SWITCHED|VegasPete|

22: END

ONE MONTH AFTER KHIARA'S DEATH

After his sister's death, the heartbroken Pete spent his time in the presence of different people. In the hopes of forgetting what happened, Pete got himself involved in different groups for pleasure and ecstasy. Pete never allowed himself to mourn and began losing himself, not a single night sober and drowning himself all over again everytime he woke up.

Then, one morning, Pete heard a ring on his doorbell. Turning to his right, he saw it was nine in the morning thus making him bury his face on the pillow as he tried to ignore the annoying bell.

"Fuck!" Pete cursed out as he stood up and staggered his way to the door.

Without bothering to peek to check who it was, Pete pulled the door open only to see no one. He then looked from left to right, trying to find anyone to vent out his anger but no one was around.

Pete was about to get back in when he looked down and saw a package with his name on it. Looking at it closely, he saw a familiar name written on the sender information section.

'From Khiara' was written on it making Pete pick it up immediately. Pete almost ran his way back in and sat on the couch as he placed the parcel on the tea table in front of him.

Looking at the sticker, it must've been a scheduled parcel since it's been a month after Khiara passed away. Pete felt his head throb in pain as he thought of what could be inside it.

"Ugh damn it. Let's just open it." Pete said to himself as he slowly ripped the parcel open.

After carefully opening it, Pete found himself staring at a vault box, a locked one that is. The vault had no code lock and was only accessible with a key.

"You've got to be kidding me." Pete sighed as he placed the vault box by his side before leaning on the backrest, staring at the ceiling.

'I'll send you my favorite work yet, Phi. Its name is 'key'. You better keep it.' he remembered Khiara say some time in winter making Pete turn to look at the portrait in front of him.

Pete never understood his late sister's logic when it came to art. Khiara would even tag her works with the most absurd and unrelated names. Thus, Pete never thought it strange for an abstract work to be named as 'key'.

"It can't be...right?" Pete asked himself as he stood and reached for the painting and taking it off from the wall.

Pete then shook the canvas and heard a sound, like there was something inside the work itself. Flipping the portrait, Pete felt the back of the canvas and there's definitely something inside it. Grabbing a cutter, Pete carefully cut what seemed to be a second canvas behind the painting itself. With a few patience and careful cutting, Pete was finally able to take out the key inside it.

"Key... Literally a key." Pete found himself laughing at what was going on.

Turning to the vault, Pete took a deep breath before finally putting in the key. With a twist, he heard a click from it as the top part partially lifted. Pete then took a deep breath before slowly opened the vault.

Inside was a hard drive and a mobile phone. Pete tried to turn on the phone but it seemed to have ran out of battery. After plugging it to charge, Pete then went to his basement to check the contents of the hard drive. However, it had a password and no matter what Pete typed, nothing seemed to work.

Getting back to his room where he charged the phone, Pete sat on the bed and turned it on. Lucky enough, the phone didn't have a password. Scrolling through it, nothing looked different and it's just a normal phone.

Then, opening the file folder, Pete found a video. It was the only content he found making Pete feel weird and suspicious about it. Looking at the date, the video was recorded a month before Khiara gave birth.