Untitled, Nanowrimo book. Enjoy!!

chapter one

Two men sat in a dark room. One was a short, balding man with wide eyes and spectacles. The second was sat in a tall, black, throne-like wheelchair. He was wearing all black, even a black mask covered his head. A metal grid covered his eye area. He had countless tubes coming out of various parts of his body that went around to the back of his wheelchair. An air of darkness was around him.
The short old man sat nervously as he fiddled with his fingers while the dark, masked man sat calmly.
“It is time, Doctor.” The masked man said with a voice like thunder.
The old man jumped at his voice, then he relaxed. He had expected this day would come soon, although he was still skeptical.
“This form is growing weaker and weaker,” The man continued, “It is time to find a Subject.”
“But where?” The Doctor stammered.
The masked man laughed a deep and horrible laugh that shook the room and horrified the Doctor.
“Finding him shall be easy,” The masked man said with a relentless tone, “What you need to worry about is making him.”
The blood rushed from the Doctor’s face as a thought of pure horror struck him.
“But what if i fail?” He inquired.

The masked man chuckled.

“I think we both know the answer to that question, Doctor.”

The old man nodded in silent understanding. He stood and bowed before the masked man before walking out the door. He knew he was a dead man.

chapter 2

You are being ridiculous, I told myself for the hundredth time this week, He’s probably out of town, or maybe he’s sick or something....

My friend, Oliver had gone missing. Well, I don’t know if ‘missing’ is the right term, but he was gone. Vanished. Poof. It all started last week; thursday, to be exact. He wasn’t at school.

Ok, not a big deal, I thought, he’s probably just sick.

But then he wasn’t there the next day, either. I sent him an email:

Hey, are you ok? I didn’t see you at school today.

No response.

I didn’t see him saturday or sunday. I tried to send him a text message but there was no answer. He had been gone for 5 days.

At dinner, I wasn’t eating much.

“Hey, what’s wrong?” My mom asked.

“Oliver has been absent all week...” I mumbled.

“He’s probably just sick or busy.” My mom stated.

“Yeah.....” I said, but I knew there was something wrong. I felt it.

Thats when I finally decided to go visit his house.

Going to Oliver’s house is usually a big, scary thing for me. His mom has Schizophrenia, and his dad is always gone on business trips. His house is a bit scary to say the least, It’s pretty run down and beat up. He has a mean bulldog  that’s always chained to the fence, but it still scares me.

I took a deep breath and started walking up the path towards the door. The bulldog charged at me as it barked and slobbered everywhere, but it got pulled backwards by the chain. I gulped and continued walking. I got to the front porch and knocked on the door. I waited for ages before the door slowly opened, still chained so it only opened a few inches.

“Go....” I heard a shaky voice say.

“Is... Is everything... Ok?” I stuttered.

“Leave. Now.”

“Ms. Sharp? Are you ok?” I asked.

“GO! LEAVE NOW!!!” She shrieked. I jumped as the dog started howling and the door slammed. My heart was thudding as I ran down the pathway and down the street to my house. Something was wrong, something was very, very wrong. I immediately tried to call his cell phone. I dialed his phone number. I waited for him to answer. There was no response but the message at the end was different. The voice was not Oliver’s, it was deep and harsh. It said:

He is mine. Long live Morte.

I shivered. Something was really wrong.

I knew where to go. I biked across town in the rain. I stopped at a big, light blue house with navy shingles and white window panes. This was Piper’s house. Piper is well... for lack of a better word, she is a hacker. She doesn’t hack personal accounts and use them for money, but she is very skilled with codes and things.
I hated asking for favors, but I needed help. I knocked on the door and she answered. Piper is a lot older than me, I am only in my second year of high school and she is graduating this year. Her hair is short and red. Her eyes are big and green and she is always wearing a lot of eyeliner. She usually lives alone because her dad is always out of town, and her parents are divorced.
“Who are you?” She asked in a southern accent.
“I’m... Uh... Wintergreen Fish, and--”
“Is this some sort of a joke?” She snapped.
“No, I um... I need your help. You see I--”
“Well duh, you need my help. I was talking about your name.” Piper interrupted.
“Um... That’s my real name, yeah...” I shrunk. “Can I come in please?”
She let me in and shut the door behind me.
“Now, you need my splendiferous deciphering skills, do you not?” She said, somewhat sarcastically.
“Yes. My friend is missing, and I need to track his phone.”
Piper raised an eyebrow.
“Is this some crazed obsession or something?”
“No, he’s just my friend, and he really is missing.”
I told her all about what had happened with his absence, and his message and his mom’s panic attack. She didn’t say much, but she kept nodding her head in understanding.
“Okay,” Was all she said when I was done, “Let me see your phone.”
I reluctantly handed it to her. I followed her into her bedroom. I was expecting it to be full of big computers and monitors and switchboards and buttons. . I was wrong. She only had two big monitors sitting on her desk. She told me to find his number from my contacts, so I did that.

“Go sit over there,” She pointed to a chair on the far side of the room.

I sat down. She then looked at the number and immediately started typing at lightning speed. I waited for several minutes before she said:

“Whoa...”

“What?!” I demanded.

She shook her head.

“You better come back tomorrow, kid. And bring money.”

Great... I thought.

chapter 3

The next day, when I woke up, I wanted to go straight to Piper’s house. But no. I had to wait until after school. My parents still had no idea what I was trying to do, and I had no idea what to tell them.
This thought lingered with me as I got ready for the day. I combed my long, brown hair and brushed my teeth. When I started to wash my face, I wasn’t really paying attention and I got soap right in my eye.
“AAAaAAaaaRrrgG!!!!” I yelled so loud that I think the whole neighborhood heard me.
I rapidly rinsed my face and scrubbed it dry with a towel. I looked at my eyes and they were bloodshot. It looked even more noticeable with my frosty blue iris.
I shrugged it off and walked to school. School was rather boring as usual. I didn’t really have a lot of friends other than Oliver. I was rather shy around loud people and I didn’t really fit in. Finally after final period, I darted to Piper’s house. I charged up her driveway and banged on her front door.
No answer.
I sighed. She wasn’t home from school yet, I guessed I would just sit on the porch until she came. I waited for a full half hour and she hadn’t come yet.
Maybe she has plans, I thought. I slowly walked home. I did my homework and ate my dinner.
“What’s the hurry?” My dad asked.
“I just have some... projects I need to finish before tomorrow.” (Well, I wasn’t lying!)
He nodded and continued to eat his chicken while my mom just gave me a peculiar look.  When I was done, I grabbed my bike and went to Piper’s house. Again I knocked on the door to see if she was home.
Again there was no response. I waited for around five minutes. I knocked again. No answer. I reached for the doorknob and slowly turned it and let myself inside.
“Piper?” I called out, “It’s me, Wintergreen.” No one responded.
I made my way to Pipers bedroom and turned on her computer monitors. One program was open on the left one. It was a Map. It had a pinpoint on one location. I wondered if this was where she had tracked oliver’s phone. I zoomed in and read it. It was an address for somewhere in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
What would Oliver be doing in New Mexico? I thought.
I wrote down the address and put some money on the keyboard. I charged home and turned on my computer. I typed the address into google.
No Matches found was all that came up.
“Come on!” I said outloud. I tried google earth, bing, yahoo, maps, Everything.
No matches for any of them. I put my head in my hands and groaned.


The next afternoon at school, I decided to go off of campus for lunch. I hopped on my bike and rode to a restaurant a few blocks away. I ordered my food and sat outside to eat. When I was almost finished, a short, old man with glasses walked up to me and dropped something in my lap. I looked down at it and then back at him. But he was gone. Poof. Vanished. I looked at the objects, there was a purple flash drive. It looked like it was brand new. There was also a small wire. There was a note taped to them:

Keep them safe, you will need it.

I felt the strangest feeling that I needed to heed these words. I put them in my pocket.

I stood up and realized how silly I was being. I was probably just shaken from the whole ordeal with Oliver. Nonetheless, I kept the things in my pocket.

After school, I put the hard drive into my computer. A peculiar list of files and documents with inconspicuous names came up on the screen. I clicked on a random picture file and waited for it to load. It was a blurry smudge of colors, No one could be able to tell what it was. I clicked on another one. A fuzzy picture of a small woman with long, blonde hair at the grocery store came up. I guessed that these were snapshots from security cameras, which kind of confused me.

I clicked on a few files similar to this one for a few minutes. I saw no connection between the pictures, they were all at different locations. I clicked on the final picture and examined it. It was rather blurry, but I could make it out a little bit, it was a picture of a boy. Then I jumped, I recognized this boy’s black hair and grey sweatshirt.

It was Oliver; and there was someone else with him: Me.

chapter 4

I stood up.
Ok, what is going on?! This is not good! I thought, panicking.
I frantically clicked on several documents, trying to make some sense of them, but they were all in a strange code. I looked up all kinds of codes on google and found nothing. Then it hit me.
Piper can help.
I ripped the flash drive out of my computer and ran down the stairs. I leaped on my bike and pedaled as fast as I could. I was shocked to see police cars parked in the front. Piper’s dad was standing outside, talking to two police officers, he looked upset and confused. I heard a few words of their conversation.
Gone. Kidnapped. Don’t know.
Something told me that Piper had met the same fate as Oliver. I had to find the key to this code to learn more. I snuck around the back of the house and through Piper’s bedroom window. Luckily, her window was unlocked and no one was there. I turned on her computers and began to search. I was completely confused until I found a document with  similar shapes and numbers in it. I clicked on it and sighed with relief. It was the key. I clicked on ‘Print’ and waited for it to come out. Just as I grabbed it out of the tray, I heard voices and footsteps, and they were coming closer.  I rapidly unplugged the monitors and darted into the closet. I buried my self as deep into her clothes as I could, Praying that they wouldn’t find me. I heard the door open and some people walk inside. They said very little and I couldn’t make any of it out, but their voices sounded different from the police officers and Piper’s dad. Maybe they were different officers that came to investigate. But then I heard smashing noises.
I sat for what seemed like hours before I heard the door close. I slowly opened the closet door and peeked out. No one was there so I stepped out and looked around. I gasped when I saw that both of Piper’s monitors were smashed. I jumped out of the window and landed hard on the ground. I charged to the front of the house to see if I could catch the people who did this. I saw no one but the two police officers and Piper’s dad lying on the ground. I screamed and ran to them. I felt their pulses. I sighed in relief to see that they were just unconscious. But now they were waking up, and if they saw me here, It would be suspicious. I shoved the paper with the key on it into my pocket and hopped on my bike. I pedaled as hard as I could to get home. When I walked inside I jumped to see my mom standing there.
“What were you doing?” She asked me.
“Me? Oh, Uh, I was just... Studying... at a friend’s house.” I was bending the truth a bit, I must say.
“What friend?” My mom demanded.
“Uh, a new one, she lives east from here.”
My mom looked at me suspiciously and then said:
“Ok fine, Just next time tell me beforehand.”
“Ok, mom,” I said as I ran up the stairs to my bedroom.

I opened up a document and began to translate. I got as much as:

“January 20th, 2011, log #77
We have found a new enemy, a middle aged man with brown hair and green eyes. Height approximately 5’ 10’’ Weight approximately 230 lb. Name: Andrew Brown. May know about the--”

And then my dad walked in. I frantically closed the program and whirled around.
“What?” I said rather harshly.
Dad looked a little surprised.
“Uhh, what are you doing there?” He said a little sarcastically.
“I um, I’m writing a book, and it’s not going very well, so I don’t want anyone to read it,” I lied.
“Oh, um, Okay,” Dad said, “Do you want to take a break and have some cookies?”
I decided to go, I didn’t want to look too suspicious and withdrawn. I acted as casual as possible and pretended to be happy. When actually, I was wondering if I was going insane. When my parents finally went to bed, I ran upstairs and re-opened my program to continue typing.

“May know about the Translation Process. Immediate waylay.”

Immediate waylay? Translation process? What is going on!? My brain screamed.
I translated several documents such as this. All were the same except for the descriptions of people and some of them said thing like “May know something about location of headquarters” or “Has necessary information for the completion of the Translation Process.”
Finally I decoded a message that made me cry:


“November 16th, 2012, Log #136
We have found a candidate for the Translation Process. He is young, but he is strong. A teenage boy with black hair and blue eyes, Height  approximately  6’.  Name: Oliver Sharp. Immediate waylay.”


And thats when I knew that Oliver had been kidnapped. I didn’t know what to do. Sobbing, I decoded the last two documents


“November 30th, 2012, Log #137
We have found a new enemy. A teenage girl with short, red hair and green eyes, Height approximately 5’ 8’’.  May know about location of Headquarters and may have hacked into some of our systems. Name: Piper Wood. Immediate waylay and destruction of information source.”

Piper.

“December, 2nd, 2012, Log #137
We have found a new enemy, A teenage girl with long, brown hair and blue eyes. Height approximately 5’ 5’’.  Associate of Oliver Sharp and Piper Wood. She has stolen information from our computers. Name: Wintergreen Fish. Immediate waylay.”
And me.

I was next. I knew it. I trembled in the corner all night with a kitchen knife clutched in my hands. Where would they try to take me? Who is even trying to take me? Where were my friends? What did Oliver do to get kidnapped? Thoughts like these ran through my head for several hours before finally, the sun had risen, and I had to get ready for school.

School, the thought seemed so distant and peculiar. I didn’t want to go, but what else could I do?

I slowly got ready and started to walk to school, constantly looking over my shoulder. I felt a sudden burst of anxiety and started to run full speed to my school. I threw the doors open and ran to my first class. I was early, in fact, I was the only one there, besides the teacher, who was writing something on the board. And then I realized something even more peculiar, I  hadn’t seen anyone standing in the halls or outside. I was the only one, Me and my teacher. I slowly walked across the room and took a seat in my usual spot. The teacher, Mr. Harris stopped writing math problems on the chalkboard and started to slowly walk towards the door. He put a key in the knob and locked the door.

“Um. Mr. Harris, where is everybody?” I asked.

Then he turned and I screamed. It wasn’t Mr. Harris, It was a man about the same proportions as him, who had stolen his jacket. He started to approach me, and I frantically started to look around. I saw an unconscious man on the floor. It was the real Mr. Harris. I jumped over him and grabbed a chair. I held it in front of me to shield me from the man. Then I heard a cupboard door open and close behind me. Just before I turned around to see, someone grabbed me from behind and held a rag upto my mouth and nose. My limbs went weak and my vision went blurry. The two men began to drag me out of the room and down the halls. I could not resist, I couldn’t even move. I could only breath, and barely see. they dragged me outside where a van with shaded windows was parked. The van door opened and someone stepped out. It was a dark haired, tall man, in black clothing. His eyes were harsh, but then I realized something. I recognized those eyes.

They were Oliver’s, and they were the last thing I saw before everything went black.

chapter 5

I slept for several hours. When I woke up, I couldn’t see, I was blindfolded. My hands were tied together in front of me with zip ties, and my arms were held down with rope. I could tell we were driving somewhere. I heard inaudible voices in front of me. Then my thoughts started racing.
Why was Oliver here? Why did he look so angry? Where are we going? I thought with an extreme sense of urgency.
“Where are we going!?” I loudly demanded.
“Shut up,” a gruff voice snapped, “We’ll be driving for another two hours, and I don’t want to knock you out again.”
“Who are you?” I asked.
The gruff man chuckled mysteriously.
“Thats... Confidential.”
I concluded that I wouldn’t get any more information out of this guy. I decided to be quiet. I sat for several minutes, staying completely still, then I got antsy. I started to move my feet around. I kicked something and it fell over.
“Hey! Watch it!” Someone said.
I held still again. I started fiddling at my zip tie, I remember my father teaching me how to get out of zip ties, He would tie my hands up so tight that I almost lost circulation, then he would tie up his own hands and stick them out in front of him, and then he would swiftly bring them down and hit it against his stomach while pulling his elbows outward. I tried it a few times, and finally got the hang of it. But he told me something else as well,
You need opportunity. If you are surrounded by people in an inclosed space, It won’t do any good.
Thinking of my parents made me start to cry. I wondered if I would ever see them again.
“Knock her out again.” The man with the gruff voice said to someone.
“No!” I said, “I’ll be quiet.”
I sat for another several minutes, I felt sick to my stomach. I wanted to ask for Oliver, but I didn’t want to be knocked out again. I tried to sleep, but I had too many things on my mind. I tried to scrunch up my face so that my blindfold would come off. I did this for a few minutes until I scrunched up my nose just right so that I could see my feet, but that’s all. Then the full despair sunk into me and I sat for the remainder of the trip, silently crying.



When we finally stopped, I got pulled out of the van. We walked for a few minutes until I got shoved onto the floor of a room. I sat quietly for a few seconds before I called out.
“Is anyone in here?”
No response. I stood up and broke out of my zip ties, which made a banging noise that I hoped no one had heard. I pulled off my blindfold and looked around. I was in a dark room, in fact, I couldn’t see much more with my blindfold off than with my blindfold on. I felt my way around the room. It was entirely empty, nothing was in here but me. I felt my way to the door and looked for a handle. There wasn’t one.
I was so scared. I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know how long I would be here. I sat in a corner and cried myself to sleep.

Several hours later, I woke up to the door opening and a bright light streaming into my dark room. A big, grouchy looking man wearing all grey was standing there. He cursed.
“How did you get out of your ties!?” He demanded, “Nevermind, I’m taking you somewhere else.”
He grabbed me and tied my blindfold back on. He pushed me around for several minutes until we reached another room, which he pushed me into. I heard a creaking door shut and a key turn. I ripped off my blindfold and jumped to see nine other people sitting in this room, which had a window, but it had bars over it.
“Kid!” I heard someone say.
I looked to see that it was Piper.
“Piper! What are you doing here? What is this place?” I frantically asked.
“I don’t know, kid, but it isn’t good,” She said, shaking her head.
I looked at the other people in the room. They were all around my age or a few years older. A handsome boy around the age of sixteen, with shaggy dark red hair and green eyes walked up to me and shook my hand. He smiled and said:
“Hello, My name’s Patrick.”
A girl with short blue hair, brown eyes, and a big scar across her face pushed Patrick out of the way.
“She’s not in the mood, Mr. Charisma,” She interrupted.
“Well,we should probably introduce ourselves!” Patrick scowled, rubbing his face where the blue-haired girl had slammed it into the wall.
The blue-haired girl rolled her eyes.
“Okay, fine. I’m Sky.”
A spunky looking girl with big, brown eyes and hair the color of Patrick’s said:
“I’m Lia. I’m Patrick’s sister.”
An African American boy with short black hair and big brown eyes smiled and said:
“I’m Richard. Nice to meet you.”
A shy looking, short girl with blonde hair, and blue eyes quietly said:
“I’m Amanda.”
A tall boy with a short, brown, shag and brown eyes, came up to me and nodded.
“I’m Victor.” He said in a british accent.
There were two more people sitting in the corner, a boy with light blonde hair and dark brown eyes, and a girl with light brown hair and hazel eyes. They both looked mad.
“Their names are Martin and Natalie,” Patrick said, nodding towards them.
“They don’t like you much.” Sky whispered.
“They don’t like anyone much!” Lia snapped.
I was a little overwhelmed. I felt like I had seen all these people before. I didn’t know how to react to all these people, so I said something really stupid.
“Um... Hi.”
They all looked at me.
“My name’s, uh....” I stuttered, “Wintergreen...”
There was a silence that was a few seconds too long.
“Now what?” I asked, “I mean, what are we doing here?”
“Sit down kid,” Richard said, “This is gonna take a while.”
I saw no chairs so I sat on the floor, Indian style.
“Has anything suspicious happened to you recently?” Victor asked.
It felt good to finally tell people about what had happened. I told them every last detail about what had happened to me. When I was done talking, I was out of breath. I expected all the kids to be freaked out, but they only looked slightly surprised.
“That’s like what happened to me,” Lia sighed, “I was looking for Patrick. Patrick was the first one here.”
“Well, Where are we?” I demanded.
“This place is called The Factory,” Patrick said, “It’s the headquarters for a group called the Diabolica. They are supporters of a man named Morte.”
I remembered the message on Oliver’s phone: ‘He is mine, long live Morte.’ I shivered.
“Who’s Morte?” I asked.
“We don’t really know,” Amanda said, “He’s not good, whoever he is.”
“You see, kid,” Richard said, “We’re all here because we did too much research. We all found out a bit too much, and now we’ve been shut up.”
Then I remembered where I had seen these people before. I had read their documents on my flash drive.
I sat for a minute, and then I stood up.
“Where’s Oliver?” I demanded.
They all looked confused.
“My friend!” I reminded them, “I saw him in the van! His file said something about.... The Translation... Procedure or something like that!”
They all looked even more confused, except for one, The blonde haired boy named Martin stood up and spoke for the first time.
“Your friend is dead.” He declared.
I was shocked.
“What!?” I said but no noise came out.
“Do you want me to repeat it?” Martin jeered, “Your friend is gone, he’s dead.”
“But I saw him! On the van!”
Martin shrugged his shoulders and sat back down. I felt sick. I slumped on the floor and started to cry. Amanda came up to me and patted my shoulder, but it didn’t help much. However, something told me that he wasn’t dead, and that Martin was lying.