RED BLOOD REUNION

Chapter 1

"His blood is on their hands, they have to pay for what they did.There will be a bloodbath in that reunion. An eye for an eye, blood for blood, no one will survive, all of them are going to suffer the same fate, even the one who claims to be on our side must die along with them.Their sins shall not go unpunished, get the tools ready.The main event is about to start."

They were at the Safari Lodge Forest Reserve, the seven of them were going to spend the long night there, they had already set up the tents and were sitting by the campfire, drinking liquor, roasting beef and star gazing at the clear night sky .It was a great place to bond, a quiet place that was far away from the city's noises, the presence of nature itself made that place therapeutic, even the air they breathed made them feel relaxed .They were basically a group of friends who were intending to have a fun night of high school reunion on a weekend gateaway , out of the seven, two were a married couple of highschool sweethearts.They were reminiscing the good old days  and re-creating their most memorable moments as they rekindled their  friendship.

The silent night, the chilling  wind from the hills, the amazing landscape, the sycamore trees and the shining moonlight, ignited a certain feeling in them, it had been ages since they felt  it, it was pure nostalgia.Everything was going just fine until they started playing a game they used to play  when they were kids, it was a unique kind of scavenger hunt, they called it  'Red As Blood'

The rules of the game are really simple, the contestants are required to look for red-colored objects, anything red, whoever gets most of the items would be declared the winner of the game.They were  supposed to split up, use their flashlights to find  the items and then make their way back to the campsite, it didn't go as planned.Someone was lurking in the shadows of the secluded  forest, he was discreetly watching them and it was the right time for him to strike, he was facially deformed and enormous .He emerged from the darkness and attacked one of them by throwing an axe at him,  cutting off his arm, lots of  blood oozed out of him like fountain drips, his victim screamed in pain and this drew  the attention of the others, it was a clear sign that something was wrong, a seemingly harmless and  friendly game had turned into a deadly  one. The bloodbath had just begun, it was going to be one hell of a night.

Three months earlier, prior to the main event, the Gona family got a call from the local police department concerning the whereabouts of their long-lost family member, Jeremy  Gona, after all these years, they finally got the call they had been waiting for, perhaps it was too late but they didn't care, they only cared about finding him. He was a promising young athlete who went missing eleven years back, no one knew of his whereabouts,he  had vanished into thin air. It was on a Saturday, he had gone to school that weekend to practice for the steeplechase of the Junior Athletics Championship.

He wanted to break the marathon record since he was a good competitive athlete, his parents saw how determined he was and allowed him to go for his training on the weekends.He was supposed to go for practice, pick up some textbooks and then make his way home before curfew, that Saturday, September 7th, he never came home .Some days after he disappeared without a trace, a search  was conducted, it was the biggest search in the history of the town, the whole town took part in it ,fifty search parties were formed just to look for him but he was not  found.

Flyers of a missing boy named Jeremy were everywhere in every street of the town,his parents did everything they could just to find him, they even went to the local media houses to make a plea on the television, asking him to return home .His face was all over the news and it  was the trending topic, something of that sort had never occurred in the peaceful  town of Dingo Bay, rumours and conspiracy theories concerning the disappearance begun to spread, some were saying  that he was kidnapped and sold into the human trafficking market,others said the boy ran away from home and never wanted to be found . It was one of the most bizarre things that shook the town to it's core.

Days turned to weeks,weeks turned to months and months turned to years, people got tired of it but the family never gave up,they had a glimmer of hope that their beloved son would return home,they believed in that even when the world told them not to.

Eleven years was a really long time,alot had changed since his disappearance,his parents had grown old and his younger sister, Jenny, had just turned eighteen, the town had changed, everything had changed. He was only sixteen when he disappeared.

The chief inspector summoned them to his office,he had received some information regarding the whereabouts of Jeremy,he had been finally found,Mr and Mrs Gona with their daughter Jenny were excited,they went to the inspector's office just to see their long lost  Jeremy.

"The reason why I called the three of you here is because I have some information about Jeremy,I've been the chief inspector of this town for twenty years  and this was the most challenging case I've ever dealt with. During those days when he disappeared, we never had the proper mechanisms needed to solve this case, technology has really advance and through that we were able to solve the mysterious disappearance of young Jeremy, we found him, but..."he said.

" But what inspector, please just tell us, Is my son okay?. " She asked.

" We found him but he's dead, from the look of things, he died eleven years ago, we only found his remains , I'm really sorry. " He said.

A human skeleton covered in clothing was exhumed  from a construction site, the construction workers  were drilling a drainge hole and they accidentally found the remains, the local authorities got informed and they took control of the site, forensic experts from the Homicide unit  took the remains for examination. The Identification Bureau  was involved in  identifying the deceased, they got the identity,it was Jeremy,  everything matched his description, even the clothing matched the ones that he was reported to have put on the day he went missing.The pathologist couldn't establish the cause of death because the body had badly degenerate and it was only pale bones that were left.

They found a bag that had been buried along with him, his fingerprints were found on the bag's contents,  this was a clear sign that it was indeed Jeremy , meaning that he had been dead all those years, the only mystery that remained was the perpetrator behind his death, whoever killed and buried him had a motive that drove him/her to do such a heinous act.

Mrs. Gona was in disbelief,all those years she had hoped that her beloved son would return home and they would live happily ever after but it was all a lie,it was just a fantasy, her son was dead and that was the reality. She bursted into tears and didn't care that she was in the inspector's office, all she wanted was to let out the agonizing sensation that was consuming her.

"It's my fault that he died, I'm a horrible mother, I failed to protect my own child , it's my fault , "she said it in sorrowful and regretful tone .

Mr.Gona was also in pain but didn't want to show it, he suppressed his sentiments.While he was comforting his wife, their daughter Jenny was in denial, she was not willing to believe that her brother was dead, she believed that he was alive and would return home.She gave a provocative look at the inspector as if she wanted to beat him up for saying  that he was  dead and will never come back, she experienced a burning feeling in the chest.The inspector read between the lines, he interpreted her body language and sympathized with her and her family.

Jeremy's  case had been taken personally by  the Chief inspector, it had really touched him, it reminded him of someone. He lost his younger brother in a  similar way, during his childhood days, his brother went missing only to be found lifeless on the roadside.