Chapter 7: Symbols
Disclaimer: Hey if I owned Alias do you think we'd be seeing Lauren pulling off a Sydney Bristow mask? I didn't think so. Therefore, I do not own Alias. Lucky you, JJ. But that Sydney Bristow mask was pretty cool...
Sydney inhaled and exhaled deeply. The rolling waves threw her into a trance, one of both calmness and unease. One could say they lulled her into further worry. The way the water cascaded in and out of a great, blue world seemed like an endless cycle of doom. She yearned to tear away, break from the cycle, but it only made her want to be part of it more. Finally an undulation spiked a rock at an odd angle and water soared into every direction, and Sydney's eyes fluttered to the beach. She could see two tiny black ants in the distance which her her daughter and Chloe. Her daughter... Why did she let her get away as well?
She couldn't bear to think about the gloomy situation any longer and slid herself down at the table, an arm lengths away from the phone. If anyone called about Jason, or if Jason himself called her, she could get to it immediately. If Jason called... Would she scold him or forgive him? She wondered. Somehow she had a deep feeling that it wouldn't be Jason to call her. Her muscles tightened in anticipation as if the phone would ring at any second. Soon she noticed her fingers were drumming messily on the table and her foot was tap-tap-tapping away below her.
It was then when she realized that her son could be anywhere. Jason; her sweet, little baby boy, lost in a world unfamiliar to him. In a world filled with cruel and heartless people who enjoyed watching people suffer. A world where Jason was an easy target.
These thoughts captivated her mind, taking it over one tragedy at a time until she wanted to scream in pain. Her foot tapping turned into full motions as she tried to stand, once, twice, and then she was standing. She paced through the kitchen, running her clammy hand through her hair, which was damp with sweat.
I can't think about this now, she whispered to herself. I'll go insane...
She looked around the house frantically unsure of what to do. Any attempt to concentrate on anything else only resulted in Jason's green eyes and spiky blonde-tipped hair popping into her mind. Countless memories and images sprang to life in front of her, leaving her restlessly tortured. Her legs moved, yet her mind wandered...
She suddenly discovered herself at the top of the stairs, her hand resting on the back of a hideous chartreuse couch. She had never realized it was up here. It seemed comfortable enough, despite it's ugliness, and had Sydney not been a nervous wreck, she would have loved to curl up with a book in it's deep corner and read for hours on end, only to finish up with a nap. She sighed in thought.
While she was upstairs, she figured she might as well search around for anything the kid's had missed while packing. She trudged towards the girl's room, the door on the left, and pushed open the door, its white paint gently chipped away with age in the bottom right corner. The floor boards creaked as she entered the room, but sure enough, an orange sock was hidden behind a drooping sheet under one of the twin beds. It was no doubt Mandy's sock. She smiled to herself as she bent down to pick it up. It was just like Mandy to leave one sock behind and nothing else.
As she headed for the adjoining bathroom between the bedrooms she unscrunched the sock and smoothed it out with her hand. There was nothing in the bathroom but a tan towel hastily strewn across the sink. She would have proceeded further, but her footsteps stopped her body from entering Jason's room. The room was spotless. There was no sign that a teenage boy had inhabited it for a week at all, apart from the unmade bed. The carpeting had no bits of trash scattered about or sand grains buried into it. The window on the opposite wall from Sydney allowed the sun to shine through triumphantly, and the sill remained dustless. The bed, however, was quite a different story. It was a mess of sheets, blankets, and pillows, and much resembled his bed at home. Jason once told her how he much preferred to crawl in and find comfort in the demolition of fabric.
Again unable to control her legs, she sprawled into his bed, cuddling her head against the soft cotton pillow and covering her body with the sheets. Jason's right, she thought, this feels much more welcoming than a made bed. Jason... Her thoughts had looped back to his disappearance in what seemed like a never ending nightmare. She prayed that someone had found him as she dug her head further into the pillow, yet a hollow feeling in the pit of her stomach told her no one had.
She spotted a pair of blue goggles dangling off the doorknob, and she forced herself to rise from Jason's lair. She grabbed the goggles quickly and hurried down the stairs, eager for some unknown reason to get away. Setting the sock and goggles on the table, she slid open the sliding glass door and stepped outside for fresh air. It was cold against her lungs, and she could taste the ocean's salt against her lips. She stared up to the cloudless sky; a sad azure to replace them. Even the ocean's waves moved less swiftly and with less caress. Even mother nature felt Sydney's grief.
Sydney couldn't stay outside for long as the sun beamed down on her as mother nature's watchful eye. She worried that she wouldn't be able to hear the phone if someone called about Jason, or if Jason called. As she stepped inside and close the glass door behind her, she noticed a crumpled up piece of paper out of the corner of her eye. Turning to her left, she saw it resting just inches from the foot of the blue la-z-boy.
Had she not noticed it before? Had it been there all morning? It was probably just something Mandy found in her shorts pocket and tossed aside. Yet somehow this tiny paper held her interest all this time. She edged closer to it, nearly desperate to discover its contents. Her eyes quickly darted to the clock. It read 10:47. Her fingers outstretched and she bent over to pick it up. The phone rang, but she ignored it, clasping the paper in her fingers. She twiddled it around her fingers curiously, still ignoring the ringing phone. Gingerly, she unfolded it, careful not to rip even the tiniest tear. Finding a blank side, she slowly flipped it around as the telephone stopped ringing.
Three familiar symbols stood out prominently on the paper, and Sydney dropped it like it was on fire. However, the symbols were forever burnt into her mind...
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A/n: dun Dun DUN! How did you like it? REVIEW! You know they make me so happy. And I mean, happy like shirtless!Vaughn happy. I think I'll make you guys wait until I get back from Lake Michigan before I post. Sorry but I feel it would be better. Until then!
Whitelighter Enchantress