Echoes of Yesterday

Part 30 - Coffin of Nightmares

The room went still, the air thick with Maya's chilling words. 

Officer Harris leaned forward, his voice tight with controlled anger.

"Where are they right now, Maya?"Her expression was serene, almost serene, as if she was sharing a trivial fact. 

"In coffins," she replied, her voice eerily calm. 

The words hung in the air like a slow-motion horror, pressing down on us with an unbearable weight. 

Eric and I shared a look, confusion tightening my chest as I struggled to comprehend her meaning. Before anyone could speak, Maya's voice cut through the silence once more.

"Yes," she repeated, a cold smile creeping onto her face. "In coffins. Buried alive. Beneath my resort."

The floor seemed to tilt beneath me, my pulse roaring in my ears. 

I felt Eric's hand tighten around mine, his fingers trembling with fear and rage.

"They were alive last night," Maya continued, the satisfaction in her tone twisting into something monstrous. "But by now..." Her voice trailed off, the unspoken truth slicing through us like a blade.

Eric's face drained of color, and I felt a surge of terror course through me. 

We had been upstairs, laughing, sharing moments of happiness—completely oblivious to the fact that Tristan and Sarah were entombed beneath us, fighting for air.

Officer Harris was the first to snap into action. "We have no time to waste!" he barked, motioning for us to move. 

"Maya will stay here with the officers. Let's get to the resort. Now."Without another word, we bolted out of the room, Eric and I running side-by-side, the urgency pulsating through our veins.

 As we climbed into Eric's car, the realization hit like a punch to the gut—every second mattered.

 We tore through the streets, the landscape blurring past, a singular purpose driving us forward.

We reached the resort, and in a heartbeat, we were racing across the grounds, Harris and his team already coordinating the search. Flashlights pierced the dusk, illuminating the vast land around us.

Every second stretched, a torturous reminder that Tristan and Sarah could be slipping further into darkness."Over here!" an officer shouted, pointing to a recently disturbed patch of earth.

With grim efficiency, shovels were brought in, hands working frantically to unearth what lay below. I held my breath, each scrape of metal against dirt like a countdown. Eric was beside me, his face stricken but resolute.

The moment the first edge of the coffin appeared, a surge of desperate hope rose in my chest.

 The officers pried it open, and there, pale but breathing, lay Tristan and Sarah. Relief washed over us, the horror momentarily giving way to gratitude.

"We need to get them to the hospital," Harris said, his voice steady but urgent. "Let's see if Sarah and Tristan can make a full recovery. And then...we'll handle Maya." 

We nodded, the weight of the ordeal pressing down but a fierce determination propelling us forward. The nightmare wasn't over, but we had them back. And that was the start of a new fight, one we would see through to the very end.

The drive to the hospital was filled with a tense silence, the weight of everything sinking in. The flashing red and blue lights painted the road in vivid colors, but all I could focus on was the sight of Tristan and Sarah in the ambulance, both clinging to life.