"There are all of the tapes here", said Raj.
" Tape 1 Day 1, Tape 2 Day 2, Tape 3, Tape 4, Tape 5...."
"Are all of them there?"
"I think Tape 16 Day 16 is missing."
"Wait really? Lemme count."
"Yeah see. Did you find it?"
"No. Wait let me count again."
I started to look around for the tape. The TV was placed at a distance from the wall. I tried to look into the gap to see if the tape had fallen behind it. There was something behind it. I couldn't quite retrieve it. I tried to use a stick lying near by. It was still too short. Finally I tried moving the whole TV. Raj too helped along. We found a small envelope instead.
The envelope was a little burnt at some places and the letter inside it was shredded into small pieces. The only words we could make out from those remaining pieces were someone's initials "J.K.K". There was something written after the last K but we could not understand what it was. On the top of the envelope was written " You found me". It gave me shivers somehow. It had an eerie vibe to it. I looked over at Raj and understood he too shared the same feelings as mine. I felt relieved somehow.
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We looked for a long time. We searched everywhere. From the attic to his bedroom to the drawers and every single place we had looked through twice. Still there was no sign of the sixteenth tape. I was both disappointed and tired. I knew we shouldn't waste anymore time but I genuinely did not have the energy to look through all of those tapes and not loose my mind.
Luckily Raj agreed to leaving the tapes for tomorrow. We didn't feel safe leaving them at Adam's house so I took them back with me.
Somehow I knew all those tapes weren't going to be as fun and light as the one we saw today. But the missing of Tape 16 still seemed too odd to me. I dropped Raj off at the cafe near by to avoid arousing anymore suspicions and was on my way home.
It was exactly 11:02 at night when a call came from the hospital. I picked it up expecting good news for once but what I heard left me even more disturbed.
Mr Sea had gone missing today in the morning. They had tried to contact both Raj and me but neither of us had picked up. Later he was found in the evening, lying on the bed of Room 23, dead.
Room 23? Wasn't that the room where Adam had been admitted? It all seemed to line up but somehow at the same time it made even less sense. Everything seemed too jumbled up. Like I was playing a game. A game where the people I loved were being used as bait and any wrong move I make or the more time I loose the more people I put at risk. The rest of the drive home was scary and full of grief. The only two people who really knew me were gone now and I didn't even get to say my last goodbye to either of them.
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YOU ARE READING
The Summer We Met
Teen Fiction"Its weird how two people can go from being strangers to best friends to enemies so quick. I mean its heartbreaking how easy it is to just move on. Isn't it?" "Yeah. But you missed something." "What?" "Its weird how two people can go from being stra...
