Battle Against Sphinx

Chapter - Fifteen

Julia

We broke the hug after a few minutes. All of us had tears . It’s been soo many years since we all met. Paxton was right , we were friends when we were the age of almost three or four.

“ Let’s sit down?” miles asked and we nodded. We went and sat down on the floor. We had been given some cut fruits and some weren’t even cut. “Wow, I really can’t believe this coincidence. Four childhood friends who got trapped almost 13 years after they were separated.” Zara said clapping her hands and that is when the rest of us realized something. “This surely cannot be a coincidence. There must be something.” Paxton said and them Zara too realized what he said.

“What is this?” miles asked as he pulled a paper from beneath the fruit basket. “It’s a photograph. Oh my god” he exclaimed and his hands left the paper to fall. I picked it up and saw that it was a photograph which had the biggest secret of our lives. “Does this mean we did it together?” I asked waving the paper at all of them . They nodded. “Maybe. We were too young to remember the details though.” Miles said.

It was dark . The younger version of all four of us were standing there. Near a cliff on a mountain or maybe a hill. It was full of greenery . It must have been time of twilight. Not completely dark yet. The boy was standing on the cliff about to fall. One of us was pushing him . Miles probably , and the other of us were standing with our backs facing the camera. Wait….

“Does it mean someone saw us while this happened? Maybe someone was there and he is the one who is torturing us here?” Paxton kept asking questions both to us and himself. “ No, look. This isn’t a real photograph. It’s a photo shopped one. They have merged all the pieces to their convenience. I don’t know if there was anyone present during the crime but this is for sure that they did not have a camera and they didn’t click any pictures of it” I said and they gave out a sigh of relief.

“Now I’m sure whoever this person is , he wants revenge on us.” Miles said and we agreed. “But whoever he is we can’t deal with him until we meet him or see him .” “ Or if we know his weakness” Zara said and we nodded. “Lets not think about him now. Let’s sleep and relax.” Paxton said and went up to the bunker bed. He climbed up and slept. “I’ll let you two talk it out” Zara said and went to the bed to sleep.

“So?” I asked him and he asked me the same. “So…” he said. We played this so and so game for a while and then giggled. “How have you been ? I mean before we got trapped here” miles said. It was true that we all knew how we were once we are in here.

“Good. I loved in Los Angeles. It was , is a nice place” I said correcting myself. “What about you?” I asked him “Been good. You know all the time I would say stuff like solo travelling and soul searching. I was able to finally do all those. Of course only after reaching 13 years. I mean my adopted parents were lenient that way.” He said.

We spoke for some more time about the stuff we like , our friends , our biological and adoptive parents and so on. Then we felt sleepy so we went back to the bunker bed.

As soon as I felt my back touch the bed sleep took over me.

Dream

It was dark. I felt like I was teleported or time travelled to the same place. But this time I wasn’t alone. I had my brother Julian, my friends paxty and Zara . We were back again at the cliff. He was standing there.

“Kiddos , look that’s the evening star. It’s called Venus . It is a planet next to earth.” He said. “Oh wow” we all said .

He had made all the four of us stand behind and he was standing on the cliff. I motioned Julian to go ahead. He nodded and then went near and nearer to him slowly. Step by step. My heart started racing. He stopped and looked behind. Paxty nodded and whispered to go ahead. I know Julian couldn’t hear him say it but it was obvious.

“Kiddos, look a shooting star” he said pointing towards it. “Come on , make a wish soon before it goes off” he said hurriedly. I saw the start and wished. Let us be successful in the crime we are about to commit today.

And then Julian took a big step and then one , two and three. “Ahhhhhhhhhhh…………”

He fell. He fell. He fell……..

I woke up with sweat dripping all over my face. Another nightmare. But this one was more vivid of the events that took place that day.