11. Thesaurus

After two weeks since he met with that weird boy, he didn’t have the chance search for the name he gave him before leaving. He even forgot all about it, once again, until the second Sunday, after waking up at noon. He was still feeling the pain from his Saturday’s training when bits of his conversation with the boy popped up inside his head. Just when he decided to not come out from the basement, neither stood up from his bed, he was completely awake trying to remember what the boy said to look for.

He remembered the “etc.” part, but not what came after that. Using the word in the searching site wasn’t really useful for all the sites talking about the meaning of it. After thirty minutes without successful results, he went upstairs to eat something and drink some water; his family was watching the TV at that moment, so he went and seated with them for some minutes until the other word came back to him.

Without losing time, he searched for it, only to find that he needed an open account from the most popular social network. He thought about using his brother’s, however because he didn’t know why he needed a profile, he decided to make a fake account. He used to have a normal account before all the change in his life, he didn’t miss it, but he recognized that sometimes it was really useful.

Ignoring the movie they were watching, he focused in the creation of his fake profile, even creating a new mail account for it. As for his name, he stopped for a bit without knowing what to use until he searched for a list of the most unused words, finding his new alias: “Thesaurus”. It almost sounded as his real name, plus it was a dictionary, and he used to be really good with synonyms back at his elementary school’s days.

With a mysterious looking cat as his profile photo, he entered the page of “etc. lost”. It had something like fifty members, you couldn’t see the address until you asked to be admitted into the group, so he did, having to wait two hours after filling their simple questionnaire:

• 1. How did you find this group? Someone gave me the name to look for it. 
• 2. Why do you want to join? Because I’m curious and because that person said I could find him there. 
• 3. What do you know about this group? Not a single thing. 
• 4. If you’re using your real name and profile, we won’t accept you. Are you sure with your current account? Yes. 

All looked as a secret sect or something, but he wasn’t feeling scared of it, after all, the boy promised that there it wasn’t needed his name or his past.

The moment his solicitude was accepted, he looked for the address and left the house, again wearing all his incognito clothes. The address was from the neighboring city, he had to use his superhuman speed to reach the place: a normal looking building without signs. The door was open, surely it was a rented place for offices or apartments, he couldn’t be sure from the outside, so he went in to the third floor where the address stated.

Once again, the door was simple and unsuspicious, he stayed there and heard from outside before deciding to knock. The only sound he was able to hear were of people speaking calmly, a bit of music and some crunchy chew. After he knocked, it appeared that all the people inside became quiet, some of them got to the door to look from the spyhole.

“Who are you?” asked a voice from inside, a woman’s voice.

“Thesaurus…” his name online sounded mysterious and good, saying it aloud was so embarrassing and stupid, however he hid this uneasiness. The voices inside discussed for some seconds until they opened and let him in.

“It’s really you, anonymous!” exclaimed the same boy that gave him the name. Now that there was a good light source, he saw how he was around his same age but a bit taller, his hair was a short, although he had a long ponytail coming from above his nape. His smile was big when he passed his arm over his shoulders to guide him inside the apartment where fifteen persons were reunited and looking at him with curiosity.

He saw that all of them were a great diversity in sizes, ages and appearances. Now he felt out of place with all his incognito style, but it was needed. He only hoped they wouldn’t be scared of him, or worried.