A Murder In Disguise|ONC 2021 (Completed)✔

Chapter - 13

CLEARING OFF A MURDER SITE

Terrific. Haunting. Painful. 

Grace sat there unconscious with blood seeping from some wounds on her face and her arms. The video began in a steady state. After a while, a long stick entered the frame and poked Grace near her stomach, making her wince painfully. 

That's it! I turned off the video!

A small gasp escaped my parted lips as tears streamed down my face. A hand of mine covered my mouth involuntarily, making me weep my heart out soundlessly.  

I turned around so that my face was bent over the table platform with the support of my hands. My back faced Hannah and Melody as they stood almost ignorant of my condition right now. 

My tears wetted the platform, and I tried to normalize myself taking deep breaths when I felt a hand placed over my shoulder. 

"Hey, are you alright?" Hannah asked worriedly from behind. 

Tears started choking my windpipe once again. 

Alright? Not even close to it!

I didn't turn around. Did not have the ability to. My legs were trembling. My shoulders entirely depended on the support of the table through my hands. 

"Emi?!" Hannah cried when she bent over me to glance at my expressions, and a low squeal escaped her mouth. 

I swallowed all the balls of tears hanging in my throat. Taking deep breaths, I turned towards Hannah, biting my lips. 

"Grace," I said with my voice quivering. 

I tried my best to narrate what I saw, but my vocals didn't support me. So, at last, I silently passed my mobile phone towards Hannah.

She held my phone with puzzled and concerned expressions. However, soon her eyes widened and fists clenched with her eyes turning red, holding back a flood of tears. 

"We're going!" She declared. Her breathing turned heavy. 

I simply nodded, pressing my lips to control the flood of emotions. 

The rest of our day went absent-minded in the restaurant. Melody grasped our unnatural behaviour a few times.

"What has gotten into you guys? You seemed good when you got here?" She asked suspiciously, staring at our distrait faces with narrow eyes. 

"We are good, Melody! Just overdone with some issues of college," I replied, attempting to ignore her stares.

The evening passed by, and the night started falling in. Our time for the shift ended, and we left the diner unaware of what was to come. 

Neither of us spoke a word until we reached our dorms. Staring into each other's eyes, we had a speechless conversation before leaving for our rooms. 

At Midnight. We will meet right here!

I don't really remember how I spent my rest of the time until the clock struck twelve and we were back at the main entrance of our dorms. Swiftly, we headed towards Kaslo Park, pausing right in front of the partly demolished closed office. It was a small hut-like structure with damaged walls and hanging doors and windows.

Hannah barged inside, kicking the partly closed main door, which creaked as it opened. Our flashlights made a path for us to see in the dark, dusty room.

We roamed inside the darkness until the rays of my flashlight fell onto a dark-coloured switch labelled press. I pressed without thinking twice, and the room lit up with a gloomy, dim bulb hanging over our heads. 

The sudden light startled both of us, and we looked around, making ourselves comfortable.

Besides the switchboard, there was a box filled with props labelled wear it, and then proceed. The masks and costume items had our names printed on them. It was awkward, but we complied.

The light in the room was enough to enlighten a huge sand-coloured paper duct-taped over a board around the corner. It read - 

Hey, Frankensteins!

If you have reached up till here, pat yourself on the back! You've reached quite far. 

Take a moment to congratulate yourself.

Now, your main activity for today is to bury the dead where it belongs. 

Smart, peeps! You know what I'm saying, eh? 

Dig a grave, pick the body beside this note and dump it into the hole. Simple as it sounds! 

Good luck. 

And a winking face symbol at the end.

We got goosebumps as we read through the note. My heart started thumping inside my chest, and my body was sweating. And I could tell Hannah was going through the same state as I was. 

Nevertheless, we turned our flashes towards the shadowed corner beside the note board. There was literally a dead body wrapped in a white cloth with stains of red at some places. My head spiralled. 

Are we gonna bury a person without knowing who he/she is? What about the people who cared about him/her? What if they might be trying to find him/her?

My breath unearthed. I felt nauseous. Vision blurred as I contemplated the situation I was standing in. 

Hannah turned towards me with her eyes blood red and a few tears tumbling down her cheeks. She wasn't a girl to cry on small things.

But this wasn't a small thing! 

Swallowing our emotions, we went forward to pick up the body placed on a stretcher with a white note over it. 

Find the shovel and plant it wherever it is.

With a stream of fear and grief walloping inside us, we lifted the body and carried it out to find the shovel. However, it wasn't pretty easy to carry it all the way through, as Hannah could only use one arm. I tried to avoid making her ribs strain too.

Somehow, we managed to find the long-handled shovel planted in the soil. 

Carefully placing the stretcher beside the shovel, we started digging up. Subconsciously the scene of the video clip we were making for our assignment popped in our brains. 

The only difference being, we were actually digging up a grave right now to bury an actual human dead body!

With trembling and sweaty hands, under the background music of crickets chirping and irregular howling and crying sounds of stray animals, we dizzily completed our task. Tears continued to pool through our eyes until our lacrimal glands lost the strength to produce any more of the emotional fluid. 

The costume and masks we wore only added to the trepidation and panic we felt. 

How many hours? Unaware. 

How much effort? No idea. 

How much pain? Unimaginable. 

We patted our shovels over the covered grave as our hearts managed to not burst with pain. 

We did it! We just buried a dead body. Cleared a murderer's dirt. 

How did I wish I would have died before going through this phase?

Stumbling upon our feet with the blurred vision, we walked on the dreadful path towards the dorm, unsure if they would keep their promise, expecting Grace to come back safe. 

In the dim street lights and creepy night, the entrance of our dorm shone in the dark. Nothing was unusual about the night, but nothing was as usual as it used to be either. 

Dragging our bodies as each inch of it winced in pain, we reached in front of the dorm gate. 

However, our nebulous vision sparkled with surprise when we saw a shadow below a street pole. The shadow turned out to be of Grace. 

A shattered, wounded, whimpering Grace with irregular breathing and shivering by the torment she faced.