"Galveh-medgal-grap… grapdru-medveh-nagonundrux… gongisg-ván!!"
My mind repeated the words subconsciously in my head. The echoes in my head made me nauseous in no time as if I was in a fever dream. I could feel my whole body tense up to the voice in my head growing louder by the second as if it was my intuition telling me to run far away, but I wasn't able to. I kept squirming around in excruciating pain as if thousands of pins and needles were being stuck in my head, but there was no blood. Neither was there any sign of human existence. Only darkness, and one voice constantly echoing in my head…
"Galveh-medgal-grap… grapdru-medveh-nagonundrux… gongisg-ván!!"
Louder… Even more intense… More powerful, until I could bear it no more and I woke up, gasping for breath. I looked around. The train was still moving. I pulled out my phone from under my pillow and checked the time.
"3:46 am…" I sighed and kept my phone aside, rubbing my eyes. I sat up on my bunker bed and yawned. I then proceeded to sit silently for a few minutes, trying to process everything around me. Everyone was asleep in our compartment, especially dad who was snoring, while I was the only one awake because of some stupid nightmare. I scratched my head and grumbled.
"Well, I have to pee anyway." I tried to console myself as I slowly climbed down from my bed. However, before I could turn my sleepy eyes away from my bed toward the door, I realized someone was awake. It wasn't some sort of a crazy discovery for me, since it was clearly someone's screen light that caught my attention. I blinked a few times to adjust to the light before I could make my way up to the person who was awake, besides me.
"Jesus Jenny, why are you still awake?!" I said in a hushed tone, leaning down near my sister's neck to see what she was doing.
"Shh, it's the most interesting part. Go back to sleep." Anya said indifferently. I sighed.
"Is it another one of those Vampire stories that you're reading?" I asked, taking the bottle of water kept next to her. While I drank the water, Anya sat up, visibly disturbed by my presence.
"No, it's something new. It's about werewolves." She said
"And?" I asked.
"And well, although Vampire stories are interesting, Werewolf stories give you a lot more to think about. Like, if they mutated or not, if someone cursed them, if they mated with someone from the clan or broke the Law Of Segregation. It's all so interesting. Plus, you can still understand who a Vampire is, in their vampire form. But when someone turns into a werewolf, you can only understand who it is by looking into their eyes. Look, in this part-"
"Okay! Okay! I get it! Jeez! Honestly, Anya, I really have no intention of filling my mind up with all that garbage. Especially when we're off to a place that is… in my mind, a scary place because of all the stories you've told me about it." I kept the water bottle aside. At this point, both of us were speaking almost in whispers, since we didn't want to wake mom up and annoy her. Anya just shrugged.
"Whatever. I'll sleep when I finish this story." I crouched down near the window, opened the blinds and looked out. The train was still moving, but it was pitch black outside. I couldn't make out anything.
"What's your problem with Hestia anyway?" Anya asked. I looked at her blankly for a second as her question rang through my mind. To be very honest, I had no idea either. I had never been to Hestia before. It's my parents' birth town. A small town located in the Middle East. According to mom and dad, being in the US was making us forget our roots, so they thought this was the best time to visit their town and their ancestral home. Though I didn't really have a problem with getting to know my roots, I just didn't want to come at the moment. Leaving all my friends back in the US, this was the first time I was traveling somewhere rural. And well, the stories that I kept hearing from my sister about this place didn't make it any easier for me to feel comfortable knowing my "roots".
"I don't know. I'm sleepy." I said, getting up. After a visit to the washroom, I came back and went back to sleep. Though for the first few moments I just kept tossing and turning on the bed, I finally was able to get some good sleep.
I didn't require my alarm to wake up the next morning. Mom and dad were loud enough to wake us up, and possibly the passengers in the other compartments as well. It was around 5:45 when we reached the station. Not a lot of people got off the train. They were traveling to Tirmaan, a lesser-explored tourist attraction for mountain lovers. Hestia was a junction that fell on the way. The sun had still not risen, and the whole station was coated with thick fog. I shivered a bit as I got off the train with all the luggage. As usual, dad looked enthusiastic. He was the only one who did the most to arrange for this trip. He was as excited as a little child. Mom was almost indifferent. Anya, on the other hand, was grumpy as expected, since she didn't get enough sleep. And as for me, I was still debating how to feel. On one hand, I felt fresh, but on the other hand, the gloomy atmosphere really made me uncomfortable. I tried to adjust to my surroundings, while dad gave us all a speech about how he grew up here, met mom, fell in love, and then moved to the city to get where he is today. Anya rolled her eyes and yawned, clearly uninterested, while I just kept smiling at dad. Mom let out a long sigh standing next to me.
"Hun… this story is… very beautiful, but um- I think we're getting a little late here, aren't we?" She said,
"Ah! Yes, silly me! I just got a little carried away, haha!" Dad chuckled, and we chimed in too. We then proceeded to pick up our luggage.
"Isn't anyone gonna pick us up? No cars or stuff?" Anya asked.
"Well, it's still too early, I think people are still sleeping," Dad said.
"Why, Anya," I added. "It's alright, dad is here. He seems to know this place far better than any tour guide, don't you think?" I smirked at Anya and she laughed out loud. Dad just kept moving as if the chatter wasn't even happening.
We were almost at the end of the station. I was about to set foot on the road, when all of a sudden, I felt dizzy. It was as if the howling winds beside my ear were speaking to me, calling out to me. As if in a trance, I turned to look around. Thick fog covered almost all of the station. But something caught my attention far away. I was drawn to it by some magical force. I tried to listen to the winds.
"Zacam nalvage… Zacam!... ZACAM!!!"
I staggered back a few steps. The voice, almost like an evil whisper, made my skin recoil. As if it was some kind of a warning, a foreboding feeling got etched in my heart. I gulped turning around. To my surprise, there was not a single soul on the platform.
"Dad? Mom…? A-Anya?" I thought to myself. Sweat beads covered my forehead.
"Am I lost?" I thought. Anxiety started to build up in me and I tried to shout out loud to them, hoping that they were somewhere around and I just couldn't see them in the fog, only to realize that I couldn't shout. I tried harder, but the lump in my throat made it worse. I was about to cry when I heard it… a sinister laugh, a cackle as if mocking me for my inability to call out to my parents. A laugh that shook me to the core. I turned around. There was no one. The wind was the carrier of this laugh, but I couldn't figure out who was behind the laugh, or why it chose to torment me of all people. It was unbearable. I closed my eyes and tried to cover my ears with my hands to drown the sound of the laughter when I felt a hand on my shoulder. I looked around almost shocked.
"Mom!! W-Where were you?!" I screamed at her. She silently studied my face for a while before speaking up.
"We were…moving ahead and I saw you weren't catching up. So I just…" She stopped mid-sentence, thought for a bit, and then continued with a smile on her face.
"I heard both of you sisters late at night. You're probably sleepy, honey. Let's go now. You can take some good rest and then, we can go out to see the neighborhood. I know you will definitely enjoy the beauty of this place.", She said. I tried to muster a smile but failed miserably. I looked around one last time toward the unknown that called me.
"It isn't the beauty… it's the voices, mom… They're saying something. Something… and it's not good, I know it… I know it…" I thought to myself as I walked toward the rental car that dad managed to book for us from a nearby cab stand. I was still in a trance, I couldn't speak. As I got in and sat next to Anya, my eyes kept going back in the same direction. I remained silent.
"Was I really hallucinating?" I thought. "Or is there something more to this place than I've been told?"