The door opened to reveal a smaller room, richly decorated. All the walls were draped with silk curtains that were either blue or pink. From the ceiling hang different Aztec masks and suits and in the corner to our right stood a cabinet shaped like a star. We opened the cabinet and saw that it was full of little bottles of opium. Tim pocketed two and took a picture of the whole cabinet with a plan to show them to the police as proof. As there were loads of masks hanging from the ceiling, we decided to look at some of them, because to be fair, they were pretty fascinating. Some were blue, some were green and some were gold. One mask hanger was empty and I was guessing that was where the mask that Eztli was wearing before was hanging.
Tim started moving the curtains and behind the blue ones he found a small black notebook, which surprised me, considering how colorful everything else in this mine was. Tim opened the notebook and we could see the things in it were written with green ink and in every bottom right corner was a small red Aztec sign. We started reading it and we quite quickly found out that it was a diary. On the top of the first page there was a date that read: May 7th 2000. Underneath the date there was a little bit of text written as well. Tim started reading it aloud. 'Today is the day that I start with The plan. I have to go. I can't stay a minute more. I'm 24 years old. Today my little brother turned 6. I have to go right now. I have to take a new dose of my medication every day now. It's slowly killing me. I want to kill myself sometimes. But I can't. I have to have my revenge. He took everything I had away from me. My friends, my freedom, my health.' This was where the text ended and there was no signature or anything else of the kind. We looked at each other. The diary was probably Eztli's . But who was the person that he needed to get revenge on? And what did the girls have to do with that?
And then all of a sudden Tim fell down. I screamed, but not long after that, my vision got dark and I blacked out.
When I started to regain consciousness again I noticed that I was tied up again, this time on the ground and my hands were tied to some pipes behind my back. I tried screaming for help and tugging on the ropes, but to no avail. I looked around myself and on the other side of the room I could see a guy about my age, 17 or 18, he wasn't tied up but he looked as if though he gave up on life itself already. 'Hey,' I said to him, 'who are you?'. The guy stirred a little but he didn't really look surprised that somebody else was in the same room as him. The room was only lighted by one candle so I couldn't see the guy all that clearly, considering he was on the other end of the room and the room itself was quite big for a cell as well. The walls, floor and ceiling were once again made of stone, but this time, there was no carpet on the floor.
I already thought that the guy wasn't going to speak when he said 'Ethan. My name is Ethan Castro. Who are you and what are you doing here?' he asked. 'My name is Juliet. Juliet Moore.' I then proceeded to tell him how I ended here and then asked him about his backstory. 'Well that is a long story. Long and sad. Are you sure you wanna hear it?' he asked 'Well we've got time, don't we?' I answered. 'Alright then, just don't say I didn't warn you'. Then Ethan told Juliet the most interesting but at the same time the most horrible and the saddest story she had ever heard.
'It all started with my parents meeting. The way they met was pretty strange already. I know different people have different stories of how they met their spouses, but most of them meet each other in bars or at parties or they know each other from school. My parents however... My mom went into the forest to get some berries and firewood, because she lived in a really poor household and her family has been starving for a few days. While my mom was gathering firewood however, she felt a very sharp pain near her ankle. So sharp, she almost passed out from it. She fell on the ground and when she looked down she saw a shutter buried in her skin and her leg was coated in blood. The pain was unbearable and as she laid on the ground to release at least some of the pain, out of the forest walked my father with a gun on his shoulders. He hurried towards my mom and started apologizing. He told her that his friend was a hunter in training and he decided to take him along for the day. However, his friend didn't know how to shoot very well and he accidently ended up shooting my mom in the leg. He took her to the village to get her healed, but what he didn't know however, was that my mom had a very weak immune system already and the shot wound in her leg was infected. This was just them meeting.' At this point, Ethan took a breath and then carried on with the story.
'My mom's foot was getting weaker and weaker in just few weeks time. At first it was just little bits of pain throughout the day but then the just started getting worse and worse. There were days when she couldn't get out of bed, not to even mention walking. They gave her some sort of medication that helped her dull the pain so she could at least walk without pain. During those weeks, my father and my mom started getting closer together, they became friends and then a couple. A few years down the line they got married. One year after their wedding, my brother Aaron James was born. He was a healthy baby, born at the right time and everything. But when he was two years old, the doctors figured out that he had some sort of a disease. None of the doctors could figure out what it was, but when Aaron was four years old and he started getting these panic attacks, they figured out that the disease was actually a side effect of the medicine that my mom was taking while she was pregnant with him. So, Aaron had to spend most of his childhood and teenage years in different hospitals and health homes. Then when he was 18 my mom was pregnant with me, except this time, she wasn't on her pain medication and even though her pain was worse than before and there were days when her whole leg was shaking. All that just to make sure that I wouldn't get any kinds of diseases like Aaron did. So I was really healthy, but mom however, was not. Are you sure you want to hear this?' I couldn't do anything else but nod. I just couldn't believe what I was hearing.
'Ok then, your choice-your mistakes. Anyways, her pained leg took so much energy out of her that she couldn't even walk anymore because her body had gotten so used to the medication that helped her walk. Then about three years after my birth, she died. Considering I was only 3 at the time, I never really knew my mom. It hit Aaron the hardest, because they were very close. He was 21 at the time. For three years, we were all in this mourning-like period but then my father who just couldn't deal with it anymore and had fallen deep into depression after mom's death saw no point in life anymore so he killed himself. That year, shortly after I was 6 years old and my brother was 24, Aaron left. And I didn't see him for... well wait until the end of the story and you'll know. From then on I was raised by my cousin Jamie. He found himself a job and tried going to school in the mornings and then to work in the afternoons. He took any and all offers he got, just to make enough for our survival. But as a few years went by, he got mixed up with some bad people and things just went downhill from there. It started with smoking. Every day when I came home from school, the whole house smelled of cigarettes. Then he started binge-drinking. There were empty bottles of Vodka, Tequila and other drinks rolling around the house. Then one day I came home and I saw Jamie on the couch, a syringe in his hand and he was trying to get heroin into his veins. After that he was lost. Whenever I saw him he looked like a ghost. He didn't eat, he didn't drink, he didn't sleep. All he could think about was when and how he could get his fix. If I wanted to eat I had to either beg for food on the street or I had to steal. Then one day Jamie disappeared . But it wasn't like most of the time when he would be gone for a few days or a week. That time I waited for him for 3 weeks, then when he was gone for more than 2 months I gave up. I heard one day that he died. Car accident. That was when I started living a different life that I should begin a long time ago. I was 9 years old at the time. I got enrolled in some social justice home things, I started training football and I was finally able to visit school again regularly, which was great. Long story short, I tried to live a normal life and I was pretty good at it too. Then when I was high school we went to visit some caves and mines nearby. When I was in there I remembered how Aaron once took me to an abandoned mine when I was about 5 years old. I know this might sound a little odd, but at that time I didn't really think all that much about my brother. I mean, he left when I was 6 years old and since then, 10 years have passed already . So I decided to go and look for him.'
'Now, get ready for the darkest part of the story. I couldn't really remember where the mine was because all that happened 10 years ago and I was already 17 by then and living in a completely different part of town then where we used to live. I found it eventually of course. After about one week. I was a little scared as well, because let's be honest, how big were the chances that he was living in an abandoned mine? Turns out, pretty big. When I got in, everything was very dark and well, mine-like. But the deeper I went into the mine, the newer it became. The corridors were tiled, lighted and warmer. When I was walking for some time I came to big iron doors and upon opening them I found a big Aztec temple. As I was watching it as if though out of nowhere, came Aaron. I almost didn't recognize him. His hair was longer, and he was dressed in some colorful clothes. He didn't recognize me either, he put a knife to my neck and demanded I tell him who I was. When I did he released me and just looked at me for about a minute. Then he said that he was really glad to see me and that he was very sorry for everything bad he has done to me. Then he asked me how I was doing and I answered him and then I asked him about the temple and he just turned away. I followed him to the kitchen where he took out a pack of cookies and asked me if I wanted some tea. I said yes and he set out to make it. I asked him where the toilet was and then when I went down the hall I instead of turning right turned left and I came into the room with the dead girls. I got so scared I almost fainted. When I turned around to leave the room I almost crashed into Aaron who said to me with a sweet voice: 'Where are you going little brother of mine? We hadn't even had tea yet.' With shaky hands I took the cup and took a few sips. Then my head got dizzy and when I turned to look up at Aaron I could see him grinning evilly at me. Then, the next thing I remembered was being tied up to this wall in here and in front of me there was a note with the words: 'There are some things you weren't supposed to see. You were just at a wrong place at a wrong time, that's all. When you'll be older you'll understand. And no hard feellings, alright little bro?'. And so I've been here for about a month, I tried to escape, but Aaron, or as he calls himself Eztli, made it clear that that is an impossible task since the door is always locked and there is no other way out of here as far as I know. So he untied me just to show me that even with me not being bound to the wall, I still couldn't escape, no matter how hard I tried. He brings me food and water and that is it. This is my story, now you know how I wound up here and why I said that it was long and complicated and sad.' I couldn't believe my own ears! That a brother could tie up his brother in a cold, prison like cell! It was horrible to even think about!
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Meanwhile Tim was strapped onto a white operational table in a florescent green room. When he looked around himself he saw a table to his right, which had a few syringes , scissors and scalpels. At first he couldn't remember how he had gotten into the room but then he remembered Eztli's diary and the opium and Juliet... Juliet! Where was Juliet? She wasn't in the room with him so Tim guessed that Eztli had taken her to a different room. He was only hoping she was alright, not tortured or even worse. No one could hear him, but it was probably still worth a shot. He screamed. 'Hello? Can anyone hear me? Is anybody here?' Of course nobody answered him. Then the room's door opened and in came a woman.
Tim remembered her from the kitchen. She stepped closer to Tim and started talking. 'My name is Dr. Davis, we usually don't take boys, but in this case, we thought we could make a small exception.'. With that she picked up a scalpel and some scissors and cut Tim's shirt open. Then she cut into the upper part of Tim's stomach and little droplets of blood showed. Tim screamed in pain and tried to get out of the bonds but no matter how hard he struggled he just couldn't escape. She cut even deeper and Tim blacked out again.