by Sourav Deka
“No one lives here,” I said.
“Look around, the address led us here. There must be something,” Andrea said.
We went to the basement, the door was locked. There was a sticker in the door which said, “Brave enough?”
“What is this?” I said, touching the sticker on the door. “Please no monsters again.”
Andrea touched the door. “It’s just a door?” she tried to open it. “It’s locked.”
“No monsters again please, not again.”
“Stop it, Ross,” Andrea said. “There isn’t any monster here.”
“You haven’t seen them, Andrea. We did. I don’t want to do that again.”
“We should break the door,” Aaron said.
Andrea shook her head. “No, we shouldn’t try to open the door. This must be locked for a reason. We should come later with weapons, or any other protection that we need.”
“Wouldn’t you join us later?” I smiled.
“I don’t think so. I am not going to survive.”
“Yeah, she doesn’t have the guts to do it and she is searching for the seeds,” Aaron laughed.
Andrea twisted her mouth. “Whatever you think, I am not brave enough.”
Suddenly the door opened and a force of wind came. Andrea was dragged by the force. It took her inside and the door closed. It happened so fast that I felt like she disappeared into the door.
Aaron’s eyes widened. “Oh my god, she disappeared!” he said.
“No, she was dragged inside,” I said.
“Yeah, but how the hell did that happen?”
I pointed my finger at the sticker at the door. “Read out the sticker in the door.”
“Brave enough” Aaron read it loud and again the same thing happened. The door opened, the wind came and he was dragged inside the door.
I smiled. “So that’s the password to get inside the door.”
“Brave enough” I said and the door opened. The wind took me inside the door in a flash.
CHAPTER 5
I fell on a tree and slipped, but caught one of the branches. It was a different place. There was no door or any houses. It was a different world, a huge forest with only plants and trees for miles. Many birds were chirping as I watched them hanging in the tree. Slowly I tried to climb up, but my hand slipped and I fell on the ground.
“Ouch, my back hurts. Aaaaaaaaaah!” I grunted.
I tried to stand up, but I wasn't able to. My back was hurt. I kept lying on the ground for a few minutes.
“You didn’t change. Still you need someone to pick you up from misery,” I heard a voice of an elder man. The voice seemed familiar.
I looked up to see who it is. My eyes widened in surprise, it was my father. He was alive wearing a dirty grey jacket and a black trouser with a torn pair of shoes. His neck was bandaged. He smiled and forwarded his hand to pick me up. I grabbed his hand and stood up despite my back pain.
“Dad, you are alive!” I hugged him and a tear ran down my cheek.
“Yeah,” he smiled. “You have no idea how much I am happy to see you after all these years.”
“Tanner said he killed you,” I mumbled.
“Yeah, he tried but I survived.”
“Is that why you have a bandage in your neck?” I pointed my finger at dad’s neck. “He said he cut your throat.”
“He did cut my throat and left me to die, but a friend of mine saved me and took me to the hospital.”
“Friend? Who?”
“Mark Kent, one of my college friends. We have been working together on finding the seeds since our college days,” he grinned. “I guess you know about the seeds now as you are here.”
“Yeah, I found out. I am so happy to see you that I can’t explain.”
“Where is your brother? Is he here too?”
“He is here somewhere, he came before me,” I said.
“Don’t worry we will find him,” he patted my back. “By the way, who told you about the diary?”
“Gloria, she gave me the diary as you told her.”
He shook his head. “No, I didn’t. We worked together to find the seeds, but I never told her to involve my children into this.”
“What?”
“Yes, I never asked her.”
I tightened my cheeks. “So she tricked me. It was all a lie.”
“Gloria,” he chuckled. “She is a cunning woman, Ross. She lies to get things done. I guess she saw you as an opportunity.”
“Yeah,” I nodded. “I will ask her daughter about it when I find her.”
“Her daughter is here? Andrea, isn’t it?”
“Yeah, she came here first.”
“It’s okay. We will find them.”
“How long have you been here?”
He took a deep breath. “It’s been years.”
“What?” a line etched between my eyebrows. “It’s been so long.”
“Yeah, we are surviving here.”
“We?”
“Yeah, there are other people too and we have a camp.” He patted my shoulder. “Let’s get you there.”
I raised my eyebrows. “Camp? You have a camp?”
“Yeah, I will explain everything in the camp, let’s move,” he turned around.
“No, I need to find Aaron and Andrea,” I said.
“You are hurt,” he said. “You can barely stand. We will go looking out for them later.”
“No, what if they are in trouble?”
He put his hand on my shoulder. “Listen, first you heal up, okay. You can’t go out looking for them like this. You are hurt, Ross. Heal up and we will go find them, I promise.”
“But………..”
“Trust me son.”
I nodded.
Dad and I began to walk for the camp. My back pain was getting worse. I could hardly walk but I kept moving. The whole place was full of plants and trees. It was like a never ending forest, anyone could get lost.
“How did you know about Tanner?” dad asked.
“He kidnapped us and used us. We caught his spy. He said he would give us information about you, so we agreed to do his job.”
“What did he make you do?”
“He used us to open a door in a cave, needed Aaron and my blood to open it.”
“Which door? Where?’
“In Atlanta.”
“Oh, that one,” he chuckled. “That’s a dead end. I have many of those in different places. I misdirect people who want the seeds to do bad things towards those traps. Tanner is one of them. He is evil, Ross. He cannot be trusted.”
“Bad things, like?”
“He is selfish, Ross. He wants the seeds for himself. Imagine, what if all the evil people become immortal?”
“But there will always be a chance that the seeds can get into wrong hands.”
He nodded. “Yes, there is. That’s why we have to protect it.” He put his hand over my shoulder, “We have to find it before they do.”
“So that cave was just a dead end to mislead Tanner?”
“Yeah, he was also chasing me. So I misdirected him, and he thought there was something important hidden there.”
I grinned. “That’s very clever, but what about the blood thing?”
“That is witchcraft. I took help of a witch to use magic and lock the door. Only my blood can open it. As you and Aaron are my sons, your blood unlocked the door. We share the same DNA.”
“Wait! You knew some witch?”
He nodded. “Yeah, she was Mark’s elder sister. She helped.”
“I didn’t even know witches exist.”
He smirked. “Most people don’t know, but they exist. People are just not clever enough to find them. Only some people know, those who do, they keep it a secret.”
I chuckled. “We live in a weird world.”
**********************************
After a few miles of walk we reached the camp. It was dark, the sun had gone down and the weather turned a bit chilly. There were
small houses made of woods and mud. A bonfire was in the middle, and people were sitting around it doing their work. Some were chopping meat, while some were making weapons. Seven people were living there including dad.
A middle aged white lady with blue eyes came to me. She was wearing a white shirt and jeans. “Who is he?” she asked.
“He is my son,” dad said.
“Oh my god!” her eyes widened in surprise.
“Take him inside. He fell from a tree and hurt his back.”
The lady took me into a house and asked me to lay down on the bed.
“I will apply a solution that I made with combining some herbs,” she said. “It will make the pain go away in hours and you will heal quickly.”
“Herbs?”
“Yeah,” she smiled. “Many plants have the power to heal us.”
I nodded.
“Take your shirt off.”
I took my shirt off and lay down on the bed. She applied her herb made solution on my back. It felt like my back was on fire, it was too hot.
“My back is burning,” I groaned.
“Don’t worry. It will burn for just a couple of minutes. Later on, you will feel fine,” she kept applying it over my back.
I gasped. “Yeah, I hope so. Where did you learn to make these solutions from herbs? Are you an Ayurvedic doctor or something?”
She chuckled. “No, but my father was a genius in this kind of stuff. I learnt from him when I was a child.”
“So I guess you are the only doctor here,” I smiled.
She laughed. “Yeah, you can say that.”
“What’s your name?”
“I am Contessa.”
“Ross.”
“You shouldn’t have come here, Ross.”
“I was following the leads on the diary.”
“I know, we all came here like that, and now we are trapped.”
My forehead creased. “Trapped??”
“Yes, this place is like a never ending forest. It’s a whole different world. We have tried everything, but we couldn’t find a way to escape,” she sighed. “Looks like we will have to spend the rest of our lives here.”
“No, there must be a way.”
“I hope there is, but till now we haven’t found any,” she washed her hands with some water. “Try to get some sleep. It will help you recover more quickly. I will go and make arrangements for dinner,” she left the room.
I had to recover quickly and find Aaron and Andrea. They were alone in the forest. I couldn’t go looking for them now as I wasn’t doing great. I just hoped that they survive the night. Aaron is smart, he will survive, I said to myself. He will protect Andrea, he has to.
I fell asleep and had a nightmare, where Aaron, mom and dad came to kill me. I ran and ran and ran, but at last they torture me and kill me. They stabbed me, hanged me in a ceiling fan and then burned my body. It was horrible. I never had a nightmare like that in my entire life. What the hell did I see? It felt so real. Am I losing my mind?
I stayed asleep for hours until dad woke me up. He brought some fruits and kept it on the table. My back felt a bit better. I was able to sit properly in the bed.
“Eat up, Contessa is cooking. Mark killed a deer,” dad said.
“Deer?” I said.
“Yeah, every day we go hunting. Today we got a deer.”
“But I can’t eat it,” I pressed my lips. “I never ate a deer.”
“You are trapped in a jungle my boy. You won’t get Cheeseburgers here,” he patted my back. “Get up, everyone is waiting outside.”
I wore my shirt and came outside with dad. The large full moon was shining in the sky. The air outside was so refreshing, that I felt energetic from inside. Everyone was sitting in a circle with a bonfire in the middle. We joined them. There was another bonfire by our side in which Contessa was cooking the deer.
“Rough day, huh?” A guy with a beard smiled. “Everyone goes through it when they get here,” he said.
“Yeah, at least I got lucky that I found dad,” I said. “But I am worried about my brother and a friend.”
“We can’t do anything now,” he said. “We will go looking for them in the morning. Just pray that they survive the night.”
“But you all guys spent many days here, you know the way. We can start finding them now.”
“We can’t son, if we go now, we might not survive. There are many animals roaming out there. It’s dark.”
“He is right son,” dad said. “We won’t survive if you go out looking for them.”
“Then how do you expect them to survive this night?” I raised my voice. “They need our help.”
“They will survive son, Aaron is not stupid. He is brave. They will hide for the night. Don’t worry.”
“How can you say that?” I wore my jacket. “I am going now. I am not going to risk their lives.”
“Listen son, don’t be so stubborn,” dad stood up and grabbed my shoulders. “Wait till the morning. I care about him too, but going to find them in the dark is foolishness.”
I removed his hand from my shoulders. “I don’t care what you say. I am going. You all sit here like a coward,” I scoffed. “I guess, that’s why you never found a way to get out of here. You are scared.”
Everyone gazed at me like I insulted them.
Dad stared at me. “This is foolishness son, believe me. There are very dangerous animals out there. We don’t go out at night.”
I raised my chin. “I will take my chances.”
I stepped forward to leave. I took a big round stick of wood and lighted it up from the bonfire.
Dad knew there was nothing he could say to stop me. I have made my decision. He sighed. “Okay, okay, you are not going alone. I will go with you,” he said.
“No, no Richard, I will go with him,” the beard guy stood up and interrupted. “I know well about this forest. I should go with him. You look out for our people.”
Dad shook his head. “No, it’s about my son, I need to go.”
He placed his hand on dad’s shoulder. “Don’t worry. Ross and I will bring them back.”
“But…… no…. you shouldn’t.”
He smiled. “Trust me, man. I will keep him safe, I promise. You know I am the one who is good at surviving out there.”
He sighed and took out a knife from his pocket. “Take my knife,” dad handed his knife to him.
He nodded and took the knife. “We will be back.”
The beard guy came towards me. He took my burning stick and gave it to dad. “There are animals out there. You can’t go out looking for them by taking this torch. It will attract them,” he said.
“Then, what should we take?” I asked.
“Nothing.”
My forehead furrowed. “What? Then how are we going to find them if we don’t see? It’s dark there.”
He looked at the sky. “It’s a full moon today, there will be enough light. Practice seeing in the dark like animals.”
I chuckled. “I am not an animal. I don’t have night vision goggles in my eyes.”
“Get used to it kid,” he patted my back. “Let’s move.”
We went outside the camp while dad and others watched me leave. He was worried, I could see it in his eyes, but I guess he trusted the guy I was going with. Everyone in the camp started discussing about my decision. I am sure they are discussing it was a mistake, but I didn’t care what they thought. My brother and Andrea were there. I had to find them, even if it was not safe.
It was dark outside the camp. There were only the sounds of crickets. The moonlight was helping but it wasn’t enough. I was worried that I might step on some snakes or any other poisonous animals, even my shoes weren't going to protect me. I had to stay alert all the time. The forest was dense, the beard guy was walking with his back straight. He acted like he knew where he was going, but I knew he wasn’t.
“I am Ross,” I said.
“Mark,” he replied.
“Oh you are my da
d’s old friend. He said you two were in college together.”
“Yeah, keep your voice down. They can hear us.”
“It’s hard to see,” I whispered.
“Your eyes will adjust, give it some time.”
“But…………….”
“It will adjust, kid, trust me. When there were no bulbs, tube lights, how people lived then, huh? How did they survive? How they hunted their food?”
“Okay, I got your point, but I don’t have any practice in this stuff.”
He nodded. “I know, you have to learn,” he scoffed. “You would have been dead if you came alone.”
I shrugged. “Well, I had no choice.”
“Just stay silent,” he whispered, putting his finger on his lips. “Don’t make any noise. If they show up, we will be dead in minutes.”
I nodded and pressed my lips together.
CHAPTER 6
We moved deep into the forest, it was not as dark as I expected. It was a full moon so there was enough light to see. My eyes adjusted with the darkness. We heard wolves howling and tigers roaring at a far distance. Mark knew the forest, but he was scared too as the most dangerous animals show up at night.
We searched for an hour, but they were nowhere to be found. We got tired, so we climbed a tree to rest. I ate the fruits that I brought from the camp and shared some with Mark.
“Did you have the nightmares?” Mark asked.
My eyebrows snapped together. “Yeah, But how do you know?” I said.
“Everyone goes through it here. It’s like a curse. Your loved ones try to kill you in your dreams. Either you kill them or they kill you.”
I gulped. “Will it ever end?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know, I spent years here, it never ended,” he looked at the moon. “Not only us, everyone in the camp is facing this problem. We are haunted in our dreams.”
