The Conjuring Code

9

Hearing the loud bang created by the bullet into the wall, all the people's attention is grabbed away from the ongoing party.

Abhishek looks out for Avani, and on realising she ain't there, his body begins to feel the heat, caused by the tension created in his mind.

As the hall stays silent for a couple of seconds, trying to figure out what just happened, Abhishek calls out in thundering voice: "Avani?, Avani?"

Everybody's heads begin to move around two sides, searching for Avani in the hall, but in vain.

Her friends become tensed, on finding her absence in the party, after a loud bang was heard from downstairs.

Abhishek and his friends, accompanied by Avani's friends as well, run down fastest to search what must have happened in the hotel, and Avani being nowhere to be seen. With him heading the troop, he rushes down the brown spiral staircase as he is about to slip down after two steps, but luckily saving himself from falling down, hadn't there be handle on the side for support.

He immediately warns his followers to watch out for the juice split over the stairs, as he continued moving ahead.

When he reached down at the hotel's reception counter, he found the cashier lady sleeping. Her black silky hair shone in the luxurious ochre lit lobby of the hotel, as she held her head down over her folded arms, which rested onto the table. It clearly looked as if she was taking a short nap by laying her head down.

"Excuse me?", he shoots out loud and calm words, getting no response from her.

"Hello? Ma'am?" One of Avani's friend tries to shake her shoulders, to wake her up.

Meanwhile, Abhishek's eyes scan across the lobby, thinking where must the bullet's sound had come from.

"Man, I know it's quite late, but hotel employees need not sleep when they are running such a big hotel during night huh", Abhishek comments, as he gets no response from the sleeping cashier.

"Calm down Abhishek, Avani must be here somewhere, let's check the underground floor.", his friend retorts.

"Okay but what would she do there? I mean, there is nothing in the underground floor as per..", Abhishek's voice chokes as he tries to find some relevant place where he could find her now.

Taking out the cell phone from his pocket, he calls her.

Staying as calm as he can, and keeping a positive mind, he begins to hear the sound given by the phone rings. All he hears for next few seconds is the same unsatisfying noise, seeming as if the other side of the phone, where he was making a call, held a deep secret within.

A secret which, if deciphered, might cost his relationship.

"She must have gone to washroom", a girly voice comes from the crowd that had assembled in the lobby. Abhishek's eyes broaden and his foot leave the previous spot spontaneously, as he runs faster towards the hotel's ground floor washroom, with a hope to find Avani all safe.