Kinetics - By Andrew Peed Page 0,22

all.

The wheels touched down and rocked violently on the uneven ground beneath us, "I'm so sorry Ronnie." I pried my fingers from his flesh.

Chapter 10: ATN

"I hope you guys are ready for this." Sam opened his door and climbed out of the passenger seat.

The pilot remained.

"I don't know what I'm ready for anymore." I followed Ronnie out, Kenny and Sandy following behind me.

We left the hanger through a long hallway that led to a door built into the rock. The door exited out onto a street, where an SUV sat parked on the shoulder. The sun was falling behind the mountains making it hard to tell what the time was.

We all crammed into the SUV. Silence and Hothead helped Vanish into another small car before speeding off into town without a word.

"Where are we going? I would love to get a shower." Sandy said from the backseat. "We have had people working all day to prepare a house for the bunch of you to move into and it’s ready so we are going there right away.” Sam said.

We drove down an outer road that was hardly paved. It went around the far outreaches of the small town right up against the base of the mountain range. He pulled into the driveway of a two story house with large windows on the second floor and on either side of the front door. The rest of the house lacked windows altogether.

“Why are there no windows on the rest of the house?” Sandy took the words right out of my mouth.

"The sun never hits those parts of the house. There are three bedrooms, so there will be sharing. There is a full kitchen and two full bathrooms on the first floor. There is a computer and a TV, but the computer is a little old. We are working on getting you some money so you can go out and buy clothes, laptops, whatever you need to feel like home." Sam put the truck into park and cut the engine.

We all climbed out of the truck and went inside. It was medically sterilized and the furniture looked like it had never been used.

I went up the stairs. There was a landing with five huge bay windows and three doors. Ronnie, Kenny, and Sandy all climbed up a second set of stairs on the other side of the landing. They all looked happy, something I hadn’t seen, ever.

"Who gets their own room?" Kenny asked.

"We share." Ronnie smacked Kenny on the back of the head.

"Sandy? Rachel?" I asked.

"You take it Grace." Sandy said.

"Yeah, I'm good to share." Rachel walked into the middle room followed by Sandy.

I walked into the last room with the feeling that no one wanted to be too close to me, just in case. The room wasn't small; two beds could comfortably fit and have plenty of room for other furniture. The bed was pushed up against the back wall and the dresser was placed at the end of the bed. There were no windows. A thick blanket was folded on the bed and two pillows were stacked behind it against the headboard.

I sat down on the bed and folded my hands in my lap. I looked around the room. I was supposed to call this home now. My home before was not the greatest, but I knew it as a norm. I had no idea anymore what a normal life was or if I would ever have one again.

I looked up to see Ronnie standing in the door way.

"Hey." He said when he saw me look.

"Hi." I said quietly.

"What do you think?" he walked into the room. He leaned against the wall next to the bed.

"I think that we have a chance to be normal." I said, “Whatever that may be.”

"I think that our current situation puts us just about as far from normal as you can get. I think that we need to be careful." He looked at the back of his hand.

"Think about it Ronnie. Yeah we’re different now, but everyone around us is different too, we can take this chance to fit in, and maybe stop acting so, well for lack of a better word, different. In being different we are now just a new group of students, kids, people to join this community.”

"I see. That's an interesting way of looking at it and you know what? I like it."

We left the room and went down stairs. Sam was in the kitchen with his head in the fridge. He