The Black Snowflake
Vincent
I got up early the next day and began drawing on a piece of paper. While working on the weapons, I had found a symbol on the bottom of each of them. It was a black snowflake surrounded by a white circle.
I was sure I had seen it before. It was significant. I knew it. I looked up to see ‘Punzel standing next to me, yawning. “What are you looking at?”
“Look at this symbol, it’s everywhere!”
Cho
Suddenly, I was wide awake. “What do you mean, everywhere?”
“It’s on all the weapons and all the stuff around here. Look at this pen. Look at this inkstand.”
I frowned, “Generally, when companies want to mark their products, they use some symbol to do it. For example, Redmi phones have an MI on them.”
Snowy looked puzzled, “I thought the government was funding everything here. What is this company? Whom are we being trained to work for?”
Zacharias
I woke up to the sound of ‘Punzel and Snowy talking seriously. After a quick round of freshening up (and waking up Fizz) They filled us in.
“Actually, I think I’ve seen that symbol before,” I spoke up.
“Where?”
“Dad used to sit with me while doing all the paperwork in the house but correspondence with this symbol on it he would not show me.”
Vincent
There was dead silence for a bit. Then ‘Punzel hesitantly spoke up. “Friends, I don’t want to make this weirder, but I’ve seen that symbol too.”
She continued, “My father would go through the newspaper every day and would mark things down in a thick journal of his. This journal had this symbol on the corners of the pages. Once a month, he would courier the journal out and we’d never see it again. I never could find out where he used to keep it.”
Cho
My words shocked everyone. We looked at each other in silence for a moment. But that didn’t last long.
Fizz laughed shakily, “I guess it’s no problem if I add to the sea of weirdness that’s already here. I’ve seen it too. Every so often my house would receive a parcel in white packaging with a black snowflake on it. I never saw what would come in it but a few days later we would have some new up to date, like, dishwasher or something."
Zacharias
Snowy spoke at last. When the words came, they were forced and stiff. “I'm pretty sure I saw this symbol on the letter that brought the news of the transfer of my custody to my Aunt.” Tears formed in his eyes
‘Punzel knelt down and hugged Snowy gently. None of us spoke, but we all understood. ‘I’m here for you’. I put my arms around both of them. Fizz joined in.
And for that moment, we were just kids. Not children caught up in a conspiracy. Not children stuck in the midst of workings of a dark organization. Not children whose families have been tied to something they don’t understand from the beginning. Just kids. Hugging.