The Aero Council

"Can you keep a secret?" Those were the first words I heard her say in two long years . I didn't think much of those five words she asked me at first but I should've. However I'm getting ahead of myself. It was 12/7/2018, it was another Friday where my schedule consisted of me going to Miller hospital to visit my sister, Heather, she had been in a coma for the past two years. It was just like any other visit where I talked to and even read to her. Except while I was reading her favorite book, Harry Potter, she loved the book so much because she loved to believe in magic in a world that always pushed you down, and I always used to laugh because I thought magic wasn't real. But when I was reading and her eyes flickered open, I didn't care if it was Harry Potter or God himself who brought my sister back to me, I was just happy. And I hadn't been happy for a long time. " Can I get a doctor here?" I yelled, "Oh... god, Heather!" I said embracing my sister and while I was still holding her she whispered, " Can you keep a secret?"

"What?"

"Can you keep a secret?"

"Uh... Ye-yes," I stuttered

"They did this to me," She whispered to me and the way she said it sent a shiver right through the very core of my being.

"Who did this to you?" I asked while stroking her hair while she shivered.

"The Council of Aero."

"The council of what?" I said with a confusion but before she could respond the doctor walked in and the conversation was left unfinished until today.

After a few months that she had come home, I started noticing that she wasn't herself. She was always frantic and very quiet, she hardly talked, she never wanted to go out. The woman that was sitting in front of me wasn't my sister, she wore my sister's face but she wasn't my sister, not in the slightest. And she always carried around a journal, always writing. But she never let anyone, no even me, touch it talk less of reading it. In those months, that journal didn't leave her side. Then one day, she finally left the house, I'm not sure where she went to, but it didn't matter because I thought I was starting to get my sister back, and I couldn't have been more wrong. While she was out, I decided to go out to the grocery store and when I came back my sister was hanging in the middle of my living-room with a rope wrapped around her neck, and she was dangling, like a chandelier. I immediately started screaming, and dropped to my knees, all my groceries falling to the ground. That image is forever etched into my memory, of my sister hanging there with the blood drained out of her body. I don't even remember calling an ambulance, when I opened my eyes, they were just there, but I couldn't see anything seeing as my eyes were blurred with tears. When they were moving her it was like time was moving at the slowest speed possible and It was like my soul left my body and I was watching the scariest movie. After the next few months, I decided I couldn't live in my two bedroom apartment and sit in the same room that I saw her dangling from. So I decided to move, I started packing and I came across that bloody journal she uses to carry around everywhere, and so I decided to read it and I was finished I could barely even breathe.

In the book was a secret code that we invented when we were just kids to pass messages, and talk about anyone without getting caught, It was our own secret language. So when I saw the code in the book, i was so confused, so I started translating it and It translated to, " By the time you are reading this, I'm probably dead, but don't worry Maxine, I want you to know that I love you and I'm always with you. I am writing this in our secret code because there is something important I need to tell you. Me getting hit by car, that wasn't an accident, It was planned by the Aero council to attempt to kill me because I knew their secret, and they killed mom and dad too because of the same reason. And now that I've woken up from my coma, I know they are going to come finish the job. I want you to avenge my death and countless other deaths by exposing them, the next lines you're going to read I need you to please be careful with the information and don't get yourself killed, please do this for me." After I read I started crying, because I thought my sister had actually killed herself and I thought it might have been partly my fault, and now I know she was killed by that stupid council. So after I had bawled my eyes a little I translated the rest of the message and I couldn't believe what I read. “What the bloody hell,” I whispered and dropped the journal to the floor. After a few minutes I picked the journal and spent the next thirty minutes reading the entire journal, which was mainly just entries. I was left with the hole in my heart filled from knowing my sister didn't commit suicide, but i was left with another huge hole knowing my sister and parents where killed by the same group of people, and they were still roaming free. But it left me to wonder how my parents knew about the council, since my parents were detectives, it wasn't a far fetch they might have known about the council but still something told me that it was more than that, So I drove all the way to my parents house, which was two states away. When I got there, I picked up the key that was under the welcome mat and let myself in. I rummaged through the entire house, I went through journals, books, pictures, documents, you name it, I even went through vases. I searched their entire house and then I found a chest that was under their bed, it was locked, and I knew this is what I was looking for, but I didn't have the patience to look or find the key. So since I was obsessed with mystery and Nancy Drew as a kid I knew how to pick a lock and luckily I had a pin in my hair, so I took it out and picked the lock and the chest popped open. And I started to look through the pictures and document and I saw a picture of my parents, with a group of other people, who looked old enough to be in a secret society. And I just knew it was the Aero council, so I took the picture with me and left. As i was in my car and had stop for some burger king, I looked at the picture and I assumed that my parents was part of the original council, the picture looked about 20 years old, so my parents must have left when they knew the real reason they invented the council, and tried to expose them but then got discovered and were killed. And my sister must have known from probably hearing them talk, she was always a good eavesdropper. She had written in the journal that mom and dad didn't know she knew. After I took in all this information I decided I had to finish what my parents and sister tried to do. When I got back home I started planning what I was going to do, and honestly didn't know what in the hell I was going to do. 

After another month I had finished the article that was going to reveal those sick bastards. And when I was done I didn’t even hesitate I clicked send and it felt like a huge weight was lifted off my soldier. 

After a few weeks, the article went viral, and the Aero council was found guilty of all the crimes I had accused them of. And most of them went to jail, the others disbanded, some even fled the countries. Most of them were arrested on the charge of child-trafficking. And countless of other things like Murder, Sexual assault, Aggravated assault, and so much more. And exposing them like that I was never prouder of myself. So I went to go visit Heather at her grave, and I told her all about how I took down the Aero council, but before I did I asked her a question she once asked me, “Can you keep a secret?”