Planet Expo: Origins [Book One]

Chapter Five

[A.K.A. And So It Begins]   

    To describe and further provide insight into the upcoming situation, one must first understand the gravity of how intense the upcoming scene really is. What began as a simple game that friends can enjoy and bond over, soon became a complex puzzle that had pieces missing with no way to see how the puzzle would turn out. Alas, I fear that I am beginning to over-narrate, and so I shall begin with who we saw that day.

    “MOM?!” Lisa shouted, clearly shocked and confused. The rest of the group, mainly Alex and Jonathan, who never met her mom, were shocked as well but for a slightly different reason. The rest mostly intimated by the people surrounding the twins’ “mom.” These people seemed to be government officials, or perhaps bodyguards of some kind. However, the expression of the intimating women and men, dressed in black, gave the impression that they weren’t government officials nor bodyguards. The expression that was worn by the twins’ mom even gave off an unsettling feeling among them as they felt their stomachs drop to the planet’s core once they saw the symbol worn by the adults in front of them. 

    With the dim lighting of the cave room, they all hoped it was just a trick of the light. Although frightened, Alex felt panic and adrenaline overcome him to the point where he had to act. Taking a step forward, Alex grabbed Hailie’s and Jonathan’s hands and took off running towards the exist. Noticing their movement, Rosa shouted for Lisa and James to follow suit as they ran away from the adults, who started to chase after them.

    Lisa took hold of James’ hand as she spoke to her mom. “Mom, why are you wearing that symbol? This- this isn’t happening. Y-you… how could you be apart of-” Lisa was interrupted by two things, the first being James, who squeezed her hand as if saying the conspiracy cult’s name in which that symbolize represented would make this whole situation become even more real than it already was. The second thing was the words of her so-called mother. 

    “Sweet child, I am not your mother. I am your aunt.” Her voice was slightly lower pitched compared to the twins’ mom. The woman who looked exactly like Mrs. Archer walked towards her niece, where the light shone a little more brightly on her. It was then that both Lisa and James could tell that the woman in front of them was indeed not their mother. It was hard to tell at first with the dim lighting, but James and Lisa saw that there were differences between her aunt and her mom, even though it was very small differences to the rest, it seemed to be very noticeable features to Lisa.

    For one thing, there was her voice, it didn’t sound like Mom at all, although to James it sounded practically identical in pitch and tone. This self-proclaimed aunt was also taller than her mom, although that could be due to the sleek black heels she wore. Despite the slightly better but still awful lighting, Lisa could tell that this woman’s hair color was a tad darker than their mom’s. 

    Stepping away from her, Lisa grew even more confused and hurt. How could they have not known that her mom had an identical twin? But upon looking at the symbol on her aunt’s jet black blazer, she began to understand why Mom never mentioned her sister at the dinner table. “Why, I can see you’re shocked about this. Naturally, I would be too if I was in your shoes. But I am not in your shoes. I’m wearing heels.” Lisa and James glanced at each other in disbelief.  

    “I can see my attempt to lighten the situation backfired,” she muttered to herself as she attempted to avoid the gazes on her. Suddenly one of the people who once surrounded the twins’ aunt spoke up. “Ma’am, we have the kids surrounded, but the loop the CCTV won’t go unnoticed by security for much longer. We have about three more minutes.” She nodded in response. “Since we’re short on time, I’ll get straight to the point. My beloved sister had made the mistake of marrying one of the descents of this planet’s founding explorers. I won’t let the future generation get tangled up in the corruption and the lies that you grew up with while on this planet. Our mission, the Earth Warrior’s mission, is to bring about the means of returning to our home planet. To reveal the conspiracy and to shout out the truth about the so-called government that runs our planet.”

    Taking a deep breath to calm her nerves, Lisa mustered up all the courage she had. “We will never join your cult. Let us leave!” Alex turned around from the blocked exist to face the talking woman, “If you let us leave now, we won’t tell anyone about what happened. We don’t want anything to do with you.” 

    With a deep sigh, the aunt spoke again. “The descents blood runs deep within your veins. We want to recruit you, and your brother, not harm you if that’s what is causing your fear. We believe that by joining us, you can help us spark a revolution of sorts. If you join us, the United Council will be forced to comply with us, seeing as they don’t want their precious secrets revealed. You’ll be treated very nicely at our headquarters, of course. Like royals!”

    “As if! Your little cult hates the founding explorers and this planet! What makes you think that we believe you? Your whole plan is to use us as hostages!” James grew angry at her, and the anger mostly came from the adrenaline within his veins since it was evident to Lisa that he was still scared about this whole situation due to how tightly he was gripping her hand. “And what about us?” Rosa shouted as she stood boxed in between the wall and two men. The woman and men in front of the other teens checked their watch as it started to beep. 

    “Ma’am, 30 seconds. We have to leave now.” With a sigh, Lisa’s newly found aunt gave the order. “Very well. I suppose we have no choice. Take them.” The man that spoke up had wide eyes. “All of them?” 

    “No, just the twins. I think their friends will make the perfect messengers of our presence.”

    What happened after that was very hazy since we were then all simultaneously hit by a knock out dart that rendered us unconscious. But, before I blacked out completely, I managed to take one last course of action. I was able to pull her close to myself, so when we fell, I took the majority of the impact, causing my head to slam into the uneven “rocky” ground. Her head rested on my stomach as her aunt bent over us.

    I was being picked up and carried out to the very back of the room. As one of the “bodyguards” pushed a pattern on the rock decorated wall, it seemed to be a triangular pattern, an area of the floor in front of us started to open. I later found out that this trapdoor was a hidden entrance that was built for electrical workers to have easier access to the mall’s basement, where most of the generators and fuse boxes resided. 

    However, as I fought to maintain consciousness, I was able to hear the snippets of words that the twins’ aunt said before the foreign sedative completely took over my body. Or maybe it was one of the “bodyguards.” My vision started to get fuzzy at this point.

“...Archers… your time has come… Believe me… I’m doing this for my family… to protect… I will… end this.