86: Prey

The old priest, perhaps curious after watching me stare at the church walls for so long, finally tapped on my shoulder and asked warmly, "Time to pray?"

 I flashed him a smile as I slipped my hand into my inner breast pocket,

"Yes father, time to prey."

What is the best horror story you can come up with in two sentences?

6: Spellbound

In his hand was a small piece of paper with three lines of writing right in the middle on the page. It simply said:

Senyum manismu
bawah cahya suria
Kuterpesona.

For the umpteenth time, the boy turned the piece of paper in his hand clockwise, and then anti-clockwise. He tried flipping it over, hoping to find some sort of clue to understand the mysterious message, but his furrowed brows revealed what he found: nothing. At least, nothing more than scribbles.

He sighed in disappointment as he continued to stare at the paper.

He had found the paper, folded, on his desk at school that day. He missed whoever had left it there because he rushed to the gents' as soon as the final bell rang., and he found the cryptic message - in a language he neither knew nor understood - when he came back to get his belongings.

Countless questions ran through his head, like what the message meant, who the sender was, and if the message was even intended for him, but he was too embarrassed to tell anyone about the paper, in case the message was a secret. Maybe it was something that might ruin his reputation at school? Or some kind of bully tactic?

Oh no, they're not going to get rid off me that easily, he decided, feeling strangely determined that it was a threat of some sort, even though he didn't have any proof that it was. 

Even so, he frowned as he continued to look back at the paper, what do I do with this?

He thought for a few more seconds, and finally gave up trying to decode whatever was on the paper.

After checking to see if he has taken all his stuff, he strapped his slingbag across his chest and headed for the door, pausing when he saw the trashbin. He looked at the paper still clenched in his hand, stared at it for a few moments, and reluctantly dropped it in the bin. Forcing himself to stick with his decision, he headed home.

Not too long after, a girl peeks out from the closet nearby. She looked around the hallway to make sure that nobody was around, and slowly, cautiously, made her way into the boy's classroom.

The girl crouched near the bin and stared at the paper laying in it among other rubbish. She sighed as she fished it out, feeling  guilty for not being brave enough to give it to him in person in the first place.

All of a sudden, she heard footsteps rushing down the hall towards the classroom. Before she realised what was happening, the intended recipient of the love poem she was holding appeared at the door, gasping for air. His pained expression from catching his breath slowly softened when he saw her crouching by the entrance.

She stumbled backwards as she tried to hide the paper behind her, hoping he didn't notice. She unconsciously blushed, not knowing what to say or do.

"Are you ok?", he suddenly asked as he extended his arm, offering to pull her up.

She looked to the ground, too shy to look at him, or to even take his hand. "Umm.. thanks. I'm alright", she replied. She brushed off the dust from her pants, and thanked him again for his offer to help her.

Before he could say anything, she stuttered out an excuse to leave early and rushed out as possible, like her life depended on it.

As she stood at the junction near her home, she wondered why he ran back to the classroom.

...Was it because of the poem? 


She immediately considered this as she squinted her right eye, deep in thought. Naaah, she shrugged.

Even if it was true that he came back to retrieve the poem, she didn't know what to do now that she's ruined the plan. All she knew was that the message was in her hands, and meeting him again would be too awkward.

When the pedestrian lights finally turned green, she crossed the street, still absorbed in her own thoughts.

"WATCH OUT!", someone suddenly shouted.

She was about to look at the person shouting when suddenly, she was tackled down by someone. She didn't remember when she had closed her eyes, but the next thing she knew, there were sounds of screeching tyres and blaring horns around her. She froze.

"Are you crazy?!", a male voice demanded, startling her. She opened her eyes to find him - of all people - staring down at her, looking flushed and dumbfounded.

Too stunned to respond, her eyes looked around to find people gathering at both ends of the street, anxiously looking at them; one lady was even holding her phone, looking like she was ready to call for the emergency hotline. The driver of the speeding car - which swerved to the side of the road at the last minute - seemed to be in as much shock as she was, and was being lectured by someone from the street.

The red pedestrian light started to blink then, signalling only a few more seconds before it was the drivers' turn to use the street.

She immediately got up and pulled her saviour to the other side of the road, just in the nick of time. After both of them slowly tried to calm their fast-beating hearts, he broke the silence.

"You should really look left and right before you cross, you know..."

She was about to open her mouth to respond, but she stopped when she saw that her hand was still holding onto his. Immediately she let go, embarassed.

"Uh, sorry about that...", she said, absentmindedly scratching her unitchy neck. "And umm, thank you for well, saving my life..."

He blushed, catching her off-guard. "I'm sorry for yelling at you". He began to slowly massage his arm when she saw some red stains on his elbows.

"Are... are you okay? Are you hurt anywhere?", she immediately asked.

He quickly searched for any wounds on his body, and found that his elbows were scratched from the fall. She quickly reached into her pocket to get her purse, which had some plasters in it. As she pulled the purse out, she didn't realise that something else fell from the palm of her hand: the paper she had tried to conceal.

As she fumbled with her purse, the boy bent down to pick up the paper she had just dropped. When he saw what was written on it, he looked at her with a glint in his eyes, and smiled to himself.

"Found you", he whispered, and slowly stuffed the paper in his pocket.

---

The next day, he went to school with a special purpose - to find out who the girl was. After she gave him all of her plasters, she pretty much left without saying a word. She didn't even give him her name; she only smiled apologetically, waved and ran away.

He tried to ask his classmates and some juniors if anybody knew who she was, but nobody did. By the end of the schoolweek, he had neither seen nor gotten any information about her. It was as if she had never existed in that school.

Out of desperation, he decided to look through the student database, knowing full well that he would get into trouble if he got caught. After looking through each and every one of the female students' profiles, even those from a few years back, he finally accepted that the girl he was looking for wasn't there.

He slumped into the chair, disappointed. "She must be from another school, then", he grunted disappointedly.

He was about to leave the room when he realised that there was a note (labelled 'URGENT!' in yellow) for him on the pinboard, reminding him to proofread the draft of the school newsletter. He sighed again as he picked up a hardcopy draft from the computer desk. Before he could scan for typos and other errors, his attention was caught by a black-and-white photo of a young girl, smiling cheerfully on a hospital bed -- who looked like the girl he had been looking for for the past few days.

He instantly sat up straight as he read the short article accompanying the picture:

"It is with sadness that the editorial board share the news of a recent death of a fellow member of our school. Last week, our school received word that Sara Lyana, a student from Class 1D three years ago, has passed away due to a rare heart disease. She peacefully took her last breath on February 15th with her loving family by her side.

If you knew Sara and would like to contact her family, you may call 455-7656. We hope her loved ones stay strong through this ordeal; may her soul rest in peace."

He froze in his seat, not believing what he had just read. He quickly looked at the calendar to see when February 15th was, and found it to be Tuesday, the day after he had met this girl.

He gulped, feeling awkward and slightly anxious.

Should I give the family a call?, he wondered.

He went back home that afternoon feeling gloomy. He tried punching in 455-7656 into his phone several times, but he always ended up putting it down before it was picked up.

What do I say? 'Your daughter ran away from the hospital and visited me at school'...?

Suddenly his phone started ringing, startling him.

"H-- hello?", he said nervously.

"Hello, is this 453-7889?", a female voice asked.

"Uh,.. yes?"

"Right. Our caller ID recorded your number calling us a few times. Were you looking for someone?", she said curtly.

"Uh...", he paused for a few moments, "I knew Sara, sort of... and I just heard the news. I'm really sorry about your loss...". He wasn't sure how to continue.

The other line suddenly went silent. After a few seconds, he could hear someone sobbing, and not too long after that, a different voice answered the phone.

"Umm... hi there, thank you for calling", a younger female voice said. "Uh, I'm Sara's sister, Fara... Sorry about that, my mom's not feeling too well because... yeah. Heh. You can talk to me instead, if you want".

"Umm, hi Fara. I'd just like to say I'm sorry to hear about what happened to your sister. I hope your family is coping well...". He thought for a second, and then added, "I'm Adam, by the way. Sara and I uh... kinda met recently. I'm quite surprised when I heard the news".

"...Kinda met? Recently? But... Sara's been in the hospital for the past few months?", she said, confused.

He panicked, not knowing how to explain. "Umm... she kinda left me a message a few days ago. At school.", he admitted.

The line suddenly went silent. So silent that he thought something was wrong with his phone. "Are you there?", he nervously asked.

"Are you... are you that guy from 5B?", Fara slowly asked, "the one at the accident at the junction last Tuesday?"

"Yeah, I'm from 5B and... how'd you know about the traffic lights incident?", he asked, curious.

To his surprise, she chuckled.

"No wonder she liked you so much...", she said to herself, baffling him.

"Adam, that paper you got... on it was a poem written by my sister", she softly said. "You might not realise this, but she was your junior by a few years. She saw you around school sometimes, when she was still a student there".

When he didn't respond, she continued.

 "She said, when she saw you, it was, like, love at her first sight. She was planning to confess to you before you left school... but she fell into a coma late last year. She didn't wake up until the very end...", she trailed off.

 "So...", he slowly replied, "was the girl from the classroom and traffic lights incident... you, Fara?"

 "... Yyyeah, it was me", she finally admitted. She quickly continued, "I'm really sorry for the confusion... I just wanted to pass you that poem because I knew she would've wanted it; it was written for you last year. She had planned to give it to you on Valentine's Day this year, but she, well, couldn't make it..."

He unconsciously nodded to himself. "It's okay, Fara. I understand. And thank you for going through so much trouble to give it to me. But umm, can I ask what the message was, though? I still can't figure out what it means..."

He took out the paper from his breastpocket and read aloud the words, trying his best to make it decipherable by Fara. She stifled a giggle by how much effort he made to get the pronunciation right.

 "Adam,...", she started, "that message... it's actually a haiku, which is a Japanese-style poem. Sara wrote it in Malay though. It means...

Your sweet smile
under the rays of the sun
I'm spellbound"

He just blinked and stared at the paper in his hand when another voice appeared on the line, in the background, calling Fara.

"Adam", she interrupted his train of thought, "I'm sorry but I have to go now. Thank you so much for calling... I'm sure Sara would've been very happy to know you called to ask for her. Please take care of yourself okay?"

"Will I see you around?", he asked, almost too hurriedly.

She paused. "I'm sorry, but my mother is planning to move back to her home country soon; she says there's too many painful memories here..."

And with that, they said their goodbyes and she disconnected.

As soon as he placed the phone back on the receiver, he felt a rush of regrets. He knew it was circumstances that kept them apart, but he felt like a small part of him is empty now that he knew that there was no chance of meeting the writer of the poem, or even the messenger.

He sighed and read the haiku again... except this time, he knew what the words meant. He then reached into his schoolbag to fish out the newsletter draft from this afternoon, and stared at her picture. After a few seconds, he smiled.

"I've never even met you, but you still managed to put a spell on me", he mused.

So long, Sara. I hope you're smiling wherever you are.

------------------------------------------------------

A/N: Felt like some love story was in order, heheh. I was initially thinking that he finds out that she was a ghost/spirit at the end, but it kinda sent chills down my spine so I changed my mind at the last minute, lol. Hope you like it! :)

Time taken: 2.5 days

1: Her Puddle

The alarm clock started to beep at exactly half-past seven, as it always does. That particular day however, the alarm rudely interrupted a pleasant dream Sade was having. She couldn't remember what happened or even who was in it, but she knew it was a nice dream, which is something she hadn't had in a while. At least, not since the accident.

"Tch. Why do alarms always go off at the best part?", she grunted, as the deafening sound continued.

Annoyed, she reached out to try to silence the damn thing, and after what seemed like a forever of flailing her arms around her bedside table, she finally managed to switch off the alarm.

"Mmm...peace and quiet...", she murmured, almost pleased with herself.

Sleeping in for a few extra minutes probably wouldn't hurt, she decided. It was a weekend after all.

Fiercely hoping that she could still continue the dream she was having, she then snuggled back under the covers, trying to find that perfect comfy spot. She soon realised though, that the post-alarm 'peace & quietness' she had been expecting didn't happen. She scratched her right cheek subconsciously and sighed. She didn't even have to open her eyes to know that last night's weather forecast had been wrong.

Looks like the picnic's not gonna happen after all, she mused as she slowly opened her eyes. When her vision was well-adjusted, she turned to look outside her window for a few seconds. Funnily enough, she didn't feel all that disappointed.

Sade slowly forgot her plan to sleep in as she continued to watch the rain falling outside her room. She got tired of lying down after a while, so she eventually sat up and did a small stretch. She gently gathered her hair into a tiny bunch and used a light blue hairband to tie her hair - the one she only wears at home, because its fluffy bits were already starting to wear out. Despite how it looks, she loved because it was given to her by her pa.

The last thing he gave me, she remembered sadly.

Before she continued to reminisce about her past (it always happens, especially in this weather), she quickly made sure the hairband was tight enough in her hair. She shifted into a chair next to the windowsill, and somehow became mesmerised by the sights and sounds of the rain.  

There's just something magical about it...

Perhaps it's the rhythmic pit-pattering sound, like a continuous flow of water - calm and sure. Or maybe it's the cute, round droplets of water that somehow appear outside her glass windows that gives her that good feeling; stubbornly staying in place, no matter how heavy the rain gets. Or perhaps, she considered as she looked down at the road, it's the puddles on the streets that make her feel this way.

She loved puddles. She even had one she particularly liked, on the street in front of her house. She loved them because no matter how much water splashes out when vehicles drive through them, the rainwater always creeps back in, creating another pool of water. It's like a neverending cycle, which is something she can somewhat relate to. After all, it's always the rain that reminds her of painful memories from the past, and only rain can make her feel better - nothing and no one else.

Ah, stop all this sentimental nonsense, she scolded herself.

Feeling defeated, she breathed into the glass to form an irregular-shaped vapour, and slowly drew a smiley face on it. Just as she finished the face with a smile, she heard someone calling out her name.

"Sade!! SADE!!! Are you awake???", a female voice called out from downstairs.

She sighed. "Yeees!!", she cried out in response.

She walked closer to her door and opened it just enough so that she and her ma didn't have to continue screaming at each other.

Now that she thought about it, her ma rarely shouted like that - especially not this early. Sade began to wonder what all the fuss was about.

"What is it, ma?", she asked, softer this time.

Her mother didn't respond. Sade strained her ear and realised that her ma was talking with someone, but she couldn't hear the other person's voice.

What kind of person would come to another person's house this early?, she wondered.

"Sade, SADE! Come down now hun! Hurry!!!", her ma shouted again from the bottom of the stairs. She sounded almost frantic.

Slightly worried, Sade opened her door cautiously and walked down the hallway almost stealthily. As she reached the top of the staircase, she heard her ma sobbing, and then laughing.

WHAT is going on?..., she pondered, instantly losing all her sleepiness. Without thinking, she ran downstairs as fast as her feet could carry her. At that point, she couldn't tell if her heart was beating like mad, or if it had stopped beating entirely.

As soon as she reached the bottom step, Sade could hear her ma's laughter again... but she was almost scared to look in the dining area, where the sounds were coming from.

She could hear her mom and... a familiar voice. A sweet voice she hadn't heard in years.

Is he... who I think he is?

"If this is a dream", she whispered, "please at least let me see him before my alarm clock goes off...'

After counting to three, Sade cautiously walked into the area her ma and the mysterious person was in. The first sight she saw was her ma leaning on the fridge; her cheeks were wet, but she had a large smile, the kind that Sade hasn't seen in a long time. Sade just realised how much she missed that gorgeous smile of hers.

 A familiar chuckle then caught Sade's attention. It came from the direction of the person her ma had been so enraptured with.

 When Sade saw who the mysterious person was, her jaw dropped.

  "P- pa?...", she stuttered, still unsure if he was real.

 Both her parents turned around to see their daughter gaping at them like a goldfish, too stunned to do or say anything else.

 Her pa grinned when he saw how stiff she became, and staggered towards her. She looked at him up and down, and gasped when she saw a prosthetic leg under his left knee. She didn't know how to react. She was about to help, but he motioned at her that he didn't need any.

 Sade bit her bottom lip hard, watching her pa continue struggling towards her. Unsteadily, but surely. Seeing him in such a way unconciously made her eyes water - not out of sympathy, but out of relief. She quickly registered the way her father looked at that moment - his wet hair (he hated umbrellas so he probably walked here without one), the towel around his neck (which was longer on one side, as he always wears it), his face (which had more scars than she remembered).

 Yes, it's most certainly him: this is her pa who she hasn't seen in years.

 Lost in her thoughts, she didn't realise that he was already in front of her until he poked her left cheek, startling her. He gave her his smile that she thought she' would never see again, and extended his arms around her, signalling that she should be prepared for his signature bearhug.

 Without a second's notice, she hugged him tight, hoping she wouldn't wake up to find it had all been a dream. It was like a hungry tiger lunging at a prey it had been starving for -- fierce and desperate.

 After a while, Sade's ma teased that she should probably let go so that her poor pa can sit down.

 "His prosthetics aren't the expensive type, so they're not comfortable to stand in for too long", her ma joked.

 After a few more seconds, Sade reluctantly let go of her pa and pulled him to a chair. She looked straight at him - not knowing whether to smile, cry or laugh. Her pa just laughed and looked at his wife, half-amused, half-concerned.

 "Pa, why are you here?", Sade finally blurted out.

 He blinked for a moment, and then his lips broke into a smile. "I assume you know about my fall four years ago?", he asked his daughter carefully.

 She nodded, paying full attention.

 He adjusted his sitting position and continued. "It was raining heavily that day, so it wasn't surprising that I fell down that cliff. None of my team members found me because it was too dark and dangerous... truthfully even I still think it's a miracle I survived", he stopped, as if to recollect his thoughts. "I was found by the locals a few days after, but I was in a coma that lasted a few months. I didn't have any ID on me, so nobody knew who I was or where I was from, or how I even got there. Most importantly, they didn't know who to call to inform about my situation."

 Sade's ma poured him a cup of coffee and handed it to him. He winked at her, causing her to giggle. Sade wasn't sure if it was sweet or gross - probably both - but she continued watching him.

 "Anyway, when I finally came to, I returned home to find that you two had already moved. It must've been hard for you two these past few years...", he stopped to look at his wife with a sad expression, and she smiled as she looked at the floor. "In any case, I've been around the country since then, but I couldn't trace you. Nobody seemed to know where you were".

 He gulped down half of his mug's content before he continued. "I almost gave up, to be honest. I only came here by accident, because one of the guys from my last mission lives around the corner. I was driving to his place a couple of days ago when I saw someone that looked like my Sade lying on the grass on the front yard -- a bigger version of her, of course", he rummaged through her hair. In the past she would've complained, but now she simply grinned.

 "I was dead sure that it was my Sade that I saw, so Dan and I checked with some of the other neighbors to confirm if it was really you and Anna who live here... and here I am". He downed the rest of his coffee, marking the end of his story.

 "But you could've waited till later in the day to give me the shock of my life", his wife muttered. She buried her smile with her mug, hoping he didn't see it.

 He chuckled. "But I wanted to be the first thing you see today, dear." Anna blushed at this, as he got up and slowly walked towards her. He kissed her on the forehead, and brushed his fingers across her cheeks.

 "Happy birthday to me", he said softly. His wife cocked an eyebrow.

 "But... it's not your birthday", she said, surprised.

 "Hey, it's the day I came back from the dead, remember?", he cheekily replied. Before she could respond, he felt a tug on his shirt. He turned to see a pair of pleading eyes looking at him.

 "Pa, can we go out for a second?", she quietly asked.

 "Out?", he looked out into the rain. "But it's raining, dear".

 "I know. Just for a second... please?"

Her ma looked at her strangely, but her pa finally nodded. Immediately Sade dragged him towards their garden, without even bothering to take off their house slippers. Standing in the rain with their feet dirty from the mud, she closed her eyes, faced skywards, and finally broke into a huge smile - her first real one since she had heard that her pa died.

The perplexed man and the thoughtful daughter continued to stand there as the rain continued to pour, like it would never stop. A moment later, a car drove past her house, and a child in the passenger seat stared at Sade and her pa with bulging eyes - probably curious about why they're standing in the rain.

Sade didn't care.

Eventually the car drove through her favourite puddle, splashing out almost all the water it had in it. She quietly watched as the rain filled it again. When the puddle started to overflow, she looked at her pa and squeezed him tight.

 "I think we should have a picnic to celebrate your birthday, pa", she finally said, out of the blue. Her confused pa just laughed and nodded.

Anna quietly watched them from their doorstep. She held back her tears as her husband wrapped his arm around their daughter, and walked back towards their house.

Right before she closed the door, Sade gazed at the puddle on the street, still over-brimming with rainwater.

"Thank you for filling me up again, rain", she said softly, and slowly pushed the door close.

  - The End -

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A/N: This is a project thought up by my junior in college, Daniel Azere (I call him Ben tho, I can't fully remember why). Out of boredom, I wrote on my FB status that I missed writing, and he suggested we write something, anything, under the theme of 'rain'. I started writing this that very night, but it took me several days to edit, redraft and finally publish this.

Like Ben, I find rainy weather rather romantic. However I gotta admit that I might have been influenced to think this because in Bishoujo Senshi Sailormoon (one of my favouritest mangas of all time), weather was often used to show a change in mood/atmosphere, and in the series, dewy/rainy weather tends to make the characters think of the past (and about their love lives, amusingly). So... yeah. Heheh.

Btw, do you like the name Sade (pron. Saa-deh)? It means 'rain' in Finnish. I really like it :)

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this little story. Have a great day, folks! :)

Time taken: roughly 3 days.