The Hidden Message

~by Priyanshi

Once I was roaming through the pavement of a deserted when I happened to notice the entry to a station. Upon entering, I found it was an abandoned train station; it looked extremely spooky. Gathering courage, I went inside like a wet cat. I saw flickering lanterns. Just then a wave of strong wind passed by and a torn notebook page fell in front of me. I felt like it was saying, “pick me up!”

When I bent to pick the page up, before I had even noticed, I was in total darkness. I heard a deep voice from the pitch dark. I had sudden chills. I picked up the page and ran as fast as I could. There were rustling sounds all over; all of a sudden I heard someone shrieking. As tears filled up my eyes, my vision became blur; just then I saw something red on the wall. I wiped my oozing tears and I saw something written in blood red; it was a script that I had never seen before. I got negative vibes. I looked behind me to get out of this place, but I had come too far. Now I was stuck in this place with no start and no ending.

Suddenly, I saw a shadowy figure which looked like it penetrated through a wall. I followed it and found a camouflaged door. As I moved further ahead, I realised that there was a whole network of hidden passages. There were a lot of spider webs, rats and bugs all around. There were many paths and I didn’t know which one to choose. Just then, I heard a clock ticking and went that way hoping I would find someone or at least search a way out. I found many notes along the way, they looked familiar.

Suddenly, the ticking of the clock was gone and here I was lost again. A moment later, I was reminded of the note that I had put in my pocket while running. I took it out, it looked fresh, I opened it and saw a beautiful handwriting by a fountain pen, it said “I am someone you have known, but probably lost in your memory. You must be scared and I love making people that because I see the world differently like you did, you had a dark side which is now unseen. You know me better than anyone in the world, but you still don’t know me”. This made me feel like it was someone close to me who knew my way of thinking, my secrets, what I did, probably all of my childhood, but who? I followed my guts and went to one of those ways. While walking, I found a photograph of me as a child standing with someone, but that photograph didn’t show his face. I saw many photos like this, but when I looked at the back of the last one framed in a transparent frame, it was my handwriting. It read “best friends forever”. Now I know it all, the person that was buried deep in my childhood memory who I never forgot about was here and he hasn’t changed a bit. He still likes to scare and force people to think. I found a coded message scripted on a wall. There was a map that I had to follow; having no idea where it would lead me to, I still followed it.

This map led me to a bridge and it was dawn by that time. The sun looked bright and gave me new hope. Just then, I saw a locked box lying at the centre of the bridge. There was a number lock on it. I wondered what it could be and tried few number patterns, but none of them worked; that is when I was reminded of the day we had sworn to be best friends forever and I entered 03032013. It opened the locked box and I found something that was the most important to me, when I was a kid. I closed my eyes for a second and held it in my arms to recall all my memories. Someone was whistling and seemed to be coming this way, I thought “this sounds familiar. Oh I know why! It’s him” and after all it was. We both hugged and said aloud the same thought which was yes, we were destined to be best friends forever!