Xavier's Journey

Xavier’s Journey

By Ben Brady

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Dedicated to those in need of a book

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Maple Leaf Book Writing Project

Brattleboro, Vermont

Copyright 2014

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Xavier Balthazar was in the middle of writing a story when the doorbell rang. “Mom,” he yelled to his Mother, who was upstairs, “I think your package is here!”

“Can you get it?” she asked.

“Sure, one second,” he replied. Getting up from the computer, he slowly walked into the living room and pulled open the front door. He glanced around, but no one was there. Looking down, he saw a small gold envelope sealed with red wax. The wax was stamped with the letter M. There was no address, not even a name. After studying it closely, Xavier decided to open it. Inside he found a piece of orange paper, a very rusty key, and a torn half of a map.

The paper read:

Dear Xavier,

Before I begin, here are the rules:

1. You can’t tell anyone you have received this letter. If you do, they won’t be around much longer to tell anyone else.

2. Don’t give away the key or map, you’ll need them later.

3. If you fail to complete the tasks I’m going to assign you, you will be murdered.

I have chosen you to help me obtain what I need for a certain job. As you may have guessed, it’s very serious, so if you can’t succeed, I will have to... well... kill you. Why did I choose you? You’ll find out later. Your assignment starts in Decatur, New York. Good luck on your travels!

-M

After reading the letter, Xavier’s mind was flooded with questions. Who was M? Why was he chosen and not someone else? What tasks were going to be “assigned” to him? At least he recognized the name Decatur. It was the name of a town north of where he lived. His parents took him there to see a concert when he was four, but he didn’t remember it.

Studying the map, he saw that it showed his town and the towns nearby. A red line connected to his town and zig-zagged across the map, slowly heading north. It was cut off where the map was torn. Xavier suspected that the line lead to Decatur, but he wasn’t sure.

The letter said that he couldn’t tell anyone. Deciding to test that, Xavier walked down the path outside of his house to the small pond on his property. Kneeling down next to a frog, he started to say: “Hey, frog, I just found this-” but he was cut off when the frog made a very loud croak, which startled Xavier. A red dart was protruding from its back, dripping dark purple liquid. In a few seconds, it was still. Now he was a little bit scared. Looking around, he saw no one.

Xavier now knew that the letter was serious. He would have to do whatever quest “M” wanted him to do. Not having another option made him angry. Now he would need an excuse to leave for Decatur. When he got back up to his house, Xavier came up with a plan for how he was going to leave.

“Mom,” he asked, “you remember my friend Ryan, right?”

“Yeah, I think so, why?” she asked in return.

“We don’t have school next week and he invited me to come with him to a video game convention.” The part about not having school was true, but here was no video game convention.

“Are you sure you want to go? And when is it?”

“I’m sure I want to go - it’s on Wednesday, and he said we might sleep in a hotel there, but he wasn’t sure.”

“Sure, I guess you can go... I’ll go call Ryan’s mom.”

“No, that’s okay,” Xavier responded quickly,” I talked with Ryan about it and I know the details. I’m going to bike over to his house on Wednesday morning with my stuff and then we’ll leave.”

“Okay......” his mother said.

On Wednesday morning, Xavier gathered and packed his cellphone, the letter, map, key, some snacks, and a water bottle into his backpack. He soon waved goodbye to his parents and sister and biked away.

When he was far away from his house, Xavier opened up his backpack and looked at the map. Following the red line, he left town and started going down a long and seemingly deserted road behind an old warehouse. Soon he was exhausted and he decided to stop for a snack. After eating a granola bar and drinking lots of water, he continued until he finally reached another road. This one had a few cars but was also mostly deserted.

Eventually, Xavier came to a train station. It had a small, dilapidated building, a large platform dotted with benches, and, of course, tracks. Looking at the map, Xavier saw that this was where the line ended. He leaned his bike up against the side of the building and started walking towards the platform. On the side of the building, Xavier noticed a door. It had a large and rusted padlock that looked similar to his key. He opened up his backpack, took out the key, and successfully unlocked the door.

The room was extremely dusty, like it hadn’t been touched in years - except for a trail of footprints, leading from the door to a grandfather clock in the middle of the room, and then back to the door. On the clock Xavier found another orange envelope. In it was the other half of the map, a train ticket, and a note. This note read:

I’m glad to see you made it! That was only a test. The real tasks are up ahead. Now that you have the rest of the map, make your way to Decatur and head towards the old movie theater on the east edge of town. Dismember the projector in theater two. You’ll find another note there telling you what to take and where to bring it. Good luck! -M

Xavier remembered hearing a story about the theater closing a long time ago. His friends told him that it was haunted, but he didn’t believe them.

On the other half of the map, the line continued, but much straighter than the first half. Xavier thought he was supposed to take the train. In small print at the end of the line, he was able to distinguish the word Decatur.

After studying the room once more and finding nothing, Xavier headed outside to hide his bike. He didn’t want it to be stolen while he was off doing whatever M wanted him to do. When his bike was safely parked behind a large bush, he walked over to the platform.

“Excuse me, do you know when the next train is? And where it’s going?” Xavier asked the man waiting next to him on the platform.

“It’s going to Decatur, New York. It should arrive pretty soon.” the man replied.

“Okay, thanks” Xavier responded.

The wait was only a few minutes and the train ride didn’t take long either. In only an hour, Xavier was in Decatur. After departing from the train, he decided to head east to the movie theater like the letter demanded.

As he walked down the sidewalk, he became more and more angry that he was forced to do this. Slowly, a plan formed in his head. Xavier remembered how when he spoke to the frog about his situation, it was shot by a dart and killed. When that happened, he didn’t know to look around as he spoke to see who was shooting. But now that he knew, he could possibly follow whoever shot the dart to all the way to M, instead of going to the theater like he was supposed to.

Sitting on the sidewalk in front of him was a cat. Xavier took a quick look at the houses nearby to make sure that no one was watching, and then said to the cat, “Hey, cat, I found this envelope...” Xavier quickly pulled the cat towards him, looked at the dart on the ground, and then made eye contact with the man who shot the dart. He was right in suspecting he was being followed. A look of surprise flashed across the man’s face and he sprinted away. Xavier ran after him.

The man was running towards a large hill. As he approached it, a hidden door swung open and he ran in. Xavier hid behind a tree, hoping that the man would think he’d lost him and wouldn’t lock the door. The door slowly closed, and Xavier ran over to it and put his ear up to it. Inside he could hear two men talking.

“Are you sure he saw you?” someone questioned calmly.

“Yes, I’m sure he saw me!” Xavier thought this was the man who was following him.

“When?”

“I was trying to shoot a cat and he pushed it out of the way and saw me! Why do I even have to shoot animals anyways?”

“I have no idea. We both know he’s practically insane, but at least he’s offering us money.”

“True.”

“Did he see you come in?”

“No, I don’t think so.”

“Okay, good.”

Then it sounded like they both walked off. Xavier waited a moment, just to be sure, and then felt around with his hands until he found a handle. He pulled the door open and found himself in a small, dimly lit room full of crates and shelves lined with bottles. The walls, ceiling, and floor were all a very dull shade of grey, and there was only one other door.

Xavier lifted the lid off of one of the crates. It was entirely filled up with darts. He took one out, just in case he would need to defend himself. The next crate was full of envelopes and letters, just like the one he had received, except they were blank. Another crate was filled with tickets. Xavier dug through until he found a train ticket to the station where he had disembarked. He put it in his pocket so he could have a way back home later. After checking the contents of the other crates and finding nothing else useful, Xavier walked over to the shelves and took a bottle off. The liquid inside was purple, just like the poison that killed the frog.

Xavier went up to the door and peeked through. He saw a long hallway, lined with many other doors. The room he was in was at one end of the hall, with five doors on the left side and five doors on the right side. There was a very large door on the other side of the hall. He decided to first explore the left side, then the right side, and finally the big door at the end.

The first door on the left lead to a storage room. However, the crates in there had wires, chunks of metal, small motors, tools, and batteries. The next three rooms were very similar. The fifth room was a bathroom.

Xavier thought that the first three rooms on the right side of the hallway were living spaces. One door had the name Derek on it, the next door had the name Simon, and the third door had the letter M. He heard people in the first two rooms but the third one sounded empty. Xavier tried to enter, but the door was locked. The next two rooms were a kitchen and a library.

It was finally time for him to see what was in the last room. He paused for a moment, and opened the door. A gush of warm air flooded the hallway. He stepped inside.

Xavier was surprised to see that it wasn’t just another room - it was an enormous cavern! Wires were dangling from the ceiling and snaking across the floor while pipes of varying sizes and colors ran across the walls. There was a large walkway leading down from the door, which was pretty high up, to the floor. Everything was connected to a large tank of purple liquid in the center of the room. Xavier advanced down the walkway to the base of the tank.

“You’re here early!” said a voice behind Xavier, startling him.

He turned around and saw a small chunky man with grey hair and a very lumpy face. “I uh...”

“Nice to meet you too Xavier, I’m M. Did you bring the gears from the projector?

“No... I followed someone here to find out what was going on!”

“WHAT? You don’t have the gears?! Well ... I guess I can use some other parts instead. Hold on a minute.” M got out a tool box and some pieces of metal and started attaching something to a control panel next to the walkway. After a few minutes, he stood up happily. “I guess I didn’t need the gears after all.”

“So what is all of this?” Xavier asked.

“I have big plans,” M replied, “I’m going to take over the world - from this very room. I

got every single piece of this equipment from children. Yes, children. I don’t have to pay them and they’re much more reliable than adults. That’s why you as well as several others were chosen.”

Xavier had to agree with Derek and Simon - M was kind of crazy.

“So how do you plan to ‘take over the world’ ?” Xavier asked.

“You’re actually just in time! here, let me show you!” M replied. Then he walked to the base of the tank and flipped a large red switch that Xaver hadn’t noticed before. “Now the pipes all around the room will start to pump the poison out of this tank. Water will be combined with it and the solution will be poured into an enormous boiler. It will create enough poisonous gas for me to wipe out entire cities!”

Xavier didn’t like the sound of that. Poison was already being pumped out of the tank. “Where’s the boiler?” Xavier asked frantically.

“It’s down there.” M replied, pointing to a staircase that lead even deeper. “Why?” he asked, but Xavier was already heading down.

When he reached the bottom of the stairs, he found himself in a room slightly smaller than the room above. There was a thin wire running down from the ceiling that connected to a large metal box Xavier assumed to be the boiler. Quickly he stuck the dart into the wire in an attempt to stop it from functioning. The shock he received was so great that he fell to the floor, unconscious.

He woke up several minutes later, extremely sore. Sparks were flying out of the wire - which Xavier assumed meant he had succeeded. When he ascended the stairs he was greeted by chaos. Water and poison were spilling out of pipes and onto the floor, and machinery was groaning very loudly. M was running around frantically, trying to fix everything. When he saw Xavier, he stomped towards him angrily.

“YOU,” he shouted, “YOU broke my machines! This took me years to build! For some reason, the BOILER stopped working, where YOU were. None of the liquid could evaporate to make room for more, so it all piled up and the pipes burst!”

Xavier wasn’t sure what to say. He felt a mixture of relief and pity. “I’m going to shut this off,” he finally said,” so that no more damage is caused.”

“But the system couldn’t handle it! This whole place would explode in a matter of minutes!” M cried frantically. Xavier was already standing next to the lever that M used to turn on the machine. He thought about it for a moment - Should I really leave it here? He could rebuild. But could I really blow up all of this? He might not even make it out in time. I’m better than that. I know right from wrong.

He decided not to flip the switch again. M was kneeling down in front of his damaged creation, crying. Xavier walked slowly up the ramp, out of the room, and into the hallway. Simon and Derek’s doors were now open. He peeked inside of their rooms - they were gone.