"Our world is bad, but the outside is much worse, Axelle!"
In the confines of Veridonia, surrounded by hills and streams, a deadly plague has claimed the lives of every child under the age of 18. For years, three teenagers-Axelle Henderson, Wylan Co...
What's broken can never be put back together again. We could attempt to mend it but to put it back was an impossible task. It wasn't meant to happen.
It took Wylan and me twenty minutes away from the others to spill our hearts out again. Everything that we bottled up for the world outside exploded and we were normal again. Just two teenagers talking about how their lives were quite non-hyperbolically horrible.
"His dad said that Caity's last testing report or whatever said that the rocket just returned to the ground. I thought that rockets were supposed to stay in the air," I said, slightly stealing a glance at Wylan to make sure he was okay.
His eyes were focused on Alissa who was trying to draw something again on a piece of paper. No one else was told about it, we agreed to keep the secret for a while until he was ready. I didn't want to pressure him into telling me everything either, it's what I would've wanted him to do for me.
Cyprus nodded, "Yes, but that means more than you think."
I scoffed, raising my eyebrows. "You mean something other than the obvious fact that...Caity was horrible at making rockets?"
A fake Verid that was standing in the corner laughed, which he tried to cover as a cough when Cyprus glared at him, clearly unamused.
I thought it was funny.
"No! Don't you see? Caity reported in her thesis that her rocket ricocheted back to the ground. It must mean something more...maybe something like Veridonia being something out of a simulation or something?" Axelle exclaimed, and I resisted the urge to roll my eyes at her. I was getting used to her, but sometimes, it was positively awful to watch Axelle act unbelievably stupid.
"It was a joke, Axelle. I think everyone got that," I told her, trying to diffuse the tension that Axelle was mindlessly creating. At that, she looked sheepish, but Cyprus nodded thoughtfully.
"Jokes aside," Cyprus stated icily, "this is an important discovery. Caity's findings could be the key to unraveling the truth behind Veridonia."
Wylan nodded, his gaze still fixed on Alissa. "But what does it all mean? Why would the rockets behave that way unless..."
He trailed off, his thoughts drifting into the realm of possibilities. I could see his face switching to his thinking expression again. "Do you think-"
Axelle and I shared a look of confusion, knowing by now that Wylan's mind was a miraculous one to be in. He was intelligent, beyond his years in fact and I often felt a little insecure with my knowledge of nothing but novels.
"Caity could be wrong," I nodded, "Didn't she say she wanted to retest because her rocket might be faulty?"
Cyprus set his teacup on the table, and one of the younger fake Verids took it and left the room. "Keira, think about it. Caity discovers that the rocket that she designed basically never reached up into the sky. It came back, and she wanted to retest it but two days later, she disappeared."
A younger Verid, one that was around our age approached the table. I vaguely remembered him. He was the one that Axelle kicked to the ground that day when we were in Cyprus' house. He smiled at me, a viable contrast to how he acted the other day.
"And people don't disappear without a trace in a country where leaving is not just prohibited, it's virtually impossible," he said, handing me a glass of water. I took it, although I was a little hesitant. He only had one glass of water, so did he just presume that I was thirsty? Did I indicate that I was thirsty? I didn't know what it was, but it annoyed Wylan specifically. He glared at the guy, and I realized that he was probably thirsty and annoyed that this guy didn't get him any water.
"Um...thanks," I said to the guy before handing the water to Wylan, "do you want some water?"
"No, I'm fine. Thank you."
Weird.
"What Aiden said is the basis for our investigation," Cyprus exclaimed, "It's almost paradoxical. It's impossible to leave, but where is Caity? She could be in hiding..."
The Verid guy Aiden gave a snarky smile, one of a know-it-all. "You can't hide an entire family of five in this country without a trace for nearly twenty years, Cyprus."
Cyprus sighed, acknowledging the validity of Aiden's point. "True. Which leads us to consider more sinister possibilities."
I watched the exchange with a growing sense of unease. Caity's disappearance was just the tip of the iceberg, revealing deeper layers of deception and intrigue.
We thought we were at the most indefinite dead end before Wylan sat up again and screamed, "Axelle."
Bewildered from their earlier exchange, Axelle looked at him in fear when Wylan stood up. "Your father's package. The list of names."
I watched in intrigue along with the others as Axelle swiftly made her way to the opposite end of the room where she rooted into a plastic box in the corner. She pulled out the same familiar package she showed us earlier and I wondered, what was going on in Wylan's head?
She brought it over and handed the small folded piece of paper to Wylan, who opened it without hesitation and scanned the words written on the page. It was almost like he had seen something before, and it just clicked now. Specifically, when he wasn't worrying about everything else, he was the most observant person I knew.
"Caity Stirling. That's her, right?" Wylan asked, and we all nodded in unison. Our eyes immediately darted to the piece of paper that he was holding, and we had something else to add to our list of discoveries.
Axelle's father left her a list of names of the children he allegedly smuggled out of Veridonia, but he also left her a mind-bending clue.
Caity Stirling was with Axelle's father when he was smuggling them out of the country. The only question running through my mind?
Was Caity on the giving end or the receiving end of this smuggling? Did she leave Veridonia with Kaz Henderson or was she helping him escape? From the outside?
Evidence pointed to one side and we all knew that there was only one person with the key to this mystery.
Melissa Henderson.
-ˋˏ✄┈┈┈┈
𝙲𝙷𝙰𝙿𝚃𝙴𝚁 𝚆𝙾𝚁𝙳 𝙲𝙾𝚄𝙽𝚃: 𝟷𝟶𝟹𝟹 𝚆𝙾𝚁𝙳𝚂
𝚃𝙾𝚃𝙰𝙻 𝚆𝙾𝚁𝙳 𝙲𝙾𝚄𝙽𝚃: 𝟹𝟷𝟺𝟷𝟸 𝚆𝙾𝚁𝙳𝚂
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