Chapter 7: The Past

With the days of thorough thinking, my mind wouldn't let go of what he mentioned to me, the name Arlo, the name of the forest?. I wanted it to end, the sufferings, the questions and the blaming, I confessed everything to Zaire, the things that I have been experiencing lately, hoping that at some point, he has some answers to explain to me, he wasn't somehow shocked with everything I said to him, although, I wasn't honest with him about Theon, I changed some of the stories that I didn't want him to know. The moment I mentioned Arlo, his face was telling me, he knew something, so I persistently asked him if he knows something.

Zaire explained to me that the disappearance of many students started on the 1990's, the first victim was with the name Arlo Louis, however, he was never announced a missing person, no one knew nor cared about his whereabouts, no one bothered to look for him, that was why, his name wasn't on the list of missing students, in total 26 missing teenagers up until now, whereabouts are still unknown. However, what even is his connect to the current Arlo that we are mentioning now, is he the same Arlo that were talking about?.

Zaire suggested that maybe we can use Effie for answers, if I communicate more often with her, we could know answers about their locations, whether their dead or alive, it was dangerous yet worth a try. Strange, how is it that I can reach out to dead people. The problem on Zaire's plan is I lost contact with Effie ever since Theon appeared, not knowing what to do, still now, I'm waiting for her to show.

Before attending school, I prepared myself for the worst thing to happened, I have to face Theon confidently with no fear attached, if he wants to play then I'll play with him, just don't expect for a fair game. At Theon's table, I slipped a piece of note saying, I want to talk with him alone after class, after hours and minutes of waiting, I went to the classroom to look for him, I saw him having a normal conversation with the other students, they were laughing, seeing him acting normal and having fun angered me, how could he live a normal life after saying those crazy words to me?. After a few minutes, the students he was talking with finally left the room, with a face filled with no emotions or regrets, I went inside the room alone and I saw him leaning on the table with a smile always attached to him, unable to determine what he was thinking or planning.

"First things first, who is Arlo?", I asked straight to the point, no changing topic.

"Arlo was my first friend, he was affectionate and full of dreams like you", I was listening silently and focused, not until, his words were turning not quite right, he wasn't describing Arlo, he was describing me.

"Arlo was blamed by everyone with the incident of his older sister went missing after a one camp at the forest, everyone wondered why he was still alive and was quite suspicious, what if he actually killed them?. Things didn't go quite as planned, he was deceiving me and making fun of my curiosity. I immediately punched him in the face that made him bleed in the nose, he touched his blood coming out of his nose as he laugh in entertainment, he was definitely crazy. I threatened him not to ever come near me again. However my plan backfired, Theon wacked something hard and blatant to my head which made me lose my consciousness, I fell to the floor with my blurry eyes still looking at Theon dragging me somewhere to who knows where.

Slowly gaining my consciousness, I found myself leaning on a tall tree in the middle of the forest, with a dizzy head, I forced myself to stand up. Walking up ahead, I saw Theon suspiciously talking to someone on the phone, he noticed me and started to spout nonsense again.

"Glad your awake, now lets continue a proper conversation, shall we", he spoke.

"F*ck you", I cursed in anger for forcibly dragging me away out of nowhere and for causing me a head ache however in order to get away from him, we really had to negotiate.

"What do you want?", I asked so I can end things with him.

He only answered me saying that he wanted to be my friend, he said that if I was ever in pain or in sadness, I should always lean or rely on him but I laughed so hard after hearing that nonsense, what a load of sh*t he was saying. With his emotionless face that remained smiling, I couldn't tell if he was joking or not so I just agreed to what he wanted. After our conversation, I suddenly woke up in my bed at house realizing that it was just a dream again but surely our conversation was real, right?. Somehow, now, after all the day dreaming or hallucinations that I have been experiencing lately, couldn't say what is real and what was the dream. Morning came with another class to attend again, observantly watching Theon laughing normally with his friends as I was trying to determine, if our conversation was real or not.