This story is about Daniel from the book Powerless by Matthew Cody and how his parents feel when they find his room empty during Powerless.
Disclaimer: I own nothing.
"Daniel?" Mr. Corrigan said, opening his son's door, only to stop dead. "Ashley! ASHLEY!"
The room was in disarray. Pieces of the torn blinds littered the bed and floor and a few spots of red speckled the hard wood surface. Scrapbooks were thrown haphazardly across the desk and one was open to a news paper clipping of a bunch of kids and a man, lathered with ashes and soot.
His wife raced in at the sound of his horrified voice and gasped at the sight of her eldest child's bedroom before springing into action.
"Daniel? DANIEL?!" She began looking under his bed, in the closet, everywhere but the father knew that she wouldn't find him.
Dialing Sheriff Simmons's phone number, he waited and the officer answered on the second ring.
"Sheriff Simmons speaking."
"Sheriff Simmons, this is Mark Corrigan. Daniel's missing."
"What?" The officer sounded incredulous, having only been gone a few minutes and another child, the third that evening, had vanished.
"His room's a mess, the blinds are torn down, there are scrapbooks all over the desk like he was looking for something, and there's blood on the floor." The man choked up with fear that that blood might be his son's.
"I'll be right there." The sheriff hung up and not even five minutes later, a knock sounded on the door.
The overweight male searched the room for evidence and swabbed the blood, but found nothing else.
"We are going to do everything in our power to bring Daniel, Mollie, and Eric home," Simmons told him, just before his phone rang.
Picking it up, he immediately grew troubled. "Mrs. Palmer, what's the matter?"
They spoke for a few moments before he hung up and faced the Corrigans. "That was Mrs. Palmer, Rohan's mother. Her son's missing."
Over the next few hours, calls poured in from the Rodriguezs', Palmers', Lees', Johnsons', and of course, the Corrigans'. All were worried about their missing children and no one had heard anything for over three hours.
Mark regretted yelling at his son like he did; he should have trusted him more, but he'd gotten caught up in the heat of the moment. He'd screamed at his child and if Daniel hadn't gone missing, he would have scolded him even more.
He and his wife sat on the couch, hope of finding their child growing weaker by the second. Until...
The phone's ring pierced the silent air and Mark scrambled to answer it. "Hello?"
"Mr. Corrigan!" It was Sheriff Simmons and he sounded excited. "We found the children, every last one!"
"Really, where are they? Are they okay?"
"They were a little roughed up, but nothing serious except that Daniel broke his arm again. They are being checked out at the hospital as we speak."
"Thanks, Sheriff Simmons!" He hung up and dragged his wife to the car, rushing to explain their conversation to her.
Mark Corrigan cried. His son was alive.
When they arrived, the other parents were there as well. Mr. and Mrs. Lee were crying in two of the chairs, holding each other as they sobbed in relief. The Palmers looked prim and pristine, but Mark could see tears in Mrs. Palmer's blue eyes. Mrs. Rodriguez was dressed nicely but tear tracks stained her cheeks, having lost not one, but both of her children in one night. Ms. Johnson was pacing wildly across the tiled floor.
As if on cue, the minute the Corrigans arrived, a group of children exited one of the doors.
Eric wrapped his arms around his mother. His clothes were ripped and torn and bloody, but he was grinning ear to ear. A bump was bandaged on his head and he had a black eye and a split lip. His skin was bruised and scraped, but there didn't seem to be any life threatening injuries.
Mollie, cut and bruised, dove into her parents' arms, sobbing. She was covered in scrapes, but any dried blood seemed to have been washed off. Ripped and dirty, her clothes would most certainly need to be thrown out after this ordeal.
Rohan wasn't nearly as bad off as the other two, but his clothes were also shredded and he seemed to be dead on his feet. There was a nasty cut above his left eyebrow. Mrs. and Mr. Palmer enveloped him in their arms and refused to let go.
Louisa's leg was bandaged and she strolled into the waiting room with a slight limp. Her hair was threaded with twigs and sticks and leaves with a few scrapes on her hands like she'd been crawling over rocks. She wore shorts that were covered in blood at the hem and a shirt that had more than a few rips and tears.
Rose looked the best of all with some pebbles tangled in her hair and and few rips in her shorts and T-shirt. Being the youngest, they had all probably kept her away from whatever caused this.
Daniel wasn't there and Mark began to grow worried until a nurse approached him. "Mr. Corrigan?" She asked.
"Yes?" he responded.
"You can see your son now. Room 109."
The Corrigans dashed down the hall in search of his hospital room and found the door slightly ajar. Inside, their son lay on a hospital bed, looking positively exhausted with a new cast around his wrist. He was covered in cuts and bruises like the others but his exhaustion seemed to be ten times what the others had.
Seating himself on the edge of the bed, Mark regretted it as Daniel stirred slightly and glanced at him through bleary eyes.
"Daddy?" Daniel must be out of it; he hadn't called him that since he was ten.
"Yeah, Daniel, you're safe now." Mark brushed a hand along his son's hairline and frowned when his hand brushed over a jagged cut with a band aid over it.
"That's good," Daniel slurred.
"I missed you, Danny."
"I missed you, too, Daddy. And Mommy and Georgie. I was scared I'd never see you again."
"Well, we're here now, Daniel. Get some rest okay? We'll talk when you wake up."
Daniel nodded and fell right back into slumber, leaving his dad to wonder what his son had gotten himself into.
But that didn't matter because his son was okay. His son was alive and Mark wasn't going to let him slip away anytime soon.
All in all, I thought that that was pretty good. Tell me what you think!