Missing in time // {UNDER EDITING BEFORE CONTINUATION}//

Chapter 3

How? How and why? The only thoughts going through my head as I park my car in a parking lot. How, and why? Why did they find Cassie's body? How is Cassie even dead? She was clearly alive in the videos. And if she invented time travel, then the Cassie in the videos would have been the present day Cassie two years ago. So Cassie can't be dead because she was in the past, becoming friends with our parents, so she can't have died recently. 

When I explain my reasoning to my friends, they just look at me strangely.

"That makes no sense." Tess says, which is bad. If even Tess thinks my reason is crazy, then it must be insane. I try to reword it anyway.

"No, just think about it. If Cassie was in the past becoming friends with our parents, and she died in the past, we would never know about her. And there wouldn't be a body, it would have decomposed by now. So the person they found can't possibly be Cassie." I say.

"I still don't understand."Jessie says, looking confused. 

"Oh! I get it now" Tess yells loudly. Well, that's a start. But Tess hardly counts, Tess will believe anything as long as you can explain it in multiple ways. 

By now, we've arrived at the place where they supposedly found Cassie's body. I'm so convinced it isn't Cassie that I almost don't even bother looking. But then I do, and I wish I hadn't. It is Cassie, but older Cassie, 16 year old Cassie. Future Cassie I think. Again, how and why circle around my head.

There is blood on this strange, older Cassie. A lot of blood. And a hole in her chest. This strange, older Cassie was shot and killed. She was murdered. I gasp and stumble back a step. Jessie is sobbing. Tess is shaking her head back and forth, almost as if she's thinking that if she denies it enough time, Cassie will come back. Andrea is frozen, but a silent tear drips down her face. Now all I can think is Cassie is gone. Someone shot her. Someone murdered her. Cassie is gone. Now Cassie is really gone...