Unsung
After an unplanned silence, the words registered. My parents have been hijacked. They are not acting normally. Seneca rubbed his fingers in anticipation, hoping that I understood his explaining. I examined the eyes of my dearly related. Noticing differences was the key.
Mother had bright blue eyes that Alfie had inherited. They seemed to shimmer with the lights of the restaurant. A closer look showed an eerie ripple of something-something dark. I took a step back in wonderment.
Of course, hijacking was the process of diluted someone's memories by injecting them with potent tracker jacker venom. I wondered why their eyes had not stood out before.
"What is the meaning of all this?" Alfie called out from behind me.
"I do not know," replied Seneca, "However, I am starting to feel weird about this place."
I felt odd, too. It was that familiar but dreaded sensation of someone watching you. Venia stood up and threw money onto the table. Seneca grabbed my arm and led me out of the restaurant. Alfie followed with Venia in hand.
"Should we grab my parents?" I asked in bewilderment.
"No," Seneca growled, "There is nothing we can do for them right now."
He lifted me up into the front seat, blocking my view from the entrance. I felt panicked. What is going on? How does Seneca know about the hijacking? Who hijacked them? Venia got into the driver's seat and left the parking lot. The general consensus was to travel to my former home to look for clues. However, upon our arrival, we discovered a new piece of the puzzle.
Our house was destroyed. The front door lay beaten and unhinged, leaning against the charred remnants of the edifice. Alfie and I hopped out, confused and incredulous. We sped up to the front door, recognizing bits of a past life. In the middle of the floor lay a single piece of paper.
"That looks like the kind of paper that father carried around," stated Alfie.
Our father, in the former days, was an avid participant on the Hunger Games voluntary committee. Once a week, he would travel to the President's mansion and discuss the fanfare of the Games. It was like a big convention of sorts. He had stopped going a few months before Alfie's disappearance.
I raced over and seized the sheet. It seemed torn, yet readable.
This proposal contains the argument that henceforth agrees upon the abolishment of the recreation known as the Hunger Games.
"Alfie, come here," I whisked him over and showed him the piece.
It was definitely our father's handwriting. Alfie read the paper aloud, and then repeated it. Seneca and Venia rushed over at our finding, examining the sheet for themselves.
"What happened here?" Alfie spat angrily.
"It looks as if your house was ransacked," Venia stated.
"I know that," Alfie snarled, "What I do not know is who has ransacked us, for what purpose, and where they are now."
"Is anything missing?" Seneca digressed.
We split up, Seneca coming with me. I climbed the steps, avoiding a large hole. The upstairs looked disastrous with papers strewn all down the hallway. The room to my father's study had been bashed in, a large hole cracked in the middle. I paused at the door to my bedroom and ushered Seneca toward the study.
He rushed away, and I opened the door. Inside, everything seemed intact. The nightstand next to my bed had been rifled through however nothing was missing. My dresser also had been attacked. Clothes, expensive clothes, lined the floor.
"The study is an absolute mess," Seneca reported back, "What is the deal in here?"
"Just some drawers opened," I answered.
We continued to search the top floor. Nothing looked tampered with. Our parent's dresser had been obliterated. The bathroom cabinet was smashed and cracked. At one point, wallpaper slumped off the walls.
"How long has the house been like this?" Seneca asked, "Have your parents been living in this rubble?"
"This is absolutely horrid," I shouted out.
"Maybe the others discovered something," Seneca suggested.
He led the way back downstairs. A charred chandelier dropped bits of mirror shards as we passed. I noticed that cabinets had been thrown off the walls. The parlor television was cracked. Venia and Alfie ran about the dining room, searching amongst the knives and forks lying around.
"Did you find anything?" Alfie ushered as we entered.
"Nothing. Any idea why all the drawers are opened?" I continued.
"Well, that must mean that the perpetrators are not robbers. I mean, in the conventional sense. It is not prized possessions that they have stolen," Seneca added.
"Yes, I think they were after papers. Something of my father's. An essay, of sorts. They must have found it, because they are not here," I concluded.
"What essay?" asked Venia.
"Something for his Hunger Games club beats me," answered Alfie.
"Why don't we ask a neighbor?" Seneca proposed.
"Good idea," we agreed.
Our pack traveled outside the house. It had become quite dark since our discovery. The neighbors on our right had their lights on. Alfie hurried to their door and rang the bell. After a moment, a woman answered the door.
"Oh, you're the Trinket children," she squealed upon entry.
"Yes," Alfie responded, "Can you tell us what happened here?"
"Goodness, you do not know? It was all over the news today," she answered surprised, "You both have been classified as missing."
"We have been missing for ages!" I snapped, angry at the incompetence.
"And you have only now returned?" she again showed her surprise.
"Yes," I growled, "Now, would you mind telling me what happened?"
"Goodness, me. Some men, real official types from the President's manor, headed in. They knocked the door in when your mother refused them entry. They shouted horrible things at her, pounding on the door with an awful truncheon. Eventually, the door gave way. They were dragged out, your mother and father, and placed into a squad hovercraft. Funny, your mother was the only one struggling."
Alfie and I absorbed this was open-mouthed horror. She continued:
"Your father just lay there, allowing the President's men to carry him off. All the neighbors were out and alerted. Half the men left with your parents. The others searched the house for I do not know what. They were in there for twenty minutes at least. We were told that it was for drug crimes. You poor dears."
"That is in no way true," Seneca defended, prepared to catch me if I fell backward.
I felt nauseated. My parents had been captured from the President's men. It must have had something to do with that paper. They must be viewed as enemies against the Capitol. The men must have thought mother knew something. They were captured and hijacked. The situation made more sense.
Alfie, Seneca, and Venia seemed to reach their own conclusions. The neighbor woman must have thought that we were either involved or that we escaped. Perhaps the latter, for she was not trying the seize us.
"You said that we were considered missing?" Alfie reminded her.
"Yes, dear. The men addressed the group and told us that you both were needed. No one knew where you were to be located. Someone suggested that you had run away from neglect. They told us to report to them if you were located," she responded bewildered.
Alfie and I looked at each other. Common fugitives we were. Eyes appeared around the neighborhood, both fictitious and literal. I got the feeling of uncertainty again. We dashed away from her house into Venia's car. She yelled some confused directions at us as we went.
"Hurry, get in," Venia instructed.
I leapt forward into the back seat. Alfie followed and Venia drove off.
"Go!" he shouted, "The President's men could be here any second."
I managed to look out the window. The street was lit with lamps, glowing in odd places. Seneca instructed Venia on the location of pods. He suggested that we take a safer direction. I kept a diligent eye out for any unmarked cars. We raced away from the City Circle, a car full of enemies against the Capitol.