Dead Nor Alive

#1

There was the distinct moldy and humid air in that store room. The yellow light hanging over their heads ominously was a little too befitting for the situation. There was pin-drop silence outside except the occasional barking sounds of some dogs.

Of-course they had been obsessing about it for months. Every preteen goes through that phase where the afterlife is a little too tempting, and incognito searches of how to perform a seance are a tad too frequent. But neither Trisha nor Sarah ever actually expected being presented with a real life opportunity like that.

So as they sat in the dusty storage room of the resort door closed, absolute silence between the two of them, hiding their hesitance with all their might and suppressing the fear that had almost taken total control of their body, the two girls tried to grasp as to how things had come to this.
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Trisha and Sarah were the kind of girls who made plans. Just made them, never executed any. So even though they always talked big it didn't take a genius to figure out it was all hollow. "You know we are so totally gonna see this through" and almost at that exact moment they both knew it wasn't really gonna happen.

So when on the school trip some kids from the class decided to perform a planchette, (and Trisha did not fail to promptly correct them that it is actually séance) they decided to pass, saying that it was too stupid an attempt and the fact that these kids didn't even know what it was called was a sure tell sign that they would fail.

'If only I had shut up!' Trisha thought to herself. Because now they had been challenged to perform it themselves if they were so confident about it. Now reading about supernatural phenomena in the school library and reading Goosebumps was a whole other thing. Sure the idea of encountering a real life ghost had seemed thrilling then. This current situation though, was nerve -racking and spine freezing to the very core.

Conducting a séance during the overnight school trip was like a tradition passed down through batches. There was no real evidence if anyone was ever actually successful, but there sure were a lot of legends regarding these schooltrip planchettes that were popular among the students.

So when the trip to Kanha National Park had been announced the discussions and murmurs had already started in the class. And then following into the footsteps of their seniors the current eighth graders had decided to uphold the tradition. But the responsibility falling solely on Trisha and Sarah's shoulders was totally their fault.

"We don't know who to summon" Trisha said when presented with the challenge. "You can go with the usual prospects... Martyrs, old family members.. Mr. Raheja our school founder, lots of options" and ofcourse Sharan had a solution ready. He would never miss an opportunity to trap Trisha. No one really knew what their rivalry was about but the guy surely had an agenda. And then at the exact moment Sarah's phone decided to beep. "Hey the hero from 'Love and Romance' apparently committed suicide!"
"Aha! How convenient. Then it wouldn't be hard to summon him would it? Since it is so recent..." Sharan suggested. That is when they realized there is no escape.

'If only I had kept my mouth shut' Sarah sighed.

"Did you say something?" Trisha asked hopefully.

"No no. Nothing we should get started... Unless you don't want to."

"No I'm this is ermm exciting. Not scared are you?"

"Not at all... Let's start"