Illusions (Alt. Ending)

Chapter 09 (PRESENT)

ALESSANDRA'S POV

It took two more weeks when Theo and I finally completed the whole project successfully. Our exam schedules were also released in the last week of the month. And as Theo had said, exams were fixated to begin in the second week of the last month of spring, that's May.

The exam schedules were released a month before it happened. But that one month flew by in a blink of an eye. Most of the time I stayed busy writing the thesis for my experiment and preparing for the annuals. I barely talked to anyone. Ervin came by to check on me few times and we talked but otherwise I'd quarantined myself completely inside the dorm room till annuals.

The exams came and went well. A week later, right after the exams had finished, the vacation were starting. Everyone was busy in packing and busy in submitting their projects and theses. I had submitted my project on the very first given date of submission. And after that, I had a 'if you're looking for me, look in the library' description of my whereabouts in the campus. I wondered sitting in the library all day that if I could hide and read few records from that restricted section again and what penalties I'd to pay if I got caught.

With no parents, living with my aunt (mom's sister), I'm habituated with being on my own and loner, although my aunt's family never let me felt that I'm an odd one between them but spending secondary, senior secondary years and then pre-med years in the boarding schools, away from house had molded me into a loner. But that was until I came here and met Ervin, Vanessa and Kaiser.

Summer vacations lasted for two long months and during that time, the campus felt like an abandoned place. I, every year, prefer to stay here in the campus rather than going back. For not any particular reason, I just don't want to burden myself on my aunt anymore. She already had her hands full with her two kids.

Ervin and Vanessa, when knew about my decision, they started coming back to the campus within few weeks into the long vacation and we spent the summer together. Ervin had shortened his home visit into a week after that first year. And this year will be no different.

I thought I'd read every book this library had to offer but that includes, only books related to science. Other sections of history, politics and others doesn't interests me. But somehow right now I'd ended up having a tower of literature novels kept on my library table. I was shocked when I found a whole section filled with them with a variety of genres. I picked few psychological thrillers and murder thrillers.

I picked a book from the pile. The title read, The Unsolved Mystery of Room No 222.

I turned to the back of the book to look at the synopsis written on it.

It's a dark psychological thriller about a girl, Rose Holloway, who was forcefully admitted to a criminally insane asylum by her foster parents meets a man Graham McConnell, the psychiatrist in charge of her there and they eventually develop feelings for each other. But the story takes a dark turn when Rose finds out some spine chilling history of the cell she lived in the asylum. Room no. 222.

The synopsis interested me and I right away jumped in to read. While reading the book, I lost the sense of time and missed my lunch but that didn't bothered me much as the mysteries of that book did.

Finally around evening, I finished the whole book and stepped out from the library cracking my bones. My muscles & bones had gone numb from sitting in the library for straight eight hours.