Beast

Back home

I get off my bike, leaning it against the wall before turning to Peter as he smiles at me, I raise my hand to wave as I walk towards him. 'How have you been?' he asks, giving me a brief hug, I simply shrug.

I open the front door, taking a deep breath as I walk in. The house looks unchanged, as if nothing had ever happened and it's a rather unsettling feeling. Peter steps in behind me and closes the door behind him, looking around at his surroundings 'So what exactly are we looking for?' 

'Well apparently my parents had adopted him as well, surely there must be some kind of adoption papers, I will check my dad's office and bedroom, while you check the living room, there's a bookshelf in the living room as well as the drawer in the coffee table where dad used to put all his letters' 

Peter nods and we go our separate ways, I head upstairs and enter my parents' bedroom first. Again, nothing seems different, tears well up in my eyes as a large portrait of their wedding day hangs above their bed. My mum stands in a pretty white lace dress which slightly pools around her feet, her arm looped through my father's arm who stands in a black suit with a tie that matches her dress. They're both smiling happily. Beside my mum stand her two younger sisters, both dressed in matching baby blue floor length dresses and beside my dad stands his best friend, in a black suit with wavy blonde hair that ends at his shoulders. Everyone is smiling happily. 

I walk over to my mum's bedside table and open the drawer, a few random object clatter as I pull out a stack of letters, I flick through them, some are from her bank, a couple from friends and the rest are from different companies, nothing from WestTown care home. I move on to the drawer at my dad's bedside table, surprisingly it didn't have much in it, a couple of watches that needed the battery changed, an old mobile phone, a velvet box which contained the cufflinks he wore on his wedding day and a photo small collection of photographs from their wedding.

I sigh as I enter my dad's office, I slowly sit at his chair, feeling slightly uneasy as if he's going to walk in and tell me to get out of his chair. I pull open the first drawer, flicking through his business documents... nothing. The second drawer has his laptop in it, I pull it out and set it on the desktop, pressing the button to turn it on. After a minute it opens and I raise my eyebrows to find that there's no password on it, I guess he didn't need a password, no one ever comes into his office or uses his laptop. 

I click on his documents, reading over the names of files that all seemed work related. I clicked on a few that I thought might hold some interesting information but it was all just his work stuff. I lean down, opening the third and final drawer of his desk, this is where I had found the document on my adoption and sure enough, it's still here. I pull it out, deciding to read it again, maybe I missed something the first time.

Ten minutes of reading later and I haven't discovered anything new, I groan in frustration as I lean back in the chair, they said that my parents had adopted both of us, so what happened to unknown number? Why isn't there any paper work on him? I jump suddenly as the computer beeps, an email notification pops up, I furrow my eyebrows as I click to open it. 

'Let me help you darling... bookcase' I swallow hard, looking at the ID, unknownnumber@email.com. My eyes trail over to the bookcase in my dad's office. The books all look boring, nothing that I would be interested in reading, most were work related,  a few were on law and the rest we factual books about animals or countries etc. How am I supposed to find a clue? I start pulling some of the books off the shelf, picking at random thinking that there might be something between the pages or behind the book. I step forward, noticing the corner of a piece of paper sticking out of the a crack in the back of the book case, I reach forward and grab it, tugging it out of the crack, it's ripped in half. 

'WestTown Carehome' is written in bold letters at the top, the same way that it's written in my adoption papers. Could it be? I have found unknown number's adoption papers? But why is it here? I pull out the books beside where the crack is but there's no other papers, I examine the crack more and realise that if paper has been put through it then it most likely has fallen behind the bookshelf. I frown as I grab the sides of the bookcase and pull on it, trying to use all of my weight, it only moves a little bit. 

I press the side of my face against the cold wall, trying to peer behind the bookcase, I fish for my phone in my pocket and turn it on, using the light of the phone screen as a torch and shine it between the back of the bookcase and the wall. Sure enough there is ripped sheets of paper that has fallen from the crack int eh bookshelf. How am I supposed to get it out? I pull on the bookcase again but because of the weight of it, it barely moves another inch. Heading to my old bedroom instead I search through my own desk for a ruler, before returning to dad's office.

Five minutes later and I have successfully retrieved all of the ripped paper using the ruler and pushed the bookcase back into it's previous position against the wall, returning the book on the shelf as they were. I try and piece the papers together into how they would have looked like before they were ripped.

Mr and Mrs Carter for the adoption of... I almost scream in frustration, the rip tears across his name and age making it impossible to read, I try and make out some of the letters but there's no hope. I groan loudly, banging my head against the table feeling my frustration grow before I sit back up again. The laptop screen suddenly goes black before white writing starts to appear very fast, lines and lines of writing which makes no sense, a mix of letters, numbers and signs. I gasp, realising that the laptop is being hacked, and whoever the hacker is... he's not trying to be covert.

After a few minutes the laptop comes back on again to the homepage, I watch as a window suddenly pops up 'deleted files' another window with a black background and more strange white writing appears again, but it disappears again quickly and in its place is a different window 'deleted images'. My eyes widen as a document opens up containing different images, this is definitely the work of unknown number.

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Was this a frustrating chapter? What do you think he will show her? COMMENT&VOTE