Next to my father

Finally, Friday, sadly the last Friday before finals. My best friend Lexie and I decided to study near the lake after school. Wood from the dock cracked every step we took. Weather was perfect and as our notebooks touched the grass, I knew this was going to be a long evening. Our brains started to get full of information and our hands hurt because of writing. The sky turned purple and orange, that is how we realized that we had studied enough.

I got home. My mother was sitting on the couch with my little brother, both in silent.

“Is everything alright?” I asked.

After seconds of pure silence, “Your uncle John died,” my mom managed to say.

I hugged her without saying anything.

While I was going upstairs my brain was full of thoughts. I couldn’t imagine how my mom was feeling, not even a year had passed since my father’s death and now his brother was dead too. I also thought about my cousin Nate, who is now an orphan. I didn’t call him nor text him, I particularly think that talking to someone while they are sad, situation gets worse.

The sun hit right into my eyes and as soon as my feet touched the floor I heard my mom’s voice, “Stefan we’re leaving in ten minutes.”

I jumped out of bed, got in the shower, put on my formal clothes and rushed downstairs.  Once we arrived at the funeral I saw my cousin Nate, I hugged him and we both contained our tears. Nate and I started chatting. We stopped talking and stared at the coffin, suddenly he whispered that he was going to look for his mom. I thought he was crazy, his mother died years ago, I felt that he was losing his mind. He explained to me why he thought his mother was still alive and that he was determined to find her. I didn’t want to make him feel bad so I didn’t say anything. On our way back home I started to analyze what Nate told me earlier and I figured out that he wasn’t wrong at all, what he told me made a lot of sense and automatically something popped into my head.

Finally, we got home. What Nate told me wasn’t getting out of my head. I started to connect dots with the information I found with my father's death, with the things he wrote in his diary and the things he used to do and I came to a conclusion. What Nate told me made me notice that there were possibilities that my father was still alive.  I spent all night thinking, I read his diary a hundred times, I checked some of his stuff in the basement and I texted Lexie like forty times but she didn’t answer. 

Buzz buzz, buzz buzz. Lexie had been texting me all morning asking me what the heck was going on.  She told me to meet at our spot, (the dock), at 11 a.m. I ate breakfast with Matt, I hadn’t seen my mom since we came back from the funeral, but I know she likes to be alone when she’s sad, so didn’t bother her. I told Matt to tell her I was meeting Lexie at the dock and coming back for lunch. 

“What is going on?” Lexie asked me as soon as we met. 

“I talked with Nate, he made me realize something.”

“Look Stefan, I know it´s hard for you to accept your father’s death but,”

“No, I know this is real, something is telling me that he is actually alive,” I said interrupting Lexie

“I don’t believe the whole car accident thing, I know my mom told me not to get involved in it so I didn’t, but now that I have been analyzing the whole situation it doesn’t make any sense.” I said.

“Okay you have to admit this is crazy, but if you want I can help you find information to prove that your dad did die in the car accident, is it okay if we make all these after finals?”

“Yeah, sure. See you later I have to help my mom with stuff at home,” I lied. 

Monday 19, finals week passed faster than I thought. It was 10:16 and our investigation begun. We spent hours looking at my father’s friend list, the documents on the basement, the recordings on his cameras, and the information on his computer. There was nothing suspicious, he was an ordinary 40-year-old man, and I could see in Lexie’s eyes, the “I told you” look. The only thing that we weren’t able to find was any information about his job, which slowly became more mysterious for me, since he had always work on the same company, but never had mentioned it to me, ever. 

“I’ll give a last review to the computer,” Lexie told me while walking towards the desk.

“k” I responded while having flashbacks about conversations I had with my father about his job. 

 I was one step away from giving up until Lexie found a locked folder on his computer. It was called “Mom’s 80s Birthday”. It seemed like a normal folder with pictures from my grandma’s 80s birthday, but why would it be a locked folder?

 Lexie, while landing her hand on my back told me” Probably he just got confused, I’m sorry Stefan but he is gone, you need to move on.”

“Wait!!” I screamed. “My grandma already passed away, she died when she was 76”

“So you’re telling me…”

“This folder contains something we shouldn’t know”

The next morning Dylan, my friend, who was a genius on computer stuff, helped me unlock the folder. We hung out and as soon as he left I went to the desk and opened the folder. When I saw what was inside of it I wanted to shoot myself. This mysterious folder only contained a phone number, the logo of the company of my dad’s job. I called Lexie and she told me to call the number tomorrow morning. 

After three declined calls, the number answered.

“Alaric Goldstein here, who am I talking to?” he answered with paranoiac tone.

“Good morning sir, I’m Mr. Martin’s son, Stefan Martin” I replied. 

“Are you Tyler’s son?” he asked.

“Yes, I found this number on…” 

“Don't say anything over here,” He interrupted me. “Meet me at back of the grocery store before the sun hides. Make sure to bring anyone who knows about this.”

Who the heck was Alaric Goldstein and why did my father had his phone number in a secret folder?

At 5pm I rang her doorbell and we headed to the grocery store.

“Stefan?” the old man appeared. 

“Yes, why did you took so long?” I replied

“Look, I think I'm being chased and I'm not supposed to be talking to anyone especially you. Space 16 is hell. Your father is probably alive but they have him,” the old man whispered very fast. 

Everything started to turn foggy. Lexie hold my arm, I turned around to tell her not to worry and when I looked back, the old man was gone

We woke up in a weird white room, wearing clinic gowns. After asking for help, I realized this all had something to do with the old man. 

“I got it! the old man used to work with my dad. When I called him he told me not to say anything over the phone, and when we met, he said that he felt like he was being chased. So, he meant that he was being spied by people from Space 16. And when we met, he said stuff that he shouldn’t have, people from Space 16 were listening and they threw this gas to make us pass out so they could lock us up here, in Space 16.”

As soon as those words came out of my mouth and Lexie understood everything.

We didn’t know what to do, until I heard someone. 

“Stefan?” A familiar voice said. 

I wiped my tears and looked at the person behind me.

“Dad?” I asked. 

He hugged me and stayed with me.

“I was trying to get rid of this nightmare, I told the general manager I was going to expose them, but they faked my death”

During all the year, he made a plan to escape, but my dad couldn’t make it.

They deleted our memory, so we thought it was best to go home. 

As soon as I got, I felt a paper wrinkling. It started with ‘If you’re reading this, then probably things didn’t go as planned.’. I was about to freak out until I found another tiny paper in the envelope. It had an address and a phone number. I started to look further on it. And there is when a new story begun in my life, leading me to this day, with my memory back, writing this experience next to my father.