Hide

“ Mom! Where are you? It’s so dark!” I cry.

“ Honey, calm down, I’m trying to find a flashlight, I will come and get you, just stay where you are!” My mom yells

It was dark and no one could see, I could hear my little brother breathing really hard, so I started to look for his inhaler. I was feeling around for it but I still couldn’t find it. My brother, Rickey, has Asthma. I looked out what I thought was my window, complete darkness.  I was scared, we all were. No one knew what happened.

“ Honey, I’m coming. I found a flashlight in the cabinet!” my mom yells.

My brother started to breathe a little lighter. He was 5 and I was 10. When my mom  got upstairs she found Rickey’s inhaler and gave it to him. My mom was 35 and single, she worked as a maid for a rich family. We have a tiny house and a dog. Benji is our dog's name, he’s a golden retriever and we could hear him whining like crazy. My mom called Benji upstairs, when Benji got upstairs he started to wag his tail. 

My mom took the flashlight and told us it would be ok. We got out of the house and went over to the neighbors. We knocked on the door and they opened. Their house was pitch black too! My mom asked the neighbors what happened, but they said they didn't know. No one knew what was going on, is what it seemed like. 

Until my mom looked on her phone to see that she had an alert. It read

Dear citizens of earth, the earth will be experiencing a game of hide and seek for the next 48 hours. You have a quarter of that time to run and hide. If you don’t succeed in this game of hide and seek, you will die. If you do then you get to keep your life. Run, hide, and stay safe.

“ Lindsay, take Ricky and hide in the bunker. NOW!” My mom yells.

“ Mom, I read the alert, what’s gonna happen to us, what if one of us gets found?”

“ Honey, I’m not going to say it twice, go to the bunker, and go to the safe room. There’s already food and water that will last at least a year. There’s a kitchen and a bedroom, and an extra inhaler in there, go get 4 sets of clothes and bring Benji. I will not be coming with you, it’s for your safety, Katherine the robot will take care of you. Make sure you turn her on, it’s the button on the back of her.” My mom says in a calm voice.

“ But mom why aren’t-,” 

“ Honey, go pack your stuff! NOW!” My mom booms.

We go and start packing, Rickey knows how to do this. We always practiced, it’s kinda like mom knew it was going to happen. We got 4 sets of clothes, 2 pajama sets and 2 daily sets. What was going to happen would mom be found, where would she go? What would she do? Would she come back for us? We grabbed Benji and his leash. Then we headed outside, my mom wasn’t at the neighbors! 

“ Lindsay, I miss mommy, will she come back?” Rickey asks with his stuffed bear in his hand.

“ I don’t know Ricky, I really don’t know.” I say in a droopy voice. 

When we head inside we see Katherine, I go to turn her on. She acted like a mom. She asked us if we were hungry, but me and Ricky both said no, we were too nervous and scared to eat. There was a clock so we could keep track of time. 12:30 am. Me and Ricky were tired, so we got in our pajamas and went to the bedroom. We couldn’t go back outside to see if mom came back because Katherine is programmed not to let us out until mom sends a little notification that it's safe to come out. So we got in bed. 

“ Lindsay?” my brother says

“ Yes Ricky.” I reply 

“ Can you tell me a bedtime story? Mom tells me one every night, but she's not here.” he says.

He was clueless he didn’t know that mom left us here to stay for a while. 

“ Um, yeah sure, what story do you want me to tell?” I ask 

“ Can you read Cinderella, it's my favorite!”

“ Yeah, once upon a time, there was a maid named Ella but her evil step mom and step sisters called her Cinderella because…” I say

I started to tell the story, but before I could finish, he fell asleep. I went to sleep after. It was 1:30am before I went to sleep. 

The next morning, I went to the kitchen and saw Katerine awake and making chocolate chip pancakes, they were me and Ricky’s favorite. Ricky was still sleeping. 

“ Hello Lindsay, have a nice sleep?” Katherine asks

 “ Yeah, but I didn’t get much sleep, I went to sleep at 1:30 last night.” 

“ Oh, I’m sorry you didn’t get much sleep, but here are some fresh pancakes!” exclaimed Katherine

I waited for Ricky to wake up, and when he did, I started to gulp down my pancakes. I got some cranberry juice too. I went to the bathroom and when I finished I realized that there was blood in the toilet! What was going on? Was that from me? It had to be because there wasn’t blood in the toilet when I got in here! I was scared. I ran to Katherine and told her what happened! She said I was on my period, and it was something every girl gets. She showed me how to put what she called a pad on. The. I put one on. For a second I thought something was wrong with me. When I got out of the bathroom I went to watch TV with Ricky.

“ Ricky, I don’t want to watch Mickey Mouse ClubHouse, I’m too old for that show!” I say

“ But I’m too young to watch your shows!” Ricky yells.

I told him fine and we kept watching Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, I hated every single moment of it. Minnie’s height pitched voice was so annoying, how did I like this as a kid? How does Ricky like this? He has the biggest crush on Minnie Mouse, he even has a poster of her in his room, he got it from the school book fair.

 Soon Katherine tells us to stop watching TV and go play. There was nothing To do except play with Ricky’s stuffed animals and trains. Which is exactly what he does when Katherine tells to go play. He walks over to his trains and acts like his stuffies were in the trains. Then he made a loud BOOM  with his trains and made his stuffed bear say “ Oh no! There’s been a crash!”  I love Ricky’s creativity, but sometimes it gets so annoying when he asks me to play with him. I don’t want to play with his stuffed toys and trains, I want to be a normal 10 year old, and have friends. 

I have lots of friends at school, but of course, I can’t go see them! What if one of them gets found? We can’t get found because our bunker door is covered in grass and only my mom can open the door with her phone. 

I went to the bedroom and looked in the cabinets to find something to do, until I found these little clay beads and I started to make some really cute bracelets. After that I went on my tablet, this was the only way k could talk to mom. So I called her…

When I did it said that this is no longer available! What happened to mom? I mean it can't be because of the internet because our internet was perfectly fine! I could even see the bars I had on my tablet. My signal was fine and so was my Wifi! What was going on! Why was moms phone not working! I asked Katherine why moms phone wasn’t working and all she said was that her phone might’ve gotten lost! 

After I tried calling mom a few more times, I gave up, there was no way I could see  her now! I started to Snake on my tablet for a little while, until Katherine called to the kitchen to have lunch. She made Mac & Cheese with Dino chicken nuggets. Dino chicken nuggets are the best, even though I’m 10 there still good. Ricky loves to play with them, he plays with them like figurines.  The days went by and then it was night. 

We went to bed, and this time I fell asleep first. I don’t know what time Ricky went to sleep, all I remember was him waking me up and telling me he needed to pee. The next morning I saw that Kartherine wasn’t there! I called for her but she didn’t answer. I woke Ricky up as quick as I I could. 

“ RICKY WAKE UP! KATHERINE IS GONE! I CAN’T FIND HER!” I yell

“ I’m awake! I’m awake! Stop shaking me!” Ricky says in a tired voice.

After I wake up Ricky we go and check every room, but we still can’t find her! I start to worry, was something down here, or was it someone… 

There was nothing ruined or misplaced, nothing was scrunched up or anything! It seemed like no one was down here. I didn’t want to tell my brother about any of this. I didn’t want his asthma to kick in. I was so worried about mom and Katherine. I can’t believe I’m actually worried about a robot! But she still meant a lot to me, whenever mom had to go on trips for work, Katherine would take care of us, whenever mom had anything to do, Katherine took care of us. I knew how to cook, my mom taught me since I was 5 years old! So I just made an excuse to tell Ricky, I told him she’s on break. 

For breakfast I made bacon and eggs, Ricky loved them and he also believed my excuse. 

“ Is it good Ricky?” I ask

“ Yeah Lindsay, it’s really good, thank you!” Ricky replies

After that I let Ricky watch TV, while I went to search for clues. I finished looking, but I realized the one place I didn’t look was the coat closet. We used the coat closet for storage to keep some random stuff in it. I went to check the closet and I saw a wire! Was this a piece of Katherine? I checked the closet even more until I bumped into the wall, but it wasn’t a wall, it was a door! I opened the door and heard voices! One sounded so familiar, it sounded like mom!

When I looked inside I saw a bunch of random people, who were those people? I didn’t know any of these people , except I saw someone, a person I knew… It was mom. 

When I walked down a few more steps, I saw Katherine, and then I saw something way more surprising, I saw the governor!  Why was he here? Why were these people in this bunker? Is this why mom always came down here and would tell us not to come? Is this some type of secret cult? What was mom working with the governor? Was this her work? I thought she worked as a maid, well that's what she always says to us whenever she goes out of the house, she always says she needs to go to work, was this her work she always talked about?  Was she some type of spy for the government? Was this why we had a bunker and no one else in the neighborhood did? WAS SHE THE ONE THAT PLANNED THIS? Who was she working for? Was she working with the governor, or the president? OR WAS IT BOTH? It had to be both, right? I mean the governor works for the president. 

I had to stop asking questions and find what was going on.

“ MOM! WHAT’S GOING ON!” I yell

“ HONEY! LEAVE NOW BEFORE THEY-” 

My moms voice got cut off, the whole world went blank, I had this really sharp pain in my back. I don't know what happened next. Before I knew it I was sitting on a chair tied up in ropes. 

“ What are we going to do with her?” a male voice asks

“ I don’t know she’s my daughter!” My mom says

“ You know what we have to do Oliva,” says the governor 

“ NO WE CAN’T DO THAT, SHE’S JUST A KID!” yells mom

“ WE HAVE TO DO IT OLIVIA, sorry I didn’t mean to raise my voice, but she will be a kid again just in another life.” Murmurs the governor. 

What did they mean in another life? I started screaming!

“ Y'ALL CAN’T DO ANYTHING TO ME! LEAVE ME ALONE!” I try to scream as loud as I can.

“ Honey calm down, it's ok!” My mom says

I was scared of what they would do. I mean what they do? Would they erase my memory? What would they do, kill me? My mom would never kill me, or would she? I mean I’m her daughter. I start thinking about that for 10 minutes straight. Then they put me back to sleep, and before I knew it, I was in my room, in the dark and my mom just found a flashlight in the cabinet.