honestly.

Steve smiled at me. “I think I will be fine until somebody else wakes up. You go back to sleep.”

It took me a while to fall back to sleep but my eyes finally closed and I fell into a dreamless slumber.

***

“Good morning Elena.” Cal’s voice drifted over to me from the driver’s seat as I woke up to complete darkness.

“Morning? What time is it?” I asked.

Cal glanced at his watch, “It’s exactly seven AM. You see,” He said, starting to nerd up. “Around these parts, near the north pole, it isn’t very light...” Cal said going on some rant about time zones.

I rolled my eyes and turned to Steve. ‘Steve.”

“Yes El?”

“Can you shut Caleb up?”

“Why certainly, it would be my pleasure,” He said turning to Cal. “Shut up!”

Cal, who was in the middle of explaining the time zones to Lance when Steve spoke, stopped talking immediately and sank back in his seat.

“We will be coming up to a small town soon called Novosibirsk.”

“Nivisibird, what?” I asked not catching the sound that came out of Steve’s mouth.

“No-vos-i-bir-sk.” Steve replied dragging out the name so that I would understand.

“Ahhh I see.” I looked out the window to the amazing sight black. Great entertainment.

I spent the rest of the day looking out the window at the scenery. There was a small amount of light from about eleven to three but that was enough for me. Watching little farms fly past and long, florescent lakes and rivers zoom by right in front of me wasn’t my idea of fun. Everything was so much greener then the countryside back at home. At home we had dry, brown bush but here they had lushes, green plains and hills.

We arrived in Novosibirsk in the evening to find that it was empty except for the occasional person scattering along the streets. Apart from that it was barren. It seemed as if everybody has been encouraged to stay indoors. It made me think about who was running the countries. If everybody was inside then wouldn’t it be a perfect time for people to attack each other. I guess everybody was too scared.

“It’s the third largest city in Russia and I have seen one person on the streets in the space of an hour.” Cal said coming up behind me.

“Yeah it’s weird.” I said. “Makes you realise that we aren’t as tough as we make ourselves out to be when you see the whole world run away and ignore something like this.”

“Yeah it does.”

“Just think; if nobody hid in their houses waiting for somebody else to fix the problem then the problem would be over. If all the governments came together and hunted down Nathan it would be fixed.” I shook my head, “The human race really is stupid.”

Cal laughed. “Tell me about it. It’s as if we have all died out when really we have just lost our voices.”

I heard footsteps coming up behind us and turned to find Steve carrying three full plastic bags. “Got food and there is more in the car.”

Cal looked around, “where did you get them from?”

“Over there.” Steve pointed to a small corner shop. “The door was unlocked.” He said seeing our confused faces which must have conveyed our, or at least my confusion as to why there were no broken windows.

We ate a dinner of cold canned soup and bread. It was becoming a routine for me; eating on the streets, and I wasn’t sure if I could go back to eating at a table inside with knives and forks.

Once we finished our dinner we all piled back into the car and volunteered Lance to drive first.

“Okay folks next stop on our scenic tour of Russia will be some city which I can’t pronounce the name of. So buckle up, snuggle down and enjoy the ride.”

Lance said putting on a deep commentator’s voice.

So we drove for about two more weeks, through hills covered in flowers, valleys filled with lushes’ trees, small country town and big, empty cities until we finally reached Moscow. It was early morning when we arrived in Moscow and still pitch black outside.

“We might need a torch guys.” I told the others as I hopped out of the car.

“Try the boot.” Lance suggested. “You never know what you might found.”

Sure enough in the boot was a torch that actually worked.

“Man, its cold.” I said shivering.

“Yeah, it’s nearly Winter.” Cal said bringing out his inner nerd again.

I just glared at him and zipped my jacket up tighter. Steve flashed the torch around lighting up an array of old and new buildings.

Lance turned to face me. “Any ideas where we’re suppose to go?” he asked.

“Umm, No not really.” I said, “Sorry.”

Steve turned the torch in my direction making me a have momentary blindness. “Don’t worry about it. I say we just continue into the main part of the city and find out what we can there.”

We started walking in complete silence to the group of tallest buildings and; what appeared to be the city centre.

“We could try another information centre.” Cal suggested.

I was about to tell him that was a bad idea when Lance did it for me.

“Look mate, what happened the last time we went to one of those?”

Cal had a confused look on his face.

“We ended up locked in a cage with our best friend dead!” Aaron replied. He appeared annoyed at Cal’s ignorance.

Cal sighed.

“I know!” I said jumping up.

Everyone was looking at me and I knew this was my chance.

“What we need to do is find an information centre-”

Everyone groaned at this suggestion.

“Wait, just hear me out. We don’t look for Nathan’s lab-”

“Oh, you don’t have to go to that entire trouble missy.”

I recognised that voice immediately without having to turn around but I did so. Nathan Midaren was staring me right in the eyes, “We’ve been waiting for you.” He said with a sly grin.

I looked behind him to see Marion who had a smug expression on her face. The rest of the group turned to face Marion as well.

“You make me sick.” Steve said disgusted.

Marion giggled, “Glad of it.”

I glared at Marion furious at what she had done. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Nathan pull something out of his shirt pocket.

“Well if you guys are just going to stand there then we may as well have a bit of fun.”

Marion said with another silly giggle.

Nathan was still hiding the thing he had taken out of his shirt pocket and the others seemed to be too focused on Marion to notice. He raised it up and us he did I screeched out, “DUCK!”

Everyone did so as the bullet from Nathan’s went sizzling over our heads missing us by centimetres.

“It’s a shame we meet again while you are unarmed. Here,” he said chucking a gun in my general direction. I caught it in one swift movement and throw it from my left hand to my right. It felt weird holding it, like it was poison. So I held it limply, barrel facing down.

“We don’t want another repeat of what happened in Beijing.” I said, because we didn’t.

“Okay then, I’ll just kill you all and get it over with then.”

‘That’s not what I meant,” I said sternly.

“Oh, I know that,” he said. “But I don’t think your suggestion goes down well with what we have planned.”

“And what might that be?” I said. “Causing another world disaster?”

Nathan snarls. “No.” He clutches the gun tighter and we duck immediately, but he had the same idea. He aimed straight down and fired, piercing Lance’s chest with a loud bang. He stumbled back and mumbled something.

“Ave…Ave…” but we didn’t catch it because he had already toppled over dead.

Blood flowed from his chest, forming a tiny pool blood around him, his face was drained from life, his eyes rolled back in his head and his clothes gnawed and gashed with a bloody hole. Three people had died right in front of my eyes in the past, what? Two months? Less? I gripped the gun tightly in my hand, anger bubbling up inside me. I turned to face Nathan who had the same sly grin as before except this one was mixed with an array of satisfaction and achievement. Without thinking I pulled the trigger of the gun in Nathan’s general direction. Then a scream pierced through the air. I heard another bang of a gun this time aimed at me. And pain soaring through my shoulder. I felt arms around me and someone dragging me back with them. The pain was what I remembered the most, the excruciating pain that was burning through my shoulder. I remember being scared that my arm would fall off. I screamed out as my shoulder hit something causing the pain to intensify. I recall seeing a greyish brown colour over me and getting jolted around. My head started spinning like crazy and my vision was getting worse and worse. The pain was still going but it was lessening. All that was going through my mind was that I was going to die or I was going to live the rest of my life without an arm. A coolness come over my forehead and I realised it was a hand. My arm was being lifted upwards and then lifted back down. I was finding it harder and harder to breath. I heard voices far of in the distance, somewhere I couldn’t reach.

I drifted in and out of consciousness for two days. The pain in my shoulder was not as intense as before but it was still burning with pain. Maybe, maybe I was dead, well at least that’s what I thought, but the faint, cold sound of my breath reassured me that I was alive. When I came back into consciousness I would hear voices telling me that it would be alright. But I didn’t believe them. I thought I was going to die whenever I closed my eyes. I would hear the hum of an engine. I didn’t know where I was or who I was with; all I knew was that I was alive for that moment until I fell back into unconsciousness. After a while the pain became bearable and I came around for good.

The humming continued as my eyes slowly opened. I took in whiteness all around and I felt a slight moving sensation. I started propping myself up to have a look around but the pain in my shoulder halted me. I turned my head to find myself facing an aisle. I turned the other way and saw a window. I peered out and saw a vast lake of blue dotted with some white. There was no one in sight but I could hear voices from far away. I started calling to them but the sound was stuck in my throat unwilling to get out. That was when I realised my throat was dry and sore. It hurt to swallow and even when I did it took a lot of effort. I had a massive headache and was feeling very faint but not from my shoulder this time. No, I knew from experience that I needed water and needed it soon or I would faint again. I tried calling out but they voices were too far away to hear my feeble attempt at a shout. Finally I heard footsteps coming down the aisle and from my position I saw black boots which looked like they belonged to a male.

“Elena, are you awake?” the man’s voice asked me. I knew it from somewhere but where I couldn’t quite recall.

“Elena.” The voice was coming closer and closer. I still couldn’t place the voice with a face or name. I was so close and it was on the tip of my tongue but still I didn’t know.

“El, how are you?” When I heard my name shortened to El I finally knew who it was and I smiled with joy.

“Dad. Is that you?” I asked to the feet.

“Yeah, it’s me.” Dad said.

I opened my eyes and saw him standing in front of me. I was lying on my bed and Dad was caressing my hair in a part. I sat up in bed and hugged him tightly, “How can you be here?” I asked him slowly.

“Where?” He asks. “At my own home?”

“What?” I yelled.

I looked around and realised I was in my room, on my bed. I looked at my shoulder and saw that it wasn’t in fact bandaged. I moved it and found that it worked perfectly well. I turned back to my dad to find that he was changing. He was morphing into someone else. First it was his feet, then his legs, than his torso and his arms all the way up to his face and his hair. He became taller and broader. He was wearing a sly grin and was looking intently into my eyes. It was the face that scared me whenever I laid eyes on it. The one thing I dreaded most. The thing that caused the whole world pain, killed countless people and smelt like liquor. My dad had turned into Nathan Midaren.

I tried to get up and run but got pulled back by an invisible force coming from my bed.

“You have nowhere to run missy.” Nathan sneered. “And now I will kill you like I killed all you friends and family.”

At the mention of my family I cried out. Nathan smirked and continued talking. “You watched them die didn’t you? The boy you call Frog, oh how he sacrificed his life for you and what about Lance completely unarmed, the poor thing, one shot was all it took right through the heart.” He was smiling like a little kid at his birthday party a after the massive cake in the shape of a pirate ship with miniature pirate figurines jumping around. “But your family, you didn’t see them die. You were gallivanting of somewhere in the world while they were stuck at home dying. And you had no idea. It didn’t take me long. One shot for each of them. Oh don’t worry your dad gave a bit of a fight but not much. It was a shame that I had to kill your brother though; one so young and just starting out in life. It nearly brought a tear to my eye when I heard him scream.” Nathan looked up towards a sky as if he was remembering the moment.

I didn’t want to believe it but the way he was talking made it seem so real. I screamed out, desperate to charge at Nathan but getting pulled back when I did. I was too busy trying to get free of my invisible bonds that I didn’t notice Nathan pull out a gun.

By the time I looked up it was too late. Nathan was already pointing the gun at me. I heard bang, I started screaming just before I felt a pierce through the heart.........

I woke up screaming, my heart pounding at a million miles an hour. A rushing of footsteps filled my ears.

“Elena. What’s wrong.” It was Cal.

“Nathan. He killed me.” I said shaking.

“No he didn’t El. You are alright, you are alive.” Cal kneeled down next to me.

“No but he shot me, I should be dead, like my family. He killed them Cal all of them.” I told him.

I heard Cal sigh. “Look El, Nathan did shoot you; but only your shoulder so you are alright. And he didn’t hurt your family.” His voice was tense.

I was getting angry at Cal now for not believing me. “No you don’t get it. I saw him he told me all about frog and Lance and my family then he killed me.”

Cal shook his head. “Yes he killed Lance and Frog but nobody else. You had a bad dream, that’s all, just a dream.” Cal’s voice wasn’t as tense as it was before but I knew he was losing his patience. Well I was angry with him as well for not believing me.

“You don’t understand, he told me what he had done and then he shot me.” I yelled at Cal.

Cal looked at somebody who was out of my sight and shrugged. “Elena it was a dream, you are safe with us now, there is no need to worry or be scared and your family is safe too.” Cal said turning back to look at me.

It made sense but I still didn’t fully believe him. “Are you sure? You’re not just lying?”

He shook his head and looked straight into my eyes. “Please El, trust me.”

I stared back at him trying to read his face, making sure he was telling the truth.

Finally I nodded. “Thank you.” Cal said with a smile. “Now you should have some food we will be landing soon.”

“Landing?”

“Yeah we’re on a plane.” He explained. “We’re going to Paris. We’ve been flying for close to five hours.”

I looked out the window and realised that the blue I saw was the sky. I was so stupid not to have realised that earlier. “Wait did you say Paris?”

“Qui.”

We had hitched a lift with a Russian pilot and his three friends. They were all about thirty; there were three boys and a girl. It reminded me of the first time we met Steve and the others, same age same gender difference. I hoped the girl wouldn’t turn to Nathan’s side though.

None of them could speak but it was okay as they knew who we were and what we were doing. They told us they wouldn’t come with us when we reached Paris as they would slow us down due to lack of communication. They seemed like nice people from what I saw of them (which wasn’t much) and the girl helped look after me. We arrived in Paris early morning and it was beautifully warm and still.

“So why are we in Paris?” I asked Steve as we entered the airport.

“Well the pilot had apparently seen another plane flying the Paris route and he thought it was a bit curious as he’s been the only person flying passengers out of Moscow since this started.” He told me.

“So we think it is Nathan’s?”

He dipped his head in reply. “And we are finally going to find him and we will be prepared when he does” Steve said with a look of determination on his face.

I wondered how we were going to find him if we had no idea where he was headed. If he had gotten a big head start on us, which I assumed he had, it would be near impossible to track him down but if Nathan had only left a few hours before us it may not be too hard. I worded my thoughts to Steve.

“We assume that he left at least four hours ahead of us but it could be more.” Steve told me, frowning.

It seemed like we really had our work cut out for us.

I run to catch up to Cal who was thanking the Pilot and his friends.

“What happened to Lance?” I asked once we said goodbye to the four Russians. I knew he had died but I wanted to know where he was now.

“We put him in the first stream we came across.” Cal said not looking all too pleased with it.

“Wait.” I grabbed him. “You threw him in a river?” I was shocked at the thought.

“Well what did you expect us to do? It was better than just leaving him in the middle of the road.” He told me.

I shrugged, “yeah but still, it just seems sort of disrespectful.”

“Maybe it was but it was the right thing to do at the time.” Cal said putting an arm around my shoulder. “Besides we did lay down flowers with him as well.”

It seemed wrong that nothing more could have been done for him. I can’t cry for Lance though no matter how much I wanted to. It’s not that I’m happy he died it’s just that I don’t have time to or the energy. It sounds cruel but it’s the truth.

I have always wanted to visit Paris, check out the sights, go shopping and eat yummy food. As we drove past I saw that Paris is a stunning city filled with old buildings, lovely gardens and small cafes. Oh yeah, and the Eiffel Tower! It would have been a great holiday. Unfortunately I’m not there for a holiday but to save the world.

“Where are we going to go?” Aaron asked from the passenger seat.

The three of us answer him with silence; all unsure of where we should go.

Another lab, I thought, but this was ridiculous, if he had gone to another lab, what was the reason for it? I wanted to ask the others but Cal stopped me.”I think we should go and get help”

“What?” I said, “From other people? Other...human people?”

“No,” he said, “monkey people.”

I stuck my tongue out at him and turned back to look out the window.

“Okay so let’s just say we do find other people what then?” Steve asked from the driver’s seat.

“Start an uprising.” Cal exclaimed with great gusto.

I laughed, which resulted in a stare from the others. “What?” I asked them. “We can’t possibly start an uprising.”

“Yes we can.” Cal said defensively. “Just listen okay. If we get an army of people to fight storm into Nathan’s lab then we can overthrow him.”

“Oh come on get real. People would get seriously hurt and it would take ages to start one. The world is mute and don’t understand English. ANd besides, he's not a leader so how do we "overthrow" him.” I pointed out.

Cal thought around for a comeback. “We will sign language to them.”

I scoffed. “Look as brilliant as you are, you don’t know sign language and I’m pretty nobody else here does. So I’m sorry to break it to but your plan needs more work.”

Cal was about to reply when Steve interrupted. “Look kiddies please don’t fight. Cal it is a good idea but I have to agree with Elena your plan is seriously flawed.”

“Yeah but we still need people to be aware of what is really going on and what Nathan is doing.” Cal argued.

“You are right but it needs to be done in a different way than an uprising and storming a lab. El is right. People would die and we don’t want any more deaths, do we?” Steve said.

Cal slumped down in his seat knowing he was defeated.

We went back to driving in silence. I was busy soaking in the surrounds and thinking what a wonderful city Paris is when my mind turned to my family back home. I hadn’t spoken to them in ages and I was hoping they weren’t worried about me. I was worried about them though. What if they got hurt or sick? They might not be able to get help. Was this what Nathan wanted? Did he spend all those years in his lab so that people would lose their voices and therefore their hope? It all seemed strange to me. No one would do something like that without a reason. So what was his motive? I thought about this for a long time and then decided that it didn’t really matter. Whatever his reason was it wouldn’t be a good one besides when we find him I would ask him then.

I was just admiring a row of flowerbeds in which there were the most stunning flowers I had ever seen; they were golden in colour and the light would go through the petals making it look like they lit up when the car suddenly stopped.

I looked at Steve not quite sure what he was up to when he got out and sat on the side of the road. Cal, Aaron and I looked at each in complete confusion. We all of a sudden heard a sob coming from Steve. It wasn’t a quiet sob, more like a desperate cry. Aaron looked at us and then got out to comfort Steve. I watched from the window as Aaron attempted to calm down Steve. After many tears and soothing Aaron got Steve talking. Cal and I couldn’t hear a thing so we sat in silence waiting for the two men to come back in the car. It was weird watching a full grown man break down like that on the side of a road, especially one as brave and strong as Steve. It affected me, seeing Steve in such a state. It must have affected Cal too as he had gone all white and his eyes seemed far away.

The two men finally started walking back. Steve’s eyes were all red and blotchy and his head was hung in what seemed to be shame. Cal looked at Aaron wanting to find out what was going on but Aaron just shook his head and sat down.

We never talked about that moment again and never asked the reason for it. We respected Steve’s privacy and if he didn’t want to tell us then we wouldn’t ask. To this day I don’t know what it was about and don’t really mind. Everybody has a skeleton in their closet and whatever triggered Steve that day is obviously his.

So we continued to drive in silence through Paris...