Treasure of Ali Baba and the Sixty Eight Thieves

Chapter 21 : Creepy

The cave...

Friends started following the path which was in front of them. As they walked some steps, they heard a splash in the water from the behind.

"What was that?" Vikram said.

"Something fell in the stream," Akash said.

"Lets move on," Ujaas said and they started walking.

After some distance, they saw a skeleton with afro and a torn suit standing straight in front of them.

"That's a funny looking skeleton," Malika said.

"Hello lady and gentlemen," the skeleton said. "I am Brook."

"Hello, I am Ujaas and this is Rohan, Vikram.., wait," Ujaas said.

When they realized that a skeleton is trying to talk to them, they got scared with their souls out. They screamed and started running back towards the stream. But some distance, they saw two skeletons waiting for them near the stream. The time skeletons saw them, they started chasing them. Friends turned around and started running along the path towards skeleton Brook.

"What the hell is going on?" Vikram said. "How can skeletons walk and talk like that?"

"I don't know," Akash said. "I have never seen or heard something like that before in my life."

Again after running some distance, they saw Brook in front of them. This time they continued running and crossed him at full speed.

"Gentlemen I was going to escort you..," Brook tried to finish but friends ran away.

The ran in the cave not knowing where to go and hid in a corner where they can not be seen.

"What is happening?" Vikram said confused.

"Hm, this must be about that curse written on the wall," Ujaas said.

"The curse will never die," Rohan said. "Sure they are not dead yet."

The two skeletons from before came looking for them. They ran past them.

"Those two skeletons must be the ones we saw before," Malika said.

After few seconds, Brook came walking singing a song.

"Yo-hohoho, yo-hohoho, yo-hohoho, yo-hohoho," Brook was singing and walking towards them.

They were trying not to make any sound. As Brook was about to leave, he said, "Knock Knock."

"Who's there?" Rohan and Ujaas said.

Malika, Akash and Vikram punched them on their heads. Brook started approaching them. They were scared because they couldn't escape him from that corner.

"Yohohohoho," Brook laughed. "Don't be scared. I will not hurt you guys. I will help you to leave this place alive."

"Why would we trust you?" Akash asked.

"Nice question," Brook said. "Unfortunately, I don't have answer to that. But I will tell you everything that's going on in this cave. Only if you guys trust me."

"Hm, let us do a personality check," Ujaas said. "We will ask you some questions and then we will decide if we will trust you or not."

"Alright," Brook agreed.

"What are you guys doing?" Malika asked.

"Just trust us," Ujaas said.

Ujaas and Rohan walked to Brook and asked him the questions whispering. Brook laughed while listening to questions and then started whispering answers to them.

"Hm, that's a nice fetish," Rohan said.

"Yes, I am impressed," Ujaas said. "You are a man of culture. Alright, we trust you."

"I am glad after so many years, I found someone like me" Brook said.

Vikram and Akash pulled them back and said, "What are you guys doing? How can we trust a talking skeleton?"

"Well we don't know what's going on and don't know how are we gonna survive this cave," Ujaas said.

"Yeah, there is not much of a choice left," Rohan said. "We have to trust him."

"Alright," Akash said.

"Alright Brook, tell us everything," Ujaas said."

"So this is about the time when we thieves brought all the treasure here," Brook said. "All the treasure was shifted and it was safe as no one knew about this location. I was relaxing in the cave when I heard that Cassim and Yunan, two of the thieves were planning to kill the leader and get their control over all the treasure. I went to the leader and told him everything. He was heartbroken because it hurt him that his own people are trying to betray him. He always loved his people more than the treasure. He told me that he is leaving the cave. Before leaving the cave, he somehow put curse on all of the thieves that they will never die and would not be able to leave this cave no matter what."

"So this was what happened," Vikram said.

 "So, what do we do now?" Malika asked.

"You are here for treasure, right?" Brook said. "I will take you to treasure. There we can find that magical thing leader used to put curse on us. We can undo the curse using it."

"So, you are saying your leader put a curse on all of the thieves," Akash said. "That meaning there are sixty seven skeletons along with you alive."

"Not sixty seven," Brook said. "Sixty eight. Leader was sixty ninth. He was hidden from outside world so people only knew sixty eight thieves."

Everybody looked satisfied after hearing that there were sixty nine thieves.

"I will help you get to the treasure," Brook said. "But there will be others who will try to kill you. So be aware."

"Its not like there is anything else we can do," Vikram said. "Lets do it."