Heaven || kh

4 - Buffets and News Reports

In Town Adventure provides country kids with the chance to see what it's like living in the big city! The Website for the In Town Adventure thing that Kelly, the desk person, had assumed I came from. It went on like that for a while, and I basically came to the conclusion that it was for under privileged rural kids, who got to spend some time living in a big city (New York, LA, Pheonix, etc.).

I'm using a pay computer, in the Motel's shared 'living room', which boasts a reasonable sized flat screen, a coffee machine, pool table, six couches, each in a different state of decay, and a few others things you'd expect to find a hotel 'game' room.

A notification pops up on the screen to tell me I've only got three more minutes left before the computer shuts down (unless I feed it more cash), so I close the browser, and click the turn off button, since I had nothing else to do really.

Earlier, I'd checked my mother's Facebook page, and basically all of it was about me.

Which was good for my self-esteem, but also just made me more glad I'd run away.

They were so protective, it hurt. Hurts.

Pushing the rolling chair out from the computer desk, I get up, ready to make my way over to the buffet, seeing as I'm hungry and I get it for free with my room rate. It's only seven, so I don't expect many people to be there yet.

I only manage to locate the dining room because of signs on the walls, and when I get there, I see it's actually pretty nice.

There are lots of tables, mostly four seats, each covered in a different pale table cloth. A man's watching the doors, and I have to show him my room key before I'm allowed inside, and I make a bee line for the buffet.

Grabbing a white china plate, I pile on lasagne (home made too, apparently), sausages and potatoes.

Because for me there is no such thing as too much food.

Then, I plop down at pale pastel blue table, and start to chomp through, while a TV plays the news in the background. It's pretty depressing stuff, the News. I always tried to avoid watching it. It shows how awful the world - no us, humans, really are.

Halfway through my second sausage, a notice a girl who looks around my age walk into the hall. She grabs some stuff, before glancing around the hall, looking slightly nervous, before walking over to a table a few down from me, brown hair covering her face.

She looks kind of lost, unsure.

Kalani Hilliker would never get up and go talk to her. But then again, I'm not Kalani Hilliker anymore.

So I get up with my plate, and walk over to her.

She looks up as I reach her table, and she definitely is around my age.

"Hi,"

"Hi," She replies.

"I don't have anyone to eat with, so I was wondering if we could sit together?" I blunder.

"Uh, sure," She says, and I pull out a seat next to her, instead of sitting opposite. "I'm Kendall,"

"Klara," I smile.

I wish people back home were this easy to get to know.

"Are you here on the In City Adventure thing?" Kendall asks, and I notice her clothes look slightly worn out and old, and her right knee is bouncing up and down.

"Yep, you too?"

She nods, and we both shovel food into our mouths.

"I'm from Wisconsin." She says. "Not the big one. There's a small one, on the out skirts of Arizona. It's kinda all barren wasteland. There's a lot of cows. And sheep. Not many people. Even less if you count the teenaged boys."

I snort at that. We go on for a few minutes telling random stories (though most of mine are made up, trying to remove any traces of Kalani), and hopefully becoming friends (because friends are good), before two more kids, a boy and a girl, arrive at the dining hall.

They're both blondes, and I quickly recognise one of them as Josh, even though I can't see their faces, due to the fact I clung to his back when he was finding the spider.

"Hey!" The girl yells as Josh pushes her, and the few people in the room look over, while both me and Kendall giggle.

The girl shoves Josh back, and it must of been pretty hard, seeing as he comes careening over, and almost falls into a table. "Paige!" He shouts.

"Serves ya right!" She yells back, and I can see the door man exasperatedly rolling his eyes.

Josh dusts himself off, and looks around the room, before he looks at me. "Just Klara, how odd to see you here!"

"Well I do need to eat," I point out, and Paige walks over to us.

"New kids! Thank god, I thought I'd be stuck with my siblings for the rest of time!" She announces, dramatically flopping into the chair opposite Kendall.

Josh sits in the seat across from me, and I can see Kendall tense up as the table fills. Coming from a small town, maybe she's not used to people that much.

Neither was Kalani Hilliker.

"Paige." Paige says, offering a hand to shake, which when I go to, she changes to a high five. "Our parents run this shît. It's fun."

"Uh. . . Klara. This is Kendall," I say, gesturing at Kendall, who looks a bit like she's going to faint.

"Coolies! Josh, get me food." Paige commands.

"Get your own, princess." He replies, and Paige socks him in the stomach, and I almost spit out the food I have in my mouth. I wish my family had acted like this.

"Did you get any more spiders?" Josh asks, looking at me, with the blue eyes he and his sister both share.

"If I did, you would have heard,"

"Wait, was it you who screamed?" Kendall asks. "I thought it was a dying lamb or something."

"Yep, that was me. Klara the dying lamb."

Meanwhile, Paige is watching the News, and I turn to look at, seeing as she keeps flicking her head back to me.

Oh my god.

"That person looks like you," She states, pointing at the photo of me which is being broad casted around America, with the caption, 'Have you seen this girl?'.

"Really?" I ask, but I can't stop my voice wavering.

It's not a great quality photo, taken on one of my friends iPhones, and zoomed in to just show me. I don't have freckles and I'm not a red head, so I pray that she doesn't take it any further.

We all listen to the news reporter who talks.

"Kalani Hilliker, aged fifteen, has been missing since last Tuesday. Officials have yet to release more information, but it is suspected she has been abducted."

"Poor kid," I hear an elderly woman mutter across the room.

"We talked to some of Kalani's friends to see how they've been coping," The news reporter says, and the camera flicks to a video of a few of my friends from Pittsburgh.

"She's one of my best friends," Maddie chokes, her light brown hair messy, but still somehow looking good. "I can't believe she's gone. I really hope she's alright." She sheds a few tears, and Chloe talks next.

"I don't want to think about what may of happened to her."

Then Addy. "We all miss her so much. Nothings quite right without her,"

"I know she was kidnapped. Kalani loved it here. She'd never run away."

"Please find her!"

"If you see any trace of her, please, please bring her home. We all need her. We need her here. We want her here."

But I don't want you.

~~~~

long time no update. whoopsies

any thoughts on characters? (yes, you will get more info later)