3 am

Chapter 2

(13th Jan, Friday, 3 am)

Anxiety keeps on rising. They are stuck in Vedika's apartment with no way out and with no sign of Vedika. Suddenly, the apartment starts to get distorted.

"What is happening?" Shriya says bewildered.

The apartment starts spinning like a portal and a blinding light flashes. They both quickly shield their eyes.

When they open their eyes, they are no longer in the apartment. They are in an empty, old, broken dungeon. Spiders webs lie all around the dungeon. Small insects crawl around the floor which freaks Shriya. Several R's are carved on the stone walls of the dungeon.

"What do these R's mean?" asks Srushti

"I have no idea but I think..."

Shriya is cut off by a deep mysterious male voice

"Shriya and Srushti. Welcome to my trap. It feels really good to see your terrified faces. Now, let's see how you will survive my trap"

"Hey! WHO THE HELL ARE YOU?" bellows Shriya.

But there is no response and they are again teleported to a different place.

This time they are in a scary graveyard. Black and grey tombstones, headstones are everywhere and dried leaves cover the ground. Amongst the tombstones, one of them catches their eyes. It's a tombstone which is glowing.

They breath and move towards the tomb, the leaves crunching under their feet as they move. Once they reach at the tomb they get a clear picture of it. On it, RIP C is written and the C is also glowing. Who is this C?

The mysterious male voice comes again

"You will never be able to get out of my trap girls!"

"Who the hell are you? Why are you doing this?" retorts Shriya

There is no reply

"Yeah! It seems that you are coward who can't even face 2 girls!"

"Say whatever you want, but you will never be able to catch me!"

As the voice says this they are teleported again to a different place. This time they are in an abandoned museum. It is a clean museum with lots of antiques displayed. A beautiful locket grasps their attention. They go near it. It's a beautiful emerald locket with dainty intricate designs on it. While analysing the locket they realize that the intricate designs spell out a word. DIG.

As they are wondering about this peculiar design, another thing grabs their attention which is a statue. The statue is of a middle-aged man wearing a robe and having a staff in his hand with an H carved on it. There is a label beside him

'The wizard with remarkable LOGICAL reasoning ability and who defeated a man called 'Oliver' who was overpowered with magic, saving many people. He killed the man in a cemetery'

There was another label below that one.

'It is believed that the man returned in the form of AN EVIL AND DANGEROUS SPRIT'

'What is going on? Why are we teleporting to random places and seeing random objects and things?" says Shriya

"Yeah! Who makes a design that spells Dig? And what are these random letters everywhere? And why is this Logical written in bold?"

"This is driving me crazy!"

And again, before they could say anything or do anything, they are teleported to a different place. This time they both are teleported to a dark place. Once their eyes adjust to the darkness, they realize where they are. It's a dark creepy basement with an eerie silence. They see a faint red glow in the centre of the basement

"Shri, do you see that?"

"Yes. Let's see what that is"

They slowly approach the glow. They are terrified when they see what it is. The glow is coming through a skull.

"Shriya!" shrieks Srushti panicking as she looks at the skull "A skull! What do we do?"

"I say we see what's inside"

"Inside? You mean we have to PICK THAT THING UP?"

"Yeah"

"You do it"

"Alright"

Shriya puts out her hand to pick up the skull, her hand trembling as she reaches closer and closer to the skull. She quickly picks it up and throws it away which reveals a red glowing locket underneath it. Srushti picks up the locket and opens it There is a glowing red A inside.

"It's another letter" says Srushti

"What is with all these letter?" says Shriya exasperated

A few seconds later, a staircase descends from the corner of the basement with light coming from upstairs. Shriya facepalms.

"I just realized that we could have turned on our phones flashlight so that we wouldn't have to be in utter darkness!"

"Oh yeah! Even I forgot about it!"

They quickly climb the stairs which leads them into a garage. It has a single car with the graffiti of letter E all over it.

There is something on the roof of the car. Srushti puts out her hand on the roof and grabs the object. It's the car key.

"We found the key!" she says

"Let's go! Let's get out of here"

They unlock the car. As they unlock the car, the garage doors open.

"Yes! Freedom!" exclaims Shriya

The fuel tank is half filled. Shriya sits on the driver's seat and starts the car. The engine starts with a whirring noise. Shriya presses the accelerator and drives towards the exit.

Finally, they are going to get out of the trap.

The exit is coming closer and their excitement is rising. Moonlight is about to touch the car when suddenly, they are teleported to somewhere else.