SPIRIT PUZZLE

CHAPTER 0: PROLOGUE

As a child, I have always been fond of stories. However, in the past I remember enjoying 'Horror' stories the most. I remember my grandmother reading out her made up stories to me. The stories would always include a ghost in white clothes, a little girl who would go to the well at night and a very tall banyan tree right beside the well. She would often add at the end of the story, "And this is a real incident which happened to me when I was a kid". I used to be a scared cat. But seriously, won't any 5-year-old kid loose his mind after hearing such a horrifying sentence at the end of the story!? U-huh-m... so... anyways, coming back to where I was; According to those stories, 'Ghosts' are supposed to be immortal spirits of dead persons who devour the souls of humans BUT, not just any human, Only those who are the reason for their dissatisfaction. This meant that as long as I didn't do anything bad, no one would turn into a ghost because of me. My naive self used to believe in whatever people said to me and never did anything that would cause harm to others.

Now that I think about it that was a very efficient way to keep me from doing any mischief. However, the present me is not the same anymore. To start it off, I do not believe in ghosts anymore. I don't get scared of the dark either. Nowadays, I am more into 'Action-Fantasy' types of genres. I do not beg for for horror stories every night and don't believe in anything thrown at me unless it has a logical reasoning behind it. To sum it all up, now I am all grown-up.

"Hey don't space out in the middle of the class. If the teacher finds you then you will be in a huge trouble"

"Huh?"

"Don't huh me!"

"Am I in the class?... I can hear Adil... but why is it so dark?..."

The darkness in which Mark found himself was pitch black... an endless stretch of emptiness. Neither could he sense himself nor could he move himself... all he could do was endlessly drown into the darkness...

"It's dark.."

"Of course it is! Open your eyes already or else it will remain dark forever!"

Rays of light suddenly startled Mark! It was too bright for Mark... too blinding for him to keep his eyes open as he kept on opening and closing them, (I don't know why I did not just say blink) out of un-comfort.

"Finally you decided to wake up"

"Huh?"

Mark could finally open his eyes. He found himself in his classroom.

"It's so unusual to see you space out like that"

Was that... an illusion...?

"Hey Mark, I am talking to you, can you not hear me?"

"Oh... Adil..."

"Come one... did you not sleep last night?"

"Hehehe... sorry"

"Why were you spacing out?"

"I wasn't really spacing out though"

"Huh!? So you mean that you've been ignoring me the entire time!?"

"No! It's definitely not that!... a while ago I felt like I was floating... but I couldn't really feel anything... not even myself! And for a moment, I felt like... I was dead..."

Adil slapped the hand of Mark, which was resting peacefully on his bench.

"Ouch! What was that for!?"

"Nothing. I just brought you back to life"

As much touching Adil's words were, Mark seemed annoyed by his hit.

"It's not like I was actually dead!"

"Mark! Adil! Do not interrupt in between the class!"

The teacher seemed angry with both Mark and Adil.

"We're sorry ma'am"

Whisper~ "It's your fault for shouting so loudly all of a sudden"

Whisper~ "You were the one to hit me first"

"Do you both not understand what being quite means!?"

"We're sorry!!"

Just a normal and peaceful day for Mark.

Mark Walker was a 16-year-old boy who lived in Sydney, Australia. Just like any other normal kid, he attended a normal public school and lived a normal life. His grades were fair enough, that is, according to him at least.

As his regular hectic school got over, he was on his way back home. While walking down the golden empty streets in the middle on the afternoon his mind was preoccupied with endless thoughts. Thoughts of his childhood, stories told by her late grandmother and the sleepless nights that he had to spend out of fear after hearing them...

"That's weird... why do I keep on remembering all those incidents?..."

However, his thoughts did not calm down even after he reached home.

Come to think of it... I wonder if ghosts are actually bad...

While performing the extreme difficult stunt of balancing his pen on his nose at evening he wondered,

I wonder if ghosts are actually scary... I mean they have to be, right?

The entire day he kept on wondering... and then suddenly he realized that it was bedtime already. Reality struck him as he let out a sigh and thought to himself,

It was such a weird day today... all I did the entire day was just think and think about weird things. I am not physically tired at all but mentally, it's never been worse.

He jumped up on his bed and lay down.

I just hope that those weird thoughts don't affect my sleep... I want to have a very good dream... As he prayed for a good sleep, his eyelids became heavier with tiredness and eventually he went into deep, deep, very deep sleep... and eventually into a long, long, very long dream. But little did he know that his dream was about to bring a storm in his peaceful life~