《Monster Story》3: Jordan Balan
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"Have you... been up this entire time?" Jordan's voice was shaky as she descended down the stairs.
I turned to her, arm thrown over the couch, "No, I got some sleep."
"You don't look like you have."
I blew air from my nose before slumping onto my couch, head resting on one of the armrests. "Did you sleep well?"
Jordan paused for a moment to think, slowly moving closer to the couch whilst examining the house. "No... no, I didn't sleep well."
I got up from the couch, "I'll make you something." I headed to the kitchen behind me while rolling up my sleeves. "What do you want to eat? For breakfast of course..." I glance over at her as she sauntered quietly into the living room.
She turned to me with a tired expression before sitting down on the couch. "Anything you can make."
"Any allergies?"
"No."
I nodded to myself as I took out the ingredients, 'waffles with bacon should be good', I thought to myself as I got flour, eggs, and some milk for the batter, snapping my fingers as I remember other miscellaneous ingredients whilst cooking.
Looking over the couch while watching me cook, "You have a waffle maker?" I looked over to it, eyebrows raised.
"Yeah, we do. I had to ask my parents to get it since I was tired of constantly having those shitty frozen waffles other people normally have."
"I never figured you to be much of a cook."
"It was due to circumstances, which led to me being the only one who really takes care of my sister around here. She's almost completely incompetent in everything she does except socializing after all."
"I thought she did Martial Arts, is she incompetent at that?"
"To me, she is."
Jordan didn't bother to ask any further as she slid down the couch, throwing her legs onto an armrest whilst resting her head on the other side. The batter didn't take too long to make so it was easy pouring into the waffle maker. After setting the temperature and closing it, I quickly moved onto the bacon, setting up a pan onto the stove and spraying it down with oil so the bacon wouldn't stick to it. I debated for a few seconds about how much bacon I wanted to make and just decided to use the whole bag just in case Kitsune came downstairs.
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After five minutes of waiting, the one waffle I had made so far was finally done, "Do you want more than one?"
"Yeah."
I take out a plate and place the first one down, pouring some more into the waffle maker afterward. Some finished pieces of bacon sat comfortably near the one waffle that lay there on Jordan's plate, and just as I had predicted, Kitsune had come down. "Are you making breakfast?" She asked, rubbing her eyes as a child would.
"Yeah! Sit yourself down while you wait!" A quick click of the tongue and she sat down into a chair facing the kitchen, still half asleep. Another five minutes pass and another waffle are placed onto the plate. I spin around to the counter nearest to the couch to grab the syrup sat upon it with a variety of other ingredients before placing both the syrup and the plate of food onto a table. "Jordan, here."
She stood up from the couch quickly before sitting herself down into the wooden dining seat, cushioned by a pillow. I go over to the kitchen, grabbing a fork, and placing it onto the table, nodding as I cross over to my sister.
"What do you want?"
"Food..."
I let out a sigh before heading back to the kitchen. "Well... Jordan. What are you planning to do after you eat?"
"I'll go home."
"Okay, I'll walk you there."
Jordan nodded slowly, "Okay... thanks."
"No problem..."
"It's... a bit embarrassing... that I have to rely on you like this... y'know?"
"It's fine, I'm used to it," Quickly finishing up some more batter, I turned to Jordan, "I understand why you would be this way... hell, if I were you I'd react the same way."
"Why didn't you?"
"I've already seen something like that before. It made me vomit."
"You didn't have anyone right...? To help organize your thoughts as I did?"
I remained silent, turning away, a solemn expression on my face that was hard to contain, to say the least. She continued to her food as she talked, making sure to only take small bites to be understandable when she would speak.
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"You've helped me a lot here... even though it was my fault that things had turned out this way."
"It's fine, I don't care very much..."
"But I do," Jordan paused as her voice had progressively become more serious in tone, "It makes me feel like a coward to rely on you like this when you had no one to do the same for you... but still... I'm debating whether what we saw was real or fake."
"What did you see?"
Jordan stopped for a moment, glancing over at Kitsune, who was practically passed out in her chair, "I don't think we should talk about it here."
I nodded quietly, watching as the oil coming from the bacon popped intermittently, flipping every few seconds.
***
After breakfast was finished, we decided to make our way outside, Jordan putting on some extra clothes I didn't need whilst wrapping herself up in her jacket, her school clothes placed into a bag. The park was the first place we thought of going to when we decided to talk about what had happened.
Jordan sat herself down on a bench, staring out to the playground that lay in front of her, watching the sun peak through metal pipes and plastic roofing. I made my way over to her with a couple cans of soda I had gotten from a vending machine nearby, placing one next to her bag before sitting down, cracking the can I had open, and taking a sip of it. She nodded while uttering the words, "Thanks."
"What I saw in that building," I started, "It was a... thing. It was crawling on all fours and its neck was elongated like a giraffe, but it moved like a... the neck moved as if there weren't any bones inside... kinda like a snake but freer since snakes actually do have bones..." I pressed my lips together, scratching the back of my head as I attempted to recall what I had seen, not being able to find the right words.
"Well... at least we know now that we saw the same thing," Jordan began to chuckle to herself, "Your description was terrible."
I pursed my lips in irritation before taking another sip of soda. I let out a quick sigh before continuing, "So we've essentially confirmed we aren't crazy."
Jordan speculated quietly to herself before turning to me, "That's not entirely true... if there is a third person that could see the same things we had seen, we'd be able to confirm we weren't crazy with ease, but the problem is that we can't. When that did happen too... we could've just been coincidentally hallucinated about the same thing."
"That's too convenient, plus, I don't think that's how human brains work."
"What do you mean?"
"If another human would want someone to see the same thing that they had seen, yet they are the only ones that could see it... well, let's just say that the process would be really complicated and would most definitely not involve the two of us going into a building and simply looking in the same direction in the dark. The thing is, the human mind is too varied for it to give the same result to two people at the exact same time unless if it was a common consensus in something that other people could already see. But... this could just be me hoping I'm not fucking losing my mind."
"Maybe... the physical contact..."
"No, still not possible."
"How do you know?"
"I don't know entirely, but I've done a bit of research on this subject when it comes to hallucinations and such. My mother is a Psychologist after all."
"Oh wow... I didn't know that. What's your dad then?"
"Detective."
Jordan's expression showed that she was uncomfortable with something before turning back over to me, "What do we do now?"
I leaned into the bench a bit more, "For now, we bide our time and wait to see what happens. Maybe talk to each other about what we have seen and such."
"That's all we can do... huh?"
"Yeah..."
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