· Our (Jessie, Jada, Drew and I) dream indicates that there are different groups, both in the future and in our time, that are dedicated to either stopping the 'conspiracy' or helping it. CSS is our one. The other group, the K&K, must be another one that we don't know about. But this means it's not just us who are in on the entire business. There are others – whether they are at our school, we don't know for sure, but Mrs Mitzeegh and Ms K are probably part of another good group.
· Edinburgh, Scotland, has some link to it all.
So, as you can see, in regard to the actual theory, it's pretty vague. But hopefully, our trip will be more insightful, seeing as we're putting in so much work into it.
It's easy to just think 'well, then, what's the point of it all? Why are we bothered again?' But every time I think that, it's like a little button is pressed in my brain, and I remember all the little things that got us here. I remember our dream, our theory, the way Mrs Mitzeegh had announced her departure, the countless codes we got, the room of doors, and, of course, the time Jada almost died, and Drew almost left crippled for life (Wow, that escalated quickly).
But just when I thought things couldn't get any scarier, we heard back from Mrs Renee on how this entire trip was going to work.
Mrs Renee had explained that she was going to stop time again, but this time for an entire week, which is how long she reckons it'll take. In our little city, anything and everything that involves us will be stopped. Basically, our personal lives and, unfortunately, the lives of those involved with us every day - will stop. This was the biggest thing that concerned me about this trip and took me a while to understand and accept. I never fully did, but I think it was better off that way.
Mrs Renee had assured us that this method was foolproof and had worked on her life every time something like this happened. She assured as that when we came back, everything would go back to normal, and it'd be like our trip had never happened. Still, it made me a little sad, thinking my parents would literally be statues and whoever tried to contact them would also be too, and so on and so forth. It just felt so harsh, and it was moments like these when I would ponder on the real impact the conspiracy was having on my life.
But hey - there was definitely no backing out now. And none of us were - but then Drew had the idea of keeping him and Jada here. It was partly because, in his words, he thought the enemy knew them better and so it would be much safer here for both of them, but also because he felt like they could try and look for more clues here and it'd be a good way to have a 'fail-safe' in case things went wrong in our mission. Obviously, his second point was stronger, but we were all taken aback by it, especially Jada, who flat-out refused. That was until Mrs Renee showed full out support for it and basically made them stay.
It was very strange, but again, we trusted them. Both of them.
The rest of Friday went by like a breeze. We had a pretty sad rest of the day, as we said our last goodbyes to Mrs Mitzeegh and Ms K. Mrs Mitzeegh loved our gifts and cards, I made her a card which had a compilation of all the maths jokes that she ever told us - including Sawyer the cow, which is a really long story. We hugged about a million times.
Ms Katarina, well, I kind of expected this, but she just seemed normal. She didn't hug anyone. I gave her my card, and she just smiled slightly and stuffed it in her bag. Same with Jada. Some girls had gotten her a gift too, and they basically had to force her to open in right then and there. But I wasn't too concerned about it – that was basically her personality. She was like that person who'd never admit they were upset.
Anyway, the reluctance to say goodbye to our teachers doesn't really slow us down all that much. Right after Humanities ends, Jada and I rush up to the English classroom, Jada texting Drew along the way (Even though they were staying, they were pretty much pretending like they weren't). We find Mrs Renee already there, ready, with her suitcase packed and everything.
Next to her, are 6 suitcases, different colours but same sizes, all lined up against the wall.
"Are those-
"Yep," she says, walking over to them.
"But how did you-"
"Magic." She says and smiles at me. Again, I smile back and don't question it. I've gotten kind of used to Mrs Renee saying ridiculous and supposedly impossible things to us.
She'd told us to pack our suitcases the night before, but not bring them to school. Somehow, she'd transported them all here. Now, I know what you're thinking – there's something called cars? – but I'm pretty sure she was here the entire day, and I don't think she would've had time to go around to everyone's houses, break in, and then come back to school in one piece. No, there was really some magic involved.
I open my suitcase, just to check if it's actually mine. Sure enough, all my 'essentials' (like my entire room contents) are squished in there. Everyone else does the same. I can't help but notice Flynn holding an action figure – is that Captain Marvel? I try and supress my giggle but fail. Flynn whips around in a panic and presses a finger to his lips. "Don't." he says, blushing, which only makes me laugh harder.
"Well," says Mrs Renee. She's all packed, leaning against her table, keys dangling from her fingers.
We all look at each other once and pause. Then, quietly, we gather up our stuff and stand up almost simultaneously.
No one says anything when we leave, but it's in our manner and the way we look at each other.
This is it.
Our first proper mission.
Next stop – Edinburgh, Scotland.
∞
It's currently 3:23pm, and we're on the train on our way to the airport. Jessie and I are standing, listening to the same music, jamming and just being ridiculous again, like we would before the conspiracy came into our lives, the excitement hanging around us in a lightweight cloud.
Jessie taps me on the shoulder. I turn, taking my earphone out at the same time, and see Damon standing there with his phone outstretched.
"He wants to swap music," Jessie explains. I nod, taking his phone and giving mine at the same time. He nods and walks back, sitting back next to Flynn.
He has some good songs in there - some rap and hip hop, as you'd expect from a typical teenage boy - but also some pop songs, and some old songs as well. It's pretty good.
As we're jamming to some rap song, the phone buzzes and a message pops up on the top of the screen. Now, I want to respect his privacy and not read it, but curiously gets the better off me and I just glance at it quickly.
It reads, 'where r u?'
Hmmm. That's strange. Mrs Renee stopped time around where we lived and at school, and like other things like sporting clubs, so no one should be texting him something like that. But I don't really think twice about it.
The phone buzzes again, almost in a more urgent manner. It reads, 'are u oyw now?'
I frown. I'm about to show Jessie, but the train slows to a halt, and the team is getting up off their seats. Damon comes up and stretches his hand out, so I give his phone back, my mind still buzzing with ideas. As we get off the train, I'm about to ponder on it once more but I'm interrupted by a realisation.
Dammit, he still has my phone.
Damon's smirking at me, as I roll my eyes. He's laughing as he takes my phone out of his pocket, earphones hanging off. I grab it off him, or at least I try to, because he pulls his hand back again, and walks off.
He turns around, wiggles his eyebrows, and says, "Try and catch me!"
I groan, a huge Jada-style groan (Jada does the best groans, by the way) and start walking a little faster. Jessie is completely oblivious to the whole situation, looking down at her phone intently while walking. She looks up as we pick up the pace.
"Damon's still got my phone!" I practically yell in her face.
"Whoah, calm down. He's not going anywhere without us. It's fine, just chill Alessia." I nod. I can't help the smile that starts to creep up on my face, though. It's annoying. Jessie states at me and raises her eyebrows, widening her eyes in a suggestive man
ner. "Well then..." She starts but doesn't finish because we both burst into immense laughter.
Mrs Renee looks back at us. "You ok, girls?"
"Yeah, we're fine Miss," I nod, trying to suppress my laughter.
Damon's in the lead, well obviously because I'm at the back and he's trying to get away from me, but sometimes he starts walking backwards, staring straight at me, giggling. I ignore him - at this point I honestly don't care. Like Jessie said, it's not like he's going to go anywhere without us.
After a while I think Damon takes the hint and walks at the back towards me. I raise my eyebrows.
"You done?"
"Ugh, you're no fun Alessia," he says. He takes my phone out and starts wrapping the earphones around it. I eye his phone, which is sticking out of his other hand.
This could either go really good, or really bad.
I run. Damon shouts for me. I can hear his footsteps beating the ground behind me as my heart pounds faster and I'm gasping for breath. I'm so unfit. But the urge to win this war keeps me going. I'm laughing so hard.
He did not see this coming.
I make sure I'm not running somewhere completely random but running to the airport gates. Sometimes I look behind me and check that the rest of the team is there. And they are, but just ages away. I start to walk a bit slower.
To my surprise, I see Damon is only a couple of metres away behind me. He's catching up quick. I start to run faster. As I look around, I see the bathrooms coming up in front of me.
Oh, this is going to be good.
I stop. I can hear Damon getting closer, and closer, and closer, until I can almost hear his heavy breathing. Then, at the last minute, I bolt into the girl’s bathroom.
"Alessia!" He calls after me. I can hear a hint of annoyance in his voice.
My laughter echoes off the bathroom walls. This time, Damon groans.
"Hey!" I yell. "You asked for it!"
After, like, ten seconds of waiting, I come out. But no one's there.
I look around, my hair flipping around my head.
Oh great. Now I've lost them.
"BOO!" I jump straight into the air and squeal, and then I groan. Again.
"Damon!" I yell at him. "Don't do that ever again!"
He just laughs. We're both standing there, panting and slowly laughing, trying to catch our breaths. I feel so childish - I literally played a game of tag in public. With someone I barely know.
Wow, okay, that was just random.
We both take out each other's phone. "We need to give them in at the same time," I tell him, and he nods. As promised, we swap at the exact same time, so neither of us can run off again.
Damon looks at me and smiles. I smile back. There's an air of awkwardness between us for a brief period, until Jessie comes and interrupts it.
"Where have you guys been? We've been looking for you for AGES!" She exclaims, stretching out the 'ages'. She looks at both of us, flipping her head back and forth. Before she can make a comment, I blurt out,
"Where's Mrs Renee?"
"She's over here. Follow me."
Damon and I follow Jessie back to main lounge. Sure enough, the rest of the team are there, staring at us as we walk in.
"Sorry," I apologise. "I had to go to the bathroom."
"Yeah, me too," adds Damon.
Mrs Renee nods, "Just tell us next time before you run off, okay?" We both nod. She looks up to the screen. "Our flight's in half an hour."
Damon and I sit at opposite sides of the row. Mrs Renee's sitting in the middle, the boys on one side, the girls on the other. A straight gender division. Even though we were kind of close now, our little group still reminded me of those random boy-girl mixed groups your teacher would force you to be in so you could 'get out of your comfort zone'
Well, I thought, If this isn't stepping out of your comfort zone I don't know what is.
We didn't have to wait too long to board our flight. It's about 5:38 pm when we do, the sun just starting to set over the horizon, turning the sky brilliant shades of fuchsia, lavender and amber.
We decide to sit relatively close together, even though we get some weird looks from the other passengers as we walk down the aisle. I mean, it's kind of strange to see a group of students with their schoolbags and suitcases, followed by one middle-aged lady. Honestly, if I wasn't part of the team, I would be a little curious too.
"You guys going on some sort of field trip or something?"
A man, looking like he's around his early 50s, turns around and faces us. He's bald, but where he does have hair it's silver. His face holds a sense of arrogance, but at the same time looks like he's about to burst out into laughter.
"Yeah," I quickly say without thinking. Sneaking a lot at Jessie, I add, "We're on exchange."
I feel everyone shuffle uncomfortably next to me and I silently curse myself. Exchange?!?
"Yes, I can vouch for them." Mrs Renee comes to the rescue. "Hi, I'm Gemma Baker, their Scottish teacher. As you can see, not a very big group but the school's pretty well-funded and let us go anyway."
The man, seemingly taken aback by her words, simply raises his eyebrows, shrugs as if to say 'meh’ before turning around.
The flight is pretty normal after that. This'll mark the longest one I've ever been on, so I was kind of nervous about that. But it was helpful to have Jessie and Jada with me. We tried to maintain as much as a conversation as we could, but Damon and Flynn had gotten really bored at one point (like, 15 m into it) and had started annoying us for fun, which was an experience. The wildest it had gotten was that Flynn had stolen Jessie's Ipad and was going to text Greg (remember Gregdale?) some less than necessary things. That got things really intense really quickly, with Jessie running halfway down the aisle cursing his name.
I wasn't even mad about the fact that there were no free movies available. This was good enough for me.
About halfway through, the boys finally get tired and decide to take a nap (like everyone else on the plane). The lights are dim, and all is finally silent and calm, and so I decide to do the same. But just as I close my eyes, I'm awaken by a bright, white, interrogation light shining in my eyes.
"Who-wha"
"Alessia," I blink a couple of times to adjust to the brightness, and look to see, it's Amelia.
"Can you look after my Ipad, please?"
"Uh-"
"Thanks so much!"
And before I can comment, she's gone.
Soon enough, my will to sleep gets the better of me (as it always does) and I close my eyes.
When I wake, it's to a distant voice in the background saying something continuously. Shaking my head, as if it’s annoyed it's woken me up from my beautiful nap, I groggily open my eyes.
The sound is finally loud enough for me to comprehend.
"Attention customers," It's the pilot who's making an announcement. "Just to repeat, we are about to approach what looks like some storm clouds. Please be advised that minor turbulence may occur. Please don't panic, it will pass very soon. Thank you."
Mrs Renee mouths to me, where's Amelia?
I look around to her seat. It’s just her Ipad that's there, and not her.
She's still not back?
She looks around once more, and I ask out loud, "Do you want me to check up on her?".
She nods.
I quickly get up from my seat, to the surprise of many other passengers on board, except for the team, of course. Suddenly, my knees buckle underneath me and hit the ground.
Turbulence, turbulence. Just keep going.
For some reason, as I walk, my vision starts going shaky and blurry. I feel a bit faint, but then I snap back to reality almost instantaneously. My hands gripping the seats, I push myself forward with great effort. It's almost as if the air is pushing me backwards, which is weird, but I just focus all my effort on getting to the bathroom.
Maybe I'm just feeling faint...it's the motion sickness...still not 100% awake...should've taken my iron tablets
this morning...
The door to the female bathroom is open. I gently push open the door, my vision now turning sideways, and what I see at first blinds me.
All I see its white. As I blink rapidly, trying to get my eyes to adjust to the light, I see her.
Behind her, it's all black, and whatever it is, she's being sucked into it.
She reaches out. I reach out. Our fingers get closer and closer but are slipping away each time. I can feel my heart pounding in my ears, the adrenalin pumping through my veins.
What...I can't...everything is slowly ripping apart...
The Conspiracy Theory of June 17 Page 8