Kyra The Hunt

Kyra Mendara squinted at the bookstore through her neon green glasses, trying to avoid blinding herself; the sun was setting. The bookshop was a short, squat building, painted a pale green. The wood looked worn away. The words ‘WONDER BOOKS’ were written in large lettering above the wooden door.

Slowly, Krya pushed open the door, which squeaked when she did. Her family’s huskie dog, Shadow, who had been sitting at her side just a moment ago, sprinted inside, as if he were on fire. Kyra laughed, and stepped into the bookstore. Dim lighting came from the white chandelier that hung above the rows of bookshelves. People were sitting on sofas positioned around the room, reading silently. Kenden, the assistant bookshop keeper greeted her with

“Make sure he hasn’t been kidnapped,” he said, and followed Renzo’s path through the door. Kyra took a random book off the fiction shelf out of boredom, and started to read. It was The Hunt, By Rachel LuMin.

After about another ten minutes, Kyra started to worry. It doesn’t take this long to find a book, does it? She thought. Well, unless it’s at the bottom of a large pile of other books, then, yes. But she got up anyway and slipped through the door, Shadow on her tail. There was nobody in sight.

“Kenden?” she said. “Renzo?” Kyra walked around the room, looking behind cardboard boxes that held new books. Some were still sealed with tape, others open, a thin layer of dust covering the books in them. “Anyone?” she yelled. She felt something dripping on her head, and looked up. There was a leak in the ceiling, water slowly trickling out of it. Too bad nobody had bothered to put a bucket underneath it.

Kyra yelled their names one more time, but it was useless. With a sigh and shiver of worry, she concluded that they must have been kidnapped.

She had a suspicion that there would be fingerprints she knew all over the book. She lifted the screen over the book, and it started to vibrate and beep violently. Kyra paused the noise and lifted the device to her face. The name Elinus Montogry was blinking in red on the screen. (The app had memorized the fingerprints of everyone she knew well). She blinked twice in confusion. Elinus had always been so kind to everyone. Could he really have kidnapped Renzo? And possibly Kenden? Anyway, she still made his name the first on a mental list of suspects. While she was at it, she added Kenden to it, assuming he could have been capable of kidnapping Renzo. Renzo could have had trouble finding the book, and that’s what took him so