This is a rather short chapter hehe. At least shorter than my other ones..
I guess...
Anyways, enjoy!
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(Author's POV)
Ash was sitting quietly in his room, texting his friends.
Ash: So...anything?
Gary: Nope.
May: Not yet.
Dawn: I don't know either.
Yellow: Actually no.
Ash sighed, and suddenly, Delia called him down.
"Ash, come down here."
"Okay mom."
Ash: Guys mom's calling. Talk to you in a few minutes.
He informs his friends and goes down to Delia.
"Yes mom?"
"Do you remember what's day after tomorrow?" Delia asks.
"Yes mom. I remember." Ash replies.
It was Tyler's death anniversary. On that very day, when he left this world, letting everything, every responsibility, fall on Delia's shoulders. Ash wasn't present on any of his death anniversaries till date.
"Every time, I used to go visit him, with Misty's parents and some other friends. Since this time you're here as well, I am calling every single person we know and we're gonna go meet him at his grave." Delia says.
"But why everybody?" Ash asks.
"Many people want to meet you, so well I thought this will be two in one thing. They'll come to meet Tyler and you as well." Delia explains. "Tell all your friends to come."
"Okay mom. And take care of yourself. Please don't cry, okay?" Ash says.
"I will try sweetie, now go. It's late. You should sleep." Delia says.
"Okay. Good night!" Ash says, turning to go to the stairs to his room.
"Night!"
Ash comes back to his bedroom and picks up his phone to see the messages if any.
"Damn these are a lot." He says as he starts typing something.
Ash: Guys, I was gone for two minutes and you literally texted so much, it's hundred plus notifications now.
Dawn: Well, we're texters, heh.
Paul: Awesome name, troublesome.
Dawn: Shut up Paul.
Paul: I didn't even talk, I am texting for your information.
Dawn: Then shut your phone dammit-
Brock: Guys, there's a situation here.
Dawn: Ah right. Sorry.
Paul: Hm...
Ash: I just used to miss my dad in the US. Nothing else, but this will be the first time I will be visiting him at his grave.
May: Eh?
Drew: You're gonna visit him? When?
Ash: Tomorrow's his death anniversary. You all gotta come.
Gary: It will be okay Ash.
Ash: Hope so.
Others: Good night. Sleep tight.
Ash: Good night.
Ash kept his phone aside and stared at his ceiling.
Every weird thing has happened since I came here. There are good things as well as bad things. Now that I think about it, I should've never came back. Misty would be living her own life, mom wouldn't have to invite all those people who wanna see me, which mainly include old couples, all my friends would have carried on with their life, except for helping me here and there.
He sighs, and turns off his room's light.
(???POV)
'What? You know you can't always just barge into someone's house right?' Derek says over the bluetooth.
'I know, but can't help it.' I answer.
'Why are you there again?'
'Just wanted to investigate more, if there's something I left last time.' I say.
'You need to be really careful.' He instructs.
'I will, thanks Derek.' I say.
'Tell me when you're done. I will pick you up.'
'Cool!'
I cut the call and go inside from the back door, climb the stairs, and reach the meeting room again.
You sure wanna go in there again?
Duh, then why am I here?
Well, I'm just worried about you. Brings back lots of sad memories. So I asked.
I will be okay, just like last time. Don't worry.
I was just going to reach for the knob, when I heard a faint noise from behind.
Damn, who's this now?
I looked behind, the noise was of an opening door. But the only door which was here except the one of the meeting room, was the store room, which was not open.
In fact, the noise was coming from inside the store room.
Oh my god...
I need Harry Potter's invisibility cloak, now!
You don't have one, kid.
Where should I go? Up the wall?
Go down the stairs for now.
I do as my conscience says. When I am down, I still peek a little to see what's happening.
There was a person, who was opening the meeting room, looking here and there if someone was present.
I can't believe it! Is someone trying to find clues as well?
I go a little up the stairs to see who it is clearly. But the darkness wasn't allowing me to see. Then I heard the said person's voice.
"Yes sir, I am here. And I will destroy all the clues that will bring suspicion on you."
Dude.
This person is from the opposite party.
I wanna go and choke him so hard.
Control, control.
How can I? He sent him to destroy the clues, that means he knows we're looking for clues, and we know it's him.
I know, but we need to act smart.
How?
The man went inside.
First, go into the store room, and look where he came from.
Okay.
I slowly climb up the stairs, making sure there's no noise, and reach to the side of the meeting room. I peek a little inside.
The guy, whoever he is, was searching the files cabinet.
Hah! He's never gonna find anything there.
How do you know?
Because I already checked there and found nothing!
Shut up.
Fine.
I took a glance at the guy again, and then looked at the store room, it's door was open.
Stupid, can't even close the door.
Good thing for us!
Yup!
I go inside.
Woah...this store room is indeed clean.
But...
WHAT THE HELL?
There's a door, right in front of the main door.
So this was here all the time?
We don't know, we never came here.
Ah, right.
I go near the door and open it really slowly.
Woaw, it opens to that side of the house, where the bushes are, where I was hiding a while ago.
I mean why didn't I know about this?
I checked the door, it was painted in the wall's color, to camouflage.
That's why! Smart.
I move my attention to the room again, and look everywhere. Every corner.
Huh?
I see an old yellow thing in the corner. I go towards it.
Eh?
Gloves?
WHAT THE-
It was here all the time?
Calm down. Maybe he dropped it here while going.
But who drops a clue here, like this? Recklessly?
Him, of course. And well he must be in a hurry, so he did this.
Mhm, I see.
I take out my gloves from my pocket, wear it, and then take the fallen gloves and put them in a zip lock bag.
You're very prepared I see.
Of course! I am known for that!
Yeah yeah yeah yeah.
I walk back to the door. I look at it carefully.
Why did I not know it was here? I sigh.
"Who are you?" Someone says from behind.
Oh crap...
"I am a human being, just like you!" I answer back, turning around to come face to face at the guy who was wearing all black clothes, just like me.
"What are you doing here?" He asks.
"Taking a look at the interior to build my house exactly like this!" I say.
"You think I am buying it?" He asks.
"I hope you are." I say, just then he takes out a pistol.
"Dude, you don't have to get so angry over it, we can solve things by talking, you know." I say.
"I ain't buying this either." He says, placing a finger of his on the trigger.
"You don't have money or what? Can I lend you some?" I ask.
He firms his grip on his gun. "Tell me why you're here."
"To check on you." I say quickly.
"What?!"
"Sir sent me to check on you." I say, god I love my mind.
"Well whatever, I am done with my mission, so no need for you to be here anymore." He says.
"Ah thank god. It was painful to climb the whole way up here." I say, relieved that he believed I am one of his party.
"I am sure death would be more painful." He says.
"What?" I ask and he pulls the trigger.
(Ash's POV)
"I remember everything now Ash, and I wanna say..-" I was woken up by a gunshot.
"Ugh exactly at the time Misty was gonna say something important." I say, waking up.
Wait...a gunshot? Here?
"Ash! Ash? Wake up hun." Mom says, banging on my door.
I got up in a hurry and opened the door. "Mom, what was that gun shot?"
"I don't know, it came from the store room. And the meeting room's door is open." Mom says, looking terrified.
Just then, some people came barging in up the stairs.
Police.
Who called them?
"Someone called us here, saying there was firing going on." The officer says.
Hmm....
Who called them? I still don't know. Are they fake?
Too many questions.
"We heard a gunshot, from there." My mom says, pointing to the store room.
"I see, let's go." He says and everybody follows him to the closed store room. Me and mom follow them too.
"Be back Mrs. Ketchum, this can be dangerous. You too, young master." The officer says.
Young master? Me?
Cool.
I like this guy.
Anyways...
He opens the door, like a flash. Every cop here points their gun to the room.
And being the curious me, I peek inside a little.
Woaw, there's a person, dressed in black, lying on the floor. Feels like an action scene happened here.
Looking at the person lying down there, I am sure it did happen.
All of us go towards the man lying on the floor. He had a gun in his hand. Maybe he's the one who did the gunshot.
Huh, no peace at all.
But there should be someone else as well, I don't think this guy is stupid to just fire a gun in the middle of the night.
"We will take him under observation and update you about everything. Also, there must have been another person here, I don't think he will be that dumb to fire a gun in the middle of the night." The officer says.
HEY! That's my line! Copycat. Never mind.
"We'll take our leave now." He says.
"Thank you officer." Mom says.
"But- what about the gun shot?" I ask before they go.
"H-he i-i-is very s-s-strong." The man whom two cops were holding, said.
Huh? Who?
"Who is he talking about?" I ask.
"We'll inform you about everything. Now, good night." He says and they all head out.
Mom sighs, I keep a hand on her shoulder. "Everything will be alright mom." I say.
"Hope so, now sleep. We have a lot of things to do tomorrow." She says.
"Okay, night!" I say and we head to our rooms.
(???POV)
"It was kinda worth it." I say.
"What was?" Derek asks.
"Going to Ash's house again. We found that stupid and he couldn't destroy anything, oh and not to forget these gloves." I say cheerfully.
Thought I died there? Nope!
"Hey, but I don't understand, how did the police come at the exact time after the firing?" I ask curiously.
"It was me."
"Eh? You? How did the police come so fast?" I ask again.
"Well, our call hadn't ended." He said.
"Huh?"
"I could still hear whatever was going on with you, and I heard you talking to that guy, so I realized something's wrong, and called the police. When he fired, I called the officer again and told him there's firing as well." He stated.
"Oh wow...."
"So, how did you tackle the situation?" He asks.
"Hmm..."
Flashback
"I am sure death would be more painful." He says.
"What?" I ask and he pulls the trigger.
I quickly did a flip to the side and lucky for me the bullet hadn't reached me.
Damn, this must've woken everybody up.
The man points his gun at me again, but I flip over him, grabbing the gun from his hand. He was surprised by my action. In his surprised state, I hit him with his gun on the back of his head.
Smart me!
He falls down, and moans in pain.
"Argh.." He says, touching the back of his head. Lucky for him no blood was wasted here.
I lean down towards him. "Now, don't ever try to mess with me, or else there will be no soul in your body next time." I say, giving him a bang on his head by his gun again.
End Of Flashback
"And like that, I came down through the secret door, and got here!" I say.
"Smart."
"I said that to myself too." I say.
He chuckles, "Good."
~
Next Day...After the funeral...
~
(Ash's POV)
Everything was kinda okay. We all visited my father's grave. Mom cried her heart out. All the ladies tried to comfort her, but failed. Now she's in her room, with all her friends there. My friends are here. All my talkative friends are rather very silent today. We are at my house right now.
"Ash, you okay?" May asks me.
"Yeah, I think I am..." I say, in a low voice.
"Want some water?" Drew asked.
"No.."
"Ice cream?" May asked.
"No..."
"Wanna go for a walk?" Someone says, I look up.
It's Misty.
Is she asking...me? I look at my friends, they all gesture at me to go.
"Okay.." I say and get up.
We both went outside my house, and started walking.
"How are you feeling?" She asked me.
"Not good." Yes, I can be honest with her, even if she doesn't remember me, we are best friends.
"I was never here to see how mom always cried on this day, never saw how much she has on her shoulders to handle. She never forgot to call me, even if she was so exhausted and tired from working. Being a mom, and being a businesswoman at the same time, would not have been easy for her.." I say.
"Ash, whatever happens, she still has to take care of everything. And everybody trusts her with that, especially Uncle Tyler, and with that trust, she has still held on all of these responsibilities." Misty says.
I sigh. "I know..."
But then something struck in my mind.
"Hey, you know what happened last night?" I asked, of course knowing she doesn't know.
"I know." She says.
Eh?
"Just insert don't between the two of them." She continues.
Ah, got it.
"So, I was sleeping, and suddenly there was a gunshot, mom knocked on my door and we went to see the meeting room door opened and the noise came from the store room." I explained.
"Woah..." She says. I continued.
"That's when the cops came, and I didn't even call them, even mom didn't." I say.
"Maybe they were near and they heard a gunshot." She stated.
"Maybe, but then they opened the store room and we found a man in black lying on the floor. He was unconscious. But when the police mentioned that there was someone else, he said, he is very strong, he was trembling a lot. The police told us they will inform us about everything and went." I say.
"Seems like an action movie, what happened then?" She asked.
"Well, mom told me to sleep and left, but I didn't go to my room. Instead I went into the open meeting room. I looked around, and remembered the time when I had seen blood everywhere. That day, everything changed." I say.
"So, I went inside and saw the files cabinet open. Maybe that person was trying to search for something. I went there, and looked inside it, but found nothing unusual, except..."
"Except...?"
"There was this file, saying the Ketchum-Yvonne contribution. I opened it, and the first page was covered in dust. I dusted it off, and then tried to read it. It was covered in some sort of stain, which I don't know what it was, but I could read some first lines, and it read, This is a file that bonds Ash, like this, and the other thing was stained. I flipped the page, hoping to find another page where I can get some information, but there was nothing, it was just that page and then some other of their contributions in the company." I said.
Misty didn't speak for a while, and then said.
"I think it's something connected to all of this, especially to you, of course." She said,
"I think the same!" I say. But then her phone rang. She picked it up.
"Hey, yes. Oh, okay. We'll be back in some time." She says and hangs up.
"Who was it?" I asked.
"Gary, he said your mom's out of her room. And told us to come back in a while-" She says, but stopped when she saw where we were.
We were at the pond, or as I call it, 'our place'. It was as beautiful as ever, the sun shining brightly, it's orange reflection in the crystal clear water. The trees swayed swiftly and smoothly with the wind. I looked at Misty, she was looking everywhere, a hint of amusement on her face.
"You like it?" I ask.
"I love it!" She says. "I didn't notice it the last time we came as I was looking for the non existing best chocolate maker, but...it's so beautiful." She says.
She still doesn't remember. I sigh internally.
"Wanna go back now?" I asked, I wanted to stay, but right now mom was more important.
"Sure, we will come back here again, right?" She asks, I chuckled.
Such a baby.
"We will!" I say.
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