Vial 126

Chapter 20

We knew we would have enough fuel to go all the way there.
We decided we would stop at some small airport in California and fill the tanks with gas.
The only thing we were doing in the plane was talking and sleeping. We were all very tired.

* * *

I yawned and woke up. I slowly opened my eyes.
Light poured through the windows of the plane.
I immediately closed my eyes again and then put my hand up to shield the light.
I look out the window to see we were on the ground in a parking-lot-like-area with warehouses around us.
I tapped Michael's shoulder. I also shook Strawberry awake. Annie was already up, but Mika was sound asleep, and so was Eian.
Nigel and Reba had disappeared from the cockpit.
Annie and I woke up Mika and Eian. Soon, all of us were awake.
Mika moaned and groaned, refusing to get up off of her cozy spot smashed between bungee cords.
If I were her, I would be happy to get out of the plane.
I could imagine her butt would hurt.
When we were all awake, we exited the small plane.
We stretched to relieve the tension in our muscles from the long, cramped ride.
As we took in our surroundings, we realized that we were... In a place with a bunch of randomly placed storage lockers.
"Where are Nigel and Reba?" Mika asked.
"Have you been sleeping this whole time? That's why we came outside." Annie said jokingly.
"Yes, I was sleeping this whole time." Mika answered.
"So, does anyone know where they are... Or are we just going to stand here like people in the middle of a parking lot?" I asked.
"Well, let's go look," Michael dismissed.
I walked over to the nearest storage locker.
The door had a large lock on it.
I started to look around for anything I could use to smash the lock.
I knew that smashing a lock wouldn't help us find Nigel and Reba, but it might give us some clues to our whereabouts.
I reached down to a small chunk of rock that looked like it was loose.
I grabbed at the rock as hard as I could, but it was stuck deeply in the ground.
As I clawed at the rock, I gained another idea. I grabbed the lock with my right hand and punched my ring against the lock.
It left a small dent in the lock.
I hit the lock, again. This time, I didn't hold back.
A dent large enough to have been made by a large stone formed.
I pulled down on the lock. It opened, and I tossed it to the ground.
I opened the door to the warehouse to find boxes filing it to the top.
I grabbed a ladder from the wall on the outside of the storage locker.
I started to drag it toward my now-open locker.
Michael noticed my struggle and stopped working on his lock to come lift the other end of my ladder.
"How'd you get yours open?" He asked.
I showed him my fist.
"You punched it?!" Michael asked.
"Yeah... That's what I did." I said sarcastically.
"Ooh, ooh! Let me try." He dropped the ladder, and walked back over to his lock. I would have stopped him, but I figured this could be a new source of much needed entertainment.
He hit it, and comes back over to me holding his right fist.
"OWW!" He whines, "I guess girls ARE stronger than boys." He admitted.
I couldn't hold it in any longer. I busted out laughing.
"I used it ring, I punched the lock with my ring." I said, finally.
He opened his mouth and then closed it and then started to grind his teeth. Then, he narrowed his eyes and shook his head slowly.
I smiled and continued to drag the ladder.
When he was finished being a hater, his grabbed the other end of the ladder.
"Why do you need this?" Michael asked.
"I want to see what's so special about here, why we are at the particular spot." I said. We slowly set up the ladder vertically and I started to climb it.
I handed Michael the first box. There weren't any boxes behind it.
I caught a glimpse of something shining in the opening where the box used to be.
The opening was to my left, so I couldn't see much through it.
I leaned over as far as I could.
I looked through the place between the boxes.
I saw that it was just a wall of boxes, behind it had a pile of few cartridges with gasoline.
I grabbed a tight hold of the ladder and sat on the top step.
I closed my eyes and envisioned me forming into a bird.
I opened my eyes again, I was small and covered in feathers, so I figured it worked.
I started to flap my wings, I jumped into the air and flew the short distance to the opening.
I glided right through the small opening and landed on the cold floor.
I unmasked my costume as a bird and stood up in my human form again.
"Kat! Where are you?!" Michael asked.
"Relax, I'm fine." I said.
"What's in there?" Michael asked.
"Oil, fuel... Something along those lines. You might want to watch out." I warned.
"Why?"
"I'm going to knock the wall of boxes down." I told him.
"You're going to what?!" Michael asked.
"You better watch out, I'm starting the countdown...10...9...8...7...6...5-"
I heard footsteps.
"Ok, you can knock it down, now. I am far away." Michael called.
"4...3...2...1!" I said running into the wall of boxes.
The boxes I ran into fell away. The lack of support sent the other boxes falling to the ground, but I ran at the light-weight boxes too quickly, so I fell over.
I saw Michael standing in front of the wreckage.
"Are you okay?" He asked.
"Yeah, I'm perfectly fine." I said, standing up and brushing of my jeans.
"It's really cold here." Michael complained.
"I know." I said rubbing my bare arms.
"Well, let's look through this stuff." Michael said changing the subject and grabbing a box.
I sat down on the floor and opened a cardboard box.
Inside the box was a bunch of folders.
I grabbed the first one in the stack.

Estate sales of southeastern North Carolina, 2002.

Looked at the next folder.

Estate sales of southeastern North Carolina, 2003.

"Michael, they are just estate records from the year 2002 to the modern day." I said.
"Where are they from? I have legal residential reports from southeastern North Carolina." Michael said.
"Same here."
"What's this person's crazy obsession over North Carolina?" Michael asked.
"I have no idea." I said.
"Let's check some other boxes." Michael suggested.

* * *

After looking in the other boxes, we found that they were all records from southern North Carolina.
Me and Michael decided to give up looking in that storage space.
We walked across the concrete to the storage locker Michael was previously working with.
I crouched down to look at the lock. It was more heavy duty than mine.
I then examined my ring to make sure the first lock I had pounded through had not done any damage to the ring.
My eyes were drawn to a particular spot about a millimeter tall and as thin as a string of hair.
It was a very, very small crack.
I ignored it and swung my first punch.
I felt a small, painless jolt, but
before I could have anytime to think anything of it, my second punch was already coming down on the lock.
The ring connected with the lock and the ring shattered with popping sound of a bottle smashing.
I immediately started to feel tired, like the knockout gas that I had fallen victim to was taking over again.
I felt my mind go blank and my muscles fell to a stiffness.
The corners of my vision got fuzzy.
My body hit the rough ground, but I did not remember falling.
I started to slip into a dark, sleep that some could describe as a coma.
I had the most terrible nightmare, consisting of predictions and memories that were as haunting as could be.

The ground and skies around me had turned to emptiness, a pit of blackness, as open and as big as the universe. I looked around to find nothing but a small puff of smoke.
I stared at the smoke, and as I did,
it grew thicker and closer.
The smoke continued to grow until it filled the whole world around me.
Images and videos of my past projected on the smoke.
I observed one.
It was the battle of Steven's death.
His body lay limp and bloody on the ground.
The projected image of Steven grew.
The memory of death was so strong, I could feel the presence of sorrow.
The flat face of Steven began to change. The picture lightened up and Steven began to looked lively again.
The bloodstained floor grew a rich color of yellow until it was a field of bright yellow flowers. Image of Steven grew more alive until he opened his eyes. "Dear Katherine..." Steven started, he continued to speak until he had recited the entire letter that he had wrote me.
His face began fading away until his features were lifeless again.
The flowers around him darkened red and orange until his body was consumed with raging flames.
The whole area around him were fiery. The image zoomed out. A field of smoke and explosions died out before me. The fire faded to show the storage lockers.
The flames continue to fade till the image was just a clear picture of where I currently was.
A shadowy figure appeared holding a container of gasoline.
The figure walked around dumping the gas all over the ground.
When the container was empty, the figure tossed the container away and grabbed a small matchbox and struck a match, then flicked it into the gasoline.
The figure jumped for cover and landed in a storage unit and shut the door just in time before the and scene erupted in fresh flames.
Once again, the flames subsided and the image cleared once more.
Julius stood staring down at me.
The image didn't stay long, his featured began to change until I was staring at the terrified face of Strawberry.
The picture zoomed out to show that she was falling.
She reached up, flailing her arms to grab something, anything to keep her from falling to her death. But there was nothing to hold onto.
She continued to fall until she hit the ground of a rocky stream below.

"Katherine! Wake up!" Michael yelled.