Looking through the peephole, Natasha was surprised to see her father along with the people who had fled her place that morning. A moment before he had denied any acquaintance with them, yet now he was here at her doorstep with them. "Something was definitely weird," she thought and flung open the door."Where did you find them?" she asked before even letting him set a foot inside her house.
"Let me first come in," said Atticus and gently turned his daughter and whispered into her ears,
"Do not over-react or make them angry. They aren"t normal human beings I feel. But still, I just want to help them get back to the place where they belong."
Even though she wasn"t convinced, Natasha nodded and welcomed the two inside.
"Come on in!"
"I didn"t get your names the last time," she said and went into the kitchen to get some water for them.
"It"s Morpheous and Eva," replied Atticus as he saw the two staring at Natasha. It was still extremely difficult for them to believe that she wasn"t Nefeli. Atticus felt bad for them as fate had indeed been cruel upon them.
As Natasha came back with a jug of water and two sparkling gla.s.ses, Atticus asked,
"Did you guys videotape anything from yesterday"s party?"
"Yes, we had two cameras in place. Daniel just coped the recording into a pen drive and went upstairs to watch them. But why the sudden interest in the Halloween party?"
"I just need to see who all came and where they went!"
"What do you mean by who all?" asked Natasha and was about to place the tray on the coffee table when Atticus said,
"These two didn"t come alone. There were three others."
"What?" exclaimed Natasha as she was startled thinking that there might be others still present inside her house. The tray that she had been holding tilted a bit towards the left-hand side and the two empty gla.s.ses slid down.
It was just about a fraction of second in which they would have been broken after landing on the floor but Morpheous had already picked them up.
"I am sorry!" exclaimed Natasha.
Looking at her Morpheous just nodded.
"Erm... yeah. I will go and get the recordings," she said and then went upstairs to get the recording from Daniel"s room.
The moment she left, Morpheous exhaled a gasp of air, as if he had retained it inside his body, trying to tame himself, trying to stop himself from expressing anything. Atticus could see a mult.i.tude of emotions spread on his face. Little Eva had turned to her other side and wiped the unruly tear that had formed in the corner of her eye.
They were good kids.
Looking at them Atticus thought, "Their parents have groomed them well." He had never seen such well-mannered people. So young yet so adapting.
"Daniel, give me the camera recordings," asked Natasha as she barged inside Daniel"s room.
"Mom! Privacy," yelled Daniel and shut the flap of his laptop down.
"Later Daniel," said Natasha and pulled out the flash drive that was plugged in his laptop and went downstairs.
"Mom, why do you need that video?" asked Daniel but as Natasha rushed without giving back any response, he followed her downstairs.
"Mom! Are you even listening to me."
But then he saw Atticus and two others in the living room.
"Grandpa! Hey, Morph! You are back!" exclaimed Daniel and then inched towards his mother, who was plugging in the flash drive into the television and asked in a hushed tone,
"What on earth are these people doing here?"
"Shhh...." Natasha shushed him and then started playing them one after the other. She was fast-forwarding through the videos, wanting to quickly reach to the one where either Morpheous or Eva could be seen. They went through a couple of videos when suddenly Eva screamed, "There!"
Natasha paused the screen and went closer and saw Morpheous lying near the swimming pool. But as the video was taken from afar, and Morpheous wasn"t very clearly visible. She rewinds it ten seconds back and they saw him appear on the floor in the flash of a second.
In a second he appeared on the floor out of nowhere.
"Holy s.h.i.t!" screamed Daniel but Natasha held on to his hand and shook her head. "Don"t raise an alarm!" she said and looked at the two sitting in front of her. She was scared but given that Atticus had faith in them, she decided to help them out too.
"Can we watch it again?" asked Morpheous politely and looked at Natasha.
"Ah sure," she said and as she moved a second back, she saw something dark on the screen. It initially looked like a tiny black spot next to Morpheous but then slowly it started growing. Getting a bit scared Natasha took a step back, as the video was paused but that black spot was enlarging. She felt as if someone might come crawling outside from that hole.
Slowly that black spot covered the whole screen of her television in the flash of a second and that scared the s.h.i.t out of Natasha. She screamed as she could feel needles piercing through her.
"Mom! Mom! Are you ok?" asked Daniel and shook her.
Natasha looked at Daniel and then looked at the television screen. It was still paused at the same frame where she had seen the tiny spot before but now there was no black spot on the screen.
"Didn"t you guys see that?" she asked with panic-stricken eyes.
"See what?" asked Atticus and came close to his daughter. Pointing her finger at the television screen, Natasha said, "There, just next to Morpheous I saw..."
But before she could complete her sentence the screen went completely off and next there was a message on the screen,
"No data detected on the Memory Drive."
"How is that possible?" muttered Daniel and unplugged and plugged the flash drive back again, but the same error persisted.
"The drive has been erased grandpa," said Daniel and looked at Atticus.
A state of panic set in.
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