The Jelly Bean Chronicles

Chapter 2

ALL WRITING BELOW THIS POINT IS SUBJECT TO CHANGE

Rachel ran home as fast as she could and headed straight to her room, backpack in tow. She sat on her bed carefully placing her bag down and opened it up, the fluffy puppy like creature wiggled out of her bag and chirped running around her and climbing into her lap.

"What am I gonna do with you....?" she sighed laying back on her bed a bit exhausted.

The fluffy creature pawed her nose gently, laying down on her chest.

She pet it's head thinking. "This was just one day! There's no way I can hide you forever little guy..."

It hopped off of her and padded over to her closet, the handle glowing as the door was slid open.

Rachel just watched in silent amazement as the little fluffball moved clothes and objects out of the way without even touching them, to uncover a metal ball 3 times his size.

"What is that anyway?" Rachel didn't expect a proper answer but watched him anyway.

The fluffball smiled and pressed the side of the ball, the place he pressed retracted into the ball and the shape of the object changed to What looked to be a ship, the panels moved to reveal the door and jets, including the window over the cabin.

Rachel hesitantly walked over and Sat on the ground near him, with closer inspection she noticed a gaping hole in the back of the ship, exposing wiring and the internal electronics that run the thing.

"Is that why you crashed?" she pointed to the hole and he whimpered in response, his head low.

She gently pet his back reassuringly. "You must have been so scared...." The small alien crawled into her lap and curled up against her, she smiled softly and pet him.

Brayden entered his house, saying hi to his mom first, but still thinking about what he had seen that morning, he instinctively went down the hall and paused in front of a door just before his bedroom. He rested his hand on the knob, hesitating. He finally pushed the door open.

The room looked like a study, blueprints research papers and some random parts strewn about. The room itself was very messy but somehow seemed organized depending on where everything was thrown. A layer of dust covered most of it, as it hadn't been touched in a couple years.

He breathed walking in and heading for the desk, opening a drawer and fishing around before pulling a folder out and laying it on the dusty desk. He opened it, drawings upon drawings of strange looking plants, never before seen objects, and creatures filled the tan folder. He flipped through until he found what he came for. It was a drawing of a one eyed creature with a fluffy body and a body similar to a small dog. The creature had strange square and diamond shaped markings on it's legs back and head. The paper also had strange markings all over it, pointing at the creatures markings and other random details.

"Brayd?" he jumped nearly knocking the stack of papers over.

"Oh...mom, hey." He slipped the picture into his pocket and closed the folder.

His mother looked around the room, smiling softly. "Finally ready to start coming back in here huh?" She rested her hand on the shelf of a bookcase looking over all the clutter with familiarity.

"Just....looking for something is all, I'm about to leave..." He headed towards the door.

She pulled him into a hug.

"Mom...?" Brayden asked, a bit confused at the sudden embrace.

"Sorry," she smiled at him "I'm just happy you've started moving on. I remember when it first happened you ran past this room at top speed to get to your room daily!" she laughed but there was a twinge of sadness to it.

"Well I'm older now..." He sighed, "I couldn't leave this place forever, you know?" he gave a half smile.

She smiled back and nodded letting him free.

"You should clean this place up and start using it yourself you know, I think he'd like that." She headed out ahead of him, he went to follow but paused and looked around the room, years of memories associated with the room filled his head.

Brayden took a step back, slowly being overwhelmed by the room and forcing himself to leave before it got to him. He shut the door and hurried to his room.

He shut the door pulling the drawing out of his pocket and spreading it out on his bed, observing all the intricacies of the image. He noticed on the back there seemed to be what looked like a necklace of some sort with a star symbol in the center. The entire side of the page was covered in the strange markings, one could only assume was writing in some foreign language.

Brayden frowned, feeling the need to learn more but being unable to read the text. He pulled out his phone and looked through a couple websites showcasing different languages and texts, he searched for a couple hours before ultimately realizing he wasn't going to find it online. He glanced down the hallway at the door to the office.

The next morning, Rachel had come to the conclusion that the small creature should at least get some break time between classes to stretch out. She headed to school, hoping it would go smoother this time, thinking of private places to let the alien walk around for a while between classes.

"Rach!" Zach hurried up next to her, coming out from the house next to hers. "You've been acting stranger than usual ya know."

He chuckled a little, walking next to her down the sidewalk.

"I've just been busy." she shrugged, " You know, school stuff..."

He smiled but looked a little concerned, "If something's going on you can tell me ya know, you can trust me." He elbowed her gently.

"Thanks Zach but I'm fine, I promise." She half smiled.

After a bit of walking Zach lit up, "Hey! Braydens house is just over there we should see if we can catch him before he leaves!"

"Brayden? Oh, you mean that blonde boy you're always with? We could go pick up your boyfriend, sure!" she teased him, laughing a little.

He shot her a small glare but chuckled, knowing she was just messing with him.

"As much as you'd enjoy that no, he's not my boyfriend." The two headed up braydens driveway.

She stuck her tongue out at him, just as the got to the door it swung open, Brayden barely avoided running straight into them.

"Oh, Hey what are you guys doing here?" Brayden shut his house door locking it.

"We're all walking to the same place might as well team up." Zach shrugged.

Brayden agreed but cursed to himself, wanting to continue his search, a peice of him have up however, feeling something like that must've been found already, especially in such a heavily populated area.

"Let's go then." he sighed walking with the two.

"Oh hey rachel, you still never told us what it was in your backpack yesterday!" Zach practically yelled it out.

"I'm quite curious about that as well." Brayden looked over at the girl.

"I uh, it was um..." Rachel instantly stumbled over her words, unsure how to respond.

A dog barked from behind a fence of a house nearby, after a couple seconds a loud bark came from her backpack.

All three teens froze at once.

"Now it's a dog? I thought yesterday it was Like bird noises?" Zach looked at Rachel confused.

Rachel nervously fake laughed.

"It's umm....it's a voice recorder thing...yeah! A voice recorder thing that copies animal sounds." she desperately spat out the response hoping for the boys to just move on.

"I wanna see." Zach looked even more interested now.

"Why would you bring something like that to school?" Brayden raised an eyebrow.