Welcome to Gaia! :: View User's Journal | Gaia Journals

To continue my story...
By the time I got to Barton, I was feeling better. Although my mind was still churning, my stomach had stopped doing the same. Before heading to the GAIA 9 building, I went to the fountain to wash my handkerchief and face. The water was so clear and sparkling that put my head under one of the jets. As I shook my wet hair out of my eyes, I heard a loud peal of laughter from above. A girl was pearched on one of the very top walls of the crumbling arena. She was grining and dispite how high she was sitting, she seemed to be perfectly stable on her seat. She was also wearing very few clothes. Waving to her, I headed toward the news station.
When I got there, Cindy was waiting for me on the steps. "You're late," was the first thing she said. I must have looked strange, because the next thing she said was "Are you all right? You look kind of sick..."
"I'm fine," I answered, "I just saw something rather unpleasent on the way here."
"You walked through the Reclamation Facility?" she asked, much to my surprise.
I nodded. Seeing how surprised I was, she answered my unspoken question.
"I work in the news, remember?" she said, walking toward one of the bridges over the canal. "I hope that sight didn't put you off your lunch, because the Barton Cafe serves good food..." She stopped. "I'm sorry," she said more quietly. "You...you didn't know her?"
I shook my head. "Thankfully, no," I said, managing a smile.
She smiled. "Well then," she said, "lets get that lunch!"
We sat at tables outside the Barton Cafe. The food was good, although it was rather spoilt by the fact that I had to keep talking about the database. I decided to tell her everything I'd found, except, of course, the file on myself. Predictably, she was very interested in the fact that there was a file on Gino. "So," she said as she finished her sandwich and I poked at the last of my pasta salad, "can you bring me the database tommorow? With the password, of course."
I opened my mouth, trying to think of an excuse, when a horribly familier sound rang out...a sound I had heard not too long ago, on that winter day in Durem...A SHOT!
A scream tore itself from my throat. "Get down!" I yelled at Cindy, as I did the same myself, knocking my chair over. Everything seemed to be horribly clear. Cindy, the reporter, was trying too hard to find the Sniper. Therefore, she would be his next victim. Another bang rang out, but Cindy still sat straight upright in her chair, a slight smile on her face. Why? Had she already been hit? Then a third bang rang out and I saw a small, round object fly through the air and hit her in the center of her chest. But...there was no blood, and Cindy didn't slump to the floor as I had been expecting. Instead she just sat there, smiling. Then I saw that the object had come from the wrong direction, from the east! Another bang rang out as I got to my knees, and I saw, faint agaist the blue sky, the whiteish sparks of...fireworks!
I got up and stared, first at Cindy, then in the direction she was looking in. Still sitting on the higest peak of the arena was the girl who had laughed at me earlier. In one hand she held what looked like an air rifle. But an air rifle wouldn't make that sound. Then I remembered the fireworks and it all became clear. Rage boiled up in me, replacing the fear, but as I opened my mouth to shout an insult, I heard Cindy's calm voice behind me. "Don't worry, she's just a harmless child."
I spun around. "A harmless child?" I snapped.
Cindy was tossing the round opject in the air, and I now saw that it was a small rubber ball. "She must have a pretty dull life to stage fake shootings for fun" she said. "Sit down and have a cup of coffee, you look like you need it."
"Tea," I said as I picked up my chair and sat in it. Looking around, I saw that I wasn't the only one who had hit the floor. A waiter was scurrying around, trying to calm people down, while those who had'd paniced were smiling snobbishly. After Cindy had gotten the attention of the waiter and had ordered tea for me, coffee for her, a plate of brownies, and the bill, I asked if this sort of thing happened often.
"Not too often," she said with a smile. "I must say, it scared me the first time it happened, but now I make sure to sit facing the arena when I come here... Ah, here's the bill."
Cindy insisted on paying for both of us, saying that she earned more then me. As she did so, a photo fell out of her wallet and blew across the floor to me. I picked it up and gave it back to her, seeing that it showed a small girl with black hair and green eyes, clearly Cindy when she was younger, and an older, rather plain girl with dingy brownish hair and eyes that were a strange shade of gold. The same shade of gold as my own... A chill ran up my spine. Trying not to sound overly curious, I asked who she was.
"Thats me and my sister when we were kids," Cindy said, her eyes turning misty. "She was really my half sister, but we grew up together. I think Celeste's mother left our father when Celeste was just a baby, and then he met my mother... It didn't matter, we were one family."
Only one word mattered to me: Celeste. "What happened to her?" I asked, hoping Cindy would keep talking.
She did. "I wish I knew," she said with a sigh. "She ran away from home when...when I was eight and she was fifteen. I never heard from her again..." She stared into her cup of coffee and I saw she was trying not to cry. "This is the last photo of her."
At that moment, a distraction arrived in the form of the girl from the arena. Laughing madly, she took a brownie from the plate and popped it into her mouth.
That's enough for now. There is no way I can get up to date today, so I'm not going to try. I need to rest, I'll finish this later...hopefully tomorrow!