Cheshire
Chapter 2
Chapter 2:
Margret, the nice old lady from before, was so kind to let us defuse in one of the rooms. Sure we promised that in the morning we would help with some cleaning and cooking, but she was so helpful. I was in the bathroom of our room. She never asked our relations to each other, but I was glad to be able to get a bed to myself. After taking a shower, I washed my face with a scratchy washcloth and looked up to my reflection in the mirror. I blinked a few times at the reflection and gave a toothy smile. My slightly crooked front teeth were perfectly straight.
My now damp brown hair had highlights that were probably done a few weeks ago. They needed a touch up. The casual clothes Margret gave me seemed to fit my body perfectly. I was a bit more curvier and gained a little weight. I was eighteen. I gripped the counter and couldn't help but shake my head.
“Eighteen...” I muttered looking back up to my reflection.
I would be a senior in school.
I would have been getting my scholarship papers into the school. I would have finally gone to prom. I would have seen Cecil's graduation earlier that year. My eyes grew large as I remembered Cecil. He was going to meet me later that night for my brother's party. Who knew what happened to him during these two years. Who knew what happened to me during these two years?!
I heard a pounding at the door and Ellis's voice echoed through the door. I opened the door and saw Ellis holding the clothes that Margret gave him to wear. His clothes from before were rather baggy so they still fit him quite fine, but I could tell the difference of him. I tried to keep remembering that he tried to use me as a shield before, but we were all in the same boat. No memories from whatever happened that day two years ago.
He gave a grin and placed his hand on his scratchy chin. He needed to shave.
“I know what you are thinking, 'oh how handsome this young man is' but I'm sorry, I have a girlfriend.”
“She's not your girlfriend if you steal money from her,” David called from the other side of the room.
“Hey I've met many girls who said the same about me.”
Ellis looked different himself from what I saw before. He looked taller and was broader looking. He walked past me into the bathroom and closed the door once I left it. I stared at the door for a moment till I heard the shower turn back on. I turned to look at the room. The room was about as big as my room, but was rather crowded with two queen sized beds, a couch and heavy paneling. David was in the corner of the room resting his head on a couch pillow.
He looked so much different without his uniform on. He already was taller than my dad, but the uniform made him look so much older and official. Well, not as old as my dad, but he did look much older than Ellis. When he was wearing a simple t-shirt and old blue jeans, he looked like any other normal person. Well, any normal person with a tattoo numbering him as twenty third of who knows how many clones. His tired eyes looked over at me but turned back to the broken TV on the opposite wall.
I turned to look at the fuzzy picture on the screen and then back down to the newspaper that sat on the small table in front of the couch.
“Hey look at that, the Varsity team in Clinton finally was able to beat Lyons varsity team,” I said with a happy voice.
He didn't seem moved.
I sighed and sat down on the couch at his feet.
“Hey...”
“I don't want to talk.”
I bit my lip and glanced back over to the TV. We watched in silence the fuzzy screen till Ellis came out of the bathroom.
“Aaaaaah, I can't remember the last time I took such a nice shower.”
He belly flopped down onto one of the beds and sighed as if he was in heaven. The mattresses weren't that comfortable, but I didn't really want to think on where Ellis had slept before. He shifted his head towards us and through his long wet bangs I could see a cleanly shaven face. He looked much different than most of the people I had seen anywhere in the Three Cities.
Mostly everyone was Caucasian our our melting pot version of Caucasian, but his skin was darker. His hair looked thick and had a slight wave to it and had a longer nose. He looked as if he fell from an old picture book from the times of the Wild West. I shook my head and realized that I was staring and still by David's feet.
I hopped up and David turned off the TV.
“Night...” I said a bit awkwardly as I turned off the light and hopped into my own bed.
I would have thought that David would have kicked Ellis out of the bed, but he didn't move from the couch. I got comfortable under the blankets and quilt on the bed and gave a relaxing slow breath once I got situated. I closed my eyes seeing only a little red light that illuminated off of the alarm clock to my left. It was quiet. We were all relaxed and comfortable and ready to drift off to dream land.
…
Drift off to dream land any second now...
Any... second...
“I can't sleep!” Ellis moaned loudly to my left on the other bed.
I sat up in bed and turned back on the light. The three of us were sitting up looking at each other in fear wondering why we couldn't sleep.
“Why can't I sleep?” Ellis moaned again.
We all were exhausted and cranky, but no sleep was coming upon us.
“Well it has been two years...” I said not making the situation any better, “maybe we all grew used to a way of sleeping?”
“What if we never did sleep?!” Ellis gasped, “I've never felt this tired ever!”
“That's because we were walking for two hours before, genius,” David's eyes narrowed.
I didn't want to make the situation any worse so I kept my mouth shut. It was possible that maybe we all stayed up at night and were asleep during the day.
“Look, just turn out the light, attempting to sleep is better than freaking out about it.”
I reached for the light even though Ellis looked terrified at that he couldn't sleep. I pulled the chain that was attached to it and we soon found ourselves in the dark again. I didn't know how, but we all found ourselves asleep. I had a wonderful dream and felt warm the entire night. Though when I awoke I found myself sleeping in the arms of the two boys. Well, one was hogging all the covers and had his hand on my face, while the other seemed to be protecting me.
Before I could absolutely do anything, David's eyes opened slightly. He didn't try to fall back asleep, his eyes jolted open and he fell to the floor in the matter of a heart beat. He backed up till he hit his back onto the other bed and looked as if he was having a heart attack. I pushed my chest off from the bed with confused eyes towards the man. His face was all red and turned around wondering how he got all the way to the other side of the room.
“Danishes please!” Ellis happily said sitting up in the bed with his arm raised up in the air.
He then blinked a few times and looked around to were he was.
“Okay, there are a few hundred million official sites for “Cheshire”,” I said typing the name into a search engine the hotel's computer on the main floor.
“Here, type in this...” David moved the wireless laser light keyboard toward him and typed a few things along with “Cheshire”.
His fingers quickly moved across the keyboard that wasn't really there. His fingers hit lightly on the wooden table the light rested upon. I looked up to him. His face was still slightly red from earlier and he avoided eye contact with me. Ellis butted in and pointed at the screen at one of the sites. I moved the mouse towards the link and up came a website colorfully dedicated to the Cheshires.
Pictures, photo manipulated and true pictures dotted the site separating each Cheshire into their own category. I clicked on the “about Cheshire” page and a long post filled the screen. The post was very unhelpful because even the person who made the site, and their fans didn't even know who these Cheshires were. They were dubbed Cheshires because of the striped pink clothes they wore and the forever smiling masks that hid their true identity. It was supposed that they were actors filming a movie, observers from another city outside of the “three”, and a new addition to the police force.
Though one thing remained true. They would appear whenever something bad was about to happen. Some called them a jinx, but others a sign to be careful. The Cheshires even helped some people when they were in trouble too.
I clicked over to the side where “Cheshire 1” was.
“Hey look, buddy, its you!” Ellis smiled patting David's back.
“Don't touch me.”
I scrolled the page and the pictures. If this was David, he was defiantly something else. He had long hair that was styled nicely and seemed to embrace the attention he got from the cameras.
“I'm now twenty four,” David said realizing the age the site gave him.
They gave him the age 18. I couldn't help but think that was funny too. What teenager would be as tall or broad looking as he was in these pictures? Sure he wore baggy clothes and seemed to slouch a bit, but he still looked older. I giggled at a picture of a girl hugging his side for a photo-op. I then clicked “Cheshire 2”. A goofy Cheshire posing at the camera was the first picture that I saw. Every single photo of him alone actually was goofy and stupid.
The site dubbed this Cheshire as the distraction and a magician. Whatever happened, either in a chase, or from rabid fan girls, this Cheshire would always do something stupid so that the others could get away. Once their attention changed to where the missing Cheshires were, he himself would disappear. He was a true people person seen in large crowds of friends all of them supposedly having fun.
I looked over to Ellis. They both basically had the same haircut. Even if all of the Cheshires had gray hair, I could still notice the similarities. I then clicked on the last Cheshire page “Cheshire 3”. A page with a shy looking girl was the first picture I saw. She was very camera shy, but many hidden photographs showed of her quite strong and willing to get her job done. And could lift very large objects. I smiled at the cute outfit she wore. I would wear something like that.
“Hey what is that link?” Ellis took the mouse from me and clicked on “C1xC3”.
A page of pictures came up all dedicated to Cheshire 1 and Cheshire 3 “love shots”. All were pictures that made it seem as if there was a little chemistry going on between the two. Ellis clicked on the other one that had “C2xC3”. Same thing just with Cheshire 2 and Cheshire 3. I saw many comments that were arguing both sides of who should end up with Cheshire 3.
“Okay, thats enough of this,” I said feeling uncomfortable.
“But there's another one, C1xC2-”
David shot him the most evil look I had ever seen on David and forcefully took the mouse away from Ellis. He logged off the computer and we all sat back in our seats trying to make sense of it all. I couldn't think of any other explanation on what could have happened to us in two years. I really didn't know what to think of all of this. We were all connected some how to each other, yet we couldn't remember a thing.
“So... what do we do now?” Ellis asked finally sounding serious for once.
What could we do?
I didn't know these two, and they didn't know me. Even if we did, my mind couldn't remember anything of them. They were just people I ran into a field two years ago. That was that.
“I,” my voice cracked, “I go home...”
I stood from my chair and turned to leave the small computer office room.
“Wait, what?” Ellis sprang up and stopped me at the door.
“You heard me, I'm going home.”
“But... why-”
“Did you seriously think that I would want to stay here with either one of you? I don't know who you guys even are.”
“But, you saw the pictures,” Ellis's shoulders dropped.
He wanted to believe in something and I was pushing that away.
“They may be us, but we can't know for sure. I know this though, you tried to kill me before,” my eyes narrowed though tears started to roll into my eyes, “I just want to go home to my family.”
“But,” he tried to grab my arm but I pushed him.
David rose from his seat with a concern look in his eyes and tried to take a step forward towards me, unknown really what to do in the situation.
“Both of you just stay away from me!” I yelled.
I pushed hard past Ellis and made the quick journey back to our room. No one tried to stop me, not even Margret. I walked all the way back up to my room, ignoring the elevator and reached for my things that were nicely placed in a pile by my bed. I pulled out my back pack that had my license in it. I may have not had enough money on my license to have rented a room, but I had enough for a phone call.
It took major guts to even pick up the long distance phone in the entry way. I heard the dial tone and the electronic voice telling me to swipe my card, but I stood there for a few moments contemplating what my parents would say. I swiped my card not thinking and punched the number in. I then heard the phone begin to ring. I wished so hard that it would go to a voicemail, but I nearly died when the phone picked up to my Mom's voice.
My license always showed who was calling on the other line so Mom knew that it was me.
“Who is this?” her voice was harsh, “how did you get my daughters-”
“Mom?” I interrupted my voice sounding distant.
The line was silent for a while. Did I not keep in touch with my parents?
“Noel? Sweetie... is that... you...?”
I felt tears roll down my face and I coughed a laugh through the receiver, “yeah... it's me.”
Mom tried to say a billion different things and a billion different sentences, but she could not finish an of them. I just was so happy to hear her voice. I finally interrupted her again and wiped off the tears on my face.
“Mom?”
“Yes, Sweetie?”
“Could you please pick me up? I want to go home.”
Margret, the nice old lady from before, was so kind to let us defuse in one of the rooms. Sure we promised that in the morning we would help with some cleaning and cooking, but she was so helpful. I was in the bathroom of our room. She never asked our relations to each other, but I was glad to be able to get a bed to myself. After taking a shower, I washed my face with a scratchy washcloth and looked up to my reflection in the mirror. I blinked a few times at the reflection and gave a toothy smile. My slightly crooked front teeth were perfectly straight.
My now damp brown hair had highlights that were probably done a few weeks ago. They needed a touch up. The casual clothes Margret gave me seemed to fit my body perfectly. I was a bit more curvier and gained a little weight. I was eighteen. I gripped the counter and couldn't help but shake my head.
“Eighteen...” I muttered looking back up to my reflection.
I would be a senior in school.
I would have been getting my scholarship papers into the school. I would have finally gone to prom. I would have seen Cecil's graduation earlier that year. My eyes grew large as I remembered Cecil. He was going to meet me later that night for my brother's party. Who knew what happened to him during these two years. Who knew what happened to me during these two years?!
I heard a pounding at the door and Ellis's voice echoed through the door. I opened the door and saw Ellis holding the clothes that Margret gave him to wear. His clothes from before were rather baggy so they still fit him quite fine, but I could tell the difference of him. I tried to keep remembering that he tried to use me as a shield before, but we were all in the same boat. No memories from whatever happened that day two years ago.
He gave a grin and placed his hand on his scratchy chin. He needed to shave.
“I know what you are thinking, 'oh how handsome this young man is' but I'm sorry, I have a girlfriend.”
“She's not your girlfriend if you steal money from her,” David called from the other side of the room.
“Hey I've met many girls who said the same about me.”
Ellis looked different himself from what I saw before. He looked taller and was broader looking. He walked past me into the bathroom and closed the door once I left it. I stared at the door for a moment till I heard the shower turn back on. I turned to look at the room. The room was about as big as my room, but was rather crowded with two queen sized beds, a couch and heavy paneling. David was in the corner of the room resting his head on a couch pillow.
He looked so much different without his uniform on. He already was taller than my dad, but the uniform made him look so much older and official. Well, not as old as my dad, but he did look much older than Ellis. When he was wearing a simple t-shirt and old blue jeans, he looked like any other normal person. Well, any normal person with a tattoo numbering him as twenty third of who knows how many clones. His tired eyes looked over at me but turned back to the broken TV on the opposite wall.
I turned to look at the fuzzy picture on the screen and then back down to the newspaper that sat on the small table in front of the couch.
“Hey look at that, the Varsity team in Clinton finally was able to beat Lyons varsity team,” I said with a happy voice.
He didn't seem moved.
I sighed and sat down on the couch at his feet.
“Hey...”
“I don't want to talk.”
I bit my lip and glanced back over to the TV. We watched in silence the fuzzy screen till Ellis came out of the bathroom.
“Aaaaaah, I can't remember the last time I took such a nice shower.”
He belly flopped down onto one of the beds and sighed as if he was in heaven. The mattresses weren't that comfortable, but I didn't really want to think on where Ellis had slept before. He shifted his head towards us and through his long wet bangs I could see a cleanly shaven face. He looked much different than most of the people I had seen anywhere in the Three Cities.
Mostly everyone was Caucasian our our melting pot version of Caucasian, but his skin was darker. His hair looked thick and had a slight wave to it and had a longer nose. He looked as if he fell from an old picture book from the times of the Wild West. I shook my head and realized that I was staring and still by David's feet.
I hopped up and David turned off the TV.
“Night...” I said a bit awkwardly as I turned off the light and hopped into my own bed.
I would have thought that David would have kicked Ellis out of the bed, but he didn't move from the couch. I got comfortable under the blankets and quilt on the bed and gave a relaxing slow breath once I got situated. I closed my eyes seeing only a little red light that illuminated off of the alarm clock to my left. It was quiet. We were all relaxed and comfortable and ready to drift off to dream land.
…
Drift off to dream land any second now...
Any... second...
“I can't sleep!” Ellis moaned loudly to my left on the other bed.
I sat up in bed and turned back on the light. The three of us were sitting up looking at each other in fear wondering why we couldn't sleep.
“Why can't I sleep?” Ellis moaned again.
We all were exhausted and cranky, but no sleep was coming upon us.
“Well it has been two years...” I said not making the situation any better, “maybe we all grew used to a way of sleeping?”
“What if we never did sleep?!” Ellis gasped, “I've never felt this tired ever!”
“That's because we were walking for two hours before, genius,” David's eyes narrowed.
I didn't want to make the situation any worse so I kept my mouth shut. It was possible that maybe we all stayed up at night and were asleep during the day.
“Look, just turn out the light, attempting to sleep is better than freaking out about it.”
I reached for the light even though Ellis looked terrified at that he couldn't sleep. I pulled the chain that was attached to it and we soon found ourselves in the dark again. I didn't know how, but we all found ourselves asleep. I had a wonderful dream and felt warm the entire night. Though when I awoke I found myself sleeping in the arms of the two boys. Well, one was hogging all the covers and had his hand on my face, while the other seemed to be protecting me.
Before I could absolutely do anything, David's eyes opened slightly. He didn't try to fall back asleep, his eyes jolted open and he fell to the floor in the matter of a heart beat. He backed up till he hit his back onto the other bed and looked as if he was having a heart attack. I pushed my chest off from the bed with confused eyes towards the man. His face was all red and turned around wondering how he got all the way to the other side of the room.
“Danishes please!” Ellis happily said sitting up in the bed with his arm raised up in the air.
He then blinked a few times and looked around to were he was.
“Okay, there are a few hundred million official sites for “Cheshire”,” I said typing the name into a search engine the hotel's computer on the main floor.
“Here, type in this...” David moved the wireless laser light keyboard toward him and typed a few things along with “Cheshire”.
His fingers quickly moved across the keyboard that wasn't really there. His fingers hit lightly on the wooden table the light rested upon. I looked up to him. His face was still slightly red from earlier and he avoided eye contact with me. Ellis butted in and pointed at the screen at one of the sites. I moved the mouse towards the link and up came a website colorfully dedicated to the Cheshires.
Pictures, photo manipulated and true pictures dotted the site separating each Cheshire into their own category. I clicked on the “about Cheshire” page and a long post filled the screen. The post was very unhelpful because even the person who made the site, and their fans didn't even know who these Cheshires were. They were dubbed Cheshires because of the striped pink clothes they wore and the forever smiling masks that hid their true identity. It was supposed that they were actors filming a movie, observers from another city outside of the “three”, and a new addition to the police force.
Though one thing remained true. They would appear whenever something bad was about to happen. Some called them a jinx, but others a sign to be careful. The Cheshires even helped some people when they were in trouble too.
I clicked over to the side where “Cheshire 1” was.
“Hey look, buddy, its you!” Ellis smiled patting David's back.
“Don't touch me.”
I scrolled the page and the pictures. If this was David, he was defiantly something else. He had long hair that was styled nicely and seemed to embrace the attention he got from the cameras.
“I'm now twenty four,” David said realizing the age the site gave him.
They gave him the age 18. I couldn't help but think that was funny too. What teenager would be as tall or broad looking as he was in these pictures? Sure he wore baggy clothes and seemed to slouch a bit, but he still looked older. I giggled at a picture of a girl hugging his side for a photo-op. I then clicked “Cheshire 2”. A goofy Cheshire posing at the camera was the first picture that I saw. Every single photo of him alone actually was goofy and stupid.
The site dubbed this Cheshire as the distraction and a magician. Whatever happened, either in a chase, or from rabid fan girls, this Cheshire would always do something stupid so that the others could get away. Once their attention changed to where the missing Cheshires were, he himself would disappear. He was a true people person seen in large crowds of friends all of them supposedly having fun.
I looked over to Ellis. They both basically had the same haircut. Even if all of the Cheshires had gray hair, I could still notice the similarities. I then clicked on the last Cheshire page “Cheshire 3”. A page with a shy looking girl was the first picture I saw. She was very camera shy, but many hidden photographs showed of her quite strong and willing to get her job done. And could lift very large objects. I smiled at the cute outfit she wore. I would wear something like that.
“Hey what is that link?” Ellis took the mouse from me and clicked on “C1xC3”.
A page of pictures came up all dedicated to Cheshire 1 and Cheshire 3 “love shots”. All were pictures that made it seem as if there was a little chemistry going on between the two. Ellis clicked on the other one that had “C2xC3”. Same thing just with Cheshire 2 and Cheshire 3. I saw many comments that were arguing both sides of who should end up with Cheshire 3.
“Okay, thats enough of this,” I said feeling uncomfortable.
“But there's another one, C1xC2-”
David shot him the most evil look I had ever seen on David and forcefully took the mouse away from Ellis. He logged off the computer and we all sat back in our seats trying to make sense of it all. I couldn't think of any other explanation on what could have happened to us in two years. I really didn't know what to think of all of this. We were all connected some how to each other, yet we couldn't remember a thing.
“So... what do we do now?” Ellis asked finally sounding serious for once.
What could we do?
I didn't know these two, and they didn't know me. Even if we did, my mind couldn't remember anything of them. They were just people I ran into a field two years ago. That was that.
“I,” my voice cracked, “I go home...”
I stood from my chair and turned to leave the small computer office room.
“Wait, what?” Ellis sprang up and stopped me at the door.
“You heard me, I'm going home.”
“But... why-”
“Did you seriously think that I would want to stay here with either one of you? I don't know who you guys even are.”
“But, you saw the pictures,” Ellis's shoulders dropped.
He wanted to believe in something and I was pushing that away.
“They may be us, but we can't know for sure. I know this though, you tried to kill me before,” my eyes narrowed though tears started to roll into my eyes, “I just want to go home to my family.”
“But,” he tried to grab my arm but I pushed him.
David rose from his seat with a concern look in his eyes and tried to take a step forward towards me, unknown really what to do in the situation.
“Both of you just stay away from me!” I yelled.
I pushed hard past Ellis and made the quick journey back to our room. No one tried to stop me, not even Margret. I walked all the way back up to my room, ignoring the elevator and reached for my things that were nicely placed in a pile by my bed. I pulled out my back pack that had my license in it. I may have not had enough money on my license to have rented a room, but I had enough for a phone call.
It took major guts to even pick up the long distance phone in the entry way. I heard the dial tone and the electronic voice telling me to swipe my card, but I stood there for a few moments contemplating what my parents would say. I swiped my card not thinking and punched the number in. I then heard the phone begin to ring. I wished so hard that it would go to a voicemail, but I nearly died when the phone picked up to my Mom's voice.
My license always showed who was calling on the other line so Mom knew that it was me.
“Who is this?” her voice was harsh, “how did you get my daughters-”
“Mom?” I interrupted my voice sounding distant.
The line was silent for a while. Did I not keep in touch with my parents?
“Noel? Sweetie... is that... you...?”
I felt tears roll down my face and I coughed a laugh through the receiver, “yeah... it's me.”
Mom tried to say a billion different things and a billion different sentences, but she could not finish an of them. I just was so happy to hear her voice. I finally interrupted her again and wiped off the tears on my face.
“Mom?”
“Yes, Sweetie?”
“Could you please pick me up? I want to go home.”
♠ ♠ ♠
heh heh part two!:D