CHUCK
(30 hours in lockdown)It was turning seven in the evening when Mrs. Tejada came back. Around that time, everyone had just finished cleaning themselves and packing up their things to ready for the lifting of the lockdown.
Cylvia and Ashley were twinning pajamas, a blue and white cotton fabric with cute little dolphins scattered everywhere with no definite patterns. Samantha was on her night game, Vhynz was in pair of LAKERS jersey uniform, Chuck was on his brown corduroy, and the rest of the girls had pretty much the same type of slumber wears.
When I was done packing my things, I lifted my trolley bag off my chair, and pulled it all the way to the door where almost everyone were already in line preparing to leave the room. The seats were arranged back to their proper arrangements, scattered laundry and rubbishes from snacks were now pretty much collected in a black trashJIEVEAfter standing in line, listening to the speech of the Vice Principal while praying it wouldn’t take long so we could finally set free from the crowded situation, the queue of the Freshmen Star Section shattered into pieces as they got the luckiest opportunity to leave the building first. We were so jealous because they were the first to smell the fresh air outside, they were the first to stretch their limbs and bones and free themselves from the arthritis-prone gesturing, and last yet ain’t the least, they were the first to finally go home after being away for more than thirty-one hours due to the implemented emergency lockdown.The order for the releasing (Yes, I chose the word ‘releasing’ because it really felt like we were prisoners held captive in a jail for no reason) of students were in chronological manner; First Year students to Fourth Year students, and that only possessed the unchangeable and brutal reality that of a
Upon blasting out those sizzling words, Samantha turned around to me. For the first time in the history of Samantha and Jieve encounters, she looked me in the eyes; her gaze was perfectly horrific, and torridly intimidating. It was brown like her twin brother, Vhynz, but at that moment during our gaze, it turned red. Like fire. Like a burning hot magma boiling on the mouth of a dangerously active volcano.She moved to steps back to me. She paused. She leaned her body forward until there was only at least two fingers between us. And then, after a sigh, she said, “It’s not my fault if you are born and raised with high temper. So don’t blame me if your level of patience is poor because I don’t have anything to do with it. I don’t have business with it, and I don’t have business with you.” She flipped her hair, some of its fibers splashed like a running water on my face. “So here’s the deal. No one’s stopping
The thing was, LD and I were friends. I mean, close friends. Closer tham best friends, actually. We had been sharing the same friendship together ever since we were Pre-School (Her Mom and my Mom were Best friends, too.), that was why I witnessed all the struggle he had been ever since. He was obese, and his obesity was not just any other’s obesity. His case was different, because no matter how I tried to convince him to lose weight, and no matter how hard did he tried to at least engage on the idea of losing weight, he just could not still drop a pound. He had just gotten bigger and bigger, to the point that it was already alarming. If Andrei was fat, he was twice (or maybe twice and a half) fatter than Andrei.“Well, good then. Let’s go there together,” he said once he was done making up for a breather.“Seriously speaking, boy, I have not taken a pee ever since the lockdown started. Crazy, right? I did not know
LD warmed his hands on the dryer just beside the wide mirror bordered with gold and silver bars with carvings of mini flowers. When he was all done, he paused back to the center of the mirror and had a quick look of himself. “They are both doing well. There are times Dad is out of the metro for work purposes. As for my Mom, as usual, she is busy doing bacon and cheese sandwiches with tomato slices and strips of lettuce leaves. I’m sick of it, actually. I’m getting more and more bloated because I have been eating from breakfast up to dinner,” he answered.“Oh? Isn’t it supposedly a good diet? And besides, I don’t see any reason to get used of eating your Mom’s special burger. I’m craving for it, shit!”LD brushed his messy hair. “Mom is actually looking forward for your next visit. Dad, too. They are both missing you and sometimes it annoys me because it questions my value as
“What-what are you trying to do? Why-why do you have a knife, Samatha?” I asked, the trembling of my voice was enough to suffice my veins with overflowing fear and tremor. “Whatever this is, this is not a good joke. Stop it, you are scaring us!” I even added.LD clenched his fists, but it did not look like he was planning to punch Samantha, or perhaps trying to take the knife away from her. To me, he was clenching his fists because just like me,he was afraid too. Afraid that maybe Samantha was not kidding. Afraid that maybe Samantha was not in the right mood for a prank.Samantha moved closer at the same time our hearts moved closer to our rib cage, too. She raised the chopping knife in the air, pointing the sharp edge of the rectangular weapon to my direction. The rusts, the bronze color that sparked as the light of the yellow bulbs inside the comfort room shimmered over the knife reflected our faces on its surface.
CHUCKIt was not that long when the Juniors finally left the hall, leaving us, the Seniors alone but happy for it was finally our turn to leave and get a free ride from the school buses. Because there were no teachers assisting and keeping us in order, and because the school guard assigned to us seemed to have no care about what was happening exactly, Cylvia, our class president took the sole responsibility of calling us all and making us go back to our lines.“Okay, everyone go back to your lines!” she shouted on top of her lungs.After her command, we, who were parted and distributed evenly but randomly in every corner of the first floor ran all the way to the center to form our line. There were two lines in total, with each line consisting ten people. The one on the left was led by Geodie, while the line on the right was led by Ashley.With firm and strongly modulated voice, Cylvia com
I was stuck on the same spot where I was standing after I heard what Travis had said. It did not sink in to me in any ways. His words felt like a pile of loose sands to me, slowly falling out of hand and disappearing in the air without giving me at least a single idea of what was going on exactly. He wanted me to call the police, which I would normally do so because I was obedient when the one giving me orders was Travis, but then it’s a little off to me to call the cops without at least knowing the reason why. I just stood frozen beside him, eyes were worried where to look at, and lips were worried what to say.After a minute or two, I finally had the gut to ask. “Why do you want me to call the police?” I doubted if I asked the right question.Regardless, Travis still answered anyway. “It will be rude and unprofessional of me to say things to you that only police are allowed to say, Chuck. That’s why if you wan
RABIYAWhen I heard a halting sound of engine outside the building, the first thing that came into my mind was the school buses. “Finally, after a long wait, they are back,” I would have thought. I was pretty sure that everyone must have thought of the same thing, too. But when it was followed by the wailing sound of siren that reverberated in the partly-lit pavement outside, it was then when I realized that the vehicles which just arrived were not school buses at all. They were patrol cars, ambulance, and police motorbikes.“Oh, my bullshit tuna! You gotta be kidding me!” Philip cursed at the wind as he saw his father walked in alongside seven other armed policemen. They were marching in horizontal line, hands were gripping tight onto the handle of their pistols. “What on earth is going on here?” Philip furthered, attempting to approach his dad but I did not think it was
SAMANTHA Everything went so fast and abrupt since we decided to ditch the police and never show up in either of anyone’s houses. The best part was that, I felt what it was like being a villain. Yes, the way we moved, the way we established plans, and the way we executed them, it surely the same as how villains did their job on movies.By around this time, we were now inside our house. The black truck was parked outside the gate, as all of us entered inside to take a short break. While the rest were slouching on the sofa beds, I and my twin brother Vhynz searched the house to look for the map of the island where our slaughterhouse business was located. Well, the thing was, neither of us two was able to remember where we put that thing. All I could remember was the passcode of the safe where the credit cards and the money was left by our parents. When I checked it the moment we arrived, the map wa
CHUCKLooking at Travis when he followed to cop to lead him to where our tents were located was already a pain in the eyes to me. I could sense the fear he was feeling from afar, and I could hear the loud drum rolls of his heart as he walked steps farther away that us. It was already given that if someone was here in this island with us, chances was that, he or should could have planted the evidences that linked to us inside one of those tents. There could be a slim possibility that we would be proven guilty. Every single one of us were drunk and wasted last night; it would have been a perfect opportunity for the killer to get our fingerprints or perhaps, to be more believable, tag the murder weapon in our hands right after killing Janvic with it. But until now, I still did not realize how Janvic was killed. There were bruises and stabbed wounds all over his body, but they were scattered. Was it a brutal way of slaughtering? Or
A not so long time had passed but still none of Noel Hummingbird’s so called disciples had went out of the cottage to give us at least the tiniest update they could provide regarding on how was the status of the conversation. It has been an hour already since the clash between Philip and the detective had happened, but still, here we were, pinned down to the ground just yet, feeling the intense numbing of our arms, and the pain on our necks as we contest on our nerves about who will stay longer in this position and who will remain surviving until the end of the investigation protocol. While we were trying our best not to collapse and get passed out on our spot where everyone of us friends were gathered, I decided maybe it was best if we had our own little chitchat just to shut down the dead air that had been wrapping and suffocating us. I initiated the conversation, and thank all the heavens above my classmates chimed in and made it as fluent as possible. “Are you still
TRAVISWhen we heard the sirens wailed from afar, we already suspected that it was them already; Philip with the rest of our friends, and then the police car. Hearing them made us skip each of our things that we were doing and ran out of the cottage to meet them half way. There were some signs of relief in my heart, but at the same time I could not deny the fact that there were also nerves of nervousness trying to ruin the day. Obviously, none of us three who were left here in the cottage was the killer, and there supposedly have no reason for us to be feeling guilty. But why are we feeling the complete opposite? Why, while running going outside, are we feeling as if we wanted to hide something only to make sure that we could prove ourselves innocent? And lastly, why did I feel like here would go another round of spitting lies again, only to assure that this time, I, or neither of Rabiya and Chuck, would not be accused a killer?
RABIYA The amount of boxes for Travis to unpack was so overwhelming, just as overwhelming as the number of drawers I had check to make sure that not a single clue will be left unseen. Ever since we started doing what we were opt to do, we had not yet seen an evidence. Not one. Not even a little, slight, or discreet one. At this point of our semi investigation, I was now starting to think that what if there were really no clues hidden inside the cottage? What if we were just used to know that this was the usual routine every time there was a crime happening that it brought us to conclude that the same protocol should be implemented? I rested my face from frowning because of the unpleasant smell coming from the utensils that were long kept inside the drawers-- only God knew how long had they been there inside their cases. I moved three steps away from the kitchen cabinet, and then clapped the dusts off my hands. I then washed the
CHUCK After five minutes at most, Rabiya got out of the kitchen room with a serving platter and three cups of coffee. Just by the aroma of it, and just by seeing how the steam evaporated in the air sending thin clouds of visible smoke towards us, as if a hand trying to seduce us to drink it right away, I could already determine that the freshly brewed coffee were so satisfying. I jumped out of the sofa where I decided to sit for three minutes, and fetched Rabiya from the isle to get the cup she prepared for me. I determined it right away which cup was mine, because I was the only one who ordered my coffee to be black and pure. No sure, no creamer, no anything at all. “You better be sure this taste great,” I threatened Rabiya in a jokingly manner. She just gave me a good smirk, as if she was utterly confident that her brewed coffee would meet the standards of my peculiar taste buds. I then picked up another cup, the
It did not took us that long to finally accept the fact that now, starting from this moment, there will only be the three of us left here. I did not know how would I begin to internalize us, but every single time I would think about the isolation i give to our own selves, the first few things that wold cross my minds were death, conflicts, and again, another crime. Right now, just simply thinking about how big this place was for only the three of us who were left inside the beach resort, I was already defeated by the fact that we were completely overwhelmed. I did not know what was circling inside Travis’ mind at this exact moment, but there was only one thing I was sure: Whatever it was, it must be very, very complicated. I walked my feet away from the garage after the black truck Philip used to drive Janvic exited a couple of minutes ago. If not because of the wind which slapped me a cool hand on my face, never would I ever have awaken myself from that lucid daydream I had.
CHUCKIt did not took us that long to finally accept the fact that now, starting from this moment, there will only be the three of us left here. I did not know how would I begin to internalize us, but every single time I would think about the isolation i give to our own selves, the first few things that wold cross my minds were death, conflicts, and again, another crime. Right now, just simply thinking about how big this place was for only the three of us who were left inside the beach resort, I was already defeated by the fact that we were completely overwhelmed. I did not know what was circling inside Travis’ mind at this exact moment, but there was only one thing I was sure: Whatever it was, it must be very, very complicated. I walked my feet away from the garage after the black truck Philip used to drive Janvic exited a couple of minutes ago. If not because of the wind which slapped me a cool hand on my face, never wou
ANDREI Travis grouped us all into two, where each and every group had its own task to perform, all of which were very vital to the progress of our movement. The first group were merely composed of Geodie, Samantha, Cylvia, Yuri, Philip, and me. Based on the instructions of our acting leader who was Travis, we are going to be the group that will send Janvic to the nearest hospital and at the same time call the cops and bring them back here. Meanwhile, the other group which was composed of only Travis, Chuck, and Rabiya, they will be the ones that will remain here to check and investigate the place. When I asked Travis if the job was not too big for only the three of them to handle, he answered me firmly and confidently, ‘the lesser we are here, the easier the job will be.’ Well, that only made a lot of sense because it would be harder if there will be more people to stay here. The more the people will stay, the more