He Looks Just Like You
Yay! somebody reviewed my stuff, and dared to call me brilliant! I say dare because they said it half way... i'm making this up as i go along. it's really fun!
It was getting late at night and Carrie hadn't arrive home yet. Since Maddie liked to be known as the cool babysitter, she went ahead and let them stay up a little late. Zack only wanted to impress Maddie so he decided to stick around with her and play a board game to keep her company.
Cody sat glued to the discovery channel because the next show that was coming on he had waited to see for about an hour. It was about the dark secrets of our "nation inside a nation" and their unofficial military units. To Cody, this was going to be the most interesting segment he's watched all day, this would be a great topic for political debate class. Lying back on the couch he opens up a hot bag of popcorn and begins shoving his face full. It was 11pm and the show started with an opening of war vehicles traveling across desert storms.
"What the heck are you watching Cody, this looks a little violent." Maddie asked.
"It's completely educational, it's the discovery channel."
"They should've blocked that channel out a long time ago. It poisons my mind with boredom." Zack retorted.
"Oh go play your board game, anything educational poisons your mind." Cody shot back.
The host of the show began talking.
"There are many things that go unnoticed in our nation like organized crime, drug raids, and kidnapping conspiracies. A recent discovery has been made along the lines of child mercenary training camps here in our very nation, they are trained from infancy and raised as a soldier, then later on sold to the highest bidder when they reach eighteen. They are mentally poisoned from birth to think of nothing but the mission. Here is actual footage of one of the child training camps."
On the screen showed a gruesome training session that each child would go through everyday of their lives, never understanding that their innocence has been stolen from them forever. It was an incredibly sad documentary and Cody found himself crying near the middle of it. He was wiping his eyes with his shirt during the commercial break.
"Oh come on tell me you're not crying." Zack said looking up from the table. "You've got to be kidding me." He started laughing.
"Well it's sad…" Cody replied.
"You are way too overly sensitive I swear. Whatever happened to them happened and there's noting that can be done about it."
"Just leave me alone will you"
"Zack give it a rest." Maddie finally said.
The commercials ended and the documentary continued to play. The show was almost over and it was midnight. The ending at least left a shred of hope.
"Fortunately for some of these children, the government has busted some of these underground camps and rescued them from imminent danger. While others weren't as fortunate, some of these children are extremely lucky to be alive.
Some video footage was being played of the children that had been saved. Some were as young as seven years old; others were Zack and Cody's age. They had been kidnapped from their homes, child adoption agencies, and other sources.
All of the children had seemed to be taken from someone that loved them.
They were of all races and ages.
Then at the end of the documentary, pictures of the missing children were shown as the credits were rolling. All Cody could do was stare at the pictures on screen frozen in time, frozen in eternal darkness.
About a hundred photos flashed in front of him but then there was one photo that he saw that made his heart skip a beat.
It flashed on screen for five seconds but imprinted in his mind for an eternity. The picture switched to another but Cody got up immediately, spilling popcorn all over the floor.
"Cody, look at the mess you made!" Maddie exclaimed.
Cody stared blankly at the screen wondering if he saw what he really saw.
"Cody… what's wrong… Cody!"
He finally snapped out of his trance.
"Wha… oh! Yeah! S- Sorry…"
He quickly started to pick up all the popcorn he spilled. Maddie was a little worried, Cody just blanked out for a couple of seconds.
"You okay?" She asked.
"Yeah… I'm fine."
Cody tried to act natural, his eyes unusually wide with surprise. He tried to pass it off as just being tired.
Maddie finally let it go and told the two of them to go to bed.
Before Cody turned off the TV, he saw a missing children's website that could be logged on to. He memorized it in his head and then went inside his room. Still slightly in a trance, he couldn't seem to get that image out of his head.
Zack was finally beginning to notice that Cody was acting weirder than usual.
"Dude, what's wrong with you?" he finally asked.
They were in the bathroom brushing their teeth. Cody looked at Zack and finally asked,
"Have you ever seen something so shocking, that you weren't sure if it was real?"
Zack looked at Cody wondering if he was joking or serious.
"Yeah… it was the end of summer break. You gotta stop watching those shows, it's turning you into a freak." Zack laughed, and then lightly smacked his brother on the back before going to bed.
It was one in the morning and Zack was sound asleep, but Cody kept tossing and turning in his bed. He couldn't get that image out of his head. The boy in the photograph looked just like him and Zack. It was scary because it looked like the both of them, but not quite either of them. Who was he? Why does he have such a resemblance to him and Zack?
The next morning wasn't any better; Cody sat at the breakfast table half tired in a daze, barely touching his food. He was awfully quiet at a time when he usually rants about how he planned out his day to be as eventful as possible. Carrie was beginning to get a little worried.
"What's the matter, are you sick?" She asked.
"No… not really…" Cody replied.
"You seem all depressed, or dazed, or something I dunno… What did Zack do to you!"
"Me! I didn't do anything to him, he's been like this since last night after he watched that late night show on the… discovery… channel… oops…"
It was too late for Zack to cover up the fact that Maddie let them stay up later than they were supposed to.
"So you were up past your bed time watching TV, no wonder you're so dazed, you must be tired. Awww honey, would you like to stay home today?"
Cody's eyes lit up. "Oh mommy, can I?"
"Not a chance! I can't believe you fell for that! You stayed up late, now you have to suffer. It's the only way you'll learn to go to bed on time. Now get ready, your bus is on the way."
Carrie chuckled to herself at a job well done. This was one of the few times parenting was fun. Zack stared at Cody in disbelief wondering how he didn't see that coming. He shrugged it off and snaked Cody's bagel off the plate.
"C'mon we're gonna be late." He smacked as he headed out the door with his bag.
School went incredibly slow that day. Cody couldn't concentrate in any of his classes and was even caught daydreaming by the teachers, which came as a shock because that just never happened with Cody. The documentary kept playing in his mind all morning long. Lunchtime finally rolled around and instead of hanging out at the usual table with his brother and friends, Cody made his way to the library's Internet computer.
He thought to himself that he would have to get this off of his chest otherwise this would really screw up the rest of his day and in all fairness, it was probably just a look-alike, nothing more, he was sure that maybe if he looked a little closer, he would see that it was just a genuine deception of the eye.
He sat down in front of the computer and pulled up the site that he memorized last night. There were millions of missing children on this website but there was a link pertaining to the children that were on last nights "nation within a nation" documentary. The lists of kids were considerably smaller rounding out to about a hundred or so that limited the search time. He scrolled down the pages where there were a bunch of kids that were listed as numbers instead of names. some were marked as deceased and some were marked as alive. He was getting a little nervous as he scrolled down each and every profile knowing he was getting closer to that one picture.
And then… there it was. As plain as could be. A perfect profile of a thirteen-year-old kid that was as shocking as the first time Cody saw it. This was no deception of the eye. This was real. This was as true of a look alike as he would've ever imagined. And he was alive!
Who was this kid? This was both amazing and incredibly freaky.
The only difference between this kid and the twins was the fact he had black hair, but it might have been dyed. Past that, this was an incredible resemblance. Cody's eyes were as wide as saucers.
There were a million thoughts racing through his head, but really only one thought kept surfacing to the top.
He had to show this to Zack.
The bell rang, ending lunch. Cody quickly printed a copy of the photo from the computer stuffing it into his bag before running back to class.
oohhh... the plot thickens...