The Hidden Agenda
It has been a couple of hours since the lawyer left the house, and Ryan has already felt the warmth of being with someone he can trust. Thus, being an adopted son of Ellie's family, he believes that everything will be fine since Ellie's parents are the ones who adopted him. All of the incidents that had happened to him have made him forget why he is being adopted. When the thought of the guy popped into his mind, Ellie's mom immediately called him out of pure coincidence. When he got there, he noticed that even though the lawyer had already left the house, none of his relatives had left yet. The reason she called out Ryan was to say to each of them his last goodbye. Even though he told them goodbye because his new adoptive parents told him to do so, all of them told him the same thing: good luck. Somehow he can feel that they said it from their heart. This time around, he knows there is no hidden agenda behind it. But the word good luck that came out from those who only came for the house just gave him the idea that they were planning to get a hand on the property no matter what. Ryan likes storybooks, so he started to think of his life as one of the stories he had read before. He thinks those who say good luck to him will rob him like the story of the phantom thief. He is a dreamer.
But all of those thoughts about that left his mind the moment his foster mom called him out to get ready for dinner. As the food is served on the table, he can see delicious-looking food, which brings out the aroma that makes him less and less patient. The food that his foster mom made was so delightful that he wished he could eat it once a month. After the lovely dinner he had, he went to his room and continued reading the book he got on his 12th birthday. He has been reading that book ever since the day he got it. The book is about the story behind the marks you get at the age of 15, the meaning behind each pattern there is, and the story of the other piece of the world. The book was thick. The number of pages in that book was about 3000 pages. Even though the book has that many pages, he has been reading that book ever since he got it. And ever since he got that book, his parents' worker would always see him reading that book, guess the book is fascinating from his perspective. He ended the day by saying how much he appreciates his parents' efforts in keeping him safe, even in the bridge of death. They still willingly gave everything they had to protect him. Even though they died, their effort to keep him safe didn't stop there. The first day of him being with his parents' choice felt like the best day in his life since the death of his lovely parents.
The first week living under his foster family's supervision felt like heaven to him. The food he had to eat was all delightful. He felt like it was the best decision someone ever made for the future. Every night he would pretend like he was having a conversation with his late parents about how his life has been up ever since they took him in. He even managed to finish the book because they wanted him to rely on them or give him a sign of their love for him.
On the last day of the week, just before he went to bed, he eavesdropped on his foster parents, saying there would be a surprise for him. After hearing that, he started to use his imagination on what kind of surprise awaited him. The next day came with a different sensation of waking up. He is currently half-awake, and the bed he slept on last night felt a bit different. He felt like something was poking him with each move he made, and that forced him to wake up. When he opened his eyes, he noticed he wasn't in his room anymore. It was surprising for him since he was confident he slept on his bed in his bedroom. But now, he can't even tell where he is at the moment. He looked around to justify that he was inside a stable, one that he was familiar with. Now that he knew where he currently was, his feelings started to be less panicked than before. As he walks out of the stable, he starts to get a quick flashback of his parents' death scene. Ever since the death of his parents, he never set foot on the farmland, and now his only choice to get back to his house was by going through the route where his parents died. Even though he was walking through the way, the nearer he got, the more cries ran down his eyes. Though he was walking down the route, his mind kept giving him a flashback of the death of his parents and how he could've saved them from it.
As he arrived at his house, he noticed something from a distance. The closer it gets, the clearer his vision gets. It turns out his foster parents were standing in front of the gate, and from what it looks like, it seems as if she was waiting for his arrival. That's when he thought they were worried that he would go missing in just a night. He went straight for it. He ran towards her, but the expression on her face changed the moment she saw him. When he notices it, he begins to slow down from running to walking. Now that he was walking, he could see the expression on her face crystal clear. He can see her being angry from a distance, but somehow he feels like the angry reaction she's giving isn't because she was worried, but there is something else behind those reactions. That's when he decided to stop entirely and just stand there. All of a sudden, she comes towards him while giving off a vast menacing aura with her. The atmosphere she was giving was so intimidating, Ryan couldn't move his body, not even to blink his eyes. The closer she got, the more he felt powerless. As she stood right in front of him, his body started to give out. His vision became blurry, his breath became heavier, and he even felt like standing was too much for his body. Just as his vision was about to give out completely, the atmosphere around her changed though it didn't stop him from passing out.
When he woke up, he saw his foster parents standing in front of the door, but it wasn't in his room. He woke up somewhere in the house he had never been to as he asked them why isn't in his bedroom. He answered the question with a question: how long has it been since we adopted you. Ryan told him it had been about a week since they adopted him. And when he said that, his foster dad threw a sheet of paper and hit Ryan's face. The sheet of paper that managed to hit Ryan's face was a crucial sheet of paper. It is an agreement that Ryan once signed. It turns out that the paper was a copy which both sides got to hold on to and to cancel the deal. The copyholder gets 1 week to cancel the agreement. But Ryan didn't remember ever getting a copy of the agreement. His foster dad told him to read the agreement word for word but Ryan refused it and stated that he knows every word written on it. That ego of his made the foster dad pissed off. Now he is being threatened to read the agreement or his life is going to be worse than what they've planned. Those words managed to make Ryan read the paper while being frightened. While reading the agreement for the first time after a week, he noticed an interesting thing in the agreement. It's about the one-week cancellation deadline and something that he didn't manage to notice when he first signed the agreement. The agreement has something about how the foster family who look after him can't be sent to jail. That's when it caught Ryan's eyes. Why was there something about the jail in the agreement? So he kept on reading the agreement and found something that could be linked with why they can't go to jail. It is said, "Whatever the foster parents who take care of him are allowed to command him or decide what happens to him while every punishable act he did won't affect the fosters and every act the fosters did to him is unpunishable." As he reads the agreement, he learns there is more to it than just an agreement. And most of his parents' possession was written to be controlled by them other than him but those aren't the thing that he hated the most of all the things in the agreement. What he hated the most was the fact that the agreement made his life the same as the life of a slave. He couldn't run nor can he avoid what is up to him all because of the agreement.
After reading the agreement word for word, he found himself agreeing to be a slave to those he thought would protect him. He also finds it weird why they would tell him about it. Telling him all agreement. So he asked them, why did they tell him these things? Instead of answering it, they of that would mean nothing even if he knows it or not since he has already been tied by the told him to be ready for what is waiting for him since this will be the last time he will be treated nicely. As they said that, he felt the feeling when he met his fosters at the front gate. His vision became blurry. It became harder and harder to breathe and harder to hear as if their tone of voice became lower and lower. But just as he was about to pass out, he saw multiple small white particles coming out of his foster parents' bodies.
What might those be??
Find out next time on Travelers between Two Worlds!!