“Hello, Christopher you there?” Michael asked while snapping his fingers in front of me.

“Oh, Yeah, I am here.” I said while tightening my fists in my pockets. “I am sorry, you were saying something?” I asked him.

“Umm… no you kind of went out of zone.” He says while adjusting his hair away from his forehead. He looked quite eye-catching. No, no wait a minute; what am I thinking now?

“Hello my dear friend and Michael, I hope the wait was not too long,” Mason said while walking towards us.

We had reached the college gate already; but when? I did not realize that.

“We got here some time ago. Let’s go.” Michael said while he motioned us both to move. 

“I hope you both have covered the introductions on your own. Or do you need my assistance?”  Mason asked while glancing at both of us.

“Yes, we got it.” Michael responded with optimism.

“Do you have work today too?” I asked Mason.

“No, it’s my day off today.” He responds.

“When will the bus for Wornville come?” Michael asked.

“Maybe in 10 minutes, not sure, but Chris can help you with that.” Mason responds and looks at me keenly.

I looked away from Mason, and said, “I live somewhere near Wornville, and it might come up in a few minutes.”

A bus comes to a stop, Mason smiles at both of us and says, “Well, my ride has come dear friend and Mic, I will see you both tomorrow. Bye!” And off goes Mr. Bubbles.

“Well, now it’s just the both of us, so you won’t mind if we both accompany each other for a bus ride?” Michael broke the silence between us, which I did not notice as Mason was leaving.

I replied, “No I got no problem with it.” I noticed our bus approaching. “Michael, we have to move now.”

“Oh okay.” He responds.

We both get on the bus. It was not crowded on the bus. But it would be there at the next stop. I sit down and Michael follows the suite.

And now I have no idea where to start the conservation or whether it is okay to speak anything at all.

Maybe silence was the answer. Michael had approached me in the first place because Mason had asked him to do so. I looked outside the bus window, the neon lights of some of the shops were sparkling bright. Lots of buildings passed and others came. But one thing that was repetitively seen were the missing posters. On some posters, their families were offering money too for informing them about missing people. Back at the police station area, there was a wall filled with all the missing posters overlapping each other.

“So how long have you been in Haltin?” Michael asked while looking towards the front rows of seats. The seats were beginning to fill up.

“It’s been 5 months now, I moved here for college.” I told him.

He nodded and asked, “Where do you used to live before?”

“I used to live in Bacely before,” I replied. My fists tightened up in my pockets and I did not realize that. I asked him “”

“Isn’t that place near the seaside? That place is fun. I went there once with my family when I was a kid. Did you visit that place in between college holidays?” He asked with enthusiasm.

“No, I don’t travel that much. What about you? I heard from Mason that you transferred here?”

He looked outside and said, “Haltin is my hometown. But most of the time my family moved a lot from one place to another for work. But now we have settled back here.”

“That sounds nice.” I said, unsure what to add to this conversation. It was kind of good that he had now settled down with his family until completion of his college.

Moving from one place to another seems like a good opportunity to explore and learn new things. I am not against it at all. But dealing with different people again and again who expect you to act and feel a certain way after a certain period of time, is not easy.

“Mason mentioned that he lives with his parents too, and he said that he had known you for a long time.” He said.

I told him, “Yeah he does. I met Mason at summer camp years ago. We have been in close contact mostly by messages and pictures ever since.”

“That’s amazing. Do you keep in regular contact with your parents too?”

I feel unsure about this question. I told him, “I don’t do that much.”

His eyes shot up in concern. “I am sorry if I did not mean to pry into your personal life.”

I looked in his eyes and said, “No, no, it’s alright. Though I do not want to talk about it.”

He looked confused and said, “Okay, I won’t. Are you fr-”

“The bus will stop at Wornville in a minute now.” I interrupted him.

He looked outside and said, “Well, then I have to go now.” He gets up from his seat and moves towards the bus door but stops in midway and looks back towards me and asked, “You won’t mind us going together from now onwards, right Christopher?”

“No, I don’t mind that.” I don’t know what I was thinking but at that moment. But words from my mouth left faster than I could process.

His face, which was looking uneasy before and seemed to lighten in an instant, like you just agreed to get a snack for a kid.

“Alright, see you later, Chris!” he said before getting off the bus. 

To my surprise, he waved at me from outside the bus, with a smile. It made me feel odd but in a nice way. I waved back. For some reason, I wanted to see him again, but why would I want to?

My stop arrived after some time and I got off of the bus. I went inside my apartment. It was quite inside as usual. Jones is staying at Richard’s house. 

I grabbed the pack of instant noodles and began boiling the water.

Later, I sat down for my noodle-dinner. I am in no mood to cook today, besides, I have to video call Clara too for the project. 

I sent a quick text to Mason asking him what and why he was acting weird today? And why introduce Michael to me?

It was out of usual. Mason had mentioned to me some people as potential friends. I had tried to talk to others, but later I turned that away. I am not much of a talkative person and most people did actually find me ‘awkward’ or ‘weird guy’. The most close to people I have gotten in college were just as classmates buddies and then as group project members. We exchanged greetings in hallways or in the campus area and that’s it. Nothing more, nothing less.

Now, this transfer student wants to travel back on a ride home with me. That’s just out of the blue. But he would probably get bored or realize later what kind of person I am. I don’t want that to happen, thinking of it is making me anxious. He seemed to be a nice guy. Him being uneasy when I refused talking about the parents made me feel not good. I did not wish to make him feel like that.  

“We have helped you as much as we can, but now you are on our own.”

“There is no need to call us again.”

I snapped back immediately from that time. It’s not the time to think about that now. Time to call Clara.

 “Hi, Christopher, can you hear me?”

“Yes, I can hear you now.”

“How about we look through the history of a city for our journal project?” Clara asked me.

“A city? What kind of one city, the one from civilization's times?”

“No, not that old, actually, how about we research on Haltin?” She asks with interest.

I tilted my head to one side, and said, “On Haltin, why?”

“Well, there are lots of resources for it in the City Library. We can easily get over this project, plus does not that sound interesting to you?”

I leaned back in my chair and thought for a while, “You are right, it sounds easier. Though where should we start to work with?”

She flipped through her notes and said, “I will text you it’s blueprint, later, don’t worry about that. Then we can start working on it.”

I look at her background. It was one of those from the internet, but there somewhere, I saw someone go past behind her. She signals someone to wait.

“Okay, I will wait for that blueprint. But can you tell me the issue, and the solution we would research on for Haltin?”

She gave me a confused look and said, “Well, there have been people going missing in Haltin for months.”

Now I am the one looking at her confused, “OK, is that all then?”

She said, “Yes for now. See you later.” And the call was cut.

It seemed she was not sure it herself.

My phone chimes, it was a message from Adam.

Adam: Be careful, what has happened to you has happened to others too. One of the people like intruder in your case had tried to attack those same people again too.