Chapter Five - The Early Ties of Trust

John had been found out.

Rather than bolting quickly to his feet, he stopped and realized that someone was walking towards him. They could only have been a living room away, and he hadn't gotten around to measuring that distance as of yet. It did, however, seem like a fun way to spend an evening, so he made a mental note that if he ever made it out of this crazy situation he would do this sometime.

The footsteps grew nearer, and John instinctively clenched his fist along with any other muscles he had clenching control over. The other ones wouldn't submit to his clenching though, as much as he hated to admit not having complete control over all his bodily organs. His hearts and lungs seemed to want to beat and pulse on their own, and this was oft times more annoying than useful, as the heart was never static and the lungs weren't always clear. It all seemed too untidy to John.

The loud footsteps ended and John knew whomever had started towards him had now stopped. Instead the footsteps were replaced with another unsettling noise; a loud thump - and then John knew someone was sitting on his living room table. Great, now there would be those disastrous indentations in his carpet. He always hated those. Even if you vacuumed them profusely they never stood level with the rest of the carpet again. John solemnly knew he'd be at it though. It was a good thing he always had a full supply of Industrial Carpet Cleaner in his hall closet. Thinking of this made him slightly nostalgic and he almost lost himself remembering the Christmas he had acquired that never ending stock. '96, the year of a thousand carpet cleanings...

John was brought back to reality as he heard someone shuffling next to him, sounding almost as if inching closer to him. He wasn't totally sure about this though, and that was a feeling he hated as much as he did that spot on the ceiling he couldn't get out no matter how hard he tried. Not even with the pressure washer he borrowed from his aunt. If the intruding noises hadn't gotten the hint yet, John was quite prepared to lose himself in analogies whenever anything tried to get him to acknowledge his situation. He was quite happy with his eyes shut thank you very much. A silence hushed over the room, and then ... nothing.

Then he felt it. What to anyone else would've just been a harmless prank - a pinch on the nose to be exact - to John this was an immediate endangerment to his life.

Not even for a second did John hold his breath, he immediately shot open his eyes and mouth, gasping desperately for air. He had been violated! and not the first time today either. In a mad panic to wildly escape this savage attack John threw his arms out and flopped noisily on the floor.

Without pausing, John scrambled into his kitchen on all fours, quickly moving behind his trusty marble countertop. He wished he could have shut the door behind him to lock those invaders out – but sadly he had removed them all from his home years previously, save for the front and back doors of course. He justified this with the fact that they were unpredictable and noisy. Some even swung the opposite way from others! This would NOT do. John had lamented afterwards however, as Door Polishing was one of his favourite household chores.

Leaning back against his kitchen's centrepiece and hugging his knees tightly, John waxed melancholy for a moment. In a vain attempt to escape the situation in the only way he knew how, he threw his mind out to the nearest piece of furniture to inner monologue about it. He still vividly remembered when he had first bought the centrepiece to his kitchen, when it had still possessed its checkerboard tiles. He remembered removing all the alternating white ones and replacing them with black. Looking at its original state had always reminded him of a particularly exciting game of chess, and this was not what one thought about – well, ever, but especially not when one ate breakfast.

As John zoned back into reality he realised with horror that the group of people had surrounded him in the kitchen on both sides. John would have passed out again, but one of them spoke before he could react.

"John, calm down, we're only here to help you."

John looked puzzled - well more puzzled than usual. The woman, Miss Yellow, leaned down and smiled at him, her black hair swaying as she did so. "I promise that we're not going to hurt you." John looked up at her. He normally would have dismissed this off as a lie, but for some reason she seemed like she was telling the truth. He wasn't going to fully trust her of course, but he was forced to think. If they were going to attack me, they would have done this already...

John stood up awkwardly and looked at everyone in the room. Or at least he made the motion of doing so. He was far too distracted by the feelings of fear, anxiety, and that mild bout of confusion that still sat in his throat to take in any of their appearances. The feelings spiked, almost cursing at him. He did his best to gulp them down and then turned to Miss Yellow. He felt that if he could talk to anyone, she was the one he could trust. Well, semi-trust. Temporarily.

"Ah... well, hrm," was all he could get out. Tifa took this as a question.

"Well, since we don't know what we're looking for, and neither do you, we were thinking that you could come with us and our leader could sort this out." Leave his house with them?! John stepped back a step, bumping into his bowl of cereal, promptly knocking it over on the counter.

"But the- she, ah..." Tifa stopped and looked thoughtful for a moment.

"John," she said finally, "Our leader is at a ...very big museum." John's face betrayed his thoughts and immediately reflected his interest.

"What kind?" Everyone crossed their arms in thought, before they all fired off random thoughts.

"Library."

"Mundane Items?"

"Deactivated Cannons!"

"Mummies!"

"Frozen Water!"

Tifa struggled not to laugh at the situation.

"Yeah, John, it's the Museum of rare books, dusty old mundane items and... and frozen water." She smiled hopefully.

John nodded.

All your questions will be answered SOON!

= D