Survival

Chapter 22

The basement was a dark place. Behind a long shelf that contained very few books in a small corridor which led to the girls' room, was a door. Looking at it made me shiver. At first, you would swear there wasn't a door. It looked so innocent, just a shelf with a few books. I felt tensed all of a sudden, as Sarah gently rolled forward the shelf. Oh my God! There it was. The door was cracked, its original color faded. It looked like it was once of red color. A red door? Behind a shelf? It didn't make any sense. Why would someone try to hide a basement? My heart pounded as Mariyam opened it gently. According to them, Hanna was the first to find it. They were as appalled as I was. Sarah kept screaming her lungs out. I stood there, looking at the door, my chest pounding. What would I see? I turned and saw Sarah staying as far away from us as possible, her eyes gauging out with fear. I squinted my eyes as I saw a sort of line on the door. I went closer, trying to define the line. However, it wasn't an ordinary line. On taking a closer look, it looked more like a palm. Like you know when you put your palm on a surface and drag it down? Exactly! It was just like that. I stepped back nervously. My friends asked what happened and I told them to look what I saw.

We decided to hurry up and leave. The door had a huge rusted lock firmly attached to it. We looked for any heavy object that would dismember it quickly, without bringing attention to ourselves. I was glad that our teachers and the other students hadn't come out of their rooms. I found a hammer in the kitchen, laying beneath the sink. It was very heavy, making me squint before carrying it. Thanks to the heavy rain pouring cat and dogs outside, nobody heard the sound the hammer made as Drew broke the lock with it.

"Who wants to do the honors?" I asked looking at my friends. I didn't want to be the one to open the door. I was sort of terrified. A mixed feeling filled me - anxiousness and uneasiness.

Nina said, "Ain't no big deal homie." She tried to push the door, but to no avail. Again, she tried. Nothing. Again, with all her might. Nothing. Ibraheem laughed, saying that Nina was too weak. He also couldn't. Then it happened. Miraculously, Mariyam simply touched it and it gave way. It was just like she touched it, had this entity within her which gave power. I was shaken. What was wrong with Mari? Even though I wouldn't say it out, I had to admit in my mind, that something was definitely wrong with my friend.

I squinted my eyes as I carefully stepped on each staircase, pointing my torch forward, as there was no light. It smelled of unused wood and dust. It was a very large place. It was practically empty except for a box at the corner. I wondered what it was used for. We all went for the box. Near it lay a doll. I moved forward to have a better look. I gasped with fright. The doll looked very scary - voodoo like. It was the type that young girls would beg their mothers for. A feminine, pretty doll. Except I didn't know why this one looked scary. One eye was gauged out, the face looked like it was smiling devilishly. It had a dirty dress on that could have been white or even brown before. Dust and dirt lay on it. Its hands were pointing upwards. I thought of looking up too, but was very scared to. I know it was silly, but I was really scared. The doll was horrible looking but I didn't know why I kept my gaze at her. At last, I shifted my gaze from it, to the box. Mariyam was searching through it, and I knelt by her side. We all sat on the bare floor, curious about the contents of the box. There were weird looking objects that could be dated back to the 1950s. Something caught my eye. A large book.

"What is this book? It's hard to comprehend." Drew gave the book to me. It was a huge book, those types you find at a Law library, much like the Black Law's dictionary. It was black in color. The cover was still a bit dusty but the words could be read. It read 'Faciltum Novimsil' in bold red color. As I rolled over the pages, Mariyam explained how she had heard a name similar to that one before.

"Really? Where?" I asked curiously.

"You know, how my family doesn't talk much about our relatives. Well, one day I heard a discussion, in the late night. As if it was kind of a secret. I remember going down to the kitchen to drink some water. Remember that time that our school was ambushed, and I had that intense breakdown?" We desperately shook our heads up and down. I definitely remembered that period, when everything seemed dark, and there was no future. No matter how I tried to forget, it still creeped up to my head. She continued, "that was when I heard that name. Faciltum Novimsil. My mom was speaking in hushed tones to her sister, saying that our family would be in great danger if that happens. I never got to hear what 'that' was. I had to quickly sneak back to my room before they saw me." She rolled her eyes.

"This is all so strange. I think it isn't coincidental that you heard that, and we found this here," Nat said.

I thought it was strange too. I knew that Mariyam had always been angry about not knowing her extended family. During history class with Miss Ann in junior year, we were told to write our family tree up to the last generation we could find. It was an exciting thing for us. We asked our parents, relatives, and some even researched on the web. However, Mariyam was very heartbroken. I remember her saying she didn't want to even take part, when Adriana mocked her, saying that she didn't even have a family. Mariyam knows her dad's family a lot but doesn't know a thing about her moms'. Mariyam begged her dad to ask her mom, but her dad insisted that they leave Mariyam's mom alone. It was as if he also knew something he wasn't letting out. That was when she decided to stop finding out about her family. She ended up using her dad's side of the family in the assignment. Her mom had been adamant that there was no reason to talk about them, since they didn't have any. It always was her mom and her sister only. At least, Mariyam's dad had a lot of family and this made her happy, seeing her cousins, aunt, uncles, and grandparents.

I cracked my brain harder, trying to think of any reason for this coincidence. I had none. At last, I came up with a plan. The name I saw embedded on the cover, and front page of the book was written in Latin. What looked strange was that the contents of the book were written in a weird language I had never seen. The easier one to look for would have to be the Latin words, I thought. I didn't know what they meant. I suddenly regretted not attending Latin class back at school. It was one of the foreign subjects to choose, and I always hated it. Our first task would be to find its meaning.

"Does anyone know even a tiny bit of Latin?" I looked at my friends, searching for an answer. Everyone shook their heads vehemently. I sighed. This was going to be very difficult, I guessed. We had no internet, for us to check online. Damn. Why does this hell of a place have nothing? The camp irritated me more by the minute.

"Well, guys, doesn't anyone have one of those apps that translates things offline?" I asked. I knew my tone was a bit high, but I couldn't stop myself. I was angry. Nina replied, "nope. I doubt any of us does."

Just as everything was looking gloom, Aisha gave us a ray of hope. "I think I have an idea. Ms. Anne is a huge language enthusiast, like big time. Remember when we were to choose a language, she advised us on them, and I remember her telling me something about Latin being a sensual language. Yeah. Something along those lines."

I was super excited, upon hearing Aisha's suggestion. She was right. I also remembered Ms Anne's advise us on language subjects. 'I really love languages, it's like a huge part of me that never dies.' She had said. I felt like hugging Aisha. She had provided a solution.

"Ai, you're the best. We need to find out from her, ASAP. Guys, what do you think?" Mariyam said.

A scream erupted from the silent-except-from-our-hushed-voices basement. I was startled, and almost fell due to scariness. It was coming from Sarah. She had left us a while ago to inspect other parts of the empty basement. We ran to her. "Sara!"

All she did was point to a dark corner. Her torch had fallen when she shouted, so I pointed with mine. ­A dark, malicious, curled up thing lay in the dark corner. It looked like a bunch of hair... We took steps back immediately. Ryan went to touch it. "NO!" He looked at me questionably. "We shouldn't touch it. We don't know what it is. We saw it here, I saw we leave it here." I told him.

Sarah said, shivering, "guys, we shouldn't waste any more time here. This place gives me the creeps. I don't know what the hell that thing is, but we better leave. It doesn't look good." I also felt abnormal when I entered the basement. It was as if I entered a different dimension. The energy there was just amplifying, like something was zooming in to me. I didn't want to scare my friends, especially not after everything we had been through, so I kept quiet. A horror basement would just make things worse.

Things were getting crucial, and wasting even a second might be disastrous to us. Right now, we knew some monsters were living in the woods, practically three miles away from us, and there was nothing we could do to get away from them. Now, that we had this weird book in the basement that seems to have something to do with Mariyams' family and the hideous thing, things had gotten really bad. This book might be the key to our problems, I thought. Even though I couldn't pinpoint its relation to the monsters in the woods, I had a very strong feeling it had something to do with them.

                          ~~~~~

A very important bookish question. Paperbacks or hardcovers?