"What happened? What are you guys looking at?" Adan asked and moved towards them.
After the sunset, the lights which were flickering inside the building went off completely. That made the whole place give a dreadful vibe and terror struck them. The stink from the dead bodies covered the whole place which made them feel suffocated.
"What are we going to do now?" Upton asked.
"I don't know. But I am hungry." Ura whispered.
"Everyone here is! But I don't think our kidnapper kept any food for us to enjoy on this special vacation. And with all the stench and looking at this place, I am really surprised how you can even utter that word. Do you really feel like eating at this dirty place?" Aaron uttered.
Ura just kept her mouth quiet thereafter and did not respond or say anything. From the time he came back with Zinna, Aaron kept on accusing her of something or other and the way he spoke with her was very rude. Zinna opened her eyes slowly and looked around. She pretended as if she had just woken up, held Aaron's hand weakly.
"Are you awake now? Is it still painful? I saw some rainwater collected on the fountain, I will go and bring it for you to drink." Aaron said with a worried look at her and stood up.
Ura was about to stop him, but the warning glare from Upton made her sit down quietly. She knows even if she says something about the fountain water, it would just backfire on her. So decided to heed Upton's warning and remained silent.
Instead, Adan spoke up and stopped Aaron from going to that fountain.
"No. That water is not drinkable. You do not know what it was there actually..."
"Did Ura say something about that fountain too? That the water from the fountain is mixed with the dark blood from a corpse." Aaron asked with a smirk.
"...." Ura, Adan, and Upton looked at each other.
"How do you know?" Adan asked.
"Did she really say that?" Aaron gave Ura a judgemental look.
"No, I meant about the fountain water mixed with the blood from the corpse or to be precise it's getting filled with the liquid flow from the corpse hanging on the tree nearby that fountain. It is true. Trust me! We all saw that too. It was not just Ura alone this time as well. Yes, Ura saw it first but I and Upton saw it too. You seriously need to stop blaming Ura like this continuously and try to hear out both sides." Adan declared.
"You are really mean to Ura from the time you came back with Zinna. What is wrong with you? Why are you always accusing her? Just because you did not see the beast, it does not mean it did not exists." Upton asked.
Seeing that all of their attention was still on Ura, Zinna felt bitter and she got irritated with Upton who brought the beast topic once again which she was trying to hide.
"Aaron, I am thirsty and hungry now. And my back is hurting a lot." Zinna moved and tried to hold Aaron's legs. The way she moved made everyone feel like a ghost crawling and holding Aaron's legs and would just not let go until he is dead.
Aaron immediately came near her with a calm face and said, "Do not worry, I will go and try to find something for you to eat and drink."
Aaron walked away while Adan followed him. Upton also left with them as he did not want to stay with two girls alone.
"So what is your plan?" Ura asked.
Zinna just looked at her and then ignored her.
"Zinna, I know you were taken by that giant beast and even you know very well what had happened! Are you really going to lie to everyone that it was my imagination until the end? Why are you doing this? Did I do something bad to you at anytime before? Look at the situation we are in! Please, right now, all I want to do is escape from here. So, I beg you to stop trying to drive a wedge among ourselves as I am really not in the mood to take any of those false accusations anymore."
After Ura said her part, she stood up and walked away. Zinna, who was left alone felt nervous, she feared that the beast would return and take her away. She closed her eyes. She wanted to go and join others but the wound in her legs made it difficult to even move a little.
Thankfully, she did not have to wait for long as Aaron came back but with an empty hand. She felt upset but tried hard to hide her feelings. The darkness had now taken over the whole place and the moonlight filtered in through the glass window reflected on Zinna's face. Aaron ignored the grumpy feeling in his heart and said,
"I am sorry, Zinna. We searched the whole place but there was nothing to eat and even the fountain water was not drinkable. Ura was right! There really was a..."
"No, there was no beast. Beast did not take me, I fell down the old wooden floor which was severed and got hurt. It all happened because I was searching for you all. You trust me right, Aaron? Don't you?" Zinna asked as fear engulfed her.
"Zinna���"
"So you too do not trust me like everyone else? I better die here then... I do not want to live anymore..." Zinna wailed for a long time.
All Aaron wanted to say was the corpse was really stuck in a tree and it made the water undrinkable. Aaron almost forgot about that beast matter long ago. All he wanted to do was tell her now was that Ura had already found a way out of this building and he came back to bring her there. But looking at Zinna who was crying nonstop and accusing Ura for every word which came out of her mouth, Aaron just stared at her while making his folding his hand into a fist.
He was not good with girls, especially the ones who cried a lot. He let her cry for some time and when he noticed that she was just not going to stop anytime soon, he stood up. Zinna realized that he had stood up and thought he was about to leave.
"Are you going to leave me here because I am injured and could not walk anymore?" Zinna asked with tear-filled red eyes.
Aaron looked at the way she was looking. She was mostly covered with blood and her wine-colored eyes made it even more scary and horrible. When he could not decide what to tell her, Adan came from behind and asked,
"Let us go… What are you guys waiting for?"
"Go? Go where?" Zinna asked.
"Ura found a way out of this building. Maybe we should try that route to see if we can escape from this horrible place." Adan said
"Try? What do you mean by try?" Zinna asked.
"This place is actually like a puzzle. At least we have an option now, instead of waiting for those animals to come and eat us alive."
"Animals? Didn't you say you saw just only one snake? Anyways I read that if snakes eat, then it would not eat for more than a week. So we will have lots of time to escape if it eats one person among them. I really cannot walk with my current situation, so... "
"Zinna...." Aaron shouted and finally realized what a dreadful girl she actually was!
Adan did not want to waste any more time and even though he was angry at what Zinna had told, her point might not be completely wrong. Still, he hoped that everyone could escape safely with the tunnel Ura found rather than waiting for a miracle to happen.
"Zinna, even if you cannot walk, we need to go from here. We just cannot sit here and wait for someone to come to our rescue. I don't think anyone can even hear us if we shout from here. Didn't you see all the mountains and water outside? Do you think there will be only one snake roaming around in this abandoned place? Do not worry, if you cannot walk, then either Aaron or I will carry you all the way out."
Adan pulled her up and put one of her hands on the shoulders and said,
"Try to hop and walk with one leg. It would be difficult to walk for long by carrying your whole weight."
Zinna couldn't argue back but she felt irritated with Adan for the way he spoke. She looked at Aaron with pitiful eyes, but he looked away as her face was too horrible to look at that moment.
The whole place was built underground. So, there were no windows but the more they climbed, they saw the whole place was covered with closed glass windows. Not even one they could push and open it. When they reached the top floor, they saw a tunnel leading out of the building.
"Do you want me to crawl on this tunnel to go out? Are you guys crazy?" Zinna shrieked.
"Zinna, relax. If you have any other option then let us know, we will consider that. Even after roaming around for a few hours, we could not find any exit door till now. At least Ura was brave enough to find this tunnel which could be our only option to escape from here." Upton said while trying to keep himself calm.
"If you want you can go first this time as well. I won't run away like last time and will definitely follow you." Ura murmured.
Zinna turned back and glared at her. She is definitely saying this to take revenge and once again it has all turned into Ura this and Ura that… 'I hate you, Ura. I hope that giant snake swallows you and you just disappear from my sight.'