Chapter 7: Chapter 7: Mountain Village (3)

[Day 3]

When it hit midnight, Kirana woke up. She didn’t sleep deeply in the first place.

She went out of the room quietly. She noticed that Putri woke up and saw her leaving, but she didn’t say anything, so Kirana didn’t say anything, either.

She started investigating the old couple’s house. At this hour, they were both in their own rooms. There were five rooms in this house, one common room and dining room, one kitchen, and three bedrooms. The lavatory was on a separate building outside.

Speaking of which, there were one other room other than the master bedroom and the room they stayed in. Kirana walked silently to the one room that was hidden in the hallway. She didn’t see the old couple going in or out of this room. It felt inexplicably secret.

She opened it as slowly as possible. Thankfully, it didn’t make any noise. She was lucky and silently admonished herself. If it made any noise, and the old couple next door wake up, she wouldn’t be able to handle the consequences. Well, she might have spin it as a sleepwalking incident.

But her luck was good tonight.

In any case, she continued her snooping… cough, investigation.

The ‘secret’ room was very small. There was only a single old bed, a small desk, and a dilapidated dresser. The mirror was dusty—everything in this room, in fact, was dusty. There was a single lipstick tube and a bunch of powder cases atop the dresser.

Kirana thought that the owner of the room was most likely to be female. Sure, males could use make-up, too, but in a backward village like this, it was unlikely. Not to mention, when she opened the dresser, she found a few summer dresses.

So the question was, who was the owner of this room? A relative of the family? Where did she go? Why didn’t she live here anymore?

Kirana continued to rummage through the dresser—quietly, of course. God forbid she made too many noise and attract the homeowner to this room.

She didn’t expect to find anything, so Kirana was surprised when she found an old, thin book. Kirana opened it carefully. It was a diary.

The date was unintelligible, but the content was still somewhat readable.

Dear diary

Today, older brother left the village. His room is now mine! I don’t have to sleep in the small room anymore.

Kirana looked around. This room was also small… Although, compared to the room that she stayed in with two other people, it did look more spacious.

Mother and Father argued about brother’s departure. They’re probably sad. I’m not sure how I feel. Fine? Brother never really cares about me, anyway. Brother said, he is going to the university to become a scholar and becoming smarter and smarter.

I wonder if I can go, too. But it seems like mother and father won’t agree.

The rest of the page was the girl ranting about her older brother’s departure. Kirana flipped through. Afterwards, it was just her daily routine. What was shocking though, was the death news of her older brother, that apparently caused ‘this family… to be ruined’.

Kirana’s hand stopped on one particular page.

Dear diary

Mother and father had become odd. Ever since Brother’s death, they’re always like that, but I don’t know… I just feel weird. They never care about me, but suddenly, they kept asking about me. I… I don’t know what to do. My friends from village said that it’s fine, that they’re just grieving, so they poured affection to me.

I don’t think so.

Every time they looked at me… I’m scared. I’m really scared. I don’t know why. They’re my parents, they shouldn’t hurt me, right? I still want to get married and have children…

She kept flipping the pages. The next few entries noted the girl’s anxious state, and after a week, she stopped writing about that. It seemed like she didn’t worry anymore.

However, the entry stopped there. There was a sign of torn pages on the back.

Kirana frowned. This prove nothing in particular but the old couple was indeed quite suspicious now. What happened to their daughter? Did she die? Why? There was no indication of it.

She glanced around the room once again. Since it was such a small room, there was nowhere else could she possibly hide anything. Kirana put the diary back inside the dresser and looked up.

Her heart almost dropped to her stomach.

In the mirror, there was a young girl behind, smiling at her.

There was water dripping all over her body. Her swollen, gruesome body. Kirana paused for a long second.

Then she turned around calmly, despite the adrenaline coursing through her veins. “Hello,” she said quietly.

The young girl… ghost? She tilted her head, and water dripped from her hair down to the floor. Kirana could almost feel the coldness. The ghost didn’t speak and just stared at her.

“I’ll get going if you have nothing to say,” she said, her voice only a shred above whisper.

This time, the ghost finally moved forward until it was exactly in front of her face. Did she die from drowning? Kirana observed her swollen face with discomfort. She had dealt with many deaths before, and it wasn’t the body condition that bothered her. It was that this girl should be quite a good looking one when she was alive, but she had to die this way.

And why?

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Kirana’s heart slowed down at last, since the girl ghost didn’t do anything to her. She only stared at her, then at the drawer, then behind her.

What? The wall?

That direction was indeed the old couple’s room. But that wasn’t what she pointed at, apparently. Kirana moved the mirror aside and found a small crook inside the wall.

“Is this what you want to…” When she turned around again, that girl had vanished.

Kirana paused, then continued working. Inside the small crook was a wooden box. The box didn’t seem to have any particular motif, either. It was as plain as it could be. She slowly opened it.

There was a pair of small, golden hairpin inside. She frowned. This didn’t tell her anything. She touched the bottom of the box and felt the hollowness underneath. Slowly, Kirana lifted the bottom of the box.

There were a few pieces of paper underneath. It was old and yellowish, their signs of age showing prominently. Kirana observed it and found that it was the pages torn off from the diary.

Dear diary

Mother has been looking for me a lot lately. She said I have to take care of my appearances better. What is this? Are they marrying me off?

My friend said so. That they’re marrying me off to the old man of the neighboring village. I don’t know. Somehow, I felt uneasy, like something worse is waiting for me.

Another page.

Dear diary

There’s a strange mark on me. I don’t know where it come from. It hurts. I’m worried.

Another page.

Dear diary…

I have to go.

I have to leave here. They’re crazy. They’re insane. They must have gone insane. I

Noises outside. Have to go.

They want to revive brother.

They want me to die instead.

They want me to be the river djinn’s bride!

Have to go.

It ended there.

Kirana was left with more questions than answers. What river djinn? Can that djinn revive the dead? Did the girl die after being drowned in a river… by her own parents?

The old couple?

There was a bang outside the room. Her heart banged along with it. Kirana glanced at the window on the other wall. She quickly put the box where it came from and covered it with a mirror, but she took the pieces of papers and the hairpin into her space bag.

Then, she jumped out the window.

Right before the room’s door was banged open.

It was dark, in fact. The only reason she could read the diary was because she was used to be in the dark. So, whoever opened the door shouldn’t be able to see her hidden under the window.

She didn’t want to take a risk to peep who went in the room, so she kept quiet outside. This brought back old memories of squatting in the dark, waiting. She didn’t have to wait long, though, because the door closed back again.

Kirana walked around the house and entered from the front door. The night air was quiet and calm. It didn’t seem that a ghost just appeared earlier.

She decided to take a walk around the village again. This time, with what she had discovered, the river somehow seemed bloodier. A river djinn, wasn’t it? Was it possible?

It was perhaps one or two hours that she wandered in search for clues. Finding basically nothing, she decided to go back to sleep. Maybe because it was still in the early days, just like how in the previous game, the early hours were still relatively easy to pass. She felt like she started to grasp this game’s rules.

No one was in the living room when she entered. The door was never locked since yesterday, so she wasn’t surprised. The person who entered the abandoned room earlier should’ve gone now. She went back to their room and directly went back to her spot. Putri didn’t move. It seemed like she had fallen asleep.

Kirana quickly enter the dreamland as well. []

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