Revolution: Chaos

CHAPTER 1: Haunt

"We filed a complaint to the police but they got no lead. How could they? There was no trace of a person who was in a coma for years. For months, we kept searching but to no avail." Jack met my eyes once again and said something that made my heart beat faster. "You helped me move on from the past, Azura."

But just as he said this, it was as though he crashed back to reality. He whipped his head to see Rena who sat timidly, watching the exchange between me and Jack. "And now you won't tell me how you're back here." There was distrust oozing out with every word Jack said to Rena. He was unable to accept that maybe his sister had returned after all, although he wasn't the only one to go through that. I couldn't begin to process this situation as well.

"Look, Jay... I don't know what to say to make you trust me." Rena replied with worried eyes, no doubt, willing her brother to believe her.

"How about you start telling me how long you've been awake?" Jack asked the question I had wondered about ever since I got here.

"It hasn't been long. A month maybe...?" Rena replied, enraging Jack all the more.

"A month?! And instead of finding us, you've been prancing here?!" Jack was on the edge and his voice was dangerously close to shouting. I knew that he was refraining himself because of my general dislike of loud voices. It was touching yet shattering. He wasn't alright and still he had the mind to remember such details about me.

"Look, I did find you guys, okay?! But you moved on! It didn't seem to be my place to simply waltz back in when I was clearly already replaced!" She yelled, shooting me a dirty look that obviously Jack noticed. It dawned on me then that it was how I must seem to her, a replacement. Considering that she was observing the bond Jack and I shared, she might have felt envious of it. But she was completely right to. I had days of being envious of Max's friendships with Mason when we squabbled, so I had a perfect understanding of that feeling.

"Of course we moved on! We thought you were gone and now you just want me to believe that you simply popped back?!" Jack yelled back. He was beyond agitated at this point. As much as I didn't want there to be conflict in this conversation, it seemed to be zooming that way. Both, Rena and Jack, seemed to be on the verge of blowing out.

"Um... Can you tell us the last thing you remember before you woke up... or came back?" I butted in when the silence went a little too long. 

"Well, the very last thing I remember is..." She trailed off, terrified. "It was dark... and I tried to run away. I wasn't home and... it got me." She shuddered remembering the trauma that I was all too familiar with.

"And then, after that, I just woke up here, in my room." She said, gesturing to the house. I found it a bit coincidental how no one lived here even when the Lennons moved to Dolphin Square. Of course, I remembered how no one would take the house even if they tried to sell it. It was as if the house was keeping everyone at bay because it knew that the rightful member would be here. I felt a greater force working here than us mere mortals.

"Just days after I woke up, I tried calling your numbers but I couldn't seem to reach any one of you. Apparently you all had changed it." Rena said heartbroken. She had a rueful smile going as she slowly started talking about the days after she got back. Apparently, she did follow them to Dolphin Square even when she was taken from there and brought back here in Salvus City. It was then that I realized that Rena seemed awfully younger than the rest of the siblings. It could've been why Jack was so quick to recognize her.

"How come you followed us back to Dolphin Square if you couldn't reach our numbers or whatever?" Jack piped again, vexed still. His irrationality, while justified and understandable, seemed totally out of proportion. Why was he being so hard on his sister? She had already been through a lot and that too, alone. My protective side towards anyone at the end of the backlash came crashing and I knew I had to knock some sense into the bumbling, boiling, steam pot sitting beside me.