Unforeseen Circumstances

Chapter 2

As I stood frozen, stunned at the sudden turn of events, a million different thoughts swirled around my mind. Who was this person? What was his relation to Rosie? Is he a threat? On the, somewhat positive side, at least I now had a name for this body in which I found myself.

"Rosie where the hell have you been?!" The person behind spoke up once again as I racked my brain for a suitable response. Does he know the situation in which this Rosie has been in?

"Hi, erm. . ." I began, immediately realising that I had no idea who this person is or what his name is, and considering I now inhabited the body in which he knew the previous owner of, this was a big issue.

"Ro its me, Devon," He responded, thankfully jogging my memory. I nervously chuckled and face-palmed to indicate my stupidity at forgetting his name.

"Ah yes, Devon, I'm so sorry! I've been a bit, err, tied up these past couple of weeks." I attempted to tell the truth but without all of the confusing details about how I am not actually his Rosie, but a girl called Faith Richards who died in a car accident and was randomly relocated into this body. Yeah, that totally wouldn't go over well.

"Don't apologise Ro, I know how hard it's been for you these past couple of weeks," He sympathised as he closed the gap between us and engulfed me in a hug which I took a moment to comprehend before hugging him back. He knew how hard this had been'?! What was that supposed to mean? How much did he know? This entire conversation was a minefield which I didn't particularly want to try and maneuver through at the minute, especially considering I was not the person who Devon thought he was talking to.
"What do you mean in terms of hard?" I opted for the safe question, in order to try and figure out how much this Devon guy knew before I accidentally went and spilt secrets which he didn't know about.

"Oh just the entire situation with the Myriad," He responded in a lower voice to ensure that no one heard anything he was saying, so as not to blow my cover. I quickly looked around in order to make sure no one was nearby before grabbing his forearm and tugging him along behind me so that we were more concealed by the tall standing buildings around us.

"Shhh!" I held my finger up against my mouth indicating for him to be quiet before continuing, "I'm on the run, not that you'd know that seeing as until this current moment in time, you probably thought I was dead, which, I was!"

"You were dead?! I thought you had disappeared into hiding to prevent being caught by them!" Devon exclaimed as he ran his hand through his hair in disbelief at the sudden news I had accidentally spilled to him. My jaw dropped open at his statement as the colour drained from my face as the mistake I had just made finally dawned upon me. I moved my mouth, resembling the breathing of a fish, before I could form any kind of coherent words.

"You, uh, you didn't know?! I thought you said you knew everything that had happened with this Ro- with me and the Myriad!" I exclaimed, whilst quickly catching the name slip, as my arms flailed around in my exasperation at the current mess I had just worked myself into. Devon took a step back shaking his head as he took in what I just said.

"'This Rosie'? You ARE Rosie, Ro, what do you mean?" He asked in confusion at my slip up, which I desperately hoped he had skimmed over and not taken any notice of. Obviously, that was not the case. As my eyes widened at the fact  that he had picked up on the use of third person, I wasted no time in spinning on my heels and taking off in a run in the opposite direction to Devon; in order to get as far away as possible. If you can't tell already, running away from my issues is a key characteristic of mine, and apparently of Rosie as well, due to the new information that she has been running from this Myriad group for years and went into 'hiding' in order to evade them. As I rounded the next corner I thought I was in the clear but to my dismay, I was very wrong as I collided, face first into the rock solid chest of Devon. I slowly backed up as he folded his arms across his chest and raised his eyebrow, enforcing the question he had just asked me, wanting some sort of clarification of this whole situation.

"Well, uh, you see. . . funny story," I muttered  whilst smiling sheepishly and wringing my hands, trying to find a way to explain this predicament "RosiediedaniIdiedandsomehowiendedupinherbodyinthisdarkroomsonowi'mtryingtopiecetogetherherlifesothatidon'tdie"

He stared at me with a confused expression, which, considering I had just blurted out the explanation in one single breath, was understandable as none of what I had said was particularly audible. I took a deep breath and released it in an attempt to compose myself and my thoughts before explaining it so that he could actually understand it this time.

"Basically, my name is Faith Richards and I died in a car accident a couple of weeks ago and somehow ended up in Rosie's body in a dark room. She had left a letter, which explained things very minimally so now I'm just trying to survive her, apparently, very hectic lifestyle." I spoke, whilst pulling the crumpled letter out of my back pocket to show it to Devon whose jaw had dropped open after I concisely explained the situation. He took it from my hand and pulled the paper out of the envelope before unfolding it and beginning to read. He paced back and forth whilst scratching the back of his head before turning the paper over in order to see if there was a hidden message, or some small detail that I had missed.

After a few moments of deliberation, he brought his hand up to cover his mouth, the other arm folded over his chest as his eyes made contact with mine, well Rosie's, a tear slipping down his cheek.

"I refuse to accept this, she can't be. . . she can't. . . she can't be dead, my Ro," He spoke as everything he had just found out began to sink in. A tear slipped from my own eye as I rushed over to him and pulled him into a hug, hoping I could console him, at least a little with the fact that it was Rosie in physical format.

"This, this is no time for tears, we need to get you to the safe house, that is what Rosie would have wanted," Devon composed himself, much against my attempts to get him to take a moment to process, after all he did just discover that his best friend, was no longer who he thought it was.

He gently grabbed my forearm and, after checking our surroundings, took off in a quick walk down several different side streets. I tried my best to keep track of where we were going, but after a while of walking, Devon forced us to pick our pace up to a run, causing everything around me to blur into one continuous stream of colour. Instead of trying to focus on the blurring colours around me, my mind drifted to the thought of how Devon must be feeling in this current situation. He was obviously very close with Rosie but why is he trying to hide it? Does it make it easier to deal with her loss?

I was shaken from my thoughts when I was pulled to a stop next to Devon, looking at a bleak, and derelict building in front of us. I turned my head to the side so I could make eye contact with the raven-haired man beside me. I tilted my head slightly, questioning why he had brought us here out of all places as it was quite clearly not in use anymore. Devon simply smiled at me and pushed a wooden slat, that was covering up the windows on all floors, to the side and motioning for me to enter through the gap, into the darkness beyond. I rolled my eyes and let out a sigh, because at this point I didn't really have much of an option unless I fancied dying, so I carefully slipped through the gap where the slat had been before letting my eyes adjust to the darkness which now consumed my surroundings. Devon climbed in after me before carefully replacing the wooden slat back in place after he had entered through the gap. By this time my eyes had adjusted just enough for me to make out if there were any objects in my path. Devon walked further into the depths of the abandoned darkness causing me to follow suit, in fear of being left behind in a place I didn't know at all.

After a few minutes of walking we came to a halt and Devon turned to look at me, his hand grasping the torn and dirty cloth that hung from the ceiling and draped across the path in front of us.

"Here we are," He simply stated before pulling back the cloth to reveal a dimly lit space which was bustling with life. My eyes widened in amazement that something like this could exist inside such a deceiving shell of a building. My attention was caught by the writing that was graffitied onto the wall just slightly higher than the second floor marking of where the floor/ ceiling should have been.

'Freedom without Fear'