Fear of the dark. [YiZhan FF - Mystery Thriller]✔️

31 - Return to the Institute 2

31 - Return to the Institute 2

After a tearful goodbye to our twins, Zhan and I were crying, the twins just wanted to see their grandpa, we went to the airport. We met Yanli, Leni, Missy and Meng Yao there. My brother and Cheng fly out directly from Shanghai and we meet there at the airport.

Zhan and I are very nervous. It's been five years since we were at the institute and we won't be alone either. There will be four soldiers with us to show us around. This morning we learned that we will be there when the institute will be blown up.

In a month they will also demolish the remains of the Crane Insane Asylum. They'll blow up the tunnels as soon as we get out of there.

*~*~*

Our group is reunited! It was nice to see everyone again. Too bad André can't come. He didn't get a vacation.

Since we all have two more days until we will meet up with the soldiers at the edge of the forest, we all decided together that we would go to Crane and take a look around ourselves. We want to take the same route as we did back then. Fortunately, my brother has kept the route maps. I can't wait to see what awaits us.

*~*~*

We are now in a hotel and it is already night. We arrived here only an hour ago. Much later than expected.

After we rented a minibus, we followed the route we took then too. We also found the village of Crane. But, it looked very different from what we remembered. The streets, the houses, at least what was left of them. Nothing matched what we saw then. We arrived there in the dark, but drove again in daylight.

It was Zhan who spotted a small error on our map. He pointed out a tiny turnoff that we didn't see before. So we all got back on the bus, drove to this fork on the map and actually, there was a road leading to the right. Well, more like a dirt road and very overgrown.

We followed the road for about 2 miles when we saw the first houses that looked familiar. Meng Yao immediately called out, hey that's Crane, there we were!

There was a small sign that said, "Welcome to Crane, Village 2." We immediately wondered what this Village 2 was all about. And that question was soon to be answered for us.

After we entered the village and we recognized all those ancient houses, we even found the hostel where we stayed. But it was closed. A seemingly ancient woman said that this hostel has been closed for many years already, and here it comes, since the owner passed away 7 years ago!

But we were here 5 years ago, not 7 years ago. The old woman showed us her best toothless laugh and said, "Well then, I guess you've met the ghost of the old one." And then she moved on.

Since the door of the hostel was not locked, we entered it and were amazed that it still looked the same as when we were there. Only that there was more dust and cobwebs. The rooms looked the same as when we were there and the beds were still as we left them. Even the dishes were still in the kitchen, just as my brother and the other two put them away.

Had we really seen and talked to a ghost here? Is there even such a thing? Well, I have a husband with special abilities, nothing should surprise me anymore. I wonder if our children have any abilities too. They are too young yet, but, could they have inherited these abilities from Zhan?

Anyway, we went out of the hostel again and met a few, very, very old people. They then told us their story of their village 2.

According to this story, the village 2, is actually the original village, in which the monks and nuns withdrew at that time, after they have left their churches. They lived among themselves and never disturbed anyone. However, when the first families were founded, soon the space was not enough.