I am staying with a towel wrapped around me for minutes, which seem like hours, just staring at the ceiling.
I finally decide to dress up, but then I remember that all of my stuff is in the other room. I put on my t-shirt, the only thing that wasn’t destroyed. I am lucky it reached two fingers under my butt, and that it is pretty large. As I can’t face Lucas, I jump on the bed and hear that sound again.
As I am bored as hell and very curious, I stand and lift the mattress with a strength that I didn’t know I had. I raise an eyebrow and shudder at the sight of a chest with bloody fingerprints all over the broken lock.
My heartbeats intensifies as my shaking fingers get closer to it because, of course, my curiosity gets the worst of me and makes me open it.
I almost shut it closed, seeing what it contained. I try to stop myself from doing that by closing my eyes, taking a deep breath, and working up the nerve to look inside it.
A warning signal lights up in my mind to stop me from exploring further, but I ignore it, even though I know I will regret it. My curiosity always prevails over the fear of the unknown.
I open my eyes and look at a small suitcase from inside the chest, containing many empty syringes and containers. Then I get my sight on what truly made me sick: a lot of photos with almost naked and full of blood girls that are most probably… dead. I can’t see any trace of life in their wide-open eyes.
Just a colourless abyss forever lost.
I take the pictures in my trembling hands. Under them, I find a lot of bloody lingerie, and I’m sure they belong to thevictims. I tremble just by thinking about that. Who the hell could do such a sadistic act? My mind goes to Lucas and the dark-eyed person from my dream.
Who do I need to trust? My eyes get full of tears of fear, and I feel my bottom lip trembling.
Whose is this room? Clearly not mine. Something tells me it was neither Lucas’s nor Blake’s.
Oh my God! Blake! With all the fucked-up stories and our lust, I totally forgot about him! We need to find Blake and figure out a way to get that dangerous device off his chest.
I hope he’s ok. I won’t forgive myself if he isn’t, even though I don’t know him. Or at least, I don’t remember I do.
I get startled by the door opening, but I calm down when I see Lucas. His eyes go wide when he looks at what I have in my hands. He squats next to me and takes the photos. He then looks at the chest, and I can see him turning paler.He gulps and looks at both the pictures and the lingerie. His hands are shaking while he hands me one of the photos and shows me a piece of lingerie.
They are identical.
The same white model with yellow flowers hidden under the same stains of blood.
Tears begin to stream heavily down my face. I get my knees to my chest and put my chin on them, unable to keep looking at those disastrous objects from inside the chest. The situation just got way worse, and the ideas in my head only grew darker.
I follow Lucas putting back the photos, closing the chest, and rearranging the mattress. All faster than I anticipated. I suddenly feel his touch on my shoulder and tremble again.
“You don’t think I did this, do you?” he asks me seriously.
I slowly raise my head to look at him, and I can see the fear in his eyes. I shake my head because I don’t think he is responsible for this.
“I don’t know what to believe anymore, Lucas, but I can really feel you didn’t do this,” I answer him with honesty, already feeling exhausted. “First Blake and then the chest… God, could this town get any scarier?”
We both flinch when we hear a strong noise coming from the window. We look towards it and see a hawk with a string around its neck and something that appears to be a small bottle hanging onto it. The hawk knocks on the window, and it seems like he is looking directly at us through the soft curtains.
Is there a witch who lost her bird, or is somebody screwing with us?
Probably none of the above.
Lucas looks at me and whispers to me to stay put.
He doesn’t have to tell me twice.
He gets up and approaches the window. He slowly opens it, trying to hold it because of the strong wind from outside, remaining one step away from the window. The hawk bows before him, pointing to Lucas that he has to take the bottle.
I still can’t process what is going on. I’m too shocked because an animal appeared at our window in the middle of the storm. I’m feeling like I am in the middle of a horror movie. I’m 100% sure the vibes and elements are from one.
Maybe worse, because this is the reality we are living in.
I watch Lucas while he tries to take the rope from around the hawk’s neck with one hand. After he succeeded, the hawk immediately flew through the storm, and Lucas closed the window. He comes beside me with his eyes still on the bottle, and I can see that inside it is a small piece of paper.
