The Crystal by Jones M (the chimp paradox .txt) 📕

to grace us with his presence. The cheery mood was placed on pause as we all turned to face him with a look of expectation.

It was important to let the memory wipe that Selena and I had done on him to take effect. We didn't know if the specific memory was erased from his mind, so we had to wait until he woke up to find out.

Ethan furrowed his eyebrows at us.

"Okay, what is going on with you guys? It's too early to make this morning weird," he said, but we ignored him.

"What do you remember of yesterday?" Harry asked. Ethan gave him a look of confusion.

"What?"

"What is the date today?" I questioned.

"The tenth of January, 2011," he replied. We all sighed in relief.

"What do you remember last?" Selena asked.

"You guys coming to the hotel after traveling by our jet from New York. Afterward, we ate and went to sleep."

"Where are we?" Zane asked.

"In London, on our second tour—okay, what is going on?" Ethan asked.

"Nothing," we all replied at the same time, but the look of disbelief never left his face. I sighed.

"Remember going to Eva's castle last year?"

Ethan nodded.

"Well, Selena and I wiped a part of your memories," his eyes widened as I informed him of that, "Because you kept having nightmares about something that happened there."

"You wiped my memories?" he asked with a raise in his voice and a look of fear etched on his face.

"A memory and the nightmares brought by the memory. Trust me, you do not want to have those memories back in your mind."

Ethan remained silent for a while, but he nodded as a sign of acceptance.

Hours later, the rest of the boys were awake, and we had all eaten and gotten dressed.

"So, what do you guys want to do today?" Liam asked while filling himself a glass of water.

"I don't know," Selena replied with a shrug. "You are the ones who know this area."

"We don't know this area. Well, most of it," Logan replied. "We could go see the Buckingham Palace."

Where?

"But that's open on specific dates," Ethan said, and after a moment, he added, "I think."

"We could get in. The advantage of being a popular celebrity is getting everything you want," Zane said. I eyed him with a look of incredulity.

"Cocky much?" Selena asked with a sly smile. Zane rolled his eyes at her.

"Okay, so it's settled then! We could go to Buckingham Palace right now," Liam said.

Moments later, we found ourselves being driven towards our destination. Trevor, the boys' tour manager, insisted that we should be careful not to let the paparazzi notice us. The boys had to wear disguises in which they wore dark sunglasses and colored wigs over their heads. Ethan was the exception because he had to wear a black wig over his head. We had no option but to agree with Trevor's suggestion. Then he called for two private limos to take us wherever we wanted to go. That was how we later found ourselves outside the grand building.

"Wow," I replied in amazement. I found myself suddenly wishing that I had brought a camera with me.

The structure of Buckingham Palace was large. We were feets away from its gates, admiring its design and appearance. The building had a large rectangular cuboid-like design. The structure was painted white with antique-white streaks at the sides and at the large entrance.

Birmingham Palace had a wonderful garden that beautified the place. Apart from the green grass that covered most of the area, there were flowers being grown that added color to the surroundings. A large fountain statue also met my eyes.

Regarding the security, the palace had guards situated around the area and beside the building's iron gate entrance. They all had worn tall, black bearskin hats with red coats that had white buttons. They had also worn black trousers, and they each held a rifle positioned to point towards the sky. From where I was standing, I could see a couple of them march towards different directions.

"It's so huge," Selena said with wide eyes, drinking in all she could see.

"It's so grand," I commented. The only royal building I had ever come across was Crystalia's castle, and that was not even recognized on earth. I continued to look over the building, and a memory hit me. Wasn't Buckingham Palace in that Garfield movie where the cat went to England?

The British are coming! The British are coming!

I held in a chuckle as I recalled that moment where the dog peed on one of the guards, and he and Garfield were being chased away.

"You know we could go inside, right?" Zane spoke beside me, breaking the train of memories that were going through my head.

The seven of us were about to step foot towards the palace grounds when the guards approached us in a quick manner. They came and stood before us, not saying a word. The guys and I moved to evade them, but they moved towards our direction to block us.

Strange.

"Hello?" Liam asked while waving a hand in front of one of the guards, but he got no reply.

"Why aren't they letting us in?" Logan asked. "It's bad enough they don't acknowledge us. It would be good to know why."

"Really?" Selena asked with a sly smile. She went to approach the guards who were blocking the entrance. She snapped her fingers in front of one of them.

"Hello? Anyone there?"

"Selena!" I whisper-shouted her name to get her attention. I did not want to risk being chased by the palace guards.

"Hello?" she called out to the guard who completely ignored her. She was not going to get a reply anytime soon.

"Rude," she said with a frown before coming to us.

"I guess we are not allowed inside," Liam said. That caused me to frown. "Sorry guys. Maybe on another time when we come back."

"You guys will be back here?" I almost missed the last part of what Liam said because I was disappointed.

"Yes," Logan replied. "It's all part of the tour."

"There must be some other places we could go sightsee," Selena stated as we all began to exit the palace grounds. 

What a waste it was to even go there.

"We could go visit the London Eye," Harry suggested.

"What's that?" I asked in curiosity.

"It's a huge Ferris wheel we could board and see most of London."

Selena and I perked up at that idea. We then boarded the limos we came with and then we drove to the London Eye. Once we arrived, we alighted and the vehicles we traveled in left.

The London Eye was large just like Harry had said. It was one huge Ferris wheel with a white exterior. For a moment, I thought it was like any other ordinary Ferris wheel. I took a closer look, and I was astonished by my discovery. There were pill-shaped structures with glass walls.

On that particular day, there weren't many people. Seeing the few individuals standing in a line made me glad about it because I couldn't wait to board it. It was soon our turn, and we all boarded one of the capsules.

The doors closed. Once I felt the capsule moving, I grabbed onto the closest thing to maintain my stability. That thing was a person, and it was Zane. A blush formed on my cheeks. I instantly withdrew my arms... only to draw them back onto Zane when the capsule moved and stopped, shaking for a moment.

I looked up at the boy who had still worn the dark pair of sunglasses, and he was trying so hard not to laugh.

"What?" I asked with a small frown.

"For someone who can fly, it's ironic that you are scared of heights."

I rolled my eyes at him, silently agreeing with the irony, and watched as we were slowly being risen off the ground. I looked through the glass that exposed the outside world, noticing that we were a bit high off the ground. 

The Ferris wheel stopped again before resuming its movement minutes later.

I looked behind me and saw the rest of the boys talking with Selena. They seemed to be having fun. Seeing that my cousin was occupied, I turned to look for seats. I found one that I doubted was a seat.

With a shrug, I decided to just stand for the whole read.

"Emery, I think we need to talk about last night," Zane said, and I wanted to bury myself into the ground. The worries of the Ferris ride were completely forgotten once Zane mentioned the previous night. I thought he had forgotten about it since we were acting like best friends in the morning, but seeing that he was bringing it up...

"It's okay. I know it was an accident," I said, trying to make the conversation short. My cheeks turned a rosy red just at the memory of Zane busting into the room and seeing me.

"I'm sorry. I should have at least knocked, and I should have had the sense that you might have been undressing. I didn't mean to look at your--"

"It's okay!" I repeated, cutting him off before he mentioned any body part of mine. "It's okay. It was just a one-time thing."

Zane kept staring into my eyes to see if I was honest before nodding and turning to face the view outside the capsule.

"Wow," he commented. I looked at the scene around me and my eyes widened in amazement. I could see part of London from where we were, and we were still moving upwards! There was a river, which I believe Liam said was the Thames and a bridge above it.

Oh. That was the bridge I could see from the hotel!

I could even see the Big Ben from where we were. 

Liam called it that when we I mistakenly called it the big clock tower of London. 

"It's so beautiful," I commented as I touched the clear surface of the capsule.

"It is," I heard him reply. With a small smile, I turned to face Zane. I almost shot up with a blush when I noticed he was looking at me. It felt awkward again, and I turned to face away from him.

The ride came to an end, and we all alighted from the capsule. The guys and I walked out of it, and moments later, other people were boarding it.

It was past midday by then, and it was heading towards evening. Moreover, we had not even had lunch yet.

"We should go grab something to eat," Selena said. "All this sightseeing is making me hungry."

The boys led my cousin and me to a nearby restaurant. It was in the outdoors with a huge tent above us. Seeing many people had situated themselves in the area, I felt worried about the boys' inconspicuousness. That thought flew out my brain when the smell of food wafted around my senses.

We had only settled down and ordered our meal when the worst thing had to happen. I mean, it was bound to happen, but so soon?

"OMG! It's the Ordinary Brothers!" someone screamed, and everyone around the restaurant turned to face us. I searched with my eyes for who had screamed, only to see a blonde girl with an excited smile pointing at our seat. How did she know who the boys were?

My head turned to face the boys, only to notice that the black wig Ethan had worn exposed half of his blonde hair and that he had removed his sunglasses.

Oh no.

CHAPTER 25

Emery’s P.O.V

One by one, the fans of my ex-bullies exposed themselves by releasing shrieks of excitement. It only took a second for my hearing to focus only on the screams. I suddenly felt scared. I did not know what to do. 

I took a brief glance at Selena and the members of the Ordinary Brothers. They remained still with widened eyes, scared like I was that they were found out.

“Run,” Logan said. He did not have to say it twice. I was not looking forward to having my late lunch interrupted by the boys’ fans. But what Logan said had been a mistake on its own. No sooner had we gotten up than they started to follow us. 

Talk about an incident similar to running away from a lion.

We took off at a fast pace away from the outdoor restaurant. By the sound of the approaching footsteps, I did not need to turn to know we were being followed. Our ordered lunch was soon forgotten as adrenaline pumped through my blood, giving me the energy