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Karma

Storyline

Astro has been kidnapped; the only clues his two calls to Zoran and his diary entries in his broken laptop. Ken, Atlas, Zoran, and Tawashi peice the clues together and solve a riddle to who kindapped Astro and where he is being held. Atlas, Astro, and Zoran need each other to keep their sanity and relieve their internal pain: Atlas needs to act like the eldest brother he is.

Chapter 5

Always in Memory

Zoran shot up from her bed, panting. She felt her head. Everytime she closed her eyes, she would see him. She looked beside her on her bed. Her brother would be awake by now, trying to comfort her. He had always been a light sleeper. Either that or he constantly forgot to turn off his super hearing at night.

She, on the other hand, was hard to wake up, especially in the morning. But, now, she was awake every night. But the same nightmare. She looked at the time. It was 11:58 pm. She got up from her bed and rested her feet into a cushiony fabric. She rubbed her eyes and cleared her vision. Under her feet were her blanket. She must've tossed it in her sleep.

She knew how much Astro hated that. But he never gave her trouble for it. She had no control of her body when she was sleeping. She always did the weirdest things in her sleep. Like talk, or laugh... or occasionally kick or push poor Astro off the bed. He sometimes got up and went to the windowsill to sleep. It as easy for him because he never moved around all that much in his sleep.

Zoran fixed the blanket onto her bed, and got up. She walked out of her room, down the hallway to the kitchen. She hadn't baked a cake since the day Astro had disappeared, which was a week ago. She brought her hand to her head again. A week had passed... but it seemed so much slower. It was probably because she was used to spending her time bugging Astro to play with her and pulling pranks on him.

But now that he was gone...

She rubbed the tabletop with her forefinger. It was soft and shiny and clean. A new record for the longest time it's been clean since she was here. The thing that irritated Astro the most was messing up the kitchen, trying to bake a cake. Eventually, he got the idea that baking a cake with her, teaching her how to clean up after herself while making a cake, would fix the problem. And, like most times, he was right.

She turned from the kitchen and walked down to O'Sheay's office. There was a light on. It was faint, bearly visible, but she saw it. She walked up to the door and peered in. Inside was Atlas. At first, he looked irritated. But, as she looked closer, she saw that he wasn't annoyed... but rather sad. He looked pained, a driplet of water spilling down his cheek.

He closed the laptop, and sighed, getting up from his desk and leaning against the desk, looking down. He was lost in thought. She pulled herself passed the doors silently, and made her way to the desk without Atlas noticing a thing. In fact, he had bent down to examine something on the floor.

Zoran pulled herself onto the desk and looked her his shoulder. Atlas slowly turned around to see Zoran standing on the desk. "Hi." She said when she noticed she had been caught. Atlas jumped and turned to face her. He sighed in relief.

"I thought you were that thing." He hissed quietly. Zoran smiled and jumped down from the desk.

"I'm sorry." She apologized. "I just wanted to ask you a question..."

Atlas sighed. "What could you possibly want to ask me twelve'o'clock in the morning, Zoran?" Zoran turned away, a walked a few steps, and looked over shoulder at him.

"Do... you miss Astro?" She asked. "Really... Please tell me."

Atlas froze, the question catching him by surprise. He didn't know what to say. He began to smile without control of himself. "Yes." Came his answer. "Very much." Zoran spun around, tears in her eyes. She flung herself into Atlas, wrapping her arms around him.

Atlas was ready to push her off... then chuckled. He brought his arms around her. "You really are you're brother's sister." He laughed. Zoran hugged harder. "Why would you want to know?" He quieted his voice in an unusual way.

Zoran looked at him. "Because I miss him, too."

Atlas lowered himself to Zoran's height and, with hesitation, hugged her. Zoran felt surprised by the gesture, but took advantage. She returned the hug to her brother.

And, for the first time ever, they saw each other as siblings... like they really were.

Astro felt his head. The fear overpowering. It tormented him to think of what sort of fate he would fall to.

Tears spilled over his lower eye lids. He pulled out a small pendent. It was the one Zoran had given to him for his first birthday, his first birthday as Astro, not Tobio. Astro opened it and, inside, was a picture of his friends around a park bench, smiling and giving peace signs or just standing with their arms crossed or hands on hips, or hands folding while sitting on the park bench... or climbing onto of him to get into the picture... He laughed. "Zoran."

In the other picture, was a picture of him and his friends doggypilling each other (this one only contained the boys: Ken, Alejo, Ambercrombie, Reno, and Astro, plus Atlas), poor Atlas at the bottom while Astro and the others toppled on top of him. He remembered how that picture was taken...

"Okay! Is everyone ready!" Astro cheered, setting up the camera to go off in twenty seconds as soon as he pressed the button. Everyone nodded. "Okay! Here we go!"

He pressed the button and raced to get beside the other boys to get just the right position for the picture. He jumped onto Atlas's back with enough force to knock the 18-year-old over. Astro landed on top as Atlas bellyflopped onto the bottom. Astro laughed, until he ran out of breath when it was suddenly force out of him by Ambercrombie, who jumped onto his back.

Ken and Alejo followed suit, landing side-by-side on Ambercrombie's back, and Reno pilling ontop of both boys. Everyone looked up to the camera and smiled, Astro's arms still around Atlas's neck. "Cheese!" The all shouted in union and the camera flashed.

Astro choked back a sob as he felt pang from the sudden realizeation that he wouldn't see them again. His energy was running low, and if he ran out of energy, he would never wake up. And if he never woke up... he would be cast into darkness forever, caught between the line of life and death.

That's what he was afraid of. Never seeing his friends or siblings again, forever trapped in his own mind, his own abyss. He pulled the chains on his wrists and ankels. He leaned his head back and let out a tortured sob. He brought his knees up to his chest and hugged them tightly, sobbing, rocking himself back and forth.

The pain was so great. But it wasn't the pain of a broken circut, or the pain of a foreign object injected into his body, but rather the pain of sadness, anger. It was so famillier to have this feeling, since that was what he felt most his life... yet different.

The feeling was different somehow. It was so... agonizing.

He clenched the pendant into his fist.

He had to escape.