When we arrived at the factory, Sarah was the first to notice the locked gate.
"It's locked..." she said.
Liam looked around for a moment before suggesting, "We could try going around it."
Before anyone could respond, George had already taken off toward the side of the fence.
Only the four of us noticed where he was going.
Muscle memory.
Everyone else either didn't pay attention or assumed he just got lucky.
We followed him.
Sure enough, the hole was still there.
One by one, we crawled through.
Elaine was clearly not happy about it.
"Seriously? We have to go through that?" she complained.
But she followed anyway.
Once we were inside, we made our way around the building until we reached the office.
Leo stepped forward first, trying to act surprised.
"Woah... the window's destroyed."
George didn't hesitate.
"Let's go in!"
Sarah and Elaine stepped inside, looking around in surprise.
"It's empty..."
"Maybe there's more inside," Sarah said.
"Let's check the main room."
I noticed Leo stiffen slightly.
"Or we could just work on the project in here," he said quickly.
"Yeah—yeah, we don't need to go any further," I added, a little too fast.
Elaine ignored us.
She walked over and pushed the door open.
"What is this!?"
"There's a bunch of games and toys!"
"And... books?"
Sarah turned to Liam, her voice more serious now.
"You knew about this place, didn't you?"
"This is all your stuff."
Liam shook his head quickly.
"N-no... I had no idea this was here..."
"That's way too much of a coincidence," Elaine said, crossing her arms.
"There's no way you didn't know."
Melanie stepped in, acting like none of it mattered.
"This project is due Friday, right?" she said.
"We only have a few hours until curfew, so let's get as much done as we can."
Elaine and Sarah stopped pressing Liam, but the suspicion didn't go away.
After deciding the factory was a good place to work, we went back to Leo's house and grabbed all the materials we needed.
We spent the next three hours working, almost completely redesigning the town to make it easier and faster to build.
By the time we finished for the day, it was nearly complete.
All that was left were a few decorations and small details we could finish in class the next day.
Everyone was exhausted and went home right after.
Melanie and I were the ones who had to carry the project back.
———————————————————————
The next day, we went to class like normal, going through our core subjects before lunch.
At lunch, we told Mel what happened.
"…They might find out it's our base."
"Yeah," George said. "That's what we're worried about."
"What should we do?"
No one had an answer.
We kept talking about it until lunch ended, but nothing came up.
The rest of the day went by normally. We finished the project and were ready to present it the next day.
As I was heading out to meet Melanie so we could walk home, I saw Liam, Elaine, and Sarah waiting.
That wasn't good.
Liam spoke first.
"S-sorry, ■■■■■…"
Yeah.
That's really not good.
Before I could respond, Elaine stepped forward, already angry.
"Liam told us everything!"
"The factory is yours!"
"What?"
"I overheard you guys talking about it at lunch one time," Liam said, avoiding eye contact.
"So I followed you after school… and saw you go in."
Damn snitch.
"What!? You're going to believe him!?" I snapped.
"He's just trying to shift the blame onto us!"
"He's the one who recommended the factory!"
I realized too late how loud I was.
"What?" Elaine shot back.
"You expect us not to believe him?"
Sarah stepped in, trying to calm things down.
"Sorry... but we also have another witness."
"What!? Wh—"
I cut myself off.
Almost gave myself away there.
"Melanie. Your friend from lunch," she continued.
"We asked her about it, and she told us the truth."
"No! She was probably pressured by you guys!" I yelled.
"She just said yes so you'd leave her alone!"
"You've seen her—she's not good with new people."
We started to attract a crowd.
I forced myself to calm down.
Think.
Elaine kept going.
"We didn't pressure her!"
"All we had to do was tell her we were friends and that you invited us."
"Then she told us everything—how you found it, what you brought... all of it!"
Damn it...
I couldn't blame Mel for that.
"...Alright," I exhaled.
"The factory was ours."
"Ha! I knew it!"
"Okay... and why does it even matter?" I asked.
"Because you could've told us!" Elaine shot back.
"If Liam hadn't said anything, we would have failed the project!"
I almost told them.
Before Liam interrupted me.
"Well, good for him," I said.
"We wanted to keep the factory a secret."
"Like... a secret base or something."
By that point, the people watching had started putting things together.
"Did they just say the factory?"
"The one off 24th? Or 25th?"
"Yeah, that one."
"A secret base...? They have access to it?"
"I mean... that's kinda cool."
"You wanna check it out after school tomorrow?"
"Yeah!"
Elaine was still trying to argue.
"A secret base? What is this, a movie?"
"Well, a certain someone just let that secret out," I shot back.
"That's your fault for not admitting it sooner," she snapped.
"You're not part of our group."
Her expression changed instantly.
Then she turned and stormed off.
I must have said it harsher than I meant to.
Sarah hesitated, unsure of what to do, before chasing after her.
Liam followed a moment later.
Then it was just me and Melanie.
Melanie had just been a bystander through it all.
After we got home, she started scolding me.
Especially for that last line I said to Elaine.
"You shouldn't have said that."
"She probably just wanted to be part of your group."
"What? Then why didn't she just say that?"
"Because she was probably scared."
"She didn't want to get rejected, so she used what she knew about the factory to try to join your group."
"But then you had to pretend you didn't know anything about it."
"She started getting loud first!"
"She should've told me she knew it was ours from the start!"
"And she even manipulated Mel into telling her! That's not how a friend acts!"
After that, Melanie gave up and went to her room.
What was her point in all of that?
———————————————————————
The next day at lunch, I told the group what happened.
"Wait, so people are going to the factory today?" Leo asked.
"Yeah. We might want to figure out what to do if others show up."
Mel didn't look very happy.
"Elaine was nice to me," she said quietly.
"Why did you have to make her mad?"
"She lied to you, Mel," I said.
"She used you to get information about us and the factory."
I tried to sound reassuring, but I don't think it helped.
After that, no one said anything.
We had our presentations in class that day.
Ours went fine, even if we were still a little divided.
After school, the group—and Melanie—met up and biked to the factory.
"Doesn't look like anyone's here yet," George said.
But when we went inside, there were already a few other kids there.
Liam too. Didn't seem like Elaine wanted anything to do with the factory anymore.
And a teacher.
The moment he saw us, he started asking questions.
"Are you the group that's been using this place?"
"You know there are locks on the doors."
"Breaking and entering is illegal."
We could've handled other students.
But an adult was a problem.
We didn't have much choice but to tell the truth.
"So you've been using this factory as a playground for four months?" he asked.
"Yes..."
"And your parents don't know about it?"
"...No."
He sighed.
"Alright. Do you know their phone numbers? I'm going to call them."
We didn't.
So we had to follow him back to the school and call from there.
It was tense waiting for our parents to arrive. No one said a word the whole time.
About an hour later, as many of our parents as possible had arrived.
They walked through the factory, checking for anything dangerous.
But there wasn't much.
"What about the office window?" one of them asked.
"Did you break it to get inside?"
I answered immediately.
"No, it was already broken when we got here."
"There was glass everywhere, so Melanie used her jacket to clear it."
"...Okay."
The parents stepped away, out of earshot, to talk.
George looked miserable.
"We're not gonna be allowed back, are we..."
"We don't know that," Leo said, trying to stay optimistic.
After a few minutes, the parents came back.
"You are not allowed to play here anymore," Mom said.
"What!? Why not!?" George yelled.
Dad stepped in.
"She means for now."
"We need to figure out who owns this property."
"If no one does—or if it's abandoned—then we'll talk about letting you come back."
We cheered.
After about a week, we were given permission to go back.
With certain rules and guidelines, of course—but I won't bore you with those.
In that time, news about the factory had spread around the school—and even reached the middle and high schools.
The group that originally found the factory became the unofficial leaders.
A lot of students came to check it out, but only a few kept coming back.
George decided to name it "Factory 24."
It's technically on 24th Street, so it kind of works—even if it's a little misleading.
As a group, we voted on whether to allow Elaine, Sarah, and Liam back.
Only Elaine was banned.
Liam comes by every now and then.
He even figured out how to unlock most of the doors—except for the main gate—which helped improve his reputation.
Elaine and Sarah don't know Elaine's banned yet.
We're planning to tell them if they try to come back.
———————————————————————
Now, we're back to the present.
Base 24 isn't quiet anymore.
There's always someone there now.
People talking, arguing, playing…
It's never empty.
In my last life, I didn't have that.
I didn't have anyone.
...
This life is better.