Out of Place
Chapter 25
Ulrich could hardly remember anything the teachers said in each of his classes. That was not necessarily a rarity when it came to Ulrich Stern, but this time his lack of attention was due to worry.
He wondered where the heck Odd was and worried about why he wasn't answering his cell phone. At first they were treating it as a joke, imagining Odd missing his second bus. At this point in the day, however, they all figured he'd be back and they would all laugh about his carelessness. Jeremie would poke at him and Odd would roll his eyes and retort back.
But this...never happened.
At lunch there was still no sign of Odd. Yumi sat down at the table and asked where he was and Ulrich told her that her never arrived. This brought a worried expression to her face, and she looked over at Jeremie and Aelita.
"I just don't understand how he thinks he'll get away with this," Jeremie said as he rolled a brussel sprout around on his tray. "Yeah, he can be pretty good at avoiding penalty, but they'll notice him not being in class at all."
The whole table was silent and Jeremie looked around at them. "Oh come on you guys, he's probably just playing hookie."
The way he sounded when trying to reason with them, however, proved that he was starting to worry as well.
"Yeah. Yeah, probably," Aelita said, though her tone showed that she wasn't so sure.
"But then why would he not answer his phone?" Ulrich asked.
Jeremie pondered for a couple seconds before answering, "He must've broke it. Or...lost it."
That brought a little reasurrance to the table, leaving them able to converse somewhat normally. They had almost forgotten that there was a time when it was just the four of them.
It didn't feel right anymore.
After dinner later that day, the group remained in the cafeteria to talk over coffee, tea, and hot chocolate instead of going up to the dorms.
Aelita tried calling Odd a couple of times, but still to no avail. She sighed and put her cell phone back on the table.
Jeremie noticed this and said, "Just you wait. He'll show up tonight."
"You think so, Jeremie?" Aelita asked.
"Yep! He'll come into the cafeteria wearing an obnoxious T-Shirt and his ratty old shoes. Then he'll sit down and start telling us all about how he broke his phone, skipped out to go to a party or something, and blah, blah."
"You have this all planned out don't you?" Ulrich asked, grinning. "I think you're more worried than you want to admit. Wait 'til I tell him."
"You better not!"
Yumi, Aelita, and Ulrich laughed as Jeremie crossed his arms.
The cafeteria door opened with a squeak but the group did not pay any mind. It was probably just more students dispersing for their rooms. The cafeteria was nearly empty.
A presence at the table made them look up to see Jim.
"Sorry, Jim. Is it curfew already?" Yumi asked, starting to gather her things.
"No, no. It's not that. I...I need you four to come with me to the principal's office."
They all looked at each other curiously, wondering which of them had done something wrong.
To add on to the confusion, Jim's tone seemed...off.
"What d'you suppose this is about?" Yumi whispered as they walked through the dark courtyard.
Ulrich shrugged. "I've no idea. We've only been back a day. I know I haven't done anything."
As soon as they got to the principal's office they stopped in their tracks.
Mr. Tiny was there. He was standing with his arms crossed, and, as usual, a serious expression. Only this time his shades were off and he looked tired. The expression he gave them was a mix of pity, stress, and regret. And yet this was not the most surprising part of the scene.
Two police officers stood on either sides of the room, looking at them with unreadable expressions. One was a somewhat burly man with a rather bushy moustache while the other was a woman with wild red hair pulled tightly back into a ponytail.
"Oh no, what did he do?" Ulrich mumbled, putting a hand in his hair.
"Come on in. Have a seat," Mr. Delmas urged.
As the four hesitantly walked further into the room, they heard Jim shut the door behind them.
They all started getting a heavy feeling in their stomachs, feeling all eyes on them.
"Good evening. I'm Officer Martin, that's Officer Cart," the male police officer said as Jim walked over to stand next to Mr. Delmas. "We've asked you four to come here because we've heard that you have close relations to a student here by the name of Odd Della Robbia."
"What's happened?" Jeremie asked in a serious tone.
"Please, sit," Officer Cart said, nodding .
She waited for them to sit before clearing her throat and saying, "Odd was supposed to arrive here around six o'clock yesterday and yet he never showed up. Is that correct?"
"Yeah," Ulrich answered, straightening up a bit in his seat. "But he missed the bus and said that he'd be here by eleven instead. What's going on?"
The officers ignored his question. Officer Cart wrote down something on a clipboard she was holding.
"We can confirm that he was waiting at the bus stop for the second bus to come around, but the problem is, he never got it," Officer Martin said as he removed photographs from a plastic bag.
The four teenagers sat in their chairs and stared as he placed the images on the desk.
They were fearing what was to come next.
Yumi and Ulrich were the first to lean forward to take a look at the pictures.
Each black-and-white photograph was rather poor quality, but there was no denying that it was their friend in each of them. The first image showed him sitting on the bench at the bus stop. The second and third image showed Odd standing up and appearing as though he were looking at something off camera.
The photographs that followed disturbed the friends to their core.
Odd was facing off against one individual, then two individuals, then a third. Odd looked like he put up a fight, but got pinned in the end; the larger of the three perpetrators holding him by the neck, followed by the other two holding him in place and something being shoved over his mouth.
Then carrying him out of frame.
"Now, I know these are not the best quality. They were taken from a security camera," Officer Martin said. "But do any of these attackers look familiar to you? Maybe recognize any shoes or other articles of clothing?"
All four of them shook their heads in the stunned silence. All three of the individuals had been in black coats or jackets, and had covered the lower half of their faces with bandannas.
Aelita put her hand to her mouth and sat further back in her seat. She didn't want to look at the images any longer, but at the same time she couldn't look away.
"Where is he?" she breathed out, closing her eyes.
The room was silent for a few moments before Officer Cart said, "We don't know. He is, as of now, a missing person."
...
Aelita laid in bed, wide awake.
It had been three hours since she had returned to her dorm room. Her bloodshot eyes stared up at the ceiling as though it would give her the answer to where Odd was. At the same time, it felt as though her brain had gone numb.
She turned her head to look at the pictures taped up on her wall. Pictures of her, Ulrich, Yumi, Jeremie, and Odd.
Her eyes landed on a picture of her and Odd sticking their tongues out at the camera. It was only taken a few days before the holiday break.
How could someone that you saw just a few days ago...disappear?
Aelita could not make any sense of it and she no longer wished to. She just hoped that he would show up tomorrow and explain what had happened. Perhaps he'd have a few scrapes and bruises but he would be okay.
There was no way he was dead. It just couldn't be.
After all, the officers did not say he was dead, just...missing.
And yet, every time she reassured herself of this, the photographs that the officer laid out in front of them would pop up in her mind. There were three people. Three attackers against one.
Aelita squeezed her eyes shut, trying to shut the negative thoughts out.
Odd would show up soon and they would all be together again. Just like before.
He had to come back.
He just had to.
...
Ulrich was lying on the bed, softly listening to music, though paying no mind to what song was even playing. He turned it on because he just needed something to drown out his thoughts.
He knew for a fact that the others were not sleeping either. They had all shared texts for a couple hours but had since stopped. He sort of wished sleep would take him, so he wouldn't have to continue feeling the gnawing worry in his mind... at least for a few hours. That yearning was shut down, however, as he realized he actually really wanted to stay awake. Almost as though he would feel guilty if he went to sleep at that moment.
Not while Odd was out there somewhere. Probably hurt.
Maybe even dying.
Ulrich closed his eyes shut tightly. He refused to think that. There was no way that Odd would let anyone take him out.
...
Jeremie sat on the floor, leaning against his bed. He looked out the window at the bright moon. He wondered if Odd could see how bright it was in the sky.
But, how could he be looking at it if he was dead?
Jeremie shook his head, as though the pestering thought would fly out his ear. He looked away at the other side of the room.
He could imagine Odd's still body lying in the dirt somewhere, looking up at the sky with lifeless eyes; the moon would be reflecting off of their glassy, dead surface...
Jeremie pounded his head with his fists to try and force the image and horrifying thoughts away.
For once, Jeremie wanted his brain to just stop.
...
Yumi sat at the kitchen table. Hiroki was already in bed when Yumi got home around ten o'clock. The school had called her parents already to let them know that she would be home late. They only asked her a couple questions before deciding they should leave their troubled daughter alone.
At first, Yumi had gone to her room for solitude, but photographs of herself, Ulrich, Jeremie, Aelita, and Odd were just too much to bare. It was painful to look at them.
The same thought that was running through her friends' minds kept barging into her own. Whenever it showed up, she mentally shoved it away.
Her hands were loosely clasped around a mug of tea. Despite the situation, she found the warmness soothing. The image of Mr. Tiny's distressed face kept appearing in her head. She had never seen him look like that. After all, she was sure that the parole officer had probably dealt with multiple intentional disappearing acts from Odd. So seeing him worried and not angry was unsettling.
Yumi thought about Adelle and Bobby. Yumi could not even imagine what they were thinking at the moment. After seeing the way that they had hugged Odd and visibly shown their love for him, she expected them to be staying awake and waiting by the phone, waiting for word on whether their younger sibling was dead or alive.
"Yumi?" came a tired voice and Yumi made a small noise of surprise.
Hiroki was standing in the doorway in pajama pants and a loud comic book t-shirt. He was rubbing sleep from his eyes as he asked, "Why are you still up?"
"No reason, Hiroki," Yumi answered dismissively. "What are you doing out of bed?"
"Getting some water," he answered as he walked over to the cabinet and grabbed a cup. As her little brother filled his cup at the sink, Yumi watched him in a strange new light.
What would she do if Hiroki went missing? What would her parents do? Yumi could hardly bare to think about it. The thought had never crossed her mind before.
"Yumi?" Hiroki asked as he looked at her strangely. "Why are you staring at me?"
Yumi looked away quickly and said, "Oh. Uh, no reason."
Hiroki continued staring at her curiously before asking, "Have you been crying?"
"What? No." Earlier she had let a couple tears fall freely, but immediately felt stupid afterward. Odd was going to be back soon and he would be just fine, she thought to herself. Though, she wasn't sure she quite believed it at all.
Yumi rarely cried. So seeing her eyes slightly blood shot certainly was surprising to her little brother.
"Did something bad happen?" Hiroki asked.
"Yeah, but... don't worry about it, just go back to bed," Yumi answered as she looked back down at her tea.
...
This wasn't real. None of this was real. This body didn't feel real.
The only thing that felt real was pain...and numbness. How could numbness and pain exist all at once? It didn't make sense.
Nothing made sense.
He felt like he had been hit by a truck.
...Had he been hit by a truck? What exactly happened?
Pain coursed through his body in great, unrelenting waves as Odd opened his eyes, the view of the moon greeted him. Or at least, he opened one eye. He could not open the left one.
Whatever had happened, it did a great job leaving him feeling almost unable to move.
Odd continued staring up at the sky, which was full of seemingly endless stars. Unless he was hallucinating. Was he hallucinating? Either way, the view was a slight distraction.
The hand that lay across his abdomen was warmer than the one laying off to his side. If he could think properly, he would be thankful there was only a slight frost on the ground. Definitely not as cold as it could be, but bitter nonetheless.
Gathering up enough energy and will power, Odd turned his head to the side with a quiet grunt of pain. From what he could see, he was in the middle of no where. The only things in his sight were a couple trees, grass, and dirt. There was no civilization around.
Odd turned his head back to the night sky. The moon and stars were a more comforting view than the emptiness that he lay in.
After however long laying there, allowing his brain to catch up, Odd decided to attempt getting up. Perhaps civilization wasn't as far as he thought?
Just as he tried sitting up though, a small cry of pain came from his mouth.
Collapsing back down on the ground in defeat, Odd panted from the pain that seemed to shoot from everywhere.
The pain turned to a pulsating ache and he could feel himself drifting off into unconsciousness.
...