The Secrets of Confessions ✔️

Chapter 10: The Start of the Truth

I'm back. It's back. I'm back where I don't want to be. Right where the darkness is. The ground below me feels like beach sand. Grainy, but unlike at the beach, there's no foundation.

I don't feel like I'm standing on solid ground. I feel like I'm floating in the air, with all the gravity stripped from the world, with my feet brushing against the gritty bits of the beach sand.

The air around me is crisp, like I stepped outside during an April morning in San Jose. A gentle breeze runs through the air, wispily stroking my skin and fading along with the rest of the atmosphere.

Instinctively, I take a step forward, expecting to fall right through the floating sand and into the room with the growing cake and shrinking drink.

At least Alice will keep me company while I ride this out.

Surprisingly, I don't fall through. Instead, initially, nothing happens. I don't notice anything different, or feel anything different. Until I feel something cold and fluid brush my toes.

I jump at first, but I step one more towards the mysterious darkness. I'm at a beach. I know it. But there's only one beach that is of such importance to me that it keeps on coming back to me in my dreams.

Hopefully, I look up, into the blanket of darkness, only to find nothing. "Use what's around you," a voice whispers.

Almost immediately, I look down at my mom's necklace, which I'm still wearing. My hand flies to it, grasps it, and immediately, the darkness is lifted. Blinding rays of light explode in replacement of all the darkness. My hand flies up to shield it, but after a few seconds, I lower it.

"You're a really smart girl, Ashmita. Oh, I got so lucky," the familiar voice says. I look over, and my mom is standing there, in the sand, looking as fresh as ever. She looks like she never aged a day over 25.

I smile, and say, "Mom. In the nicest way possible, what are you doing here?"

"Before we proceed, do you remember this place?"

I look deep into the ocean that's standing in front of me. "Yes, of course. This was my favorite beach that you loved to take me to before you died. We went here a week before Arjun murdered you. Then we cremated you in Surat, your hometown, and dispersed your ashes near there. Now are you going to tell me why we're here?"

She snickers. "Well, beta, you just reached an important part in your life. You're now 22, you're going to be graduating in a few months, and you could possibly start a family!"

"Gosh, you're sounding like Mason. Now I know how you both were best friends."

She rolls her eyes a little bit. "Sassy much. But, enough of that. You're also doing what I can't stop. You're letting your curiosity and suspicions get the best of you."

I look at her, with a determined look on my face. I realize that the ticket to advancing one more step in this process is standing right there. In the form of the victim itself.

"Mom, you're the key to helping me solve this case. Please, tell me anything. I need to know all that I can."

She looks at me, with a sad look on her face, and says, "I can't tell you everything, Ashmita. Some things, you just have to figure out on your own. But, I can give you clues. One, consider all possibilities. Two, there are clues everywhere. You just have to look closely. Three, limit your trust. In this world, everyone's a suspect. Four, everyone has secrets. Some of them are key to figuring this out."

Right when she says that, a large wave starts to rise. It rises more and more in height, until it comes closer to us, to the point where it's right in front of us and it's going to consume us and we'll drown.