When The World Turned Purple

Anna Chapter 1

“It's these purple spots on his face that are worrying me Anna bachay. The coughing was manageable. But now that he has them he's been spitting up blood too and … I … I haven't been able to think of much else.”Khan's aged face had contracted into itself with worry.

“Where is your boy now? Have you taken him to a hospital?”

There was a bump in the road and as the jeep's tires sank into the inclination, we were both jolted out of our seats and I clutched on to the jeep's holding bar for dear life before we settled back in again and the ride became slightly smoother.

Khan on the other hand remained unaffected and continued his son's story, pausing only to forcibly place his foot on the race to get the vehicle traveling further up the steep slope.

“There's a relief camp by our village, I've sent him there with his brothers but the government doctors have no idea what to do with the infected. Baji, at this point I don't even know what's going to become of the boy.”

We were traveling up a sharp slope and the mud road always gave me jitters. I wondered for the millionth time why father had chosen such a secluded location to retire too.

The sun was slowly sinking and the sky had already turned a misty purple, I could already feel the valley's air start to cool, and imagined it would be night before I even had time to settle in. The mud road was narrow, with the mountain on my side and pine trees on Khan's. I was sure there was a swift fall beyond the tree cover, envisioning it made me sick immediately. The valley father had chosen was exquisite of course, but I imagined I would never get used to it.

“And so you haven't heard from my Father Khan? And you haven't been up here in a week?”

Khan shook his head, his heavy white beard flicking around with him, "No Baji, Usman made a run up last week, the sahib told my boy he was leaving and wouldn't be needing his usual groceries.”

“And he didn't tell you where he was headed?”

“No baji, but you can ask him yourself today. The boys spied a jeep winding up the mud road a few hours before you arrived, before the sun started setting around asar, they told me it might have been the sahib back from his trip.”

I nodded as we neared our destination by rounding a sharp bend, the Safed Kothi, a modest sized yet daunting white painted house; was a Gift form Mehmet and I upon my Father's retirement when he told us he wanted to move out of city and into the hilly side of the country, away from the heat and the sounds of urbanity.

The safed Kothi centered the top of the hill and had once been home to a wealthy farmer who sold it to us through a mutual acquaintance of Mehmet's. It was far enough from the nearing villages to be private and peaceful and it was near enough to get help to him if he needed any.

“Here we are Baji." Khan pulled the ignition at the Kothi's first stop, a shabby barn, (or what was left of it) smack in the middle of the road blocking the entrance to the main gardens and house, now its only purpose was to function as a gate.

Grabbing my bag and my hunting rifle I jumped down from the jeep and smiled around at Khan, my hiking boots coming in contact with the mud giving me a sense of the steep incline that was waiting for Khan as he rounded the Kothi to get back down the hill, I had been here several times but was still getting my bearings, "Thank you for driving me.”

“It's always an honor to be working for Shah Sahib's daughter, he's done a great service to the country, we're all so happy to be in his company.”

I nodded. My Father was a popular man so to say, and his fast paced and publicized life was one of the reasons we had agreed to letting him retire so far away from the both of us, “Will you send one of your sons up with the rest of my luggage and food? Father will want something to eat, and frankly so will I.”

He grinned this time, showing all his miraculously white teeth and said, spreading his mustache from ear to ear, "Of-course Anna bachay, anything for my daughter. If you have the time, come by our little house I can show you the apple garden. The harvest has been good this year, it"s a pity the sahib couldn't come by this time for the picking, the villagers are always happy to have him at the festival.”

“I’ll make sure he comes down to the valley,” I told Khan, slinging my bag over my left shoulder and the gun on the left, and pulled up my hair in a bun before I started walking towards the gates of the barn, which I imagined had been opened by father.

As soon as I stepped out of it the kothi itself came into sight. Standing tall and beautifully white surrounded my father’s flower gardens and the swings he'd had set up last year for the villagers children who came to visit him from time to time. The fences around the property were still standing and thankfully so because my father had never been a hunter. There was a jeep standing in the parking as Khan had informed me but it didn't look like any I had seen father driving before, maybe Mehmet had gotten him a new one.

My phone started buzzing immediately and when I pulled it out of my jacket pocket, I found a text from Mehmet now that the Wi-Fi had been connected.

Going in for a meeting with the pharma dept. Call me in half an hour. I’d like to give Father a piece of my mind. I’ll give you the details then.

-M

I smiled to myself as I jogged the rest of the way to the buildings main door and rang the bell. The cause of my father's fame was the Nobel Prize he'd won for the country in the field of biology. We were a small state and a distinction of the sort wasn't taken lightly. He was a hero.

No one answered the door, so I rang the bell again thinking maybe he was asleep and hadn't heard it, the sky was almost completely dark now, and I began to wonder.

When a minute passed by I decided to try knocking on the door but to my surprise found it open. Furrowing my eyebrows I stepped inside, finding that a draft had settled inside the Kothi and the heating had been turned off. The door immediately connected to the large drawing room and by extension the library, both of which were uncharacteristically quiet. There wasn't a single book on the centering table and the sofas were unsoiled and covered with white sheets, the fireplace was shut and clean. I felt fear make its way up my spine and doubt started to settle in.

Father would have turned on the heating. Father was never asleep when the sun was setting, he was afraid of the magrib time, and could always be found making himself tea and settling down in front of the fire because his bones ached and his doctor didn’t want him out when the fog started forming in the valley.

I tried calming myself and called out to him, running into the connected kitchen and turned on the lights only to find it empty and sparkling, missing fathers dirty tea cup and pot. “Father?” I was met by only silence.

Where could he be? I thought, as I jogged around the rooms for a double check, before I checked the floors bathrooms.

“Father?" I called out again. I was starting to get anxious. If he wasn't here than what was a jeep doing in the parking? I stood for a second in the drawing room letting fear wash over me before I decided he was probably in one of the bedrooms above.

Cursing myself for not thinking of it sooner I started climbing the stairs, that was when I heard the sound of metal grinding on the floor of the terrace, someone was moving mothers rusty metal cupboard.

I immediately relaxed, he hadn't been able to answer because he was upstairs doing something he probably shouldn't be in the cold. He had a bad habit of wanting to do his work without help. I supposed he had decided that the terrace needed some cleaning and didn't want to wait for the maid to make her round tomorrow.

I started running up the stairs, trying to stay mindful of my steps because the polish had been the case of me falling and hurting myself a few times now despite my age, some things never do get old, Father and Mehmet had had a good laugh at my expense.

I wouldn't have stopped if I hadn't spotted his feet on the floor of his bedroom as my head came up to level with the landing.

The Kothi was an old building, and while we'd had it furnished nicely, it still appeared ancient. The building’s architecture could not be changed and that was why it appeared so, one room opened into the other, the walls were thick, the windows were big, the rooms were airy and the doors didn’t have locks on them.

My heard threatened to stop beating as I flung open the aged door and came face to face with the sight that would haunt me my entire life.

Father was lying on the floor, naked and covered only by a white cloth around his torso, his left arm had five neat cuts, his eyes were closed and his knobby body, knotting now because of the cold was slightly purple and surrounded by five pools of blood.

Someone had written sinner on the wall of the room and I realized as vomit rose up my throat, that nobody dotted they're I's with swirls like father did. I could hear a soft whispering sound coming from somewhere but I couldn't see anyone. My mind refused to comprehend anything, and I didn’t know where I was anymore or what was happening.

God help me, I thought as my head started to spin and I came into contact with the door frame hitting my shoulder and stumbling out of the room in hope of not vomiting on his body. As I walked away I felt the whispering become distant and tried pushing open the door of Mehmet's room beside his.

I was too shocked to cry and before I made it to the bathroom I tripped on my feet and landed on the floor painfully, head first.

When I touched my forehead I realized it was bleeding. As I struggled to stand up my eyes landed on Mehmet's night stand and spotted a picture of Father, him and I on company's inauguration day. It had been taken in Boston in front of Shah Biotech's very first laboratory, father was looking smart in a suit and was clapping along with some of our closest friends and his dear colleagues, Dr. Sokolov and Dr. Osborne, the men who had won the Nobel Prize alongside him.

I remembered that evening very well. The transgenic cotton variety that I and Mehmet had patented had given made us enough capital to start up a little lab and office of our own. Things kicked off for the two of us after that, and the hard work paid off, the company grew as likeminded individuals started joining us from across the globe and we branched off into several units, working in areas both clinical and agricultural, but I was always sure it was Fathers blessings that had gotten us where we were.

I stayed on the floor shivering and watched a small amount of blood pool around my head, it was in that moment that the tears came and it finally registered in my mind that I had just been orphaned again, only this time in the most horrifying way possible.

I cried quietly, watching my tears mix with the blood from my forehead and would have stayed there and bled out if it wasn't for the audible sound of footsteps coming down from the terrace and landing on the first floor.

I immediately hushed, my eyes widened in shock once again.

The door to Father's room creaked and someone stepped inside, they were still for a long moment before they started padding around the room, the footsteps were heavy; someone was clearly looking around at the scene.

I got up from the floor, swaying on my feet but as I tried balancing myself I was overcome with a sudden realization.

This person could be responsible for Father's death, this person could be the cause of all this madness.

Blinding anger shot through me as I realized I was still carrying my bag and gun and had failed to notice their existence in the frenzy. Quickly I removed the bag from my left shoulder and flung my rifle forward before I realized that it wasn't loaded and my heart sank.

What is the point of carrying an empty gun you fool? I asked myself. But I knew there was no point beating myself over it, the reason I hadn’t brought bullets was because they were in my larger case, and the only reason I was carrying the rifle was because it was easy to bring up.

The sun had fallen into the mountains and Mehmet's room had become dark. I stepped carefully closer to the door and realized the person on the other side was talking,

“He's dead as expected and his daughter is somewhere in the house along with Big Bobby. Tell Frankie to drive up here." The voice was authoritative, male and English, he seemed to be talking on the phone. My heart came into my mouth, there was someone else in the house as well? I should have asked Khan to come up with me. There was a pause, someone was probably saying something on the other line, the Irish man sighed,“By the looks of it yes, another suicide.”

Another? Suicide?

I was confused, before I remembered, the swirls that dotted the I's in sinner had been Father's. He'd written the message himself and so he'd done all this to himself as well.

I suddenly felt sick again, my Father was a happy man, studious and religious, loved and respected, why would he kill himself?

The answer was clear as day, he wouldn't. He'd never do something like that.

“Nobody's dragging the body anywhere Sam. It'll have to be here, send Frankie and do it fast, I have a few people I need to deal with before I can leave this place.”

I was restless already and felt powerless standing in a room mere inches away from a man who clearly knew something I didn't and wasn't thrilled about having me here. Grinding my teeth I decided to wing it and pretend the rifle was loaded.

I was out of the room in a second and before I knew it, was slamming open Father's room with my gun raised. "Freeze." I said, and closed the door behind me with my feet.

The man was holding a phone in one hand and a tape recorder in another, he was tall and was smartly dressed in a black coat over a neatly pressed black suit.

His hair was cropped short and fine and he didn't appear the least bit alarmed by my gun or by me. I could hear the eerie whispering again, soft and fast with urgency, it made my stomach coil into itself and I remembered where I was standing and felt my hands shake as I become frightened once again.

“Send Frankie immediately." He said into the phone and hung up before he pocketed it, saying nothing as he narrowed his gaze at me.

“Who the hell are you?" I asked and made a show of waving the gun at him.

He narrowed his eyes at me as he raised his hands, there was a pause as he scrutinized me.

“Run away." He said. His voice calm and ominous.

“What?”

“Run away and don't come back until we've gone. You don't want to be here right now, run while you still have time.”

My Father was dead on the floor and a stranger was parading around his house unaffected by his death or the horrifying circumstances it had occurred by. I placed my hand on the trigger and put on a determined face.“I asked you a question. Tell me who the hell you are and what you’re doing in my Father's house!”

His face remained for the most part, impassive, but there was something close to a grimace on it now, “I'm not the kind of man who answers questions.”

“Well you are today when I'm the one holding your life in my hands, now speak up!”

Something shifted on the terrace floor again and my knees started feeling weak.

“You’re not going to like what's coming." The man looked at me with a piercing gaze,“He's not here yet. You can still get away.”

Heavy footsteps started descending the stair case, the Irish man raised his eyebrows at me.

I wanted to hurl, I wanted to curl up in a ball and cry and for a split second I looked around at the big window and considering jumping down from it to escape but my eyes fell on my Father's miserable dead form again and I realized I couldn't run away to save my behind while strangers prodded his body and studied him like a lab rat. I was staying where I damn was.

“Calum?" Someone called out in an amused voice, an American accent this time, male and heavy. "Have you found the girl? I bet she's hiding in one of the washrooms, balling her eyes out. Maybe I'll take a look around for her, she might need some company.”

The footsteps moved about the hall for a bit, “Are you downstairs man? If you are, put on the kettle I'd like some coffee before the authorities arrive.”

The man was looking at me, we silently stared at each other before he sighed, and folded his arms,“In here.”

I spun around, just in time to see the door open.

“So this is where the two of you have been hiding out.”

I was greeted with a malicious grin, as a large bulky man entered the room. Big Bobby was tall like Calum but was twice in width and was wearing a zipped up brown jacket. I held up the rifle at him and he raised his arms,“Easy does it darling. I don't want to hurt you. Me and my friend here are just scientists, we've come such a long way to meet your daddy. It's such a shame we couldn't get here before the angel of death.”

They looked nothing like scientists. I placed my hand on the trigger and the large man laughed,“Now you're just being difficult. You won't like it when I'm being difficult darling.”

He advanced further and I took an involuntary step back, it was then that I heard the click of another gun, “Put the rifle away." Said Calum, I felt the muzzle of the gun come in contact with my head.

My heart sank as Big Bobby laughed harder and snatched the rifle out of my hand, making his way to fathers bed and seating himself,“This is a nice piece you know. Now, tell us about you." But then his phone started buzzing, he grinned at me,“I have to take this, it'll only be a minute.”