Arcania

Chaitra's Pov

Chaitra's POV
  “Why did you call us here?” Muktha asked as we stepped ahead and maintaining some distance from him to be on safer side. He stood up and spoke by pocketing his hands “ I’m a detective and I want you guys to help me in solving the mystery of this deathtomb and yeh here’s my ID” he showed us and kept it back in his pocket. “But why should we help you? It’s your case and you should do it on your own” Kanchana said. “It’s not as easy as you think, nobody in my team is ready to work on this case. I have been working on this for months together now, from the time one of the students in your college went missing here. I had kept an eye on most of the students in your college, and that’s when I found you guys. You guys are determined and pretty brave, so I chose you three for this mission” his deep voice echoed in the hall.

    “But we aren’t interested in solving this case!” I spoke by crossing my arms. Seriously, what does he think of himself? Why would we risk our lives to solve his case? “You’ll have to face the consequences if you go against me girl. Don’t forget that I have been stalking you guys from few days and I have pretty much information about you three. Well the decision is yours after all” His lips curved into a devilish smile as he completed his sentence. “Why are you forcing us to work with you?” Muktha asked with a stern look. “Why should we put our lives at risk just to solve your case?” Siri asked furiously. “I want to solve this mystery at any cost. I have been working from so long and I don’t want any more people to go missing here. And don’t worry, I’ll make sure you guys are safe, even by putting my life at risk” we just nodded, that was the only option which we had.

    “I have a surprise for you, check the time on your phones” he said and we checked our phones. 8:02pm What the hell?! It’s just been 2 minutes since we entered this building? We glanced at each other in confusion. “That’s one of the peculiarities of this place. Time runs slow.. for every five minutes outside it is only one minute spent here” We were speechless. We just sighed and looked around. The big living room was filled with dust and webs here and there. “So, what should we do now?” Muktha broke the silence.   “Okay, so here’s my plan. There are three floors above and three below in the basement. We should split up into two groups and go in different directions. Me and Muktha will go towards the basement, Chaitra and Kanchana go up. There’s proper signal inside, so we can call each other in case of any danger or if we find anything. Stay calm and observe things around keenly because I don’t want us to miss out any important detail” we nodded after listening to his plan.

    We three went near a corner to have a small talk before splitting up. I removed pepper spray from my bag and gave it to Muktha. “Keep it for safety, we can’t trust him so easily also” I said and they both nodded together. “Why the hell are we stuck with this guy?” Siri whined. “We don’t have much time now to talk. Be careful guys, stay together” Muktha warned us. We had a quick group hug and went back near him. “So, are you girls ready?”

    Our footsteps echoed as we headed towards the first floor with our phone flash lights. The first floor was dirtier than the ground floor. There were many broken chairs and tables thrown at corners. “What kind of a place is even this?” Kanchana asked by looking around the room. “I think some people used to live here few years back” I said as I peeked outside through the broken window. I could only see the branches of trees winding with each other. “Yeh, and now I feel like it’s haunted. What if we encounter some ghost dude?” she scared the shit out of me with her words. “Let’s just be positive dude and don’t expect the worst. There’s nothing here, so let’s go up” She nodded with a sigh.

    The stairs were spiral in shape and there were few random paintings hung on the walls next to the stairs. We couldn’t recognise what kind they were because there was a lot of dust and webs covering them. The second floor was kind of different, there was an old bed on the left and a big window in front and a small shelf on the right with few books. I went near the shelf and pulled out one book. ‘KNOW ABOUT YOURSELF' was engraved on the hard cover of the book. “Ahhhh!” Kanchana screamed. “What happened?” I ran towards her with the book. “Spider dude” she answered by cautiously looking around. “Thank god, I thought you found something scary” I sighed. “Spiders are scary ok..” she told and I glared at her “..ok fine, only for me” we both giggled.

      “Look what I found” I showed her the book and opened it. It was completely blank. After few seconds letters started appearing on the page in order. First word was Name and then my name appeared next to that. Then my parents name, where I live... Whoa, this book can give our whole bio data just by holding it. Then my date of birth appeared. But right below that the words ‘date of death' started appearing and I suddenly closed the book before I saw the numbers next to them. I glanced at Kanchana and she had the same expression. Fear and confusion. I quickly went and kept the book back into the shelf. “This place isn’t safe at all. We should leave as soon as possible” I nodded at Kanchana and we rushed towards the stairs to reach the last floor.

     It was quite spacious when compared to the other floors. We switched on the only tube light which we found till now in this building. How come it’s only present on this floor? Maybe there’s something special here. We started looking around to find any clue that could help us. After few mins Kanchana called me to show something. I went there to see a connecting door which had a note engraved on it.

    ‘You have to solve this riddle and write your answer below this question with the quill. Your answer will decide which world you'll be entering. Think very carefully before writing'

    We both exchanged looks in shock. “I think it’s time to call them” I took out my phone and informed them to come to the third floor.