Facts.

Fast forward to now. After spending months of adventure, running through the university, and doing silly things for one another, I have now come to terms with dealing with each of my three friends and all their crazy antics, not to mention my newly found personality, the soft-spoken Mac, who is a monster in the karaoke, although my singing indeed resonates badly to anyone who hears it.

And believe me when I tell you that I've come to love this new character. I mean, I am completely straight and can still feel something when Beau is near, but I find it fun playing as another person, collecting facts, and putting the pieces together as stealthy as I can, so no one finds out, even Pete.

Pete, who is a victim of all of this. I am still in awe at how the simple piece of paper from a forgotten book at the library would lead me to uncover a horribly failed science experiment years after it had been buried in the public eye. And what are the odds that a term paper in my class would bring me to this day, dressing in all the colors I hate and flirting with guys so that no one suspects my motives?

Well, I guess, I've completely accepted this role as I grew closer with them. I never once felt left out, and these three are good at making me worried, so the mighty me has no choice but to take care of them, too, like how they do to me.

"Mac! Why are you spacing out this early? Come here. Help me distribute the sandwiches." I was woken up by Pete's loud yell and instantly got to my feet. We are at the auditorium, attending yet again another freshies activity, even when the school year is about to end. Seems like they're using us up before we move on to the sophomore year.

And I don't have the energy to tell you about this activity. Well, for one, because I didn't listen to the discussion, I didn't know what it was about, and second, I would just use my time listing more information about the experiment than waste it on this activity.

I headed straight to where Pete was, arranging sandwiches on trays before passing them on to the group leaders. When it comes to physical activities, you can count on Pete almost anytime, but never when academics are involved. He was squatting down, opening a box full of sandwiches, head focused down, as he pulled the contents out of the box.

I must've been so out of my mind and so immersed in my secret mission, as I hadn't noticed Pete handing me the sandwiches. But my eyes had caught up with a mark on Pete's neck, just below his hairline, almost erased from the skin, but I could definitely make out the letter, it's "R."

"R" for RTFICIAL. This was another addition to the list of facts I've compiled over the months of studying the case, digging cemented holes on the internet, and observing Pete. I pulled out my glittery notebook, which I pegged as my lyrics notebook for my composed songs, so no one would find it weird that I was scribbling in the middle of the auditorium.

"Pete, one moment. I just thought of inspiration for my next hit song. Be right back." I winked him goodbye and disappeared to the back of the auditorium while Beau and Jay looked like they were about to stab me with their sandwich knives.

My dear friend, Pete, was very supportive of my career as a fraud singer-songwriter (if he only knew.) But these two, who have angry cells in every part of their body, are a bit hard to fool. They would always give me the eyes but won't push further when Pete got in the way.

Learning about the RTFICIAL experiment would cause my head to explode, so I prefer writing them down in this notebook as if I'm unloading some heavy shits in my head that I probably would still remember even asleep. I flipped through the pages, almost halfway through the notebook, and scribbled a big letter R.

R (tattooed on the neck of one of the variables)

One.

Remember when I found pictures of kids with their names listed on the RTFICIAL book? As I go through the pages, horrifying pictures of dead children, with specific time and nature of death, were recorded in the book. It dawned on me that only three of the kids had their pictures alive.

Taking this information, I concluded that out of the 20 participants of the experiment, only three kids survived, one being Pete. I need to find the other two and know whether they have survived and whatever the effect they received from the experiment.

This was the first shocking fact I uncovered after days of reading the book, cover to cover, giving me sleepless nights whenever each of the dead kid's pictures showed up. The first five nights of knowing so little about the RTIFICIAL experiment gave me headaches, anxiety, and doubts if I would still want to continue diving into this pit of fire. It is too much to take, all the things these mad scientists have done to the children that led them to die.

But every day, as I spend time with Pete, Beau, and Jay, I've come to understand that the purpose we met at the library that day was to make peace with Pete's past and expose the truth.

Now that another fact has laid its presence, it would be easier for me to look for the other two kids (if they are still breathing right at this moment). I have looked at every corner of this town looking for these two, but they never seem to exist. Even the birth registers don't show a sign of them being born and living in Seam City.

My guess is they were registered on the book with a fake name or have been given a new one, as if giving them a new life, to hide them from the public eye or the people who know about the failed experiment.

Nevertheless, I have an additional symbol to look for, a capital R tattooed on the neck, signifying that they've undergone the RTIFICIAL experiment. To whose necks this belongs, that I have completely zero idea. And how do I look at the necks of all the guys of Seam City? Oh crap! That's another problem.

"Uh- excuse me. Do you happen to see Pete? You know, the famous boy from the Silly gang." A slender man, wearing a brown button-down shirt, was standing a few feet from me, looking like he had run a mile with all that sweat and heavy breathing.

Well, well, well. Seems like Pete won the jackpot yet again. This man, I can tell, is not from our university. And how do I know? Well, our hometown is relatively small, and you could probably memorize everyone's faces or have come across them once in the market or on the way home.

Another thing, I have recently completed profiling all guys the same age as Pete, living in the Seam City, hoping to find the two possibly alive variables in the experiment. Unfortunately, there was no match. As I've said, they probably have been given new names, and why Pete had retained his is a big mystery to me.

"Ah, he's inside the auditorium, distributing sandwiches," I replied with the softest voice I could produce.

"I could call him for yo-" He's now walking away from me, as if not meaning to find Pete at all, going in a different direction where the door to the auditorium is.

What a jerk!

I was about to return inside when, in the corner of my eye, I caught a black ink barely noticeable on his nape. I could just have mistaken it for dirt as he looked filthy, but the unmistakable way the ink was laid on his nape, each unique stroke is definitely the same with Pete. I was on my feet in an instant, ready to launch at the man and ask him some information, when Pete interrupted.

"Mac? I've finished the work, yet you're still here, daydreaming."

"Someone was looking for you. That man, wearing a button-down.... Oh, he's gone."

The man, probably one of the only three living variables, vanished into thin air without any word.

Find him. I told myself before facing the annoyed Pete.