46 Stray Story - 003

When it comes time for me to head off to work, Caroline is still asleep in my bed. I guess I'll just have to ask my questions when I get back.

I leave a note in the kitchen explaining where I've gone, and then head on my way. I guess it's a little irresponsible to leave a young girl like her home alone, and not even awake, but I can imagine that she really needed a good rest.

Perhaps I'm making a wild assumption here, but she was probably quite exhausted just from stress, even before she tried to sleep on that park bench. After all, she must have gone through some ordeal or other. There must've been some trigger that lead to her running away from home. Probably, anyway.

At work, there was slow traffic until the lunch rush began. AJ wasn't on shift until two, so I didn't get a chance to ask her about what she wanted to talk about last night till then.

Even after she was rotated on, I had to wait for a lull in the number of customers in the restaurant.

Sometime around three, when the continuous stream of customers coming in during their lunch break had subsided, I finally got a chance to speak to AJ.

"Hmm? What are you talking about? I can't think of anything urgent that I need to tell you."

"What? Didn't you leave a letter at my house?"

"A letter?"

"Yeah. Nailed to the door."

"What kind of person would carry a hammer and nails around with them?"

"Good point…"

I explained to AJ how I'd found the letter saying that she had something urgent to do with her brother to tell me, and to meet in the park beside the mall. I left out who I'd found there instead, but that wasn't important right now, and it wasn't like we could talk constantly on shift. We'd get reprimanded if we keep talking for too long, so I have to skip over the details here and there.

"Well," AJ spoke up after I finished explaining, "I definitely didn't write that letter. There's nothing new that I need to tell you about my brother."

"That's good to hear."

"Huh? Isn't this bad? Someone pretended to be me to lure you out to that park, right? I'd be worried if I was you."

AJ's right. Someone pretended to be her. They wanted me to meet them at the park for whatever reason. What would've happened if I hadn't come across Caroline? Who would've done that? For what reason?

AJ continued on, "so there was no one around when you went to the park?"

"Oh… no, something came up. I made it to the park, but I ran into someone who needed help. If there was someone else there, I didn't see them."

"You ran into someone in need of help?"

"Yeah."

…

…

"That's just like you."

"Huh?"

"You really do enjoy helping other people, don't you? Like when you helped me and my brother with Ray."

"I guess so. It's not like I go out looking for people to help or anything though."

"Most people wouldn't do that though. I mean, we were practically strangers then. Why would you do that? Is there something you get out of it?"

I scratched my head, "not in particular. I just want to be able to proudly say that I'm the best person I could possibly be."

AJ looked at me quizzically, with her head cocked to one side, "I don't understand."

"That's fine, you don't have to. I already have someone who can, and that's enough for me."

Well, me and AJ went a bit off topic towards the end there, but the point still stands; it wasn't AJ who sent me that letter. Even though it was signed by her, it wasn't her.

It was someone else.

And that's scary. Why would someone pretend to be AJ and make me go to the park? Was there someone there? And if so, who? And what did they want with me?

It couldn't've been Caroline, could it?

No, that's way too coincidental. She's just a kid. I doubt she knows who I am or anything like that. It can't have been Caroline. But then, the question still remains… who was it?

There are two possibilities that come to mind.

The first is that my father has finally decided to come looking for me. That seems unlikely, however. What reason would he have to come see me now? If they were going to come looking for me after I ran away from his relatives, then why would they wait so long? And they wouldn't have a reason to use such a roundabout method.

The second possibility I thought of, was that it could be the Mother's Order. Kiss Duskdancer, Ray Starcrawler, or some other disciple that I haven't met yet. Again, however, that only seems marginally more likely than it being my father. If it was Kiss, then I don't know what she got out of making me go to the park. The only thing I can think of is that maybe Caroline has some link to the Mother's Order, and Kiss wanted someone to take her in. I'm sure Kiss would've had a better option than me if that was the case, however.

It being Ray seems unlikely. From how things ended last time, I don't think it will be him. Kiss even promised, saying 'you or anyone else won't have to worry about him ever again' in a very foreboding tone. Ray is almost certainly not the culprit. If Kiss kept her word, which from her personality I would imagine she has, Ray is not in any position to be messing around with teenagers. If he's even alive, that is.