Cursed ✔️

8. The Truth

"Haven't you slept last night? You were barely staying awake in class." Emily said to Hannah as both of them walked out of the classroom and headed towards the cafeteria as the bell rang.

"Yeah, the whole family's shaken right now. Every time I try to sleep, Uncle Max's bloodied body comes in front of my eyes." Hannah sounded weak and looked down.

"I'm sorry, Hannah. I shouldn't have brought the topic up."

"It's alright." She gave Emily a forced smile.

"So, how was the class? Did you completed the assignment?" Emily asked changing the topic hoping to change Hannah's mood. And surprisingly it did.

"It was Maths Emily! Maths! I just don't get it what's the use of it in our lives? I mean can you imagine a basketball player first calculating all the sin-cos-tan of the angles and then shooting through the hoop? Or can you imagine yourself doing integration-differentiation to solve the problems of your life? I'm still waiting when someone actually tells us what's the real use you know." Hannah displayed her hatred and confusion towards Maths to Emily as both of them sat down in the cafeteria.

Emily laughed.

"No. seriously. Anyway, what happened to you that night?"

"Oh yeah. About that. Listen to me Hannah and listen very carefully." Her voice got deeper and she leaned in as if she didn't want anyone else to hear it not even the walls. "That stone which you described to me last night when you were telling me, something struck me. I wasn't sure so I decided to check it out. Remember that museum which said that it was going to display something incredible that no one has ever seen and that it's one of its kind and that it was haunted?"

"Yeah and then they never displayed it. Everyone thought they were making it up just to get popular."

"Yeah. But my dad told me it wasn't the case. The thing which they were going to display was this stone itself! No one knows where they got it from but the night before the display, the stone somehow disappeared."

"Wait. So, you're saying that the stone which I found in John's room is the same stone that got disappeared & that it's haunted?" Hannah asked confused and worried.

Emily nodded and said, "It's a cursed stone Hannah and they say it brings misery and death to anyone that has it and everyone near it or the loved ones of that person. The inside scoop is that the person which supposedly brought the stone to the museum met a mysterious death the night after he handed the stone to them."

"So, what should I do?" Hannah said biting her lips.

"I don't know. Sorry, Hannah. But try to stay away from that thing as much as possible."

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"Where did you get that stone?" Hannah asked John in a serious voice.

"What are you talking about?"

"I'm talking about that stone in your drawer. Where have you got it from?" Hannah said pointing towards the drawer.

"Oh, this?" John said while taking the stone out and holding it in his hands. " I got it when we were on the beach. Isn't it marvelous Hannah? Have you seen anything so beautiful?"

"John, listen. Please. Stay away from it."

"Huh?" John sounded bewildered.

Hannah took that stone away from his hands, kept it in the drawer, and told him everything Emily told her.

"Rubbish! How can such a beautiful thing cause something so horrible like that? She's probably faking it. She's jealous that we have it."

"No John, she's not. Let's reflect on what had happened since you got that stone to prove to you that you're wrong."

And then both of them thought about the sudden change in the health of uncle Max even though he was fit, the near-death experience they had on their way back home, the time when Tom went nuts and kept barking in front of John's room when suddenly the lights went out and how grandma Lily met an unnatural and mysterious death.

"No way! What should we do?" John was taken aback.

"Let's try and get rid of it."

Both of them first went to the beach where John had found it and then threw that stone away but when they returned home, the stone was in John's drawer. They tried to bury it but they found it again in John's room. It was like whatever they try, to keep the stone away from them, the stone always finds a way to come back. Everything felt like of no use in getting rid of the stone.

"Let's call Emily. Maybe she'll know something?" John suggested.

Hannah took out her phone to ask Emily and when she ended the call John asked her-

"What did she say?"

"It was her mom. She said Emily's in hospital. She had eaten mushrooms and now suffer from serious food allergies. But everyone in her family knew about her mushroom allergies and Emily never eats them so how did she even have them?"