By Abhignan Muppavaram, 10B

Warm, effulgent beams of the morning sun penetrated through the amber curtains, faintly enlightening the tenebrous hotel room with a hue of yellow. The wooden chimes, hung upon the ceiling of the patio, was performing a melodious tune, orchestrated by the calm zephyr blowing across.

Then suddenly, disrupting this tranquil atmosphere, the alarm blared out, which immediately made Harvey spring out of bed. Harvey was so stunned by the alarm, his heart nearly skipped a beat and he was unaware of what was happening around him.

Slowly, after regaining his consciousness, Harvey got out of bed and went straight to the patio to relax himself. Outside the hotel room, the view was absolutely picturesque. The land, stretching out from the hotel, was crusaded upon by lavish verdant weeds of grass, polka dotted with fluorescent daffodils. Between these fields, a creek of fresh scintillating water pierced through the green land, making its way to a small pond.

A smile spread across Harvey’s face, looking at all of this. He was truly mesmerised by it. Peculiarly though, beside the pond, a small boy, alone, was playing with a boomerang. However, every single throw, the boomerang never returned to him, yet he resiliently fetched it  back.

“Strange,” thought Harvey because it was 5 AM in the morning, the sun just barely got out into the sky, and boomerang isn’t a sport to be playing so determinedly in the morning; It was particularly odd.

Then, after admiring the view for a long time, suddenly, the doorbell rang.

Harvey, annoyed that he was disturbed from looking at the patio, hastily strolled towards the door and opened it. At it, was a short man, formally dressed in a sable suede tuxedo with a rather big bowtie, under which his chin was hiding. With a sweet, high-pitched voice he said, “A very good morning sir, my name is Peter. I will be your assistant for this day. Would you like any beverage to begin your day?” Pleased with the courtesy that he had been receiving, Harvey, clearing up his throat, said, “Good morning Peter, I would like to have a warm coffee, no sugar please.”

“Well, of course, sir” said Peter, politely as usual and he bulleted away.

Then, Harvey shut the door and his eyes caught the grandfather clock, which stood straight across the hallway; it was 6:30 already. Harvey’s eyes instantly widened. He had a meeting to attend to at 7:15 and he must be there on time.

Harvey bolted into the bathroom and got washed up, dressed in formal attire and was all set by 7. Now, all he had to do was have his morning coffee.

Unfortunately, there was no sign of Peter. Harvey got restless; he currently had an unquenchable thirst for caffeine to give him a slight boost of energy, but he was getting late for his meeting. Having lost his patience, Harvey took his bag and hurtled away from the room.

The meeting was in the second block of the hotel, which can be entered through a long pathway. Harvey was racing across this pathway like a formula one car, with absolutely no caution at all. Then, suddenly, the bright sky was invaded upon by wolf-grey clouds, replacing the once warm, effulgent beams of the sun with cold, lifeless shadows. The once calm, tranquil zephyr was now transformed into a fierce gust of howling wind.

Then, in no time, a huge rainfall hit the hotel. The bullet-like raindrops shattered the ground below it as it came down, giving birth to small muddy puddles. Arduously, Harvey still continued his swift journey along the pathway, until he suddenly halted.

His nose caught a stingy fragrance emanating from something nearby; it wasn’t the sweet petrichor, but it was something unpleasant in nature. On the spur of the moment, a narrow stream of vermillion coloured water arrived at Harvey’s footsteps. As soon as he noticed it,  an ice cold chill went up Harvey’s spine, his eyes rolled upwards reluctantly, tracing where this red stream of water came from- it was  emerging from the plants on the side of the pathway.

Harvey gulped, trying to swallow as much fear as possible, and courageously marched towards the plants- only to find Peter’s dead body. THUD! Harvey collapsed to the wet ground.

After a couple of hours, Harvey found himself in the clinic. His clothes were partially drenched from the rain and his head was still spinning and aching from disbelief. Harvey eavesdropped the nurses talking about how Peter was taken away and it’s most likely, the boss, who murdered him for personal reasons.

To be relieved from this grim experience and to clear his head, he got up from his bed to relax, when it suddenly occurred to him— he dropped his bag when he collapsed. The bag contained documents that were of great importance and Harvey went back to retrieve it.

As soon as he got there, as expected, the area was totally under police surveillance and the bag was nowhere to be found. Harvey resiliently kept searching around the plants for the bag. Then, strangely enough, he spotted a small wooden stick, but as he scrutinized it even further, it was a boomerang, very similar to the one he saw the kid near the pond play with. Harvey picked the boomerang up and on it were smudged stains of vermillion water, or rather smudged stains of blood!

THE END