Welcome to Gaia! ::

heh... about that.... funny story :-/

Yeah, that's cause it hasn't gotten posted yet. sweatdrop

Chapter 2

Things had calmed down a good bit in the short time since the power had gone out and the doors had been locked shut. But there were still many confused, scared people in the Library. Some just voiced their unhappiness louder than others.

"Neon!" Gambino shouted, stomping towards the reporter. "I demand an explanation as to what is going on here! I don't want to be stuck in this hole with all these lower class people and kids! I have money to be making. I can't afford to be wasting time in here. You've done this on purpose to keep me from making my money! Why have you trapped me in here on purpose?! This isn't right, Neon! It's not right to treat people this way!"

Neon managed to keep his calm through Gambino's rant, no matter how disgusted he was. "Mr. Gambino, I assure you that we have not done this on purpose and we are making every effort to get us all out of here safely. Please remain calm and be an aide rather than a hindrance to our efforts at getting out."

"Me? A hindrance? How could I ever be a hindrance to anything? The only thing that is being a hindrance to anything is you to me making money! FIX IT!!!" he yelled then stormed off to somewhere.

"Immature little child," Neon muttered angrily after Gambino had stormed away. He had been dealing with small children all day but Gambino’s tantrum topped all. “Hey Phoenix, how many more boxes do we have to get?”

“Just these two, boss,” Phoenix said as he carried two gargantuan boxes, one in each hand. He was obviously straining, but he needed to carry both of them because a certain someone was watching.

“Would you like help with those, buddy? I’ve got a free hand…,” said Neon as Phoenix trudged in to the building right past Ellen. “*huff puff phew* How ya doin’? Oh, don’t mind me. Just carrying these really really heavy boxes that I can totally handle because I’m super strong and stuff. You have a good day!”

“Riight. Anyway, I just came out here to tell you boys that the bakery down the street donated a bunch of Christmas cookies and doughnuts. The kids have already received their share and there’s plenty left so if you want some come and get them! They’re fresh out of the oven.” *CRASH*

“Ellen, that was a horrible idea. You know you can’t mention a freshly-baked sugary pastry within 10 yards of anything that can be broken, shattered, dropped, smashed, or otherwise destroyed. Travis, could you help me pick up these books?”

“lolz!! SUGGAHH! Where’s the cookies? Ooh books. Why would I waste time reading when there’s cookies?! Unless those books are about sugar. Nope? Okay. See ya!”

“Well that was interesting. We should go into the back room and talk about this missing child before any more… erm… distractions come up,” said Neon as he ushered Phoenix, Ellen, and Reiley in to the back room. Rezia was already there organizing the donations.

Neon started talking first. “Do we even know whose child it was that was taken? None of the adults seemed to be overly worried like they were missing a child or something. Doesn’t that seem a little weird? And I still want to know why the power went out at the exact moment that kid was taken. Do you think someone deliberately kidnapped them? And if they did, what on earth is so important about one little kid who may not even have parents?! It’s not like the kidnappers are going to get ransom money or anything. This is all very strange.”

Rezia looked thoughtful. “Hmm… Let me check the cameras again and see if there’s not something I’ve missed. I may be able to find some clues.” After a few minutes of scanning the few seconds prior to the outage Rezia comes up with something. “What the...? I think I’ve found something. Come look at this!” Rezia showed the group what she had found: an object, not quite a person, seemed to flash across the camera’s view. It seemed like just a shadow, but merely looking at it sent a chill down everyone’s spine. “At first I thought it was just a flicker in the camera, but I think it’s something more than that. It happened at precisely the moment before the cameras went out. And what I don’t understand is that even if this shadow thing is the cause of the power outage, what took out the emergency generators? Maybe there are more of these things. That’s a scary thought.”

The entire group grew silent and the back room seemed to get colder as everyone came to realize the gravity of the situation. What could possibly create that kind of shadow? Ninjas? But ninjas have more important things to do than kidnap little orphaned kids. Or could it just be a team of trained extraction specialists? In that case, who would spend the money to hire professionals to get rid of someone so young? This could not have been a random attack. That kid has something someone wants.

“This blows. I’m going to go check downstairs near the emergency generator to look for any signs of foul play. But first I’m getting my bat so I can hit something if I get too flustered.” Phoenix stormed out after getting the keys to the basement from Rezia.

“Be careful; no one has been down there in years. I’m not sure if the lights work or not. You may want to grab a flashlight from your car.”

“I’m coming with you! It’s too dangerous to go alone,” shouted Reiley as she hurried to catch up with Phoenix.

“Oh great, a liability,” Phoenix thought as he walked towards his car. He did not speed up so she would have a chance to catch up with him.

“Besides, you don’t even know where you’re going. I do. Have you even been to the library before today? I didn’t think athletes knew how to read.”

Phoenix handed the flashlight from his glove compartment to Reiley and put on the head lamp out of his backpack that was in the trunk. He had just returned from a camping trip the day before so his pack was still in the trunk. And, of course, he grabbed his baseball bat.

Neon, Rezia, and Ellen were still in the back room trying to decipher everything until Phoenix's behavior threw a distraction into the mix and Rezia commented on it. “How come he gets angry all the time? It’s like he doesn’t have any other emotions besides happy and mad. There’s nothing in between.”

Neon, being the only guy in the room and Phoenix’s best friend, was able to shed some light on his behavior. “He is really articulate when it comes to his emotions around me and he’s one of the people I go to for advice. But there are certain factors that make all that go out the window. What kind of factors? That part I can’t tell you. Let’s just say there are certain people he can’t seem to be himself around. Anyway, back to the issue at hand. We know this thing passed really close to the camera. Let’s go see if there is any evidence on or around it.”

“You go. I’m going to keep looking at footage from the other cameras. If you find anything come back here,” said Rezia as she turned around and went back to scanning the cameras and all of the other diagnostics she could gather from all of the building’s sensors and its security system. As Neon and Ellen walk out of the dark back room and into the light, it seemed like a dream: the two of them together walking into the light towards all of the smiling faces of children… It seemed almost too good to be true. A tear ran down Ellen’s face as she thought about what could be but probably never will be because she’s too afraid to say how she feels. Could Neon ever really like her? Probably not. And even if he did he has a job and he’s so active in the community… he doesn’t have time for a girlfriend, right? She made sure to wipe away the tear before he noticed. As they reached the camera in question, they looked around on the ground and didn’t find anything. Perhaps the camera itself had something on it? It was mounted on the wall near the ceiling, out of reach.

“I’ll lift you up and you unscrew the camera and bring it down. It’s just a little wing nut; you won’t need a screwdriver,” said Neon as he motioned towards his open hands for her to stand on.

“This is a library with really high shelves. Why don’t we just get a ladder?” She was trying so hard not to blush but it wasn’t working so instead she just turned away and pretended to look out the window.

“Meh. If you want to.”

YAY for more plot and story! biggrin It's gonna be fun to write the next part...

The third to last paragraph, who is the "he" talking about? And the paragraph that starts "Well that was interesting," who is saying that paragraph?

I wish somebody else would write. The story is too "me" heavy I think. I'm trying not to do that but it isn't working :-/

I'm taking Chapter 3 and will work on that.

I'll do my best. smile