Its way past midday and in a few hours we should already be heading back to the hotel given that we didn’t think to hold our weapons with us in case of anything – that is a point to consider for next time
Against our better judgment and courtesy of our dear Willow, we are hiding behind a tree and tall grasses watching the dead body and waiting for strollersHe may have asked us to leave him if we weren’t going to wait. To be honest, I did try to leave but I cannot just leave him here not with all he knowsI may have not considered the fact that he might be working on the other side and is leading us into a trap maybe – but I have a pact with not listening to my doubtsTony grunts beside me adjusting his kneeling position for a more leveled ground. He would have left if I didn’t turn back. The things I make him doI hold his shoulder and squeeze wishing I could tell him something comforting but apparently Willow still has the guts to give us a vow of silenceTony squeeze my hand and pecks it. My heart warm, it feels nice to see he is not really mad at me – less guilty to be accurateWillow rolls his eyes at us and focuses back on the body. Why would someone comfortably look at a dead body for hours, I am literally close to puking and Willow just seems to be so concentrated at getting a new information on the shadows that he couldn’t care less about glancing through the body every now and thenMe on the other hand have safely fixed my gaze on the nearby tree scared that if I move my iris, I just might see it and throw up. Tony is not even looking again, instead he is grunting now and then brewing with passive aggression“he should be back by now?” A young male voice drags our attention. Looking through the grasses, we all go still listening from where the footsteps is coming from“he wasn’t told to take this route. He never learns” says an older male with a not-so-deep voice. The grasses make way and they both come out of the bush into the path where we had dumped the body. The older one nods with a heavy breath and the younger one went still, looking at the body in disbelief“we need to hurry so no one sees us” the older one says but the younger male still doesn’t say anything“we were doing ok before our boss decided to do this crazy game concept” the younger says in terror“shut your trap and get over here. This is a common path damn it” the Older male shuns him“I am just saying, first it was Shan and now him?” the younger one is sounding like a child with dramatic gestures and terror imprint on his face“they got careless and if you don’t want to be part of them lets get moving” the older one almost barks at him.He is still standing firm at one spot and not saying a word. The older man walks up to him and pats his shoulder “we need this front so when word gets out we can all go scot free. All we need to do is to be more careful. Our clients will soon place their orders and then all this will be over”“I want out after this” he declares in breaking voice“you know the only way out is death. You signed the contract” the older male says as he strolls back to the body waving off the few flies that had begun to cluster. the younger one swallows hard and follows him.They both lift the body and wrap it in a huge silk cloth they brought out from the younger male’s back pack and they lifted him to they shoulders and stumbled awayHolding our breath we waited for them to go far enough before we break free from the grass leaves“oh my God” I say, with my palms on my crown. My breath grew unbearably heavy and my chest tightens “tell me I interpreted that wrongly”“apparently not” Tony walks towards me but I flag him off, my vision grow blurry – did I just hear that this whole game was a front so they could go scot free? So the only thing people are going to remember about this place is that some twin demon tormented the villagers and somehow wiped them out.What about us, I am pretty sure that my mother will notice I am gone and she will make a fuss. Last I checked, Rose has a few million followers who will ask questions and the rest of us, we all have people that saw us the day beforeMy course mate will notice I didn’t come back to school, they will question my Ex – I did tell them I was going to His for his birthday. They all have to know we are gone and they will be looking for us right?“Bella!” Tony’s voice breaks through my thoughts and my once foggy vision grow clearer till I can see him and for some reason I am on the floor and he is trying to hold me up.I break free from him and sprints away from them leaving them to call after me as they chased meI have a lot of future out there. I want to graduate from college, I want to visit waterfalls to cure my obsession for them, I still want to live long enough to make moneyI need to appreciate my mother, she has worked so hard to put me through school. She will never get over losing her only childI am such a fool, I fucking signed up for a creepy weird ass game and for some reason I didn’t think it through. I could have known that I was kidnapped when I woke up in the cab.What kind of evil person is behind all these and how the hell do they maneuver this shadows thing. Oh God! I will never leave here alive. I was doomed the moment I crossed that rod gateTony’s arms wraps around me and pulls me to his chest, I struggle to break free but he holds me still pinning me to his bodyI give up fighting him and break down in tears. For the first time I am actually scared, I couldn’t be optimistic about anything. It was obvious what situation we are all in and for some reason he has the upper hand, the manpower, the creepy shadows and we are just little pets in the middle of nowhere wait for our doom“Bella, its ok – we will find a way out. I promise” Tony’s calm deep voice penetrates because my breath lightens and my chest loosens but my tummy grumble violentlyFrom the moment I saw the man die, the hours I stared at the body decay and flies arrive one after the other and everything those two saidEven the image of the woman flashing through my head. I push Tony away and thrust the unsettling contents from my stomach onto the brown soilI wasn’t done yet, more liquid gushes out from me onto the ground and Tony pats me on my back till my breath calms finallyThe sense of relief afterwards followed by intense hunger is exactly what I needed to get by today.Willow eventually catches up with us “you sure know how to pick a race Bella” he pants a little and his gaze stops at my vomit “Ewww… I would have appreciated a warning” he says throwing his face away from me with a disgusted look“but you can look at a dead body for hours…” Tony says“I wasn’t looking alone and she is the one throwing up. that makes two psychopaths” he pats Tony on his shoulder still avoiding to look at me “we should head back”I watch as Tony and willow fill the girls in on our recent development. Apparently we are a part of some grand plan that involves clients and we have no clue what it is we are needed for “We need to get out of here… and fast” Rose panics again – it was kind of expected since she was the most affected by all this. Good thing I have calmed myself down so they only have to deal with Rose For some reason, Thelma is not so much surprised and Olivia is quiet as usual leaving our dear Rose to play the drama queen We had arrived at the hut not so many minutes ago and while the boys tell the story I munch on the snack that Thelma brought ignoring her piercing side eye Rose eventually managed to hold herself together after that sentence, she just sits on the mat and fold her legs with her palms below her jaw and not saying anything further “In essence we need a plan and not the kind that involves fighting shadows or preventing their attack but a plan that involved literally finding our way
It was a very long walk from the hut to the hotel more so given the shrill silence of the atmosphere and the fact that no one among us was willing to break it Instead, we look at the sun at intervals hoping it doesn’t suddenly disappear even though we had distributed the weapons between ourselves and Tony had the lighter along with Thelma – since the group had decided that they were more likely to not lose it and I do agree, I just wish it didn’t affect my pride so much but why wouldn’t it? Olivia suggested it The Villagers were waiting eagerly for our return, so much so that we received a clapping ovation along with cheers as if we returned from some kind of battle Even finding out that we are potentially being sold wasn’t much of a breakthrough since we all knew that we were in danger somehow, we just didn’t want to accept it, so we came up with instances that would justify our beliefs But one thing crept deep within my mind while I watched the villagers cheer for us. A question
The thought of Olivia attempting to end her life didn’t sit well with me Yes I have been a bitch to her, I betrayed her and we stopped being friends because of it but how was it that I didn’t see that she was going through so much I mean, I am a very caring person and I had her best interest at heart – before Jeffery came in and complicated things I used to take her to parties so she wouldn’t live our high school days without a single experience. I would visit her regularly so we would do assignments together, I even helped her when she wanted to participate in a math competition, I hated maths but I still practiced the calculations with her We used to go on walks most evening because she loved nature. We would buy street food and eat on our way ignoring the judgemental look from passersby. And yet when she talked, she did so like she had been alone all her life – that kind of hurt though But then I have been a bitch when it comes to stealing her man. Even though he approached me
A few women had left to get extra supplies along with Thelma, Rose and Olivia It was only until last night that we realized that people still eat and water is an essential of life. With the villagers crashing at the hotel, all this supplies need to be in the hotel with us Some other women had volunteered to get the farm produce they had and others go to get anything they might find and the rest especially the younger ones arrange for water from the hotel This leaves me and the Boys the opportunity to find out where these men stayed. We need to know if they stay at the mansion or another place The mansion is going to be our last resort or in essence we are not going there, if we have checked everywhere and no sign of anyone then the only plausible location will be the mansion Another thing we hope to find is how they transport themselves. We all can recall that it was a long drive to this place and if we go by foot – I don’t even want to imagine what my pretty legs will have to say
“We will first remove all ‘whatever this is’ from where they are buried so we can be able to leave the village” Willow announces to us We are in his beaded house, where we had initially planned to create our escape plan in. Since from the looks of it, our captors will have no idea what happens here unlike the hotel that is brewing with cameras It has not been long we had returned from the border and the rest have already been waiting for us We only took time because we were trying to wait long enough for something to happen at the brick house and still no sign of anything so we gave up when our patience ran out “Then we will need a vehicle that will convey us to the beach, Olivia’s friend had left a boat for her we can use it to leave this place” I say, looking at Olivia and she nods along Apparently she had filled the girls in on what she told me so we didn't have to go through that again “we saw a packed vehicle outside a house and that house was virtually empty” Willow continu
“I may have recovered a bit of my memory” Thelma says she is walking beside Rose and behind me and Olivia while Tony and Willow are behind all of us She seems to have gotten close to Rose and the said Rose had found someone to cling to after Tony told her about us. We are not really together since I really want to take care of my past relationship baggage first “And what would that be?” Tony asks sweetly and she chuckles lightly “I may have driven off the bridge on the last day I remember” she says slowly as if trying to observe our reaction. We all stop and turn to her almost simultaneously and she folds her lips with a shy expression “what?” I half-yell if anyone had told me that Thelma would ever plan to end her own life, I would laugh at the person and sip from my cup of coffee afterwards. First was Olivia and now Thelma? “yup, I might have drank too much and it just felt right and so I just did it” she tried to make it seem casual but her breaking voice betrays her “why di
After a while of sitting together and just letting the cool evening breeze caress us as we digest the story we had opened up to each other about We continue our journey again but this time it felt good, holding hands and walking with the people I grew to be real with We didn’t care about our pride or how we wanted to be perceived instead we let ourselves to be vulnerable and we learned to embrace our weak sides and our experiences bonded us the more I have found the real friends I have always wanted. Not the kind I hang around with in school, the kind I boast to about how often I made my nails, they will talk about their expensive clothes and they complement my hair while I fake compliments at their crooked make up the truth is, I had a true kind of friendship with Olivia but I was so used to looking for perfection and gloating in my superiority complex that I didn’t appreciate her enough. Maybe I wasn’t a good friend after allWe might have been caught in the moment when we
Change of plans, apparently our captors are ahead of us and they have sent someone to join us to keep a close eye on us If he dies, they would start to suspect and if he don’t we wouldn’t know how to get through with our plan. He is at liberty to keep an eye on us and he would definitely want in on whatever plan we might have. But I did find a good fight topic, I just hope the others catch on real quick“I am Thelma” Thelma smiles and stretches her hand for a shake, when Harper return the gesture she pulls him in for a hug instead“Thelma” I drag her name. She breaks free and scowls at me“What? He is cute” she winked at him and he lets out an awkward chuckle. We haven’t told them that Harper was one of the two people that carried the dead body we watched that day. If not she wouldn’t even want to touch him one bit“I am Rose –”“That is all” Tony interrupts her and she hits his shoulder “don’t bore him with the whole flower stuff” we all break into a cackle at Tony’s words“I