Chapter 1 - Stigmatic Suspicions
It's no secret that I haven't mentioned Lawrence very often, though it would be untruthful if I claimed that he hadn't any interesting adventures of his own. Lawrence is quite a tricky character to describe as he isn't much like the other students in his year group, he's a very quiet person who'd rather fall into the background than be the centre of attention, which he'd become quite good at throughout his many years at school. Lawrence is a very observant person too and likes to analyse the people and environment around him, though this often leads to him developing suspicions towards people he'd never even talked to before - particularly a student in the year group below him. Although that's all they ever were - suspicions, as Lawrence isn't much of a confrontational person and only ever takes action whenever necessary.
Lawrence's second year of secondary school was proving to be more-or-less the same as how the past year had gone. There were a few changes here and there, including him having a new community leader, the removal of personal iPads and even a completely new principal, who would end up not staying for very long. One of the most noticeable changes, however, was a completely new set of students who, at the time, were the current Year 7 students. From the perspective of most of the Year 8s, they were loud, overly hyperactive and rather obnoxious though Lawrence found it too early on in the year to come to form a definite opinion on them.
One morning, on his way to Mr. Smith's English lesson, Lawrence met eyes with a Year 7 student - he was Asian much like Lawrence though where he was from exactly Lawrence couldn't tell. He had quite long hair, also much like Lawrence though he was short in height. Lawrence thought nothing much of him at first but then realised something rather striking to him. Lawrence's mum liked to keep old pictures of him and his half-brother, so Lawrence never forgot what he looked like as a young child. One of the pictures he seemed to remember most was a picture that his primary school had taken of him in Nursery, a time that Lawrence had completely forgotten outside of this one picture. It always sat in one of the drawers in his kitchen so he often got to look at it, whether he wanted to or not.
This student who had just walked by Lawrence seemed almost identical to what he looked like in the picture, as if his four-year-old self had somehow time-travelled and was attending a secondary school though Lawrence found the similarity rather amusing, he continued to keep a close eye on this student throughout the year. This student, apart from his appearance, seemed to be a complete mystery to Lawrence. By the end of Year 8, Lawrence still knew just as much about him as he did when he'd first saw him. He never learnt his name, his precise age or even what he sounded like. This person would remain in his mind as sort of 'second Lawrence', almost like a complete clone of him. Lawrence wasn't the only person curious about this student - months after his first seeing of his 'clone', he had told his friend Hannah about him. Whilst she had never seen the old picture of Lawrence, she could also see the resemblance and the two often came up with theories of how he was some sort of artificially created embodiment of Lawrence but never meant these claims seriously.
"What if he was the secret son of your dad?" Hannah suggested one time during a bus ride to Elephant and Castle. Lawrence knew that this was merely a joke but couldn't help fearing that perhaps he did have another brother. After all, it had been almost a whole decade since Lawrence had met him last. For all he knew, Lawrence's father could have given birth to ten sons, completely unbeknownst to him. At this point in time, Lawrence knew that most of what came out of Hannah's mouth was not meant to be given too much thought, but the possibility of this being true somewhat worried him. "Yeah, maybe" he replied. "I mean, it's been like eight years since I've actually seen him - maybe he got a girlfriend or built some kind of machine to produce clones of me so that… he wouldn't be lonely" he finished, lamely.
By the end of Year 9, Lawrence and Hannah had managed to find out some more about this supposed 'clone'. They'd given him the nickname 'Nathan' whilst they didn't know his name but found out that his actual name was 'Adriel', thanks to a friend of theirs who was also a friend of Nathan's. At a later point, they'd even manage to find out his second name which Lawrence recognised as a Cebuano word, roughly translating into 'ignorant'. Not long afterwards, Hannah, being the nosy person she is, managed to hear his voice through eavesdropping on a conversation of his. Perhaps the most shocking piece of information that they learnt about the child was the fact that - much like Lawrence - Nathan was Filipino, as his surname seemed to suggest.
Admittedly, all of this information seemed ultimately useless but Lawrence and Hannah were just happy to know at least know his name. However, what the two continuously found rather suspicious about him was how they always seemed to find him on their way to Elephant and Castle. It seemed like he took the same bus as them though sometimes they'd see him near the blue Chinese restaurant or on East Street Market. It seemed difficult to predict where he could possibly live or how he even got home, he never took the same way home. One time during Year 9, however, Lawrence had caught sight of Nathan on one of the buses that he and Hannah took for half of their journeys home - the 343 heading towards City Hall and found him departing at London Bridge Station, But never saw where he went after that. From the looks of it, he and Nathan didn't live very far and all of the similarities were beginning to make Lawrence slightly paranoid.
Months passed and Lawrence was now half-way through his fourth year of secondary school. The school was cold and dark, Lawrence was at the second floor of the main building. The boys' toilets in the floor was blocked off, Lawrence glanced at the barriers, pretending to not know anything about it. He had heard about the recent events that had taken place in there and realised that maybe bringing duct tape to school wasn't exactly the brightest idea he'd ever had and began to feel a little bad for Joshua, whom he hadn't seen since the day of the incident. Though Lawrence soon forgot about Joshua when he saw Nathan standing next to one of the signs, blankly staring at it. Lawrence usually saw Nathan at this floor as this was where his community was located. Lawrence then remembered that his younger sister was now attending the school too and was a student in Hannah's community on the floor just below though Lawrence hadn't seen her at all today.
For the remainder of the day, Lawrence often saw Nathan standing everywhere he passed through with nothing a blank expression on his face, his fringe covering a large portion of his right eye. As much as he hated to admit it, Lawrence was slightly jealous of Nathan's long hair but was rather bothered by how messy it always seemed to be. At this point, Nathan was completely creeping Lawrence out and he had gotten the feeling that maybe Nathan was stalking him from afar. To be fair, Lawrence and Hannah talked about Nathan quite often behind his back and even asked for his name directly in front of him, so it would make sense as to why he'd be suspicious.
That afternoon, when school ended, the weather had barely improved since he morning - it was still dark and cold. Lawrence was at Elephant and Castle on his way home. He was waiting for the C10 bus to arrive but the 343 came first. Lawrence could potentially take this bus home but it would take quite a while and only used it to get to Elephant and Castle before changing to a different bus. He glanced up and saw a familiar face sitting at the upper deck - it was Nathan. It seemed that he and Lawrence would be crossing paths again and Lawrence wasn't willing to lose this chance - one he rarely ever got. "Now's my chance to find out where this guy actually lives…" he thought to himself, realising how creepy and stalker-like that thought was. The driver waited at the stop as he was instructed to "wait at this stop to help even out the service", as the monotone female bus announcer put it. Nathan was sitting at the front and didn't notice Lawrence, who'd seated himself towards the back of the bus, where he could keep his sights on Nathan.
He pushed his glasses up as he stared at his semi-look-a-like, making sure he didn't slip off without his knowing. Around fifteen minutes later, Lawrence had almost forgotten to pay attention to Nathan and nearly lost track of him when they bus came to sudden stop, jolting Lawrence forward into the back of the seat in front of him. Lawrence peered up and saw Adriel getting out of his seat. He quickly pushed himself upright again and got off the bus, just barely making it out before the doors closed. Making sure Nathan didn't see him, Lawrence kept at a safe distance away from him whilst also trying not to lose him. He walked towards a more barren area where not many people seemed to be. Lawrence knew his way around the place as he'd been here plenty of times but this wasn't really much of a residential area. Lawrence continued tailing him, hiding behind walls, trash cans and even lamp posts whenever Nathan looked back - although he was convinced that he'd probably seen him by now.
Nathan walked through a few alleyways, as the two trailed further and further away from any populated areas. Lawrence didn't feel comfortable being in these areas in the middle of nowhere in almost complete darkness, he wasn't familiar with these 'ends' anymore. No houses were in sight and the place seemed rather industrial, reminding Lawrence of the time he'd mistakenly wandered into a foundry where he'd been enslaved and almost permanently kept - an event he wasn't willing to experience again. Even then, this seemed rather surreal to him, either Nathan lived in a factory or he had a really long walk home. After about four thin alleyways, Nathan stopped and turn back. He was in a rather open and desolate area, so Lawrence remained behind the wall of the alleyway, paying close attention to the boy.
Nathan turned his head back around and continued walking, Lawrence remained hidden behind the wall, peering out to see where he was going. As the sky was so dark, Lawrence failed to see a small shedlike building in the corner of this open space until he saw Nathan walking towards it. "Wait, does Nathan live a garden shed?" Lawrence asked himself. It had certainly seemed like it but it seemed impossible and thought that the darkness was toying with him. At this point, Lawrence didn't care if Nathan saw him, he just wanted to find out where he was going. He crept after him and saw him enter the small shed. He shut the door behind him, so when Lawrence approached the shed, he opened it very slightly, enough for him to see peek inside. Lawrence saw Nathan kneeling on the floor, lifting up some sort of door - Lawrence was beginning to have his doubts. He'd assumed that Nathan lived in an average council house, not some random basement in a garden shed but his curiosity made him remain. Nathan slid through the hole on the floor that the door led to. This time, he's left the door completely wide open though Lawrence didn't know whether to follow him down or not. What Lawrence did know was that he heard a frighteningly familiar voice utter the words "Maligayang pagbabalik, Baby Lawrence"