Abducted

“This playlist is horrible,” Blake complains from the backseat of Lore’s car, “If I would sit in the front this wouldn’t happen,” She doesn’t understand our taste, considering even Lore who prefers mellow songs enjoys this headbanger.

“If you grew like ten inches then you could sit up here,” I reply swiftly. We have this same conversation almost daily. Blake hates sitting in the back, but as the tallest person here, I’m destined to be in the shotgun. The car is Lore’s so she stays in front. Blake could get her license instead of just her permit, but she hasn’t got the time’ which isn’t at all true. She spends most of her time either at mine or Lore’s house. Her parents don’t mind, they’re always working anyway. She can rarely get practice and when she does it’s driving five minutes to the store and back.

I, on the other hand, don’t have the money for a car yet, but I’ve been saving up all the money I’ve got working part-time at the Space museum a couple of blocks from my house. As I child, back when I was Blakes’s height, other kids ran around pointing at the shiny ships. While I was the one who had to be dragged away screaming from the cards on each of the exhibits. I must have memorized every word. That was until my mom stopped taking me she said it was ‘bad for my health’. Other kids were drinking, and smoking and I was memorizing space facts. Which one is worse?

My favorite section was space exploration. The one time I did run away, filling my school backpack full of granola bars, flashlights, and NASA magazines, my mom found me gaping at the signs twenty minutes later. She wouldn’t let me out of her sight for weeks. Even still she has to know where I’m going all the time. Before I was twelve and couldn’t go anywhere or do anything with money. But now that I have money, and a license she thinks I’m going to run off into the night never to be seen again.

But for now, I give people tours of spaceships and tell them all about finding the unknown. Sometimes too much. I can give you ten instances in this week alone where they had to throw something at me before I went on for hours.

“Is that all it takes?” she asks, “Becuase I’ll get back to you when I watch all those hypnotizing youtube videos”

“And those work?” Lore laughs.

“Of course,” she scoffs, “Before you met me my eyes were brown “ she never lets herself be wrong. She’ll dig herself deeper down into the hole before she admits it. Just as I started to work at the museum she tried to outsmart me, saying all of these absurd facts about alien planets, and space crafts. My counterargument lasted hours. I’m surprised she didn’t fall asleep out of boredom, Lore sure did. Blake never started a debate with me ever again. Now it’s just with Lore, and she caves way too easily.

“Do you have proof?” I question, knowing she doesn’t but will go off on how this video works.

“You just have to believe man,” she loops her arms around our headrests, “You already believe in aliens, now believe in yourself,” She moves back, folding her arms, “Believe that you are a greater being in the universe than you know,”

“So if I watch these videos,” I pause waiting for her to speak.

“You’re mind will be open to everything. You want blue eyes, you want longer hair, you want to be taller, the possibilities are astronomical.” her hand’s motion and explosion, including sound effects,” You will be the universe,”

“I’ll be the entire universe,” I turn towards Lore, her eyes straight on the road, “You hear that Lore, I’ll be everything “

“What will you do with all of that power?” she asks, “Destroy this planet, destroy the sun, destroy everything?”

I don’t answer straight away. What would I do? Would I end Climate Change? End world hunger. End the world quicker than a person can blink. In an instant everyone, everything would be covered in the yellow light of the exploding sun. Covered in warmth, like a crackling fire on a cold winter night. Then left to the blackness of the void, a deep contrast now cold, and empty. The days when you can’t get out of bed even to eat.

But maybe that’s better than the long end of the world. Where people slowly die from smoke inhalation. I wouldn’t let that happen, I would solve every problem. Wouldn’t I?

“All he would do is wish for aliens to invade the planet,” Blake answers for me before adding, “But you need to belive you’re needed for more.”

The radio crackles as we drive down this empty road, “Lore, where are we going?” I ask. All she said in the text is we’re going on an adventure, and we agreed without asking more. Now we’re in the middle of nowhere. No cars. No buildings, no houses. Just plains and fields.

“Uh,” she stutters, “Just on an adventure,” Lore is the one who plans things. She likes to have everything planned out. She never leaves her house without knowing exactly where she’s going.

“Are you kidnapping us?” Blake laughs, Lore doesn’t. Without any emotion she stares forward, not giving us a second glance.

“Uh, Lore?” I rest my hand on her shoulder, she flinches away. “What’s going on,”

“Um,” she laughs injected uncomfortable air into the suddenly much smaller car. “Uh, it’s uh,’ shakily she exhales, speeding up.

“Lore!”

I would have never thought Lore would do this. Run without a thought about where she was going. I never thought we would be apart of it.

“I couldn’t I-” her voice cracks, ice frozen resting on top of the lake. We used to go ice skating all the time, Lore was scared it would crumble and break underneath us. Her voice thaws out, without wobbling she says, “This was the only way,”

“The only way for what?” Blake whispers, terrified of what our best friend will say next. Did she kill someone? Is she working for someone and couldn’t pay them back? Does she know something about our future that we don’t?

Am I going to be dead soon? Can she tell the future, and knows that a murder is going to kill us all. Is the world ending, and she’s taking us away so we don’t die.

“You’re scaring us, Lore, just tell us,”

She slams on the breaks, with a screech the car comes to a stop, we don’t. After almost being strangled by the seat belt I jump out of my seat. I’m not getting back in until I have answers.

“Alec!” she yells my name but I don’t respond, running a couple of feet behind the car, Blake isn’t far behind.

“Tell us what you’re doing,” I command, “or we’re not getting back in the car.”

“I-” she hesitates, “I can’t tell you, but if you just get back in the car,” Why isn’t she saying anything. The wind howls whipping her brown hair in front of her face covering the tear falling down her freckled cheek.

“Lore,” Blake’s voice reminds of when we had our first blown out fight, didn’t talk for days. I wasn’t listening and I should have. She never tells us her true feelings rarely always hiding in sarcastic remarks. When she did, I didn’ realize, she was heartbroken for days, no texts, no calls. I was a mess, I couldn’t think of anything except how to make it up to her.

I don’t think this is going to be as easy as showing up at her window and asking to talk, about everything on her mind, and I would listen.

“I’m sorry I just,” she crumbles, like old school papers as soon as the last bell rings, “I can’t tell you, but I” she sniffles, “I know it’s for the best please,”

“No,” Blake stands her ground, “I’m going home even if I have to walk. I can’t do this,” she motions between the two of them, turning to me she asks, “Are you going with her?”

I’m stuck between them, nightmares come to life. This isn’t choosing who to choose on my dodgeball team, I can’t choose both. If I choose Lore, she’ll take me, someone Blake can’t follow, not that she’d want to. She’d feel like I abandoned her, and I guess I would. If I go with Blake I don’t know what Lore would do. I don’t know what state she’s in mentally. Would she be okay if I left her? Would she drive off never to be seen again? I can’t lose her. I can’t lose either of them.

But I have to, that’s where this has taken us. If I didn’t ask if I just let this happen. Lore could take us anywhere, and we wouldn’t question it. Why did I have to get out of the car? Now I have to choose.

Memories of Lore crying over her new classmates hating her, after she moved out of our math class in seventh grade. “Everyone has friends already, I’m alone,” I told her she wasn’t. Is that a lie now?

Blake finally opening up on her deepest fears, about both me and Lore leaving, joining another friend group. Never talking to her again. She didn’t cry, but I knew she wanted to. The look in her eyes, tired, numb.

I wish I could stay here in between for hours, not having to choose, but I have to. “Lore,” my shoulders shake, the wind stops, everything stops, “You’re not alone, just tell us,”

Desperation fights in her eyes, but leaving the emotion behind she shakes her head, “I can’t,”

“Then I’m sorry,” I sigh, “But I can’t go back into that car,”

We stand, her mouth agape, more silent tears stream down her face. “Okay,” she mumbles, turning away in one swift moment, climbing into her car, and with the click of the door shutting, she was gone.

We both stand paralyzed stranded on the side of the road. Both left in shock, did that happen? How did the day of laughter and music turn into this? How did everything change in one afternoon?

After I don’t know how long in silence I take out my phone, thankfully I have service even if it is only one bar. She must have been trying to take us somewhere with no signal. But why?

“Call your mom,” Blake croaks, her face red and blotchy, “I really don’t want to get into a stranger’s car after that.”

I nod, my thumb shaking as I press call. I don’t want her to stress over me. I don’t want to think about it. I don’t want to think about anything now. Bringing the phone to my ear “Hey honey is everything okay,” already worried, it’s not like I call her like this all the time. The last time we were in a small miner accident. Nothing broken, just a couple of cuts from broken glass. I can see why she would be worried right now.

“Hi, I uh,” I sigh, “I need you to pick us up,”

“Why what happened,” I can already tell she’s up running around the house to find her shoes.

’“I’ll tell you later, we just need a way to get back home,” I pause, “I’m not sure where we are put I’ll um send you my location okay?”

“Yeah okay, I’ll see you soon Sweetie,” the line goes silent for a couple of seconds, before she says, “I love you,’

“I love you too,” and the call ended. Just like that, no more distractions from the present, the future, the universe.

The wind picks back up, and the world continues to spin. Everything is as it was, but everything has changed.