LACUNA OBSCURA - A Horror Thriller

CHAPTER IV

Her eyes narrow in suspicion.
Both looked at each other, fear stricken ans unsure.
They decided to hold hands while they began walking in quicker, faster strides.

With every step, the fog got thicker, until at a point unable to navigate which direction to approach the castle both of them halted in their tracks.

"Dammit! This fog!" Farhan took out his cell phone in a bid to locate and understand the direction they should keep moving to reach the main gates of the castle, only to find out the cell phone battery was dead.

Puzzled at how this was even possible, he looked up at Amelia who fumbled, and then dug into her pockets to see if her cell phone was in a working condition only to find out that its battery was dead as well.

"But I had charged it to the full battery just this evening... Amelia murmured..."

"It is not your fault Amelia, not even by a whisker.
I feel something wrong in the air of this place like the devil took his birth in the bosom of this abode."

Farhan's features tightened as he stood in front of Amelia with his hands in a seemingly protective gesture.

Amelia in swift response took the Glock out and handed it over to Farhan, who made a quick check if it was loaded.

There the two of them stood, in the thick cold mist, nearly shivering, counting seconds for something to happen or someone to come out of it.

But, quite miraculously, adding more salt to their surprise, after a few intense minutes the mist began to clear away slowly, and within fifteen minutes or so, it was so very clear that no one could say if there was any mist in the vicinity.

Farhan was confused, whatever brought such a heavy mist to them, why would it just disappear like this?

He took his cell phone out. The battery was still dead.
A perplexed expression caught Farhan as he shook his head and began to move forward.

He pondered over the situation.
It could only have been some sort of a large electromagnetic energy sink which could have caused such fast energy drainage of the batteries.

Meanwhile, they both hurried towards the looming walls of the castle, the bright white lights on the walls surrounding the outer perimeter a welcoming sight.

On reaching the main gate, Amelia noticed a small Room on which the words "SECURITY" boldly emblazoned across it. The castle guardhouse. It was illuminated inside by a red neon bulb.
Surprisingly, no one was physically present at the entrance of the castle and a big lock hung on the gate inside.

Farhan gave a quick walk to the Guardroom, only to find it empty as well.

It seemed completely devoid of any vigilant custodian.
How could there be not a custodian present at night by the entrance? It naturally, seemed very odd to him.

"How do we get in?" asked Amelia, her eyes filled with query and anxiety.

"Well let us have a walk around the castle perimeter and see if there are any other ways to get inside the castle.

I had been planning to make a call to Professor Sean, however, both of our cellphone batteries have been completely done for"

Both of them began circling the castle deep into the night with their flashlights hoping to find an unused entrance or any broken section of the wall they could manage swinging around and getting over.

Eventually, they did find a small ditch hole at the foot of the wall near the castle quarters.

The wall here had cracked and sloped towards the ground somewhat, with its upper bricks and stone having fallen off, creating a perfect step to launch oneself over to the other side.

Amelia went first, using the hand of Farhan as support, she propelled herself towards the gap between the two walls.

She then proceeded to hold off a brick protruding off the adjacent wall to launch herself onto the ground below.

Farhan went inside next, following on the footsteps of the technique executed by Amelia.

The two of them began rubbing off the dust of their trousers while scanning the nearby surroundings.

"Do you have any idea, where professor could possibly be?"Amelia asked with a frown on her lips, clearly not pleased with the ordeal they seemed to be going through.

"No, but I think we should try exploring the residences on this side first before moving to the other side of the castle" Farhan suggested, not too pleased with how the situation had developed either.

Amelia nodded in response and immediately started moving with a quick strides towards the doors of the residence compound.

Farhan followed, hoping to finally get a hang out of things and what was so wrong at this castle.

☯︎

Back at the lodgings Rexi and Zani had pondered without any rest over the photographs, trying to gather as much information about them as possible from the manuscript and Internet.

They had come to know about some very shocking revelations regarding Moosham Castle, especially regarding the devious and crooked ways of the once Count Toni professor Sean mentioned.

They also came to know about the dark mysteries and the horrific past of the Prison and torture chambers of the castle.

How the prisoners were needlessly tortured just for the sadistic enjoyment of the count, and how the common people had begun to refer to his acts as "selling his soul to the devil himself".

Rexi, who is usually in quite a light-hearted mood most of the time around, had suddenly become very quiet, as if she felt things were not going quite alright here at Moosham and she did not hide her concerns from Zani who tried to cheer up her in return.

"Maybe we should try finding the meaning of those symbols, what do you say Zani?"

"Umm..yeah..maybe, but they aren't all that identifiable in these photos, I feel we need to visit the tunnel in person once to be able to analyze the symbols in accordance to the manuscripts"

"Well...yeah, you are right, what can we do now then?"

Suddenly Rexi exclaimed "Zani! Did Amelia and Farhan give a call?"

"No! I have been waiting for them to send the message of reassurance for quite some time now"

Just as they were discussing this, a sudden commotion was heard on the stairs of the lodging house outside.
As the commotion only grew louder with time, a cautious yet curious Rexi opened the door to get a view of what was happening outside.

"The man's not breathing" someone shouted.

"Get me in line to the nearest hospital!" this was the hotel caretaker, the voices coming from the backyard of the hotel.

Rexi along with Zani, who by now had crept up behind her with steady ears, hurried down the stairs to see what had happened after all.

In the backyard, a large group of people had gathered around a man, who seemed to lying still on the ground, lifeless.

"Who is it?" Rexi asked the man who standing right in front of them.

"The Village butcher, Mr Riemer, no one had seen him since dusk fell, about fifteen minutes ago, a local goatherder, returning this way found him this way here, very little hope of him living..."

And that is when Zani's eyes went to the hands of the man, a braided mark, shaped like a skull.

"Look!" Zani pulled at the Shirt of Rexi, who gasped on seeing it.

"What does it mean Zani?" she asks, panic-stricken.
"Nothing good at all...Nothing good at all" Zani mumbled as his eyes seemed to get lost in deep thought.

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