Decode Or Die

Chapter 3

Chapter 3

I get up from the floor. I take my phone and want to call mom or dad or maybe Blake.  I have zero clues on what to expect. My phone dings and brightens.

Don't ignore me.

Unless you don't want to know who's next.

For real this time.

My hands shake violently.

What do you want?

Revenge.

Please tell me who's next?

What I am you don't know yet

I am something all the lights hate.

I don't get it.

My bell rings off. I keep my phone on the table and look through the peep hole. My chest lightens from relief. I open the door and mom comes in with bags of grocery.

“Baby Trice, I've got a good news!” mom exclaims. Often she makes me feel like a little kid.

“What's it?” I try to exclaim too but my voice is broken.

Mom is excited about something that she doesn't notice my drained expression.  

“Melissa is coming in the next flight.” she rejoices.

Well, that's a good news indeed. But I don't feel so happy like I did last time. Melissa is my cousin, mom’s niece. Although she is few years older than me, I feel the most comfortable around her, after Blake, of course.

She lives in Cuba for her business, yeah you read that right. She is an established business woman and is actually famous for her accountancy advices.  She has a five year old son, who is as glorious as his mother.

She comes once a year, this time it's a bit of surprise.

“What did you say mom? Next flight?” I ask again.

“Yeah darling, I hope you won't mind sharing your room with her for tonight. We haven't fixed the guest room yet.”

“Its okay, mom.” I say and to avoid further conversation I grab a pack of doritos and run back to my room.

My phone dings again:

Unknown :

Close your eyes and try to see

Maybe then you can guess me

I try to think. Is it a code? Is he indicating someone or some specific time?  Who is next actually?  I have to decode this. I sink my head in my knees and think. My thoughts go haywire and I don't have a single hypothesis.

                       *****

I lay on my belly as Melissa talks about her new post and how it gets a bit rough to manage Dylan when she has to work extra on weekend. I wonder what a brave and bold person she is, especially given the fact that her husband left her for a Mexican woman two years ago, never looked back.

“You look exhausted. Is everything alright?” she asks.

“Yeah.” I answer shortly.

“Should I consider that you are sick?”

“I am not sick.”

“Is it your job? Or you like someone who doesn't like you back?”

I giggle, “The person I love also loves me back.”

“Wow congratulations”, she shifts to another pillow, “So who's it?”

I open a picture of Blake in my mobile and show it to her, “Blake Kingston.”

“He is.. dashing”, she says.

“Yeah”, I say.

“But something is wrong. What happened?” her voice grows so soft that I fight back tears.

Then I say it all. Everything from the severed brake to the texts I got including the attack on Blake. I blurt out how I think somebody is in danger and the only way to protect them is to decode the poem.

She listens so silently that I think that she has fallen asleep. Then she nods and fidgets.

“Show me the texts,” she finally says.

I give my phone where the four lines are glistening :

“What I am you don't know yet

I am something all the lights hate.

Close your eyes and try to see

Maybe than you can guess me”

“All the lights hate,” she murmurs. She thinks and frowns when nothing comes up.

“Close your eyes and try to see,” I repeat. Melissa closes her eyes as if there's actually something beneath her eyes.

“Oh my God! I think I know it!” she almost jumps in my bed.

“What?” my heart flutters with terror and realisation at the same time.

“Its what we see when we close our eyes. We see black!”

“Black? The color black?” I ask, confused.

“Hell yeah, Bea! This is also what all the lights hate. Black absorbs lights.” she howls in excitement.

I sit up beside her, “Wow that's great. But black what? A box? A clothe? A person with a black skin?”

She shakes her head, “I don't know.”

“Does this poem actually indicate something?”

“I think so.” she says.

I scoff and mom calls us from downstairs for dinner. She sighs and lets my phone rest on the sheet. I nod in approval and follow her to the dining table, putting the phone in a pocket of my pajama.

Mom has cooked roasted chicken and subs today, Melissa’s favorite. Her son, Dylan is sitting beside dad, he is very fond of his “Papaw”.

We help each other serve the subs and salads when my phone receives a text. We are not allowed to check our phones on table so I resist my urge to check it. It's easier now because all of my beloved ones except one is here.

I join the cheerful conversation where dad describes his first day with Dylan when Dylan was in his crib and didn't even look at papaw. Dylan was chuckling as dad tickled him a bit.

I finish my dinner in peace and discreetly make my way and gestures Melissa to follow me. Mom and dad are so busy with Dylan that we pass unnoticed.

I run to my room and check the text:

Unknown :

To me all the colours

Lost the game

Follow not the spelling,

Pronounce my name.

“What does it say?” Melissa comes in.

I read it to her. She stares blankly, “We are right. It indicates black. Black swallows every colour.”

I say in a crumpled voice, “And the last line? What does it mean?”

She gazes up and down, repeatedly saying, “Black, black. Pronounce the name…. follow not the spelling…  black”

I grasp for air and fall in my bed, “Melissa!”

She looks at me, “Yes?”

I speak but my voice is on the verge of tear, “It's not black”, I groan, “It's Blake.”