We went upstairs to join everybody. Introductions were shared. Sidney asked,” Where were you guys?”
I said, “We went to check the perimeter for clues”.
— For complete chapter wise listing of this story go to The Unknown —
Ronald looked awfully happy. That was odd given the situation. I asked him, “What’s gotten into you? How can you be happy? Unless you are the one… wait… are you the one that put us here?”
“No, no, no!! I was happy because I don’t know but I have a feeling that I know Debbie. I know her in a different way if you know what I mean.” He winked at me.
“Oh!!!” I said, “Go to her and asks whether she has the same feeling!”
He said, “I think we should do something if we are stuck here on a continuous sleeping at 3 and waking up next night and we can’t leave this place. Right?”
I was dumbstruck. How did he remember this? Debbie did the spell on just me and her. Maybe he did have a connection with Debbie or maybe he was the spirit. I thought it was best to play dumb. I said, “Continuous? At 3? When did this happened? I thought we just woke up here.”
“Oh! I thought this was what was happening because the clock seems to work till 3 only. I should go and talk to Debbie. Forget this conversation.” He did something with his eyes. They glowed red. I thought it best to play along.
“Okay!” I said.
I was scared out of wits. Ronald was the spirit. He was the spirit with the scary eyeballs. I could see the connection in between people fading a little bit. Chan and Molly were not as close as they were yesterday. Maybe this was Ronald’s way of taking souls.
Stripping them of love and making us distrust each other so that we kill each other and the soul goes to him in the process. I had to tell Debbie. As soon as Debbie got free of Ronald I went to her. I said, “Act as if I am flirting with you and it’s working.”
She gave me a wicked smile and said, “Okay but why?”
“Because I found out who is the spirit. Just laugh and wink for a while.”
She pretended I was flirting and it was working. After a while I took her hand and took her upstairs. I locked the door behind us and told her that Ronald was the spirit. I told her about my encounter. “Now we know the spirit, let the rest keep their memory. Do the spell.”
She said, “Okay! But after I cast the spell I will debrief them and you keep Ronald busy till then.”
I said, “Okay.” After a while to make our fake hook up believing we came downstairs. I went straight for Ronald and said, “I think we should look outside. Maybe a highway passes the jungle after a few blocks. Coming?”
I could see that he was reluctant to leave the house but he agreed. We went towards the forest. Meanwhile Debbie caste the spell and debriefed the rest of the people. After walking a few blocks we found a road which lead towards an abandoned warehouse. “Let’s check this out.” I said. We went in.
The walls of this warehouse had images of demons hand made in blood red color. The Devil’s number 666 was also embargoed there. People had written. Get out. Run for your life. Save yourself. That scared the hell out of me. But I didn’t let it show on my face. I said, “What crap is this?”
Ronald said, “I think some occult worship might have gone wrong making the people mad.”
I found a table in the far end of the warehouse. It had a table with photos. Every photo was marked with a weird symbol on the back. It was the same symbol I saw in the book downstairs.
I picked up the photos. To my shock they were ours. Every one of us, even Ronald. I collected the photos and saw a wallet too. It was of the one with no ID. His name was Edith.
He was a priest by the looks of the photo on his ID. I showed them to Ronald, “Look! Our photos! Maybe we were the one who were worshiping the occult.”
He said, “Yes. Maybe. We should get back home and show this to others.”
I liked the idea. By now I think she had debriefed everyone and the clock was about to struck 3. Suddenly Ronald started having a sharp pain in his stomach. I asked, “What happened?”
He said, “I know you know and I know I should say sorry for this but it’s gonna be fun!” He laughed and punched me unconscious and used some totem magic near me.
