“This is terrifying, I mean the blood”, I say hoping that Zed and Zain will come out of the shock, they went into after Zed informed us that room 127 was the same room that his journalist friend was staying in and this blood on the wall is apparently his.
After we found this bloody info slash warning on the wall, we immediately dragged Zed in here breaking his little wall licking session and he was shocked to know that it was room 127, the same one his journalist friend was staying in. If this room is the room his journalist friend was staying in then we are positive about finding something, which I don’t know what but something important from here.
Zed asked us not to complain about the hidden cameras to staff as they seemed sus, I agree, the staff is too much sus.
“I think we need to split up and search for anything that your friend must have left”, I suggest and he comes out of his shock and nods.
I drag Zain along with me to help me tear off all the wallpapers from the wall while Zed clicked the pictures of that bloody marking. This room has no hidden camera because that journalist guy found it already, this is my guess. Zed told me that he received the picture a week ago, so there might be a probability of that journalist guy being alive and hiding somewhere in the greens.
Tearing off the wallpapers in the hope to find something, anything, we got nothing. I stood near that bloody wall examining the trail of blood that goes down to the tile and that tile shows nothing. It’s dried and scrubbed. I kept my hand on that bloody wall hoping for the wall to slide to a secret room where the journalist guy must be hiding but I got nothing.
“Help me remove the tile”, Zed asked.
Cursing my subconscious for not getting this idea before Zed, I started looking for something like a rod. I went out and ran down to the equipment room on the second floor. My luck, no one was guiding the entrance of the door and the door was locked. I need a hammer from the room to break the door. I rolled my eyes at my subconscious for breaking inevitably worst humor.
“Need a hand?”, that R guy asked me.
“No, I need a hammer”, I say being a little sarcastic, trying to make up for the time I was being unnecessarily rude to him.
“I have a brick”, he says making me wonder if he was about to break his skull as a method of committing his leftover suicide but I was running low on time so instead of wondering, I snatched the brick from his hand and started smashing it on the lock. One smash, two smashes, three smashes, I’m the Incredible Hulk. On the fourth smash, it broke. Wasting no time in cleaning those reddish dust from the floor to wipe out evidence of breaking in, I ran inside and tossed the hammer to the R guy, and to save our time from running down here again in case the hammer doesn’t work, I took a rod in case.
“Follow me”, I decree like a Commander, and he respects.
We ran up to the fourth floor and that R guy, to my surprise, kept quiet on our little jog.
“Here”, I say tossing the rod to Zain.
“Close the door”, I ask the R guy, jerking the hammer from his grip, leaving him in his shock as he read those bloody marks.
Taking turns, Zain and I kept on hitting the tile till it broke revealing a leather brown cover. Zed acted on his reflex and picked up that cover.
“What’s happening here?”, R guy asked. “I’m Riyan by the way”, he introduces himself, making me remember his name. I ain’t forgetting his name this time.
“Zain, will you?”, I ask him and he stepped forward to tell Riyan about the horrifying mystery of Arbmtys which is still a mystery to us.
Zed opened the cover revealing crumbled pieces of paper that seemed like a journal entry, except for those pages were no longer a part of the journal. I took a paper and started going through it.
‘First day, 2:18 pm
Everything seems normal. We checked in, got rooms, and decided to sleep off till dinner time.
9:06 pm
I just realized that there is no network here. Our phones do not work and the dinner seemed a little sus with all those royal dishes that staff members were forcing everyone to eat. I somehow skipped on it and-', after this, the page was torn. I started scanning the cover trying to find the missing piece of the paper but found nothing.
I turned the page back and found half of the continued entry from the missing page.
‘missing, the only safe place I thought was the security room so I took a long run to the seventh floor and as expected, there was no one. I started scanning the camera that I found in my room and there was a microchip attached to it. I took the chip and chose to look into it-‘, ugh, the main part of the entry is missing. I was about to tear the page in irritation but stopped when I comprehended that this can at least help to solve half of the mystery.
I took out my phone from my back pocket and as the entry stated, there was no signal. I sighed and looked at the camera that we found in my room. Deciding to scan on it, I did what I exactly decided to do and found no chip so I took the hammer and broke the camera startling the three guys and finding the chip. I showed them the chip as an explanation of why I startled them suddenly.
“This entry is of day three, it states that they had food after three days when they broke in the facility, they avoided eating everything the staff offered in the hotel. So basically we are not to eat anything they deliver us”, Zed informs. “Drinks?”, I ask and he gave me confusing looks. “I had some”, I explain. “Avoid from now on”, he orders.
It’s almost 8 now, suggesting that most of the people must've had their poisonous supper by now. “So, what happens now”, I ask anyone willing to answer my question.
“We behave normally”, Zed suggested.
“After they caught us breaking a camera and breaking in the equipment room and tearing the wallpapers of the room?”, I ask and Zed nods.
“Pack up everything you need in a small bag. We might need to run”, he says with serious looks.
“What about others?”, Riyan asks.
“Think about saving your ass”, I say with a dry tone and walk out of the room to pack some liquor as till now I don’t feel anything strange so I feel like liquor is good to go.
I went straight to the liquor cellar and found that the brown hair guy was not guarding the door. Not minding his lack of security, I went inside and packed seven tins of beer, three tins of wine, and five tins of whiskey in my bag. My bag now is full of all the liquor content. I choose tins in particular thinking that if we ought to run then the bottles might break, tins won’t.
When I walked back to my room, I realized that I had no more room for clothes in my bag. I somehow managed to stuff in torch, camera detector, and other necessary things leaving clothes out. This is time to use those 5-minutes hacks, I wasted my 3 hours on. So I tried to fold my clothes to the size of a sock and I failed, those 5-minutes hacks owe me my 3 hours. I sighed in defeat and decided to go my way. Going all Zean way, I took out the tins and wrapped them in my clothes making them a little soggy, never mind, I’ve my clothes in my bag now.
An unwelcoming idea of two hundred people dying on their bed only because they ate the food to fetch their hunger pops in my mind making me feel a little sick in my stomach.
Leaving my bag on the bed in the security of the broken camera, I went out to find two Z guys and one R guy whispering to each other. I cleared my throat to make them aware of my presence.
Zain walked to me and explained that they tried to ask people on the seventh floor to skip their supper giving them the reason of NO ONE LEAVES but they thought that these guys were pranking them so they went to the banquet choosing their death. He also informed that they asked staff for an emergency return, making up a story that Riyan's dad died and the staff requested to wait till tomorrow because all the planes are out in assistance, their excuse was sus. These guys asked them to permit a call and they denied saying that the service is down. Everything here is sus.
“They are humans. They need proof and rumors to be feared”, I say and walk into my room. I tossed a bucket aside the cabinet and took out the red food coloring and some chips that I stole from Zain's bag.
I went out and they gave me confused looks. Opening the airy packet of the chips, I chew on them a little and spit it out in the bucket. Squeezing the food coloring in my mouth, I added water to it and started gaggling and after a few seconds I spit it out in the bucket.
“Looks enough like blood vomit?”, I ask them and they verify my talent of producing fake blood vomit in confusion.
“Follow me”, I ask them.
I took them to the elevator and started waiting for any human to come by during this time. I ignored all of their questions skillfully. Soon enough I heard the twisting of the knob from a room beside and I squeezed some food coloring in my mouth and poured water into it. I made sure to mix them well in my mouth and when the tall American guy came in my view, I threw up in the bucket and started fake coughing. Zain understood and started patting my back.
“Everything alright?”, that American guy asks. He’s the same guy I saw near the pool in the afternoon, he has a group so it might cancel out tonight’s dinner from the to-do list of a good number of people.
“No, she’s throwing up since-“, Zain was about to make up a story but I did not trust him enough to be that smart to make up a good story so I interrupted in between by coughing and continued his story, “-since I had supper. It was some mushroom dish I guess, those morons must have used field mushrooms. I shouldn’t have defied the warning those seventh-floor people gave me about not having supper”, I say making sure that my voice is hoarse and my cough is never-ending.
“I suggest you skip on dinner”, Zain suggest that American guy while he gave me his handkerchief.
“Might have to I guess. We should file a complaint too, how can they be so careless? You fellas ate anything?”, he asks. Riyan shook his head in refusal.
“We’ve some meat. We can grill by the pool. You can join our group if you want to”, he suggests.
“I think we should”, Zed says which was more like an order for us.
“I'll pass this news to my friends about skipping dinner”, he says and gave me a bottle of water. I gave him a thankful nod and when he left I gave Zain my proud smile. “I’m smart. Now I ask you to continue this fake blood vomit thing on every floor. Here, I pass you the baton”, I say passing Zain the imaginary baton.
Believing that the guys are smart enough to handle this task without me, I went into my room to take a shower. If we are to run off tonight, might something goes wrong then God knows when will I clean up again.
The hot water tickles on my skin making my inside burn from the thoughts that I knew this would happen and still I walked straight into death, dragging Zain along with me. Thinking from the deepest part of my heart where the last drop of my blood is getting purified, I console myself that it will be fine, Sid returned and many with him returned too. I do not care if I die here after utilizing all of my survival skills but I do care if Zain dies because of me, after all, he asked me to be his sister so I do care.
I’m not thinking about if we die tonight, I’m not thinking about if we survive, I’m not thinking about surviving in greens as that journalist guy did, I’m not thinking about fear, I’m not thinking about playing blaming games, I’m not thinking about anything.
I heard a quiet knock on the door which brought me back to my room in which I sit in my undergarments. I dozed off with my eyes open forgetting to get dressed. “Wait”, I ask and pull down a T-shirt through my neck to cover my chest and half of my thighs.
When I opened the door, I found Riyan asking me to join them for dinner at the pool. “Yes, food, right”, I say and lock the door behind.
He informs that they managed to cancel out dinner from the planner of most of the people by using my fake blood puking strategy. Some did go to the banquet ignoring the danger thinking that they are healthy enough to encounter a poisonous supper. Their loss.
“Are you scared?”, he asks.
“Of dying? Then no. Of Zain dying because he decided to choose Arbmtys because I was stubborn enough to come here after getting warnings? Then yes”, I sighed.
I thank my stars that this guy didn’t open his mouth again till we reached the pool where a bonfire was set up. I split up from Riyan and sat by the Jacuzzi soaking my feet in the hot water where I found a bottle of whiskey resting beside me. I think the bottle was waiting for the taste of my mouth so I picked it up, opened the cork, and kissed it with all of my might which resulted in emptying half of the bottle.
“What do you notice first in a guy like me who approaches you?”, a strange voice filled my ears.
“Audacity”, I answer his question without turning back.
A guy with thick thighs sat beside me and to check if I know him, I turned to face him and he was some stranger. “Xavier Ecclestone”, he introduces himself. Weird last name! For being a stranger with a unique last name, he’s handsome and well built. “Zean”, I keep it brief and turn back to drinking down my whiskey.
“You need to eat after starving yourself for 13 hours. Liquor won’t do”, Zain nags from behind.
When I do not respond to him, he pulls me by my arm and drags me to the grills. I gave in as I'd no motive of resisting his pure intention of not famishing me. I ate, I ate a lot that I felt my 24-inch belly stretching by 25. I ate a lot thinking of saving some fat and energy in my body in case I starve for some weeks. This American group, as I guess, is not of high school but a university group. They got this meat because they managed to get it on the plane, how? Anyways, so they are spending their last days together before they separate on their ways, some will meet death, some clever people like me will survive this island. Xavier kept on offering me juicy meat and how could I deny extra energy and fat? Zain, Zed, and Riyan are trying to make friends with other Indians near the hedge and some Americans from this group. I wonder if they will end up telling them about everything we’ve found so far in the rooms.
“Tell me about yourself”, Xavier asks.
“No, I’m fine”, I say to end the starting of our conversation and to make it obvious that I’m not interested in him.
“I'm quite a clingy and annoying one”, he says standing up. He raised his bottle and asked for everyone’s attention.
“Let’s play truth or drink”, he suggests, and his friends aggress. From the game he suggested, I predict that his mental age is around 13 and his physique shows that he’s around 22.
To pass on from this game, I stood up to retreat for my room but Xavier insisted that I should stay more and play. I denied his proposal politely because these people fed us but they started chanting annoyingly for me to stay. When I saw Zain and Riyan chanting with them, I nearly real puked on them.
Without accepting or denying their request, I adjusted my ass beside Zain. From a few rounds of the game, I guess that it’s only a truth game, the drink part is not an option. Alter the name of the game then!
“Zean-“, a girl named Erica choose me to ask a question, “-how did you lose your virginity?”, she asks with a mischievous grin that reaches up to only one side of her nose and it looks awful, she’s definitely drunk.
I breathe out my smile and take a sip from the bottle. The crowd started booing, Zain and Riyan included. “Are you veergeen?”, Erica asks in her drunken accent.
“No”, I say. “C'mon, tell us the story of how, not exactly of how in bed”, Hana, a friend of Erica spoke up giving rise to laughter in unison of the crowd.
“Sure then, you will regret asking this”, I breathe out and sigh a heavy sigh that fills the pool with silence. “I was 14, pushed without food for two weeks, basically homeless because I ran away from my boarding school. There was this guy, a guy in his thirties probably, he offered me four thousand rupees, around 54-55 dollars for my virginity. I gave in”, I say it casually like it meant nothing. Try going fourteen days without food and you would know that money wins over virginity.
I ran away because I felt like it. A.J died and I was not in the state to get bullied in that place. I needed some time to get over the fact that my stranger brother died and I couldn’t grieve there so I did what I had to do.
Loaded silence filled the area. My gulp was soft but the cessation made it loud enough for every living soul to hear.
“Your parents didn’t help you? With uh- money?”, Erica asks. I didn’t know that my storytelling could make people go sober.
“They both died in a plane crash when I was 7”, I say. I didn’t choose truth and here I’m, telling them every truth of my life after choosing a drink.
“Relatives?”, Zed asked.
“Only aunt. She ran away to London after winning my inheritance”, I say taking the last sip from the bottle.
“Any friends?”, Riyan asked with a stuttering tone. Maybe he’s afraid to ask me a question, thinking that he will break the fragile glass heart of mine, he’s unaware of the fact that my heart is diamond.
“He died at 17. I was 14 at that time”, I say and it all went back to silence again.
“Don't you feel depressing talking about them?”, Hans asks.
“I mastered the art of thinking about dead ones without ripping my heart out”, I say. At this moment, I wished that instead of this little white T-shirt, I should’ve worn a sweatshirt to pull my hood up and cover my eyes. I don’t want to receive their free leniency glances.
“Told ya, you would regret digging in my past”, saying, I stood up took another bottle of whiskey from Zain's hand, and walked away to the hedges. I ruined their mood.
And it went exactly like I wished for it to not pass like. I ended up getting free compassionate looks from those strangers which I wholly abhorred. Life story coerces people, gives them a reason to talk about, laugh about, speculate human's personalities, and form a defining relationship with them. I hate life stories and forming relations.
“Don’t drink too much”, Zain warns from behind.
“Don’t worry, I’ve great tolerance to alcohol but less tolerance to humans so I got to drink”, I say with a straight face.
I turn around to find those three stranger Indian guys who no longer are strangers to me, scowling at me. I think they didn’t like my reply to the suggestion of Zain about not drinking too much.
“I'm here to disentangle your thoughts that I’m not here for giving sympathy or anything. They are asking for you. They think you are fun”, Xavier explained the reason he followed us to the hedge. I didn’t budge from my current comfortable position and kept on savoring from the bottle. “We have beer too”, he informs and my legs found their way to the pool.
To my surprise, I didn’t earn any more sympathy looks from the crowd onwards and they went on playing the game, laughing and being playful.
“It was you yesterday who pointed the gun at that Thai guy, right?”, Xavier asks me and I came to my senses that I’m being asked the question.
“Yes”, I say. If these people give me free liquor then I won’t mind spending time with them, all for free liquor.
“Why?”, that tall American guy in front of whom I fake puked asked. His name is Peter, I guess. When we entered this pool area, he asked me to worry about my well-being and I was taken aback by sudden concern from a stranger but then I realized that he was checking on my health because according to him, I had blood puked earlier. I assured him that I’m all better now.
“He pissed me off”, I explain keeping it brief.
“It was you, oh my God, you are so cool sister”, a nine-year-old kid whose name is Silver, I guess, cheered on my actions of being pissed off. I raise my bottle to her to thank her for seeing through clear eyes.
“You guys saw that plane?”, Kelly, half American, half Korean girl asks.
“What plane”, Zed asks in his entire journalist mode.
“When we landed here, the plane that crashed in the ocean?”, she asks.
I was half-asleep, half-awake and I was busy witnessing the beauty of ocean and green and seeing the far sights of that facility and Panther rock that I didn’t see any plane sunken in the ocean. Xavier, Peter, and Erica informed that they saw the plane too. To their this confirmation, Zed concluded something and went into his shock mode, then he sighed.
“We are dead out there in the world. Our death story is already covered by a plane crash”, he whisper to inform the Indian guys including me who were the only living soul aware of the mystery, which is still a mystery, about Arbmtys.
So we are deceased.
****