“Catch her!
Don’t let her get away!” Delia glanced briefly behind her.
Her heart lurched.
Damn!
Three men.
No more than twenty meters away.
And her?
Her legs had been trembling for a while now.
This is not how the end-of-college vacation was supposed to go.
Delia had just graduated, a Bachelor’s degree in Anthropology officially hers.
Tonight should have been a celebration, not spent running from her ex-boyfriend’s thugs.
Johan…
The name tasted like poison on her tongue.
It all started when Delia accidentally found the evidence.
The messages between Johan and Bella, the girl who had looked at her like trash since the first semester.
Turns out they had made a bet.
Something disgusting, cruel, that Delia never imagined could be planned by someone who once claimed to love her.
A recording.
They wanted a recording of Johan taking her virginity, which would then be spread across campus.
No wonder that damn snail kept pressuring her, inviting her to be intimate.
So…
This was his plan.
Devil!
When Delia confronted Johan, instead of regretting it, the man got angry.
As if Delia was the one at fault for knowing what Johan had planned.
Bastard!!
But now was not the time for hatred.
Now she had to run.
Escape from the pursuit of Johan’s minions.
Delia’s breath was ragged.
Ahead of her, a three-meter brick wall, covered in moss, loomed, blocking her way.
Dead end?!
“Hahaha, where are you running off to, little rabbit?” That voice sounded too close.
Too confident.
Delia clenched her fists.
Okay.
If that’s the case…
climb!
She had no other choice.
Her fingers gripped the cracks between the bricks, her legs pushed with all the remaining strength she had.
One meter.
Two meters.
Almost…
“Hup!” Thud!
Delia landed on the other side of the wall with her right foot immediately stinging in pain.
She stumbled, almost falling, but managed to stabilize herself by leaning on the wall.
“Damn!
She climbed!
Get her!” The voices behind the wall forced her to run again even though every step hurt.
Her right ankle was sprained, pretty badly, she could tell from the sensation of pain.
But stopping was not the right choice!
Where to go now?
Delia swept her gaze left and right.
This narrow alley had minimal lighting, only the full moon’s light breaking through between the roofs of old buildings.
And in the darkest corner on her left, faintly, she saw a door.
Nearly two and a half meters tall, made of old teak wood that looked aged, with iron chains wrapped around its handle.
From her position, Delia could guess that this was the back access to the old museum where her campus had held a visit earlier that afternoon.
She limped toward that door.
Her hand trembled as she touched the rusty chain.
It must be locked.
But as her fingers pulled the latch…
Clang!
The chain fell away, as if it had been waiting for her.
Delia did not have time to feel strange about it.
She pulled the heavy door, the friction of the wood emitting a loud sound that made her hold her breath, then she slid inside and closed it again.
Clack!
Darkness swallowed her.
Delia leaned her back against the door.
Her chest rose and fell.
Slowly, her heartbeat began to calm.
Then she felt something.
Cold…
A gust of freezing air that had never been touched by sunlight.
Strange, this room was tightly sealed, wind this cold should not be able to blow in.
Her eyes slowly adjusted to the darkness.
Moonlight crept through a large window at the end of the room, its curtains already worn and torn in several places, flapping gently even though no wind was entering.
A warehouse, or at least, it used to be one.
Now this place felt like…
What, exactly?
It gave her goosebumps!
Delia’s steps were slow and careful as she moved forward.
Then, her footsteps stopped.
Before her, right under a sliver of moonlight, there was a chest.
Delia tilted her head.
Her anthropological analysis began to take over.
The chest was pitch black.
Large.
Sturdy, with a thick layer of dust indicating its age.
But what made Delia unable to look away were the carvings adorning its entire surface, motifs she didn’t recognize from any civilization she had studied, as if they came from a tradition long forgotten by history.
And at every point of the carving, a thin layer of gold gleamed.
In the center, protruding, was a gemstone the size of a thumb.
Red.
Like blood.
Her anthropological instinct reacted faster than her common sense.
Delia’s hand reached out without her fully realizing it, her fingers tracing the cold carving.
“Authentic,” she thought.
The quality of this gold was not imitation.
And this stone…
“Akh!” A sharp pain stabbed her fingertip.
Like a bite, like a sting and as Delia pulled her hand back, a drop of blood pooled there.
She furrowed her brow, staring back at the blood-red gemstone.
No sharp edges were visible.
No cracks, no chips.
But before Delia could think further…
“Check inside!
Maybe she’s hiding in here!” That voice came from behind the door.
Close.
Too close!
Delia’s gaze darted wildly around the room.
Old shelves.
Cargo boxes.
Nothing big enough, nothing safe enough, except…
Her gaze returned to the chest before her.
No…
Don’t!
But…
But Delia had no other choice.
She swallowed her saliva, summoned all her remaining strength, then pushed open the chest’s lid.
“Aaaaargh…” Creeeak!
The lid opened.
Heavy, cold, and smelling of old wood that choked her throat.
Delia did not give herself time to think, she moved in, lay down, then painfully pulled the lid closed from the inside.
Just as the chest closed, the sound of a door being kicked in echoed from the warehouse entrance.
Inside the chest, it was dark.
Delia held her breath.
Footsteps were heard, slow, sweeping across the room.
“There’s a chest, heehee!” one of the pursuers’ voices sounded.
“Check it!” That was Doni’s voice.
Johan’s friend.
“Bastard!” she thought.
Her heartbeat sounded loud in her own ears.
She squeezed her eyes shut, terrified of being caught by her pursuers.
Then…
Wooosh!
Wind.
From where?
It did not make sense.
And then…
“Huaaaaa…
DEMON!!!” There were screams, then the sound of rumbling, the sound of things falling, the sound of footsteps moving very fast and retreating.
The warehouse door slammed shut.
Then silence…
Delia did not move for several full seconds.
Then, slowly, she opened her eyes.
If this was a chest…
that meant there was a corpse inside, right?
Meaning, she was now lying next to a corpse, right?
Delia bit her lip to hold back any sound that wanted to escape her throat.
Her hand carefully reached into the small bag still hanging on her shoulder, slowly unzipped it, and found the small flashlight she always carried for emergencies.
Click!
A thin white light split the darkness of the chest.
Delia started from the bottom, because she was too cowardly to look up immediately.
There, at the end of the chest, were two pairs of feet.
One hers, in white sneakers now dirty.
And beside them, black oxford shoes, laces tied neatly, a classic model that hadn’t been produced for at least fifty years.
Okay…
So this was real?
Amazing!
Hooray, I’m lying down next to a corpse!
Slowly…
very slowly, the flashlight moved upward.
Tracing over black fabric that looked too fine to be burial cloth, more resembling a formal suit from a different era.
Hands folded across the chest, fingers that looked…
too clean for someone who had been asleep here for a long time.
And then the flashlight reached the corpse’s face.
Delia squeezed her eyes shut tightly.
3…
2…
1…
Peek-a-boo!
She opened her eyes.
And her Anthropology graduate brain, which should have been trained to analyze ancient artifacts, immediately went on strike.
Because the face beside her, illuminated by the small flashlight’s beam inside this stuffy chest, was the most implausible face she had ever seen in such a situation.
No decomposition.
No foul smell typical of corpses.
No signs of death that should be THERE.
All there was…
perfectly sculpted features.
A firm jaw.
Eyelashes too long for a man.
A face that looked like it was sleeping soundly.
Delia sniffed quietly and immediately regretted it because what she smelled was not a rotting stench.
Rather, a fragrant aroma that was nauseating, like milk cream with too much sugar.
This was scientifically nonsensical!
She tried to push the lid open from inside.
It was safe outside now, so she had to get out immediately, had to examine this corpse properly, had to…
“Don’t open it!” A low, baritone voice.
Calm.
Like someone who had just woken up from a pleasant afternoon nap, not from centuries of death.
Delia froze.
Slowly, with all the courage remaining in her, she turned her head to the side.
She froze again.
Three seconds.
Two.
One…
Those eyes opened, staring directly at her.
Eyes as red as fresh blood.
“KYAAAAAAAAAA!!!”