Life: Chapter 2
I stood in front of Ace's door and listened. Well, I tried to listen. I was still having difficulty controlling my hearing.
'Stupid brain blast' I thought before I knocked on his door.
No answer.
"Ace??" I called, "It's me, Lexi."
Still no answer, which was weird because I thought he would be so glad to see me that he would throw open the door, envelope me in one of his amazing hugs and kiss me passionately.
Ok, so maybe I got a little carried away. You can't blame a girl for dreaming.
"Ace?" I called as I pushed on the door.
It creaked and swung open slowly.
I stepped inside and looked around.
"Oh, My, God," I whispered.
Everything was ripped and torn in some way. The closet doors were hanging from their hinges, shredded paper and photos littered the desk, ruined clothes covered the floor, the bed had been stripped and had 3 huge gashes through it and there were red and grey spots everywhere.
At first I thought my eyes were playing but then I realized that the spots were grey fur and blood splattered all over the room.
There was a big smear of fur and blood underneath the window, which had been smashed by something very large. There was almost no glass left in it.
I walked to the middle of the room and looked around in shock.
"What happened?" I asked myself before my legs gave way from shock and exhaustion.
As I sat on the floor, annoyed at my legs, I continued to look around. I could not believe what I was seeing, and I felt that if I kept looking I would see something that would prove to me that this was just a really bad dream.
I looked towards Ace's desk and I saw something black underneath it. Slowly, I crawled across the room.
Once I was close enough to touch it I realised that it was Ace's Loonatic suit but it was not with out its fair share of damage.
The suit was missing a leg and there was a rip across the chest but the yellow triangle was still in one piece despite the gash that had ripped the fabric on both sides of it.
It was like my hand took on a life of its own as it reached out to touch the suit, and as I felt the cold fabric in my hands I realised that I wasn't dreaming.
As I worked the fabric through my hands I noticed that the triangle was flashing, something I was sure it wasn't doing before.
Then I remembered that Tech had enabled the triangles on our suits to hold one or two items of great importance and created a lock that meant that only the touch of the owner or one other designated person could retrieve the objects.
The flashing indicated that there was something inside.
Hoping beyond reason that I was that other person, and unsure of what I was going to achieve, I placed my hand on the triangle and it glowed yellow.
I moved my hand away quickly, as if the triangle had burnt me, and stared at the triangle for a minute or so before looking back at my hand.
A piece of paper had appeared in my hand.
'For Lexi' it read, I recognised Ace's handwriting immediately.
'Why would Ace want me to have this?' I thought, thoroughly confused for the few moments it took for the penny to drop.
It was the back of an old fashioned photograph.
'Good work Einstein' I thought and mentally whacked myself on the head.
Then I realised that Ace was giving me a photo and I only knew of one photo that he had said he would give me.
My heart began to race as I sat there and prayed that it wasn't that photo.
I turned it over quickly, hoping that the pain, if it was the photo I was thinking of, would be akin to ripping off a bandaid.
My heart stopped momentarily as I saw the two young smiling happy faces I didn't want to see.
Flashback
It was our junior school costume dance.
Ace and I had dressed up as superheroes in our favourite colours, yellow and pink respectively.
We were having the best time dancing and socialising, and we had even tied for first place in the best costumes competition.
"Ace, Lexi?" called a woman in her mid-fifties.
We stopped dancing and walked over to her.
"Hi Principle Duckett" we chorused, and between you and me she might have been human but she reminded me of a duck.
"Can I have a picture of the best costume competition winners?" she asked holding up an old looking camera.
"Sure, Principle Duckett" Ace replied.
We posed so we looked like real heroes. The camera flashed three times but only produced two photographs.
"Come on!" said Principle Duckett clearly frustrated as she whacked the camera a few times.
The principle sighed resignedly then fanned the two pictures a few times then handed one to Ace.
"I'm really sorry Lexi but my cameras just broken and I need this one for the school gazette. I'll get this picture to you once I'm done" she explained then walked off.
"Her camera wouldn't have broken if she didn't insist on using one from the 15th centrury!" I said acidly.
"Don't worry Lex," said Ace, "She said she'd give you the photo and if she doesn't you can have mine when I die."
I looked at him and realised with a start that even though he had said it in a joking way his eyes told me he actually meant it, which kind of freaked me out because when your 12 you don't tend to think about death as something that could happen to you or your friends and family.
So to cover up my surprise I did what any 12 year old girl would do. I punched him in the arm.
"Thanks Ace I feel soo much better know" I replied trying my best to hide my shock.
End Flashback
'Principle Duckett never got that photograph to me' I thought as a lone tear slid down to the end of my nose and threatened to drop onto the picture.
I made no effort to wipe it away.
So I watched as the tear landed on my young innocent face and smudged it.
'Oh well,' I thought, ' it doesn't matter anymore.'
I grabbed his suit and ripped a long narrow piece of the black fabric away from it and replaced my green hair ribbon with it.
I placed my green ribbon down next to his suit and walked out of the room with the photograph still in hand.
I paused at the door to take one more look at what used to be Ace's bedroom before I went to tell the others.
For me this room was going to become nonexistent as soon as I left it.