Cross My Mind

MILA'S TRUTH PART 1

Garba and Fred watched as the man bled and died helplessly in the cave.

“This man is crazy, he thinks that the game is reality, he has killed fifteen players trying to prove that to himself that the game is real by poisoning some, drowning some and just all out torturing some. He had intended to keep me locked in here until I die, just to prove that we are not in a game”. Fred said.

“Well, in the end it looks to me like he is still not convinced so he took the only measure that would allow him to test whether this is a game or not, but if it is not; then he has just killed himself for real” Garba said while it downs on him that if this is truly not a game that he himself has actually killed people but suddenly dismissed the thought with a reassuring statement.

“There’s no way this is real”.

Fred and Garba gathered more daggers and ropes from the cave and went back to pack their avocados and head back to Mila and Lucy. When they arrived, Garba’s heap of avocados has been scattered around the forest floor and his shirt has been torn and thrown to the side.

“Wait, someone has been here, this was not how I left the avocados. I had packed all of them on my suit jacket and tied the arms of the suit around the heap” Garba said.

Fred walked forward towards the torn shirt on the floor and observed the scattered avocados on the floor.

“ We may actually be dealing with something here, take a look at the shirt. Another player would have just untied the arms of the shirt or taken the entire heap. Even if they don’t want to pick the entire heap or untie the hands, they would have used their dagger to cut the shirt but have a look, your shirt has either been torn using brute force with bare hands or using teeth.” He said.

Garba took the Shirt and examined it, he realizes that Fred is right and the shirt has actually been torn using teeth.

“Look over here, I think this explains what we are dealing with here at least” Fred said to Garba and Garba walk close to observe what Fred is pointing at and once he saw the foot print on the forest floor, he understands that it was not human that scattered the avocado but an ape.

“Look, even the way those avocados were bitten is something a human who has a dagger in hand will never doo” Fred added. And Garba quickly picked a couple of half eaten avocados and examined them to realize that whatever was there, bit through without avoiding the big seed in the middle, biting off a part of it as well.

“Check around for the foot steps, we need to know which way it went so we can warn Mila and Lucy of it”. Garba said.

“No Garba, we should start going back already. I need time to recover and if we are to encounter a man sized ape, we’ll want to have all our force combined to take it down” Fred objected and Garba agreed.

The two packed the rest of the avocados they could salvage from the floor and started heading back towards the cabin they left Mila and Lucy in.

(Back in the cabin)

Mila heard some noise from outside the cabin that sounded like someone just stepped on small fallen off branches but Lucy did not react so she must not have heard it because she is busy tying a dagger to the tip of a durable wooden staff she found on their way to this side of the forest. She has taken her time to delicately cut a pope into smaller and slimmer pieces so she could make a spear from the staff, rope and dagger.

“I think I heard something outside” Mila said to Lucy in a whisper and pulled out her dagger.

“You stay here, I Will check it out first but get ready to either fight or run just in case” Lucy replied, now holding her spear which she just finished making.

She walked to the door of the cabin and slowly opened it to a small angle, then slowly peeked down to see what was making the sound but she could not see anything. Then from the distance, she saw Garba and Fred running towards them with bunch of avocados in a torn shirt.

“Above you, watch out from above you!” Garba and Fred shouted from the distance and before Lucy could look up to check what they are shouting about, She and Mila felt the entire cabin shake as something heavy just landed on the roof.

Lucy quickly went back and closed the door.

“Get ready for a fight Mila, there is something atop the cabin” She shouted and held her newly made spear pointed at the entrance. A few seconds later, Mila could hear heavy steps on the roof of the cabin.

“What do you mean something? Is it not another player?” Mila sked and just then, the two heard Fred shouting from outside “do not open the door no matter what”

Suddenly, there was a sudden thrashing sound on the top of the shack and single log of wood came falling inside the cabin. Mila and Lucy now stood watching eye to eye with a black gorilla the size of an adult human with a white patch on his chest. Lucy quickly pointed her spear upwards and jabbed the gorilla right in the eye, making it scream at the top of it’s lungs going even more violent than before.

At this point, Garba and Fred have already arrived at tree that the cabin is mounted on, thrown off the avocados and begin climbing up as quickly as they can. Once they were halfway there, Garba took out his rope and made a knot at one end, he took advantage of the gorilla’s frenzied state from losing an eye and the pain it is in.

He threw the rope and it successfully landed on the angry gorilla’s neck. Garba and Fred combined forces and pulled the rope as hard as they can, making the angered animal fall on its back and begins to be choked. For a brief moment, the two thought that they have subdued the giant ape but their hopes were shattered when the Gorilla suddenly sat up and without much effort begins to pull the two of them up.

A few yards from the cabin where Garba’s team is fighting the gorilla, Carson Marcus just arrived after tracking the team for two whole days since the encounter with the two Giant boa constrictors. He climbed a nearby tree with good canopy thickness, hiding himself and watching how it will play out for Garba’s team against the gorilla.

Lucy opened the door of the cabin and stabbed the gorilla once more, but this time around it was on it’s arm and it was a very shallow stab. The ape let go of the rope. Garba and Fred's weight pulled the rope down and once again pinning the gorilla down and choking it.

In an attempt to break free, the Large ape violently started kicking and hitting the roof of the cabin, breaking the decomposing wood and crashing down into the cabin right in front of Mila. Once they are face to face with the gorilla, Mila froze up completely in a similar way she froze up at the sight of the Alligators in the first game.

Seeing the ape in front of Mila, Lucy quickly shouted.

“Mila, get out of there, get out of there!”.

But Mila was not responding to anything, as if in a trance and unable to hear or escape the imminent danger right in front of her.

The gorilla grabbed Mila by her hand and throw her against the wall of the cabin so hard that the whole cabin came crashing down from the top of the tree. Everyone came crashing to the floor together with the broken pieces of what used to be a cabin. Once on the ground, Mila fainted and the three standing players have to somehow beat the gorilla before it finishes Mila off.

Garba bent down and pick up Lucy’s improvised spear and threw it to her, Fred and Garba holding their daggers and Mila her spear, the three charged at the disoriented injured ape and started stabbing and slashing at it. Before the unlucky ape got a chance to fight back, it has already been incapacitated because of heavy damages. Lucy walked a few steps back and charged at the gorilla with her spear pointed at it’s chest and in single moment she impaled it right to the heart, killing it.

Garba rushes and picks up Mila who was laying unconscious on the forest floor.

“I think she hit her head, we need to help her” he said.

Lucy ran to where Garba was putting Mila down and quickly placed a finger on Mila’s neck.

“I think she is just passed out, she has a pulse and is breathing just okay. We should move away from here before of those gorillas show up” she said and Garba picked Mila up, looked at Fred and started walking.

“Follow me, Fred I know just the place for safety, it also provides for a excellent defense because there is only one entrance and is perfectly hidden by nature. Just follow me” he said

“you don’t mean………that place is full of corpses ” Fred interjected

“yes I do, it makes perfect sense to head there and hide in the mean time we can burry the dead bodies or ” Garba imposed.

The team followed Garba back to the waterfall and deep into the cave, but what both Garba and Fred were boggled by is the missing dead bodies that should be in the cave.

Either way, they put Mila down and thoroughly searched the cave before setting a three person security steps along the cave with Fred at the very best entrance just after the falling water, Lucy with her spear midway at the cave and Garba at the end taking care of Mila.

Unexpectedly, Garba suddenly saw a projection of MEDULLA manifest itself in his Vision and said

“she is in a state of trance, it has a brain signal similar to your flashback nightmares. I can take this chance and establishing the connection with her, just as I have with you. Lay down next to her, I will let you in to help her while I establish the connection”

Garba lay down next to Mila and closed his eyes.

“don’t be startled” MEDULLA said.

Garba felt like his body has just been accelerated on a car at a ridiculous speed. He opens his eyes to find himself back in the Glitchy space filled with items that look glitchy. MEDULLA emerged in his left and asked him to follow it. They walked a few steps in a direction that Garba could not tell which it was and found themselves in front of a frozen Mila.

“don’t touch her just yet, there is something I want to show you first” MEDULLA said.

Garba was later led to another door in the space where MEDULLA told him that if he really wants to understand Mila, there are three memories that he see of hers.

MEDULLA opened the door and Garba walked in, the door shut close; all of a sudden he finds himself in a room full of expensive furniture and woman tying a knot on a makeshift rope that has been made by tying many pieces of clothes together. By his right, MEDULLA waved his hand and Garba could not mistaken who he was looking at, a ten years old Mila standing with tears rolling down her cheeks as she watches the woman use a table to tie the rope on what Garba needs not to be told is an overly expensive chandelier.

“Mommy mommy please come down” ten years old Mila keeps repeating at the woman who Garba now realizes must be Mrs. Goldenberg; Mila’s mother. The woman finished tying one end of the rope on the chandelier and begins to wrap the other around her neck.

Little Mila quickly ran out of the room and went down a flight of stairs to the floor beneath, she headed straight for a master bedroom and pulled the door open. Similarly, the master bedroom is decorated with similar furniture and instead of jewelry, it has portraits of the woman upstairs about to hang herself on the chandelier.

On the master bedroom, a man in his late forties was layed down naked with a girl of about twenty two years old on top of him having s*x.

“daddy, daddy mommy is hurting herself please help her” young Mila repeats over and over to the two on the bed but the only response the two made was shout at her to get the hell out of the room.

The little girl ran quickly back up the stairs and straight to the bedroom her mother was in and just as she opens the door, she saw her mother wriggling and kicking with her neck hanging from the makeshift rope tied to the chandelier.

With tears still rolling down her cheeks, The little girl walked close to the her mother who is no longer moving and picked the folded piece of paper she left on the floor before she hanged herself.

Little Mila unfolded the paper and there are only two sentences written.

“I can no longer live with the man that not only refuse to care about me or my daughter, but also emotionally hurts and tortures me regularly”

“to my lovely daughter Mila, if you ever find this, I wish you a happy and long life, you are my love now and forever. I wish I have the strength to see you grow but I do not, I love you”

Garba finds himself crying with tears rolling down his cheeks and his heart itching with sadness.