48 hours ✔️

3| The Locket

     When I woke up, I changed and went to breakfast.  Autumn glared at me as I took my seat.  I locked my eyes on my plate.  I guess I looked like I was about to kill somebody, because Aunt Ellie offered to get me some medication.

     "Oh um, no, I'm just . . . tired."  I said, slowly chewing my bacon.

     "Are you sure?  Bro, you look terrible.  Did you get any sleep last night?" Will said in a concerned tone.

     "Yeah." Emma and Staci agreed, in unison.

     I hesitated for a moment.  "I was up late reading."  I lied.  The truth is, I hardly got any sleep because I kept freaking out about Autumn.

     "Whatever you say."  Staci mumbled.

     After we finished eating, Will walked me back to our room.  "Because I care about you, I want you to get some more rest."

     "Fine, but not because you want me to."  I said.  He closed the door and left me in the room, alone.

~~

     When I woke up, I looked all over the house for my Aunt Ellie and friends, but they were nowhere in sight.  I figured they were outside.  Just as I was walking back up the hall to the front door, I paused by one of the rooms when I saw Autumn in it.

     She was sitting in an old chair, at an even older desk, a pink bedazzled laptop in front of her.  She was looking at a picture of some guy . . . but then I realized; that guy was me!  It was a closeup of my face, sleeping. What the heck?  How did she get that?  This girl really was crazy!  I watched her click print and a printer that sat next to her—which she must have brought herself—printed out the photo in an extra small size.

     She cropped the image around my head, snipping with a pair of dull scissors.  I watched her pull out wooden box from under her bed and unlock it with a key she wore around her neck.  She grabbed a necklace—no, a locket—out of the box.  It was kind of hard to see from where I was standing, but I got a glimpse of it.  No . . . there's no way . . .

     She opened the locket and took out a picture of another teenager, also with his eyes shut.  It looked like this junior that went to my high school, but went missing about a year and a half ago and was never found.  I could have sworn it was him.

     "Oh, my dearest Brian, if only you would've listened to me . . ." She said, sadly, placing the picture in the box, which was filled with like, a hundred others.  "They just never listen . . ."  She sighed.  She put my picture where Brian's used to be, and tied the locket around her neck.

     I couldn't believe what I was seeing.  She must have sensed that I was watching, because she turned around and studied the doorway where I had just been standing.  Luckily, I quickly slipped inside the room next door.  I heard her walk and peek down the hall in both directions, then close her door.

     As soon as I was sure the coast was clear, I tried to catch my breath.  What was I going to do? After a few minutes of realization, I turned around and started to explore the room I was in; the library.

It wasn't big, but it wasn't small. There were four bookshelf cases in the center of the room, and along the outer walls were more of them.  Everything was drenched in dust, and I'm pretty sure none of the books were from the twentieth century. I decided I would come back with my friends and check it out tomorrow. 

Meanwhile, I needed to figure out whether or not I should tell them about Autumn.  No, you shouldn't, a voice in the back of my head told me. Yes, you should, another argued.

     I have to . . .