Disclaimer : I don't own anything from Jumanji.
Thanks bre18710 for the follow and Defender31415 for the review.
Shorter set up chapter this time.
Communication issues
Despite the recent events, Spencer sticked to his own promise not to search further about the game. At first, he really did it just to avoid troubles with Martha. Though, he tried to keep discreetly an eye on Bethany, searching for clues of an odd behaviour from her. Unfortunately for him or maybe hopefully, the blonde girl was back to her normal self – which was always quite a lot – and, as nothing strange occurred to feed his concerns, his anxieties got progressively tamed.
To his own surprise, he found himself gradually forgetting about what ignited his fears and beginning to tell himself he just had been paranoid in the first place. After all, maybe Fridge was right. Maybe that was just the manifestations of his late dreads coming from the experience he had in the game.
Everything went quite smoothly till the end of the scholar year...
###
Spencer was seated at table in the kitchen, grumbling at his phone. He was trying actively to get the last message from Martha, but the device wasn't very cooperative. Since the last few days it happened frequently. Most of the time, it was an excessive loading times for mails or texts and a very annoying noise on the line. On the worst cases, messages were unreadable.
Focused on his task, he didn't pay attention to his mother return form the grocery. It was the third attempt at loading Martha's text and it begun to upset him. She was away for the first two weeks of the summer vacations, and their main tool to stay in touch was defective. Fortunately, the problem appeared lately so, for the most part, they could communicate normally. He first thought the technical issue was her side, as she was far away but then he noticed he had the same problem with Fridge who hadn't quit Brantford.
The message finally loaded. "Today, it rained so we went visiting museums with my parents. I hope the weather is good here. I miss you. Kiss". It was nothing, but he couldn't help but smile. As he began to write an answer, his mother called him:
- "Hey sweetheart, don't mind helping me here?" He looked at her, arms full of packages.
- "Oh sorry!" He got up and took one of the bags.
- "Still on your phone." She said as a gentle reproach.
- "Yeah, that was Martha. I have some difficulties to get her messages. It's been at least two or three days now."
- "Poor child." Mocked his mother.
- "It's the same with Fridge." He added quickly, feeling that she wanted to tease him about his relationship with Martha. "Do you have any problem with your phone?" He asked, extracting some fruits from the paper bag.
- "Where you've been? You're always connected, and you didn't read or see the news?" She laughed. Spencer frowned. "Brantford telecommunication centre is overload. They have electrical surges that disturb the network, they said."
- "Oh, I see..."
- "You know the story: they don't know what can cause the troubles, but they do as fast as they can."
Spencer smiled at the teasing, though he wasn't really pleased by the news because, even if his mother was joking about it, he really felt the need to talk to Martha. For him this telecommunication issue had happened at a bad time, but at least now he had some explanations. He just had to be patient.
- "What's that?" Asked his mother while putting some purchases one the kitchen table. She took his phone.
- "That what?"
- "I don't know. There was black tiny and... Oh! You've got another message from..." She smirked.
- "Give me that!" He exclaimed grabbing quickly the device from his mother's hands. She was clearly amused by his reaction. "Mum... That's Fridge." He complained.
- "Yeah. You're cute."
Ignoring her, he tried to load the message. As expected, he had to try several times, but it finally showed. It was a grouped text. "Guys! What's up? Wanna do some pick-nick Sunday?" Spencer grinned. He had hoped to invite Martha that day as she was due to return just the day before. His grimace strengthened as a notification from the red head girl came. "Great idea! Count me in. See you soon." He would have preferred to spend time with her alone before, but she had made the decision for both of them. He sighed in defeat.
He was about to text back when his mother soundly cleared her throat. He looked up. She was pointing at the stuff on the table.
- "The tin cans won't find the shelves themselves."
- "I just..."
- "Tin cans. Shelves."
He pouted but obeyed. He shoved his phone in his back pocket and helped her with the purchases.
###
To escape his mother's "big brother" eye on his phone use, he waited till the evening to be alone in his room to answer the message Fridge had send. Sure buddy. I'm looking forward to see you all." He replied, a bit insincerely.
Soon, he had another message. From Bethany this time. He had some difficulties so see the message because she had joined a picture, but after several attempts, it worked. The blonde girl had sent a picture of her smiling all teeth in front of an impressive mountain panorama. "Sorry guys, I won't be back on time. By the way, sorry for the delay. I've got bad reception here. See you next time!"
He smiled. He had forgotten about the trekking she was doing. To tell the truth he was impressed of her doing that king of stuff on her own – as her friend Lucinda didn't want to join. He had been Bravestone for a time but in the real world his courage extended just enough to be able to ask for Martha to be his girlfriend, not doing trekking in the wild. Bethany had quickly become quite fearless.
"Have fun! See you soon." he replied.
He jumped in surprise as his telephone vibrated almost instantly after his message was sent. "I sure will. You too." was Bethany's answer. For an instant, Spencer thought it should had been impossible for her respond that quickly, but he was interrupted by his mother calling him from this other side of the house, yelling some unintelligible requests. During the short second he turned his head to scream back a loud "coming", his phone glitched. When he looked back, his conversation with Bethany was on screen as if nothing happened. He locked the device and left it on his bed as quitted the room.
###
Several miles north, in the mountains, in an empty camping tent, in a side pocket of a trekking backpack, a phone flashed open. It slowly began to irradiate a green glow. Then a drumming sound resonated… it was quite muffled at first but then grew stronger and stronger. The raging drums suddenly stopped, and the phone shat down.
Yeah, it's happening.
