The old man

I saw the letter.

THE LETTER. The tattered letter on the oak table in the dining room. The letter I never touched. The one I always wanted to open, for the past few months now. Turns out I get to open it today. That today is 10/3 of 2019.

The letter, said:

Dear Yuno,

It's nice to talk to you after a few, long months. Is the money I gave you enough? No matter, though. I wrote this to consult you, that I am not dead, oh I am very much alive. You might not believe me, but you'll see for yourself, sooner or later. It's been a while since I called you my short little cookie, eh?You know, I always will call you that, no exceptions? Ok, besides the fact, as it is, if you want to find me, you have to put work into it. Kind of like a puzzle, the escape room ones, no? So just go to this address, 26 Palm Spring Street, and there you might have a teeny clue into finding where I am!

From the old man,

Dad

"He- what, now?! I know you can't hear me, but dang you! Leaving me alone for what now, months now? Giving me money but not wanting to stay? Sometimes I don't know what you think...!" I said aloud, with no one but myself to hear. Realizing that all was hopeless, I checked the address on the later, curious why the old man wanted me to go there. I chucked out my phone from my pocket, turned it on, and searched the address. The first result said:

"Palm Spring Resort"

and below it said:

"UNO tournament in Palm Spring

Resort"

"Why the heck would you want me to go there? What even is "UNO" anyways?" I asked myself, aloud again. God, that is such a bad habit! I pressed on the link to go to the website. "UNO tournament (official)," I read around, "Is being held at 10/4 (tomorrow, now) so don't be late! Check your calendars, and book your flights now, we don't want you to regret missing such a fun event! We will explain everything there, so don't worry about the rules for now. But don't bring anything besides personal belongings, and we expect you to follow the law! Oh, then the page ends. Why make a website for something that has nothing but an issue listed?" But then I spotted something that said, "Sign up here", and under that it said, "about 5,000 people signed up" and I couldn't help but think, 'Dang, how popular is this UNO thing? Is it a sport or something?' To confirm my suspicions, I looked up UNO, and the top result said, "UNO is a card game where the last person to get rid of their cards wins the game." "UNO IS a game, but a card game? Weird, really.... what does the old man have to do with this?" I said aloud, again. The letter on my lap, I slid it back onto the neat table, not wanting to have it on my lap anymore, still holding my phone to my face. "Wait, didn't it say, I ONLY HAVE ONE DAY TO GET THERE? Crap, I need to pack, now!" I hustled out of the dining room into the bedroom, which was neat and tidy, opened the closet door, hurriedly stashed clothes into the suitcase/bag, went on my phone (again) and bought a plane ticket (thank you old man for leaving money!). Then I called a taxi to drop me off at the airport.

When the taxi arrived, I just told him I was going alone, and after a few questions, I confirmed with him I was 14 years old. Throughout the drive, I was silent, unlike some people who just like to talk to the taxi drivers nonstop, for the conversation. I just rested my head against the window, not minding the vibrations from the rocky road. I arrived at the airport in a mere few minutes, and barely managed to catch the plane before it flew.

Out of breath, I rushed to sit in my assigned seat, saying "Excuse me!" to everyone as I passed by. I hope no one thinks I'm a kid. That would be the worst! I sat down, next to a person, which looked a lot taller than me, but still your average height. Sadly, the guy I sat next to went on the chatty side of the spectrum.

"Hello, did you lose your mom?" the boy asked, but without waiting for an answer, he went on, "Are you lost? Is that a plane ticket? How old are you? What's your name?" Answering his questions in order, I said, "No, No, Yes, 14, and Yuno." Then adding a questions of my own, I asked, "Who are you, you rude boy? Also, shouldn't you not be talking to strangers?" "Well, my name is Jake, thank you, and I just really wanted someone to talk to?" the boy said, looking hurt. I gave him a skeptical look, then asked, "Why don't you have a parent with you? I mean, even if you ARE probably older than 15." "Oh, well I AM EXACTLY 15 years old, my birthday was 3 days ago. And well, I guess I didn't want to go with a parent, you know? Limited freedom, yadda yadda yadda! Why are you alone, anyways?" he said, gazing curiously at me. "Oh, same reason!" I lied, hoping I wasn't being suspicious. Then he was the one to give me a skeptical look, and I quickly tried to change the subject.

"What IS UNO anyways?" I asked, knowing I sounded stupid, but I didn't have enough time to look it up on my phone before I left the house. "You SERIOUSLY went to join an UNO TOURNAMENT without knowing what the flip it is?" Jake asked me, genuinely suprised at my question. "Welll..... now that I think about it, yeah, probably!" I mumbled a little loudly, but still quiet. Jake did the facepalm motion and then said, "I'm pretty tired right now, I'll explain it to you whenever we get there!" And so, after that consultation, neither one of us spoke to eachother after that, you could only hear the buzzing of other people's conversations.

I took the seat closest to the aisle, so I had to look around Jake to see the clouds outside. They were white, and puffy, looks like it won't rain today! I realized I brought my phone but there was nothing to do, and I also had severe motion sickness, so I just fell asleep, not wanting to think about anything. And so, I had a nice, dreamless, sleep...