THE TRIP

Ch 6- Day 2 (part 1)

"Why is that window open??" Angy screamed at the top of her voice. The sleepy me sat up in utter confusion. With my sleepy naked eyes, I started to look in every directions possible. "What window, which window, when window!!??" I fumbled for my specs as I kept on asking all sorts of irrelevant questions to others.
"The window beside the washroom." Vas said in a mocking tone, handing me the my specs. I thanked her for helping me out in finding the specs and wore it. I looked up to see the window beside the washroom and visibly turned pale.
"B-b-but I did close it before going to sleep" my mouth dried up. I tried to swallow the lump that formed in my throat. 'That means somebody was really here last night' my thoughts were interrupted with a "Yeah! She did lock it! I know! I was beside her when she was locking it!" Mani was trying to save me from the scoldings which I was about to recieve from others.
I drank a sip of water from my water bottle. 'Calm down, Calm down' I kept on chanting to myself. "Then how did the window open!?" Mayu charged Mani. "Let her at least fresh up" Ashme saved me and Mani from all the accusations the others were heaping on the two of us. Angy was the only one quite in the whole episode of commotion. It seemed as if she was submerged into deep thoughts.
It was 8:30 am when I was out of the washroom,  fresh and lively. Everyone had forgiven my 'MISTAKE' and we were helping ourselves with the heavy breakfast served on the table. I texted my mom about our plans for that day and she promised me that she would call me later when she would be free from her daily chores.
It was a 'Cheat Day',so we were just supposed laze around the whole day doing nothing productive. After breakfast we did some weird odd errands and played games like jumping off from the bed, blowing air into someone's ears, blowing a huge blow over someone's back, laughing like a lunatic (practically this was only me) ,etc.
It was 9:45am (maybe) when my mom, as promised, and Vas's sister called up. We took our phones and recieved the call. We kept the distance from the other four hulligans who were hooting like animals. Giving brief updates and keeping back the night part I tried my best to keep my tone lit up and give satisfactory replies to my mom when she asked,"How's the place, your aunt had called up last night, she said that it's reputedly haunted area!".
"Y- y- yes! No-No-No, what rubbish mom!It's an absolute bluff." I tried to mock her after keeping myself calm. "Okay! Take care baby. Will call you up later at night. Enjoy kid." Mom ended the call and I was searching for something to support myself. 'Reputedly Haunted' the words kept on ringing in my ears.
After I cut the call I felt a soft nudge at the curve of my waist. Looking up I saw Angy eyeing me to get out. I looked at my wrist watch, it was 10:15am already. I slipped out of the room where the other four were cracking lame jokes and laughing. I ran up to Angy who was intently texting someone. Keeping my phone in the pocket of my jeans, I told her,"I think we should explore that part of the forest there" it actually wasn't a forest though.
She locked her phone and held my hand,"Girl" she said, she gave an intense look "I think that's risky, there is something in here. Last night I felt, somebody looking at me intently. At first I thought it was someone from the four of you. Waking up in the morning, before you woke up I asked everyone, and you know what, everyone denied!" She looked absolutely scared shit. I just replied her with a brief "Mayu had felt the same last night" "She was the one who said that you hadn't woken up last night" Angy seconded. I was absolutely sure something had entered into our room last night.
We walked along , sometime chatting, sometime humming an offtune song, and sometime pointing out who ate more and who slept more She was getting me angry and we landed up arguing about that topic. I was about to spit a 'Go to hell Ang' but came to an abrupt stop with "Go to -"
My face had turned pale. "What is it?" Angy grew concerned. "There is a dip in temperature. I can feel it." I blurted out. "Impossible. We are already running at a 24⁰C, how less -" she stopped and coughed. By the time she had brought the phone's screen into light and it depicted 12⁰C clearly over the phone.
The cold weather cut right through my flesh directly into the bones while my teeth had started to clatter.It seemed as if the sweater which we were wearing weren't enough. "Nobody should know this, did you get that Ang?" I scolded her. She noded in approval.
"Who are you?" a musical voice called me out from the backyard of the hotel. "Is anybody here?" I asked looking dumbly into a tree.
There, from the forest came out a little girl of maybe six. "Who are you?" she asked me again. "Hi sweety!" I tried to be nice with the kid "I am Sam and she's Angy". She craned her neck to see Angy from over my shoulder. "I think we should go back Sam. You don't know this kid. How much do you trust her?" Angy called me back from behind.
She clearly didn't want to be friends with the kid. In my subconscious mind, I had moved up a lot ahead than her towards the little girl. It seemed as if she was pulling me with some unknown superpower. "No, we can't! I need to see what's there in here." and I requested Angy to accompany me.
The girl turned and started to walk away into the forest. Pursuing Angy to accompany me, we got a little more deep into the forest and lost the girl but found ourselves beside a pool. The temperature in the phone's screen depicted 8⁰C. We both were visibly shivering. Ashme nudged me again "There" she whispered.
I looked and saw a grand temple. It had the deity of Lord Shiva. Somethingmade me look back towardsthe pool. The girl was very close to me.I started to have serious breathing problems. I felt like my lungs might just collapse her. All over again I felt a wave of sadness brush through me.
"We must go back" I suggested "NOW!" I screamed at Angy who's face visibly lit up at this suggestion. I had already started to run after commanding her and she followed me with a great speed and we reached to the door of our room in no time. We found the others still cracking lame jokes. We both were sweating with the 300m (approx) long run.
I could never explain to anyone that how close I had been to the otherworldly people. I was absolutely speechless. I believe that we both are safe today because I hadn't triggered that otherworldly entity enough to attack us.
Four things were clear to me -
●Firstly, this wasn't a hotel. It was a house, a big palatial house.
●Secondly, there's definitely something in here which isn't happy about our arrival.
●Thirdly, this is obviously an unknown history related to this house, which we would never be able to unravel.
●Fourthly, we six, rather everyone present here, in this Hotel Laura were in deep trouble. If they came to know about our fear, we wouldn't be able to get back to our homes, because i was well aware of the fact that spirits feed on fear.