Lost ✔️

Chapter 25

The night air was cold. Very cold. The chilled out particles floating in the air seemed to be piercing through the clothes and freezing her blood. 

Where was she going? What was she doing?

Every question that arose in her head was pushed at the extremest corner of her brain. When the time comes, she will be able to answer those questions. 

Stephanie walked alone on the streets. She was thinking. Thinking hard as to what she would do if her suspicion was true. If that person watching over her was really-

It can't be.

Her aunt always told her she was in touch with him. Maybe it was to scare her. But she wasn't so sure of that. Or maybe he was with her, trying to lure her to death.

What has she gotten into? She thought to herself.

*

"I will tell the police EVERYTHING!", Stephanie screamed and cried at the same time. If such a thing was even possible.

She was caressing her cheek and racking her body back and forth.

"Brian has gone, hasn't he?", her aunt questioned her.

Stephanie nodded ruefully. 

"You wanna know where and how he is?", she shouted gleefully.

Stephanie slowly nodded again. This time not fully understanding her aunt.

"Then be quiet and good. If you're not, I will make sure Brian doesn't live to see the sunlight again", her aunt smiled.

She bent low to Stephanie and whispered like a ghost. Even her whisper sent up chills in Stephanie's spine.

"You didn't think he could just escape huh?"

Stephanie burst into tears. Brian was in her grasp and his sister was a useless and helpless thing crying in a corner.

It was hard to NOT believe her aunt considering Stephanie never received any word from him the last six years.

*

And even now, she was in the dark.

Shylock in Merchant of Venice did say it right- 'Sufferance is the badge of my tribe '.

People with her fate will end up sad and miserable no matter how much they try to run away. But she also had her dad's advice with her as well as her friends. Friends who meant more to her than any other person in her life. Then she had Chris too. The charming young fellow whom she didn't deserve at all.

Without realizing she found herself standing under her balcony. The plants looked wilted and dead even under the stream of the white moonlight. Stephanie didn't hesitate and climbed up to her room.

When she reached her room, she noticed how little it had changed in her absence. She looked around and saw a layer of dust lying on her untouched belongings.

She moved towards the bed and discovered a handwritten note stuck on the bedside frame. 

It was a scrubby note with jagged handwriting. The ink looked old and well-settled in the paper. As if it had always been there. Untouched and unnoticed like a pile of trash lying on the streets where no one threw it away or paid any attention to it. 

Her light-amber wooden bed frame looked beautiful even under the dust. So pretty. Just like her mother's hair. 

The note had an amusing information for her. 

See me in the kitchen.

The writing was neat and elegant but it looked rushed through its jagged appearance.

Why would he want to meet her there in the open? It was strange.

Perhaps he needed food while chatting. Yes that's possible. We are all human at the end I guess.

It was already past one'o clock. Nevertheless she decided to give the kitchen a visit even if she'd find nothing. The note looked at least two days old.

I'll eat something from my aunt's kitchen. Give her a heartfelt surprise in the morning. 

And so, Stephanie selflessly ventured out of her room into the unknown.

INTO THE UNKNOOOOOOOOWWNNNNNN! aaahhHHH.....

*author sings in Frozen*

*

Somewhere else, Chris was sleeping peacefully. A smile crept on his face as he felt for Stephanie only to touch the cold pillow.

His eyes literally flew open as he stared into a transparent void. 

Where is she?

He jumped out of the bed and got dressed. One look around his silent and not-so-large apartment convinced him that she was not in there. 

"Stupid peanut", he cursed as he scrolled through his contacts.

He quickly pressed Call on her name-'Stupid Peanut'.

Ding ding tring ta-ring!

Ding ding tring ta-ring!

The sound echoed painfully in the silence. Chris' heart was on the verge of breaking free from his rib cage.The phone sat across him on the dressing table ringing loud and clear for him.

 Stephanie must have had left her phone with him in the apartment so that when he called her in an emergency situation he would find it ringing loudly in his ears, making him deaf in the process. Wow, how intelligent of her. Now he knew how Newton matched gravity from an apple!

He looked for his one and only jacket cursing and shoving at everything that wasn't the jacket.

Just how stupid can this 21st century human be?!

He mentally screamed in panic.

He calmed himself down and called Doctor Strange aka Steve ( he was a good doctor so why not? is what Chris thought). 

As far as he knew Stephanie, there was only one place she would be in. A place where the phone should not have been forgotten.

*****

I'm sorry for the Frozen reference. Just couldn't hold the lameness within myself!