A Beautiful Delusion

Chapter 4 - Memory Box

Leo POV

'Leo...' aunt called me over phone, I broke down as tears brimmed through my eyes. I hand over the phone to Josh.
Concern was written on his face as he took the phone.

'Yes mom'
'Oh...okay, we'll be there early'
'Okay...okay bye, goodnight'
He hung up and came to me caressing my shoulder.
My sobs slowed down as the song ended.

'What's wrong?' Josh asked me.

'That song was playing' I replied

'What song Leo?' he asked me again. I took a deep breath wiping my tears.

'You remember that song Tiffany once played when you and Ailee were here for night stay, our family song' there's no way he would'nt remembered it.

'How could I forget that day, you were hearing that song just now?' I nodded and he sighed understanding why I reacted like that.

'Wanna check her room?' He asked me after a deep silence.
He's insane.

I looked at him in disbelief
'For real! You're asking me this?' I huffed.

'Yes for real' He said casually and dragged me with him.

'You're insane Joshua Hong'

'And you're a coward Leo Smith, it's time for you to fight with your fear' he said, still dragging me towards stairs.

'You're saying this because you haven't experienced the things I am experiencing right now' I tried to call him out.

'Whatever' he ignored my argument and now we were standing in front of Fanny's room. He opened the door and pushed me in, I panicked and tried to escape but he closed the door and stand in front of it.

'Look around, do you see anything wrong? No, right' He asked and answered on his own. Then why on earth am I here?

'Stop spacing out Leo, let's check gramophone' he said and went to check that trash.

'Hmm.. there's no record placed here then how on earth it's playing.' he kept saying nonsense about things that I had no interest in so I walked out of room.

'LEO!!' Josh screamed. I rushed to the room and found him sitting on floor with a box.

'You scared the shit out of me' I said hitting on his head.

'Shut up and look what I found' he said with enthusiasm.
It was a box full of our childhood pictures and memories. Wow we found a treasure. We took the box to my room. Everything was in there, our photo album, all the small stupid cards we made for each other when we were young wishing friendship day, Christmas, Halloween wait who does give greeting cards on Halloween, we surely were crazy. There were some Polaroid cameras and a handycam.

'Josh!!!!!!!!!!!' I screeched like a teen Highschool girl whose crush made a eye contact with her.
'IT'S A HANDYCAM' Josh looked over it and screeched along with me as we knew what was in there.
'Ooo~~~~~ let's watch it' he said in excitement. I took out the sd card and attached it to my laptop.We played the first video.
There were many people in a bus singing songs, I screamed my lungs out when someone threw a fake lizard on my face. Josh laughed out loud while filming all the mess. Everyone started teasing me.

Josh laughed while watching that video.
'Look at you, still a cowardy cat'

I sulked.
'Stop sulking' he said and started laughing like a dying goat. I played next video.
We were in a convenience store at a gas station. Josh was recording it again, I and Ailee were walking, taking whole lot of different snacks for the trip.
'Do something guys, I'm getting bored' Josh said.
'We're not here for your entertainment Josh' Ailee told him.
'Oh, c'mon guys, let's play something......let's play Rock paper scissor, loser will dance in front of everyone out there' he said pointing at main entrance of convenience store.
'Fine' Ailee gave in. Seriously?
They looked at me.
'FINE' Both of them smiled.
'ROCK PAPER SCISSOR' Ailee chanted.
I drew rock, Ailee drew a rock too. When we looked down to Josh's hand it was a scissor.
'SHIT' Josh regretted his life choices. Lmao.
'YEAAAHHHHH!!!' Ailee and I celebrated.
'Josh time for action' I told Josh.
'No' he denied.
'Mr. Hong, it was your idea to play and now you gotta finish your punishment.. GUYSS, JOSH HAS SOMETHING TO SHOW' She called our other classmates. It's fun.
'No~~, guys don't do this to me pleaseeeee' He pleaded. Ailee and I looked at each other, evil grin plastered on our face. We dragged Josh towards entrance as he tried to get out of our grip.
All of our classmates were gathered around, I took the handycam and Ailee played some Shakira song. Joshua's face was all red because of embarrassment.

'Josh we're not letting you go until you dance' Ailee warned him. He glared at us, okay.. we're gonna get murdered later.
He sighed and moved his body to the song. He tried to do some belly dance move but to his bad everything moved except his belly. Everyone laughed at him.

It was my turn to laugh, Josh was red as tomato.
'Jokes on you Josh, look at you' I started laughing rolling on my bed.
'Stop it!!' Josh exclaimed hitting my head.
He played a random video in annoyance.
'Hey look at this' Josh said as if he found something every interesting. I looked over. It was a video of us playing Ouija Board.

We were in a Hotel room, Joshua took out his Ouija Board, everyone else seemed nervous, some were gulping and some were excited for some reason.
'Guys is it really necessary for everyone to stay here' I asked, handling the camera.
'Yes it is! I don't want anyone to get possessed, It's really dangerous' Joshua said. I knew he was just messing around and everyone doesn't need to join in but I gave in anyways.
'We need to hold this pin so Leo place your Handycam where everything is visible'. I got up and placed it on a table.
Everyone settled down forming a circle.
'Okay...everyone place your index finger on this pin' we followed his lead and did what he asked for.
'Remember, nobody is allowed to take their fingers back until I tell you to, don't say anything in between and concentrate.' All of us nodded.
He started mumbling something and all of focused on I don't know what.
'Is there someone with us here?' he asked.
The pin didn't move.

'Is there any spirit with us in this room?' all of us gulped when the pin moved and paused on 'YES'. We looked at each other but continued anyways.

'Who are you?' again pin moved pausing on different letters.
'S' pin moved
'O' it moved again
'F' it's a name I thought in my head still remembering what was in my head that time.
'I' it moved to the last alphabet...
'A'
Sofia.....

'Sofia, when did you died?' why does he need to know when did she died...Damn you Joshua.
The pin moved furiously, all of us flinched.
'NO' Joshua said as we looked at the board. It said 'NO'.
'What does that even mean? NO? So she didn't die or she doesn't want us to know?' one of our friend asked.

'I'm sure someone is messing around, guys it's not a joke don't play with it' Ailee said

'I agree, or why would a spirit will deny that it didn't die?' I added.

'Joshua can we wrap it up quickly, it's making me sick' Ailee asked him

He calmly breathed but some of the guys removed their fingers.

Video stopped. We sighed.

'Leo, we didn't finish the game that day. Should we finish it today?' Joshua asked.

'I don't think that's a good idea' I replied honestly.

'Think about it Leo, maybe everything that's happening with you is related to that day?' he said making a point. I almost gave in.

'But Josh it's just us, I mean can we do this when someone else is with us'

'You're right' he agreed and gave up.
'But hey, Ailee is coming' he added making me jump.

'What!! For real!' I exclaimed.

'Yes, mom called me that time to inform that she's arriving tomorrow. We have to fetch her' he told me in excitement.

'Wow, it's been a long time since we hung out together' he nodded.
We talked about random stuffs and drifted to sleep.

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Author's Note:

How was the chapter guys? Please tell me in comment section. Don't be a silent reader.
This is the first time I didn't left on a cliffhanger.
And also Thank you for 500+ reads. It means alot❤️