Clowey

Looking ahead of me I find Clowey sprint-walking to the stairs, I was following her. We were headed to the baby's room to take care of them, Drake was also following Clowey. Us being the three oldest kids in the orphanage we were responsible for some of the chores mom has to do. Clowey sprinted walking up the stairs as if her life depended on it, and didn't even glance at us. 

"You'd think she'd ever slow down" Drake put his hand on my shoulder as we printed after her. We went up the stairs and to the room next to the one I woke up in. I saw a bunch of candles lined up at the back of the room when we entered, it was the baby's room. 

"Drake, you take care of Charlie, Gregory takes care of Alica." Cloweys voice came out with authority and left no room for disagreement. Both me and Drake went straight to work, feeding the babies formula, changing diapers, and doing general baby caring things.

"Hey, Clowey, you've been here longer than both me and Drake, have any of the kids come back to visit us? You know after they get adopted." I ask Clowey who is taking care of one of the babies next to me. "No, not one person" short and sweet Clowey responded. "Do you think Drake will come back?" I say in a whisper so as not to alert Drake who is on the other side of the room. "He won't and so will nobody," she said bluntly, I couldn't help but think there was something deeper in that answer. 

"You know I find the whole thing weird… Most of them cried when they were about to leave saying stuff like 'I'll miss you guys' or 'I'll come back to see you soon' yet not one of them came back! I think something is preventing them from coming back or something ba' mmmmhhh" My mouth was suddenly covered by Cloweys hand as I looked at her face in confusion. 

"Clowey? Are you almost done there?" The voice of mom came from the other side of the door, Clowey was obviously tense. "Y-yes Mom, we were just finishing up" Clowey stuttered as she kept her hand on my mouth. "Are you sure? I heard you stutter, never mind I'm coming in" Mom's voice said as I saw the door handle turn, Clowey took her hand off my mouth and pushed me away.

Mom opened the door to see me, Drake, and Clowey looking at her. Drake had a look of confusion at what was happening, Clowey had a smile on her face, and I had no idea what was going on, but based on what happened to Clowey when mom came, I just pretended to be fine. "Mom? Everything is going fine, in fact, we are almost done." The current Clowey was a stark contrast to the cold and short one. "Well ok, I will leave you to it," Mom said and left straight afterward, we listened to the steps of mom walk away down the stairs. *sigh* a sigh of relief came out of Cloweys mouth.

"What's going on with you two?" Drake looked at us weirdly. Clowey just looked blankly back at him and said "nothing, we are done" bluntly. She then stormed out of the room only leaving me and Drake. 'Wtf just happened?! Clowey got weird when mom came, and I was only telling her about my suspicions about this orphanage. She might know more about what's going on in this orphanage, I'll talk to her during recess' I thought.

"What was that all about," Drake said. "I don't know, but Clowey has always been weird. I guess we are done here, I'm a go-read". I said as I stormed off leaving Drake by himself.

-----------3 hours later----------

After finishing my chores around the house I had about an hour to do whatever I wanted so I went to the library where I found a book to read. It was called 'How not to die in the wild' a survival book on things to do when you are in the wild. I found it quite interesting. It's been an hour since I started reading and I didn't notice but it was already lunchtime. 

"Do I always have to come to get you?" The voice of Fern brought me out of my trance of reading. "It's lunchtime Gregory, so come on" She implored me to go eat lunch. I put the book away and made my way to the bathroom to wash my hands, I then headed to the dining room to eat. I was still hungry from only eating an apple this morning. 

When I arrived I already saw kids in a line getting served their food, it was like a school cafeteria. After grabbing a plate and getting my food from Aunt Erica, who was serving the food. I sat down near Drake and started eating slowly, I'm a slow eater.

'Is this a death game?' That is what plagued my mind as I ate. 'On one hand, this orphanage looked peaceful and there were no obvious signs of death. On the other hand, the weird occurrence of not one child coming back to see us seems to be incredibly improbable. What if they are all dead, or if we are in some human trafficking scheme and they are all slaves now. It's all just so weird'.

Looking to my left, I see Drake inhaling his food like a vacuum. For the past 10 years, me and drake have been together for all of our lives, from cradle to now we've been together, at least the memories of Gregory's we have been. Yet now Drake is leaving in a week, and for the first time, we will be separated…

"Hey if you're not going to eat that I'll eat it" Without realizing it I stopped eating and was just staring blankly thinking. I was snapped out of my thoughts by Drake's voice. "No, this is my food, go devour someone else's food," I say while moving my food away from the glutton next to me. "Aww come on man, you aren't even eating it, let me have it," he said while his grubby little mitts reached for my food. "You know I'm a slow eater!" I yelled back at him and continued to eat my food, looking around me I found that most of the kids had finished their food and were heading outside for recess. Aunt Erica, Mom, and Clowey were cleaning up the plates, Clowey was like a third caretaker nowadays.

After finishing my food I bought it in the kitchen myself instead of letting someone else bring it for me. After putting my plate away, I headed outside and looked outside. This was the first time that I had been out here since I combined memories of my old life and this one. Directly in front of me was a vast forest and in the northwest, to the north was where we were forbidden to approach The Gate, it's the only exit from this space as in every direction is a tall wall trapping us in here. The wall is made in an Octagon shape, the place of the orphanage was off-center being more southeast of the middle. The forest is most prevalent in the northwest but did spread all around the wall, in the middle of this space was an open field which is where all the kids were currently playing.

"You're just going to stand there?" Cloweys voice came from behind me, it looks like she finally has some free time, being the oldest and only 12-year-old, who has the most chores out of everyone here. 

"Oh, Clowey! I was meaning to talk to you." I say when I noticed Clowey, and in the sun I was able to get a good look at her, Clowey has pitch black hair that went down past her shoulders, her black eyes looked at everything with an "uncaring attitude", her complexion was deadpan, and she stood at about my height.

*Sigh* "Ok fine, but only for a little bit, I'm out here for some shade anyway" After saying this she sprint walked towards a tree in the middle of the plain, it was not surrounded by any other trees letting it grow wide instead of tall so it could absorb more sunlight.

"What do you want to talk about?" She asked me, clearly wanting to get this over with. "Well, it was about what I was saying earlier before you got all weird with mom, is something bad happening? Why hasn't anyone come to visit us? Are they dead?" I blasted Clowey with questions.

*Sigh* "Listen, Gregory, you should stop looking into useless things, nothing bad is happening, nobody is dying, everything is just fine. Here is my advice Gregory, just spend your time as best you can until you get selected for adoption, it's better than stressing over useless things. Now get out of my tree!" She shooed me off, sat down, and enjoyed the outside. What she said cooled me down a little bit, what if I'm just overeating and this isn't a death game and I'm just stressing myself out for no reason. "Thank you Clowey" is all I say before walking over to the group of kids playing hide and seek tag.