Hey MutedBadger here,
Sorry for the longer than usual wait for this Chapter, I was just taking a little break to generate a few ideas for this story!
It's quite exciting to see people who are invested in this story try to guess where it is going. It's quite cool to know that people actually care enough to add their own opinion on what should happen next! I love reading them.
Anyway I hope you enjoy this chapter, thanks for reading!
I was tired, I thought to myself as I bump into another person who I didn't spot walking directly towards me. It was perhaps due to the fact that I was awake to see the sun set and was still awake to see the sun rise
I don't have a clue why I couldn't sleep, my best guess was that it is simply getting too cold to sleep as the days push on into the winter. I really need to find a new place to live before I catch pneumonia or something.
I think back on how warm the Loud' residence was, remembering just how cosy the house was when I visited a couple of days ago. It was one of the numerous things that I envied about people who had proper homes to live in.
I have to get out of this cold I think to myself as I begin to shiver just a little bit, I also need to get some proper sleep I add as an after thought.
I only know one place where I can do both that also had the bonus of being warm and that place was the library. I also might be allowed to stay, well, at least for a little while. I begin to make my way towards it and ignore the looks I receive from people as I walk by.
A downside of moving to a relatively new area after the lost of my hide out was that I had no clue where the safe places around here were, I guess I need to start learning them soon or something bad might happen. I glance around at my unfamiliar surroundings and see people clumped together in alleyways with some people even warming themselves up using trashcan fires as a heat source.
Minding my own business, I continue on to my chosen destination which came into view after a couple more minutes of walking.
The library was not a place that the vast majority thought of when they wanted to get away for a while however for people like me, they were a great place to get off of the streets for a while.
Slowly wandering in, I let the warmth of the place over wash me. While not as warm as the mall, it was a world of difference compared to the temperature outside. I take in how Lavish and clean this place was compared to the library that I used to visit back when I lived in my hideout. I thank god that I let Leni buy me these clothes since now I look at least a little bit like I belong in a place like this.
I feel the Librarians eyes on me as I approach a map that was attached to a nearby wall. I notice that this library was two stories high and had a wide range of sections for every sort of book. I scan the map to find the best place to be left alone for a while.
I spot an area on the second floor which looked to be an ideal location. It seemed to be a corner that was near the horror and autobiography sections. I pay no attention to the librarian as she continues to gaze at me. I start to stroll up the stairs and make my way to the spot that I picked out on the map.
I walk by a couple of people who were all reading some kind of book or another, I try not to make eye contact with any of them as I pass by in fear of inviting an unwanted conversation. Coming up on the place I picked out I notice that there was a small table there with nobody sitting at it. That was perfect, I really don't need anyone annoying me while I'm here.
Sitting in the wooden chair I take off my back pack and put it on the ground beside me, I also put my leg through one of the straps on the bag, it was a good way to ensure no one tries to steal it while I attempt to get some sleep.
I cross my arms in front of me to make a makeshift pillow that I could use. I lay my head down onto the newly formed arm pillow and I try to ignore how bony my arms are, It was quite easy thanks to just how tired I am.
I gradually drift in and out of sleep, startling awake every time I heard a noise that was a bit to close for comfort only to brush it off when I know that it wasn't a threat. I eventually drift into a deep sleep.
"Come on, get up, get up," I say as my small frame jumped up and down on my parents bed. "Come on Lincoln, can you give us a just a little bit more rest" I hear my daddy say as I continue to use his bed as my personal trampoline.
"But it's my birthday!" I exclaim while striking a silly pose.
"Well in that case" I hear my father say as he suddenly jumps up and grabs me and starts to tickle my sides, "Daddy, you know I don't like tickles" I manage to get out through the giggles.
"What's the magic word" he taunts me from above.
"P-Please" I quickly giggle out.
"That's my boy," my dad suddenly stops attacking my sides and states with much affection. "Now, why don't we wake mommy up and get some super special breakfast!" dad says with a bright grin while I let out a little cheer.
After getting mommy up out of bed, breakfast was made quickly. I stare as a large pancake stack was put in front of me. These weren't just any normal pancakes, these were special birthday pancakes that had cake mix added along with frosting and sprinkles. It was a tradition in the house to have this only on your birthday.
"Eat up snowflake, we have a big day ahead of us," mommy says while daddy puts his arms around her while giving her a peck on the cheek.
"EW, that's so icky," I say while I start to attack the massive stack of birthday pancakes in front of me.
They both laugh at my reaction and proceed to sit down and eat their own breakfast.
Breakfast was over quickly, well mine was, my parents took their time all the while enjoying each other's company. As they eat I head up stairs to get dressed quickly barely containing my excitement.
Once I am done changing, I fly down the stairs and when I get to the bottom I was greeted by my parents who were both smiling at me.
"Hey kiddo, you wouldn't want to leave before opening one of your presents." daddy says while leading me into the sitting room. Inside the room there were a couple of nicely wrapped presents on top of a coffee table.
I eagerly run over to them before my daddy stops me,"Now, remember you can only open one present now." Another tradition on birthdays is that you can open one present before the days activities while leaving the rest to open later.
Scanning the pile of presents I spot a small one on top which I decide to pick up and turn to my parents, "I want to open this one." I say while proudly showing them my chosen gift.
My daddy picked me up while laughing and says "Well snowflake, what are you waiting for, open it." I feel his finger tap my nose as he makes a little boop noise.
I giggle and begin to tear at the wrapping paper without a care in the world, once all of it was gone I get a good look at what it was. It seemed to be a necklace with a plaque attached to it, looking closer I see that there is writing on the plaque.
"What is it?" I ask while scrunching up my face.
"Well" I hear mommy say, "It's a little something for you to remember that we will always be with you." Mommy takes the necklace out of my hand and wraps it around my neck." It says, to our son, you are braver than you know, smarter than you think, and stronger than you believe. Always remember that we love you more than you know and you will never be alone - Love Mom and Dad " she finishes saying while cupping my face.
"Thanks mommy and thanks daddy, I'm never ever taking it off!" I exclaim while bouncing up and down a little.
"Come on snowflake, lets go celebrate." Daddy says while walking towards the door with me in his arms.
The day passed to quickly for my liking, that being said it was so much fun. We went to the zoo, and we saw lots of big animals, we also went to the park where we got big ice cream cones and flew kites, it was so much fun.
As we drove mommy and daddy were singing along to the radio, very badly but it looked like they were having fun, I couldn't help but giggle and join them. Mommy turned to look at me with a smile and continued to sing the song, it felt like this moment would never end.
That was until a car in front of us swerved causing daddy to rotate the steering wheel in a futile attempt to avoid crashing.
The last thing I heard was my mother screaming my name and a loud metal grating noise.
I woke to a book slamming onto the side of table opposite of me, which quickly chased the bad feelings inside of me and replaced them with panic. Jumping up a little, I look up to see that standing there was one of the people I seem to keep running into more frequently than should be possible.
Fate must be conspiring against me, it had to be. In a city this big it would make sense that I would not run into the same people more than once a month, but it seemed that was just not the case as once again I see a Loud sister in front of me, more specifically one Luna Loud.
I read the title of the book that was slammed down onto the table, It seemed to be an autobiography for a singer named Mick Swagger.
"Hey dude, where you asleep over here?" She asks while sitting down opposite if me.
"Uh, yeah, I mean no, I mean I was here to read some books but I just sort of dozed off." I quickly try to make up an excuse which didn't seemed to be believed by Luna who just raised an eyebrow at what I said.
"If you say so dude." She says with uncertainty looking down at the bare table in front of me which held no books. Well, I was never the best at lying.
"So, uh, w-what are you doing here?" I question her while looking out a nearby window to see that the sun had considerably moved position as it seemed to be around 2 in the afternoon.
"Well, a new family moved into a house near us, I think they are called the Yates or something" Luna says thoughtfully before continuing "anyway they got Mom and Popstar thinking that we need to be more well-rounded people, so they dropped me off here to read books and brush up on my English or something." Luna explains with little care as she picks up the book in front of her and skims through some pages.
"And you chose an autobiography by some singer?" I say glancing at the words on the front cover which said, "Mick Swagger - Life by the guitar!"
"By some singer? You do know who Mick Swagger is, right?" Luna says with some outrage.
"No, uh not really." I respond, I never really had time to get into any bands or music, I kind of always had more pressing matters to deal with. When I did listen to music it was more acoustic based than anything else.
Luna just looked at me dumbstruck,"WHAT!" she shouts loudly causing some nearby people to send some quick shushing noises and glares at us. "Everyone has to know Mick Swagger, he is literally one of the best musicians in the world." Luna continues on in a hushed voiced after apparently learning her lesson.
Luna sits up a bit straighter and puts her hand into her pocket looking for something, after a few seconds her hand retracts from her pocket along with a phone and a pair of earphones. Putting one into her left ear she leans over the table and puts the other in my right ear.
The close proximity that the action required, made me blush a little. I can't remember the last time someone was this close to me, let alone it being a girl.
"Here listen to this, it will change your life, its one of my favourites." Luna says while pressing play on her phone.
Music started to flow from the earphone into my right ear, a slow guitar accompanied by drums and bass, I found myself nodding my head just a little bit. After 30 seconds a male voice begins to sing, the voice being backed up by Luna who sang along softly under her breath.
The song started to pick up a bit of pace but I found myself studying Luna more than I was actually listening to the song.
Luna seemed to be blocking out her surroundings as if it were just her and the music. She was obviously very passionate about music as I seen from previous events but this was something different, like this song was what defined her life or something.
After about 2 more minutes of enjoying Luna singing, I hear the song come to end and watch as she opens her eyes to look at me. "What do you think dude, totally awesome or what?" Luna says while smiling, waiting for me to answer.
"I can definitely see where you got your style from Luna, it was brilliant" I say only to watch her eyes brighten a little as if being compared to her idol was a huge compliment.
Luna was about to respond when the phone in her hand vibrated indicating the sound of a text. Looking at her phone Luna lets a little smile form on her face.
"It looks like Luan has ditched her 'Well-rounding' activity and has managed to drag Lucy to an arcade, they want to meet up." Luna says happily while standing up, she looks at me suddenly says, "hey, do you want to come dude?"
The offer caught me off guard, I didn't know why she offered me a chance to come with her, it's not like I'm a close friend or anything. I was thinking about declining the offer but something was compelling me to go, it was probably the desire to have another chance to act like a kid again.
Also, the chance to see someone like Lucy in arcade was to interesting not to see.
At that I come to my decision, "Yeah, I would love to," I say with a smile.
Luna grins at me and says "This is going to rock!"
The arcade was about a twenty-minute walk from the Library, the journey was filled with a conversation between Luna and I as we discussed random topics like what we wanted for Christmas and things that were happening later in the week. Admittedly, Luna took the lead for the conversations as I didn't want to say too much and anyways it was not like I had much to say on the topics.
We arrive at the front of the building and immediately walk into the building. This was a totally new experience for me, I never really been to an arcade. The closet I ever got to the arcades is usually when I pass by and hear laughter emanate out of the place, only getting a quick glance on the inside to see all the bright lights that the machines have.
We start to look for the sisters as we walk about, going from machine to machine with me getting distracted at every loud noise that they let out.
After searching for about a minute we come across both girls who were standing in front of a Dance Dance Revolution machine, I just catch the tail end of their conversation.
"Aw come on Lucy, don't leave me like the skeleton who had nobody to dance with, get it?" I hear Luan laugh at her own joke while Lucy just stands there giving no reaction until she saw us.
"Sigh, thank the spirits you're here, Luan won't stop pestering me to dance with her on the DDR machine." Lucy says to Luna with no emotion except giving a little shutter at the word dance. Lucy then looks at me and gives a confused look, or at least I think she did, I really can't tell.
"Don't worry little sis, Luna is here to the rescue" The rock star sister says while pushing me forward, "Lincoln will definitely take your spot dude." OK, that was a complete lie, there is no way in hell that I'm going to dance on that machine but before I can voice my complaint Luan speaks up.
"Finally I've been waiting to challenge someone new for ages, I have beaten everyone I know. They don't call me the Dancing Queen for nothing." Luan jokes while quickly hopping onto the left side of the machine and entering the money to play.
"Nobody calls you the dancing queen Luan" Luna helpfully supplies while grabbing my hand and pulling me on to the right side of the machine. I would have put up more of a fight but the feeling of her palm in my own caused my mind to go blank and before I knew it the game had started up.
Well, no use in complaining now, I begin to pay more attention to the game. It seemed simple enough, as the arrows got to the top step on the corresponding one on the ground, an idiot could do it.
After 30 seconds of play I was still somewhat keeping up with Luan, watching our scores slowly rise together. I might be able to beat her I think to myself, a little bit of hope raising inside of me.
That hope died quickly as the game progressed with it ending with me having a lot fewer points. I watch as my name appeared far lower on the scoreboard than Luans.
"What can I say Lincoln, It was a guaranteed de-feet" Luan laughs before saying "Get it?"
"Wow dude, I think with a little bit more practice you could probably be awesome at this game." Luna exclaims while Lucy mutters something about how nobody would want to be good at this game.
"Hey Luna, you never guess what," Luan says and before Luna can even give a guess she speaks again,"I think they've installed a new guitar hero game near the back of the arcade."
"What, no way dudes, lets go find it!" Luna jumps with joy and heads deeper into the arcade with us following her.
Once we found it, we took turns trying to beat Luna who was way too good at the game for her first try, eventually we all gave up after we've all been beaten around four times each.
The rest of the time there went pretty much the same as one of us finds a game we were weirdly good at and proceed to destroy the other three over and over again. We did this for around an hour before I had to go.
"Are you sure you have to leave dude?" Luna asks me when I inform them if my imminent departure.
"Yeah, I have a couple of things that I need to do before it gets to late." I give as an explanation to them.
"Hey Lincoln, our parents won't be at home tomorrow, why don't you come over to hang out" Luan asks me with a little hesitation.
I think about for a few seconds before responding with a quick "Yeah, sure, I'll love to come over." I then say my goodbyes and take my leave.
The real reason I had to leave was because I needed something to eat. I had barely anything that resembled a meal since yesterday and I couldn't bear it if I forced them to buy me food again.
I wasted a lot of my money in the arcade today that I collected over the last few days, paying for my goes on the machines not wanting them to spend anymore money on me than necessary. I won't have time to gather some more so that left me with only one choice, a soup kitchen.
I never really go to these places due to the unwanted attention an eleven-year old attracts when they go to one of these buildings. It is a good way to get caught by child protective services and I will never go back to them and I mean never, not after last time.
I make my way towards the soup kitchen, when I noticed the feeling of exhaustion creep back into me again, the effect of not getting any sleep last night hitting me again.
I can't wait to get this over with I think to myself as the soup kitchen comes into the view. The building looked miserable, like it took on the personification of the people it helps.
I reach the door that had a pull sign on it and follow the signs' direction pulling the door open. The smell of soup mixed with the unfortunate bad smell of people who hadn't bathed in a while but I didn't complain as I probably smell just as bad or even worse than some of the people in here due to my many previous nights in the alley.
I join the line that was leading to the counter trying to ignore the looks I receive from the other people in here. As the line moved along I pick up a bowl that was provided along with a spoon.
I fiddle with the spoon to distract myself from all the eyes on me, can't people mind their own business, what happened to it being rude to stare? Putting my spoon into my bowl I decide to keep my eyes down, so I don't make any eye contact with anyone.
I continue to do this until I reach the counter only looking up to talk to the person behind it.
Once I look up at the person my heart stops and a pit in my stomach forms.
"Lincoln?" The voice of one Lynn Loud jr. reverberates around my head. I guess this was her "Well- Rounding" activity, fuck.
Well Lynn was the first to find out! I wonder how she is going to react?
For Lynn to be in the soup kitchen I had to swap hers and Lolas "Well- Rounding" activity, so that's why she was there! If you were wondering why she was there in the first place!
Anyway, if you spot any spelling mistakes please point them out and if you have any constructive criticism I would love to hear it.
Catch you on the flip side - MutedBadger