35-The Author

Aska woke up in the morning with a terrible headache, and the room smelt different.

'I should tell mom to tell Kaya to stop using exotic scents in my room' he thought to himself as he did his usual routine, but for some reason he felt like his body was heavier than usual. After that he went down stairs.

"Good morning Aska" - Dad

"Good morning dad" - Aska

"Take care at school Aska, don't make too much noise, or you'll wake your mother. I've got to go" - dad said from the bottom of the stair case and rushed out of the front door. 'He seems to be in a rush. Why does today feel weird? And my body feels heavier than usual. But yesterday's fight wasn't tough. Is it the gloomy weather?'

Aska went towards the kitchen, he wanted to eat something before going to school. Just as he stepped into the kitchen, he realized why he felt weird, he can't sense his mother in the house.

Aska ran towards the front door, but his dad had already taken off, Aska ran back inside the house to get his phone, he started running up the stairs, he saw a piece of blood red paper on the stairs. He had this weird feeling in his guts, so he picked up the paper.

On the paper in a very nice, and fancy looking hand writing it said "I have them" in black ink. That's all the paper had on it.

Aska kept running up the stairs he got to his room, picked his phone up and dialed his father.

"Dad! Mom isn't home she's missing!" - Aska sounded panicked

"What do you mean? She's upstairs" - dad

"No! She's not in the house. I searched everywhere!" - Aska shouted back at the phone

"One minute I'm not far away, I'll be there" - Dad said.

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A few minutes later Dad was back at home.

"Honey!" - dad walked through the house calling for mom

"Look, I found this on the staircase" - Aska said as he handed his father the red piece of paper

The second dad saw the paper he visibly pancaked and reached for his phone and called the police.

Not long after the police was at our door steps. The detective that was leading the case, detective Nonaka Nobu, asked some questions. Who was the last stranger in the house, when was the last time we saw her, and if we heard or seen anything weird.

"I saw her last night before I went to sleep" - Aska

"I saw her the day before yesterday, morning" - dad

"Why haven't you seen her in so long? You live together after all" - Nobu

"The company I work at has been working on a massive project, I've been working 16-20 hours each day. Since I leave very early in the morning, and come back late at night, and she's pregnant, I decided to sleep on the couch. This way I won't wake her up when I come and go" - dad

We told the officer what happened exactly. After that, dad sat on the steps that lead to the front door. I walked and sat next to him.

He looked up and the sky was grey.

"Take this piece of paper to the forensics lab, Though I'm certain he never leaves finger prints, we should try anyway" - said the detective as he walked out of the house with a younger officer

"Who's he?" - Aska asked as he stood up

"In the last three years there was this villain who would kidnap people and always leave a blood red note, we call him the Author. Though we have no idea why he targets the people that he does, but this is his signature" - The detective

"Are you sure that this is the work of the Author?" One of the younger cops asked his senior cop

"Yes, I'm sure of it, he is a sneaky man, who kidnapped many people. I have a question for you? Why does it say them? You said your wife is the only one missing" - The detective looked at dad

"As you know my wife is pregnant, I think he's talking about the child as well" - dad

"For now I'd like for the two of you to stay else where, My officers will keep investigating, and searching the house for any clues" -The detective

"What about mom?!" - Aska asked in a panicked tone

"We already got in touch with the heroes in the area, we will catch him and get your mother back" - The detective tried to make Aska calm down, but Aska wasn't having it

"Aska! That's enough, lets go to a hotel nearby" - Dad

Just as Aska was about to say something back, they heard the sound of someone nearby

"Excuse me miss, but this place is off limits" - A cop said

"I work here what happened?" - Kaya said in a worried tone.

Dad and Aska saw Kaya talking to an officer near the front yard. "Kaya! You can let her through" Dad called for Kaya and told the cop to let her in

"Who is she?" The detective asked Aska

"She is our house keeper we told you about, Dad hired her not too long ago to help mom" - Aska

"Excuse me miss, My name is detective Nonaka Nobu. Can we have a chat?" the detective approached her and started to take her statement as well.

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After the detective had his chat with Kaya, he sent her home. We got to a hotel nearby. Dad had already called his job and informed them of what was happening. The company's owner heard of this and made a few phone calls, he was able to pull some strings and get some high ranking heroes on the case.

*Knock Knock Knock*

Aska walks up to the hotel room door,

"Hello there, I'm Mirko. You're Aska Minamoto, right?" - Said the rabbit woman

"Yes" - Aska said as he let her in the room. Mirko walked into the room. Aska's dad was sitting on the couch with a look on his face as if he was about to cry at any moment.

She tried to say something to maybe draw their attention away for a moment. "I heard you're a very strong student at UA, Midnight talked about your performance during the entrance exam"

"What good did that do me, my mom was kidnaped while I was in the room next to her" - Aska said with a depressed voice with a hint of anger.

"I was told there is another hero coming in to check on you" - Miriko

*Knock Knock Knock*

Aska walks up to the door again, this time it was a massive creature with black skin and a fin on top of his head, and white outline around his eyes.

"Hello there young man, I was assigned to help in this case" the massive creature puts a hand on Aska's shoulder, and continues, "Don't worry, I'll make sure to catch that villain and bring her back"

"Gang Orca? I knew that another big hero was coming, but I didn't expect you to be the one coming" - Miriko

"I see your here as well Miriko" - Gang Orca replied while staring at her

"Is he alright?" - Gang Orca takes his eyes off of Miriko and looks at my dad. Dad has been sitting like this since we arrived here.

"He will be fine if we get mom back" - Aska

"I'm aware of hard this might be, we are working on finding him. There isn't any angle we haven't looked at." - Miriko answered this time.

"We'll young man, we have to go. This is my card, call me if anything happens" - Gang Orca leaves with Miriko.

After they left Aska went and sat on the bed. The room was deadly quite. Aska can only hear the faint breathing sound coming from his father.

Aska kept to himself, he wanted to talk with his father, he wanted to tell him that everything will be ok but Aska couldn't. How could he? He had no solution for this situation.

Without knowing it Aska fell asleep while sitting on the bed.

Hours later Aska woke up. The room had become dark and quiet, scanning the room, Aska saw his dad laying on the couch.

Aska got up and put on his hoodie, he decided to go for a walk.

Aska walked for 15 minutes when he reached a park.

Aska walked around the lake in the middle of the park. After walking for some time, Aska decided to to set on one of the benches

Looking up, all he could see was dark gray almost black sky. The clouds are still covering the sky, not a single star shining through, not even the moon was visible.

While staring at the gray sky Aska hears a phone notification sound. It's Momo, she was checking on him since he didn't go to school today.

Aska felt some relief, he can finally talk to someone. Just as Aska was about to call her and tell her everything, the sound of a phone ringing stops him.

It wasn't Aska's phone that was ringing, it was another phone placed right next Aska on the bench.

Aska hesitates for a moment before picking up the phone.

"Hello, This phone was left on a bench do you perhaps know the owner of this phone, it's in the park at-

"No need young man. That phone has no owner" Aska was interrupted by the person on the other side of the call. They sounded like a mature and gentle middle aged man.

"What do you mean it has no owner?" Aska was actually confused "I'll take to the nearest police station" - Aska

"No Aska this phone is for you" - the man

Aska froze. He never said his name to that person, how did he know his name?

"Don't be so surprised young man I knew who you are quite well. After all you're a new character in my newest story" - the man

'Character? Story?' "The Author" - Ask blurted out

"Well done child. Yes, your correct" - the author

"Where is she?" Aska asked in a low and dangerous tone

"If your worried about her safety then don't be, I haven't hurt her yet." - the author

Aska was about to yell at the author asking for his mother again, but he held himself back, and stayed quite for a second while thinking.

"You said I was a character in your new story, what does that mean?" - Aska

"It means you have a chance" - the author

"Chance for what?" -Aska asked, he had a feeling what the author will say, but he wanted to hear it

"Well of course a chance to save your mother and sibling" -the author.

"Be more specific what does that mean" - Aska

"Look to your right. Do you see that bench. Walk to that bench" -the author instructed

Aska did as the author said. When he got to the bench there was a blood red piece of paper on the bench.

"If you grab that paper then the game begins, if you walk away now, I won't bother you again, but you also won't see your mother again" - the author

"You son of a bitch how dar-

"No no young man, I like to keep my stories clean without any cursing in them" - the author cut him off

Aska still looking at the blood red paper, when black ink suddenly appeared on the paper and started to form some words at the same time the author spoke again, but his voice wasn't gentle like before, it sounded like a demon speaking,

[Would you like to play a game?]

"Would you like to play a game?"

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Hello everyone sorry for the late update, work and school have been very demanding lately.

Anyway I had a chapter that I was going to post, but I scraped it and wrote this one instead. I hope you like it.