The Chime Of The Bell- Chapter 7

(Dishani’s narration)

We had entered the building through some opening in a tumbledown wall. Maybe that was the safest and easiest way of entering. Right in front of us was a staircase that had collapsed like a sand castle making it impossible to climb. Not to mention there was debris everywhere. The walls were filled with strange graffiti, some even written in English. The drawings were mostly of some monsters or freaked out people. First I believed this was done by the patients who stayed here once but judging from the color and pattern it no way looked like medieval art. It proves that this place is not as desolate as we thought it was. Rileena confirmed that this place had occasional visitors (or vandals) who do this to the walls and destroy all the furnisher and other stuff here.

“I have read that people basically came here for some adventure or just for having sex. But that was before this island became a private property”, she said.

“What kind of articles do you read Rileena?”, I asked with an inquisitive expression.
She just shrugged in reply.

The graffiti was ok but what was shocking was that there was a wine bottle on the lowest stair. To my surprise, it looked quite clean unlike the other objects in this building. It was evident that people come here often. But who would come to a private island? We had to go through a very complicated process to step on the island. We had to sign several forms one of which said only we ourselves would be responsible for any long term or short term damage that happens to us on the island. I felt it’s sort of unfair that people come here without signing forms.

Majority of the rooms had hospital beds and other things you usually see in a hospital like stretchers, cupboards and instrument trays. We had reached a huge hall. Although everything was broken here, I could tell it was the reception area. There were broken desks and chairs. Some fans still hung loosely to the ceiling. Moving inside there were several rooms with only one bed and a huge open window in front, somewhat similar to the cottage we were staying. There were bathtubs and sinks thrown out in the open area. Some rooms had complicated machines, one of them I remember was a huge cylindrical machine which appeared pretty scary at first sight (I later learned it to be an iron lung). Then there were other machine parts scattered around. Dead leaves were all around the place. It smelt really odd; like the pungent smell of an animal corpse.

We had searched almost all the rooms in the asylum. Well, we searched all the rooms we could enter. Due to the derelict condition of the building all the rooms were not accessible. The hospital has three floors. The third floor is totally inaccessible. The second floor is not much reachable either. Somewhere the roof had collapsed blocking the way further, somewhere the doors were jammed, and somewhere plants hindered. But we got no trace of her yet. A part of me had almost lost hope of finding her here.

Walking further we had reached the small chapel attached to the hospital. This was maybe the last hope of the people who came here to die. The room had broken pews; decorations on the ceiling were hardly visible. There was no shrine here. The sun was about to set and even though we were standing in a sacred place I felt chills. There is something very evil about this place. I don’t know how I could say this but I couldn’t be surer. The darkness of this place was so palpable, it swallowed all the divine influence here. No holy spirits could hang around here; only evil lingers.

I don’t know what I have for dark scary places but I love them. I am such a fan of scary stuff. Horry movies fail to scare me now. But this place, this place is sure different. This is what really scary is like. This is awesome. I wanted to explore more. But my friend here totally contradicted my current desires.

“Let’s get out of here. I don’t think there is a chance of finding her here”, she urged. No one had communicated through the radio yet. According to the plan we were supposed to keep searching till one of us found her. To be honest I didn’t care about the stylist right now. All I wanted was to explore the place. This was the kind of adventure I was seeking for my entire life. This is it and there is no way I am gonna lose this opportunity.

“Yea just wait a minute. I will explore a little more”

“Is there anything left to explore!” This time her voice was really loud. It kept echoing among the broken pews to the ceiling. I turned to look at her. Her dark eyes had fear and yet determination in it. There is some magic in her that compels people to listen to her. Maybe it’s this eyes, they were locked at mine and for some time there was an unspoken war- a war between desire and determination. The voice still echoed in the air. When it has ceased I finally looked down concluding the war. We had a winner. A little shadow of a smile flickered on her face before she turned around to leave.

I was expected to follow her. But before leaving I kicked the wall to release my frustration of losing to her. I turned around without giving much attention to the larger-than-expected crack my blow had caused on the wall. Suddenly there was a huge noise. When I looked back a huge chunk of the wall had collapsed revealing some dark place inside. There was a hidden passage.

“Holy crap!”

Rileena had walked up to me now. I looked at her, she looked at me and then we both looked at the large hole in the wall. An average woman could easily pass through it. This time there was no stopping for me. I quickly gathered my flashlight and slipped in.

“Dishani wait! No!”, Rileena kept crying but I was in by now. If she wanted to get me she had to get in too. Lighting my flashlight I found myself standing in some narrow hallway. I couldn’t see where it went. In whichever direction I flashed the light there was either wall or darkness until I noticed something else- stairs that went down. Oh boy! I couldn’t expect anything better from life.

As I started walking towards it Rileena grabbed me by the arm. “I don’t think we should be doing this. Let’s go back”

“You are kidding me right” I broke free of her grip and went straight for the stairs. I could hear Rileena curse behind me. But she followed soon. “I don’t like this”, she grumbled.

The staircase was narrow as well and at some point, I felt like it was getting narrower. These stairs were very intact unlike the other staircases in the building.

“It’s going to the basement I guess”, said Rileena hesitantly. Good, now she is curious too. “I think we should go back”. Maybe I was wrong.

The stairs ended in front of a rusty metal door. This huge metal door was as scary as hell. It had no knob or keyhole; just plain iron casted door.

“Did you hear that?”, Rileena asked.

“Hear what?”

“There is a fucking person down there. Shush…hear”

I hate to admit at this point I was pretty scared. What was scary was that I could hear faint noises of screaming and yelling coming from behind the door. It was so faint that I first thought I was imagining things. But then we were both imagining the same thing. At this point, I really wanted to turn back and leave. I knew what happens after this in movies. I looked over my shoulders at Rileena. She looked pretty scared. She almost freaked out as I flashed the light on her face. What a chicken! I did not want to be a chicken like her so I moved forth. As I approached the door the sounds became more and more prominent till I could hear the voice clear. It was a female voice screaming for help. Could this be her?

Without much thinking I pushed the door hard assuming that the door must be all rusty and jammed but on the contrary, it opened smooth. As a result, I pitched forward on the ground. There was a strange gush of cold air I felt as the door opened. The flashlight fell from my hand and went off somehow, leaving us in complete darkness.

Link to the next chapter: https://wrytin.com/jayeetapaul/the-chime-of-the-bell-chapter-8-ju2vfzzt