So the plan was to take Melissa into the jungle at night. All of us had told her that we were going to watch a beautiful flower that blooms at night only and she bought it and was ready to go with us.

Read complete story chapterwise here -> The Misdeed

The way to the place had so many trees that only one person could walk at a time. Nadia followed by me and Melissa was leading the way. One by one the rest of the group kept returning to the cottage.Melissa looked back and found no one behind her. It was only Nadia, her and me left. Melissa using her horrified voice said, “Guys? Where are the others?”

“I don’t know.” I said, “They were right behind us.”

Nadia said, “Probably went back. They were tired.”

“Ya right. They must have gone back.” said Melissa.

“Let’s keep walking the dawn is not far.” I said.

She never left my side and that was the plan. As planned Nadia fell into a booby trap which hung her upside down and she genuinely screamed. Melissa screamed with her. I said, “Don’t panic. Probably the locals trying to catch animals. I’ll get an axe. Melissa you wait here.” Nadia was a gymnast so she didn’t have much problem hanging upside down for hours as she had practice. I also went back to the cottage.

Hours later as Nadia told me, she asked Melissa to go look for me as she was worried. Now Melissa was the only one there so she went to look for me. She kept walking towards the cottage and when she was away from Nadia, Nadia cut out of the rope and returned back to the base. Now as planned Melissa would have got back from her search and found Nadia absent. Scared out of her wits she would have screamed Nadia’s name but no one replied. Now Melissa all panicky would have  ran for her life towards the cottage.

As she was scared of mirrors after watching the movie mirrors, we had placed a lot of mirrors on the way back. The mirrors were placed with small candles which made the scene more ritually. At that moment we had planned to end the prank but something worse happened.

All scared when she returned to the mirrors, on seeing the mirrors she became completely still. Then suddenly she made a shrieking noise that broke all the mirrors. It was not a normal humane noise. She was screaming like the time when we bring a magnet near a computer, only 500 times high. Our friend Peter almost bled through his ears.

Anyways just after that a wind blew and the candles were extinguished. We were in complete darkness. We could see Melissa’s shadow. She collapsed then and there. Now the rest of us were scared out of our wits.

Sophie, Peter’s sister had a torch. She switched it on and we could see Melissa. Her body as cold as glacial ice. I picked her up with the help of my college friend Randy. We took her back to the cottage and checked her vital signs. There was no heartbeat and no breathing.

Nadia was a medical student. She declared her dead due to a heart attack. Weird thing was that her whole body was cold but her heart was burning up. We didn’t know what to do. It was obvious we killed her. We went too far.

Collectively we decided we should bury her and inform everyone that she was lost and we tried to find her but we couldn’t. So I arranged for a shovel and Randy and I took her far away from the cottage and buried her near a tree which had a red mark on its trunk.

I don’t know why I chose this tree. It was like someone told me to do that. We went back and no one could sleep that night.

Stay tuned for more crisp…