The Designs Of Change

~chapter 3~

          I turned the small, mysterious book over in my hands. It had a leather cover, brown with a small black engraving of a compass.

          I wonder why this would be lodged into the floorboards. I shook my head, before opening up to the first page. I narrowed my eyes as my gaze traveled along the blank space where the words obviously should have been. I flipped to the next, and the same result. I continued to flip through the pages until I reached the middle of the book. And lo and behold, in the middle of this ridiculous book, there was the first entry. Who would commit such a crime? Even I knew that starting a journal in the middle of the book was ridiculous. And I was me.

          April 1

          Everything I've ever thought was a lie. That may seem fairly dramatic, and perhaps I'm exaggerating, but it is so.

          For the past five months, I've been one of the head researchers for a secret government-run lab. Most of our experiments seemed perfectly normal, observing the behavior and abilities of strange creatures.

          Well, that's not important at the moment, I'll get to the big parts later.

          What is important is the increasing number of disappearances lately. Most are completely unlinked, with different cities, families, different social circles. Different abilities, IQs, and ages. People are going missing all across the country and the US isn't the only government in on it.

          I... I'm not sure exactly how this relates to our lab, or how it happened, but I am increasingly sure that this is related.

          Beware the stalkers with kind words.

          Beware their persistence.

          I can keep running all I want. But I know eventually, whatever I try, I'll be found eventually. And then, I'll disappear like all the other people that have mysteriously vanished. Vincent will make sure of that.

          Sincerely, Abby holtamier.

          Well, that's not ominous at all. This is definitely way bigger than I think it is. But it feels like there are some missing parts of this message. 

          I thought the name "Abby holtimer" sounded familiar, but no such person came to mind.

          whoever this is certainly made sure no one would find this book.

~

          A month after reading the first entry did I dare open it again. Whatever was going on, I had to be ready for anything that might happen to me. I might even get a lead on how to save Irah and herbert.

          Once again I opened it in the middle of the journal. It was still very ridiculous to me that someone would start a journal in the middle of the book.

       
          April 7

          I've started scouring the north side of the city for anything that seemed out of place.

          There had been reports of people mysteriously missing all over the world, which reports have carefully been covered up by communist and democratic countries alike. I never believed them when my online friends on various social medias told me that amber alerts would show up everywhere for at most an hour, about missing people, until the alerts would be wiped from the web as quickly as possible. At the time I was willing to trust the government with my safety and whatever they did could never ever be bad.