Aiden

I wake up dazed and confused probably from a weird dream. I look to my left and there's a girl sleeping there. I jolt.

How the hell did she get in here? Wait, who the hell is she?

I slide off my bed trying to not wake her up. She looks kind of familiar, but not enough for me to have slept with her and not remember it. Wait. All our clothes are on. No alcohol in the room. I don't feel a hangover. I'm sober. I don't remember her because this is the first time I'm seeing her. Her breathing isn't so loud anymore and I can see a smile forming on her face.

Is this a prank? I poke the girl's arm. "Hello?" Her smile grows, then I wait for a moment. She then starts laughing loudly, pointing to my face. Her amusement is contagious. 

"ALRIGHT. ALRIGHT," she manages to say between laughs. "Ron set me up for this. I'm his cousin."

" Does thay mean you're mine too?"

"No, I'm from his mother's side. You're from his father's. I flew in last night. I'm supposed to spend a few days with you guys. Apparently, you're up to something exciting."

"Well, for me to elaborate, I have to catch your name first."

"Sloane," she says handing out her hand. I shake it. "I'm Aiden."

  " I know," she says with a smirk before leaving my room.  

I'm not glad to say this, but the twins got me good.

***

Nothing. 

There is nothing good enough to work with out of this damn journal. Pretty big words aren't always the way to go. Detail, precision and actually saying what the hell it is you are living also works.

Frustrated, I slam the journal cover close and leave the room we had drunkenly (well, the right pronoun would be they) discovered a few nights ago. I go back upstairs, journal in hand, and make my way to our digging site. Today is the day the twins and I will be going through all possibles places the original caster's remains could have been left.

I stop in the kitchen to get a water bottle. Sloane is sitting there, reading a book and munching on carrots with dip. "Hey," I say as I walk over to the fridge. I get my water bottle. 

 "Hey. So, you guys are starting to dig?" 

"We already did. We've been digging for two days now. It's time to go down there." "And you're the chosen one, huh?" 

"Unfortunately."

 "Ah, well I wish you luck." 

"Oh, it's not luck I need," I find trouble saying as I try to notice everything about her. I have a thing for detail. "It's fearlessness." 

"Well, that doesn't exist, so good luck." She laughs before grabbing her book and leaving. She has golden streaks across her brunette hair, a nose piercing and a tattoo behind her left ear. It looks a snake, or maybe an S. I take a carrot before heading out.

I walk across the long yard of freshly cut green grass near the same place we dug up the little box in what seems like ages ago. Ron and Jon are already there looking over their blueprints.

"Ready, boys?"

They both look up at me. "Are you?"

"Yeah," I casually answer. 

They can smell fear and I cannot let them know how being underground is so damn terrifying for me. Ron hands me protective gear and Jon measures the hole we dug to make sure I fit properly. Two of the underground houses out of four that are not under the condo's foundation, so we decided to start with those two. I give Ron the journal and approach Jon.

"You can go right ahead, babe."

I've gotten used to his incredibly inappropriate names and expressions. I don't even do a double take anymore. I grab the side of the hole's wall and I jump. It feels like a standing coffin. I'm boxed. I dust off some dirt and make my way in. The same length and width as the hole we dug is the door leading us to the underground houses. I break it open and make my way inside the ruins.

I try take my mind off my location whilst still being alert about what's around me. I think about the new Marvel movie being released, but I still notice a rodent on my right digging a hole. I don't bother to identify it. I walk even faster through the tunnel. I make my way to another door and I try to open this one since it has a door knob. It opens, but with a series of cracking and high-pitched noises coming from the rust. I'm surprised the door didn't just fall to the ground.

I find myself in a large room. Brick walls, dust and cobwebs everywhere. There's a desk and a chair but nothing else. It was either emptied or completely decomposed and turned to dust although I wonder how that could happen to furniture and glass. Well, it has been years, and I mean years since there has been people in this house.

I look thoroughly but I still do not find anything that looks like bones. It's a dead end so I run back to the way I entered.

"Nothing?" Jon asks as he pulls me up.

"No," I exclaim slightly breathless. "There was a room, but nothing to work with."

"Okay, then off to the next house we go."

And we did. We walked over to the next digging site only a few meters away. We had spent the last few days digging so that going underground could be done quickly. I jump in the hole and I repeat the last process. The stench in the hall is much more pungent and I notice something white on the ground after I step on it. It had made a crunchy noise which caught my attention. I look closely at what was under my foot. I think it's a bone. I look around and there are small pieces here and there.

Either someone else got buried down here or Cemile Asli's bones have been dispersed all around these underground tunnels.

I make my way through two rooms still with no luck.

I hear someone yell from above ground right when I'm about to go back up.

"AIDEN! It's Ron! I checked the blueprints and there should be a wall on your right. Go to it!"

I make my way around the dilapidated and stinking couch and to the wall.

"Are you there?"

"YEAH!" I yell with all my might.

"Okay, now you have to measure approximately three feet from left to right."

I place myself on the left side of the wall and walk three feet as he gives me the rest of the instructions.

"Now, put something at your position so you remember where to stop. Then calculate four feet from right to left."

I oblige. 

"From the three feet point to the four feet one is a massive door that you can break down and take to the next house. That way, we won't have to dig in our condo's foundation!"

Smart, I think.

I grab the most potent item I can find. It looks like a vase but is much taller and made out of steel. I wonder what the use for this was. I lift it, although it's difficult, and slam it into the wall repeatedly until it shatters like a broken mirror. I look at the rubble first and then, I lay my eyes on the feast. The room that has unveiled to me. My own century old Narnia if you will.

I walk into the elegant room without really touching anything. It's either extremely fragile or covered in cobwebs; or both.

I look on the floor and before stepping on it, I spot a bone. It looks like one in the arm.

"I FOUND SOMETHING," I bellowed, hoping they'd hear me.

I pick it up and put it on the unbelievably dilapidated and historic table.

I look around and I do see something this time: a journal. I walk over to the other side of the desk and pick the journal up. I blow the dust off and I wipe the webs away. The book smells very old and its pungent odor is slightly nauseating, but I quickly get used to it. I open it and it is indeed an Ozim journal. This person doesn't write down the date or the location whenever they start a new day, but I guess it doesn't matter now.

Well, let's start off by saying that I am not really a nice guy. I am capable of love and care, but I stear clear from it sometimes because I fear pain. Yes, call me a coward, call me weak. I'd much rather be a heartless and lonely oaf than insane from heartbreak. That's what Cemile Asli is right now. We've gone from acquaintances to best friends in a day and in a minute, she might treat me like her foe. And a minute after that, I might be her lover. 

Heartbreak has killed her and I'm glad to have not felt that before. I'll try to stay away from that forever.

Damn. He knew Cemile Asli and he was weak.

Cemile is driving me nuts. She keeps trying to get me to find her lover and she keeps asking me to sneak her in the house. Can't she just grow up? I need to get to town hall. The governor has something to tell me. The empire must be growing! As always.

He's so weird. He gets called to see the governor and he thinks it's because the Ottoman empire is growing. Funny.

 I have never seen anyone as beautiful as Cemile Asli. I can't take enough of looking at her. She makes me feel a way I've never felt before. It's a shame I have to kill her. It's a shame that our families are rivals and it's a shame she couldn't handle heartbreak. 

It's a shame she had to curse us all and is that gorgeous girl I wish I could love that makes me drown in hatred like no one ever has.

Wow. That was intense. Cemile was hung for her crime, for her betrayal and manipulative actions. I don't know if she's deserving or not. I guess I believe so.

I read the next page.

Like the skeleton holding a scythe, I sit here awaiting the next person I must kill. When I was destined executioner, I will never know. Cemile's kill was the worst execution I had to orchestrate. The word orchestrate makes me cringe as well, but it is accurate. I planned it. I led the team to the goal. Her family watched. Her friends cried. Her lover was not present. I actually passed by him in the hall, hence the explanation of my bruises. What a kurfuffle this has all become. I no longer want to be seen as the man who killed Cemile Asli. 

The man who killed a witch. 

Or worse, the man who kills. I'm thinking of running away.

What a troubled man. I close the journal and keep it by my side. I'm determined to read it all later, but now I have to find her bones. If they're not here, at least I know that I might find clues in this Ozim's journal.

I open a door and it leads to another room. I sense that I have gotten very far from where I talked to Ron so I might be in the last house now. Although, it is weird for the houses to be connected. Maybe I still am in the third house. Wouldn't surprise me if the houses were mansions, really.

I walk into the room and I immediately notice the square shaped slit in between the bricks as if there was an opening. I pull it open and like a door, a very heavy one, it slides open. I look inside and there it is, a coffin. I pull it out and I try to get the lid off, but it won't move. I find a long metallic stick, very rusty at that, that I have no idea what the use for it could have been, and I use it to pry the lid open.

I succeed and the smell released is the most nauseating one I've encountered this whole underground trip.

There they are: the bones. They represent the human perfectly with no bones missing. So the bones I had stepped on belonged to other people.

I look around the bones, and through them, and I find nothing else.

Where's the stone?

***

"Well, that was a bust."

"Not totally," Jon tells Ron. "We now have a cool coffin as decor and we'll have the authentic halloween decorations."

Ron and I both turn our heads towards him and stare. That's all we really can do. He puts his head down and leaves the leaving room.

On our stools, we turn back around to stare at the oven in the kitchen.

"What do we do now?" I ask Ron.

"Hey, don't give up. We'll find the stone. I promise." He pats my back. "But now, I want to sleep."

I wonder if I should call Layla. I know I should if I want to, but that's the thing. I don't know if I want to. I'm not sure I can really explain my day's exploits without having an exploit.

Right when I'm about to leave the kitchen, Sloane walks in.

"Hey, how are you?"

"Pretty pissed, actually."

"I guessed so. You know you'll find it. I know you'll find it."

"Thanks for the optimism, but I've been in France for long, it's almost a sign that I have to stay here forever."

"Don't think like that. I'm sure we'll find more things in that little box you guys dug up weeks ago. Plus, if ever you need to go back in those tunnels, I'd be glad to join in the hunt."

I laugh. "Thanks, Sloane."

She smiles, taps my hand and leaves the kitchen.

It's weird. She made me forget about all my worries. I'm glad I have a new friend a little more thoughtful than Ron and Jon here.

-

A/N: i know it's been months. i know i said ill update faster but life is weird and my writer's blocks always show up at the worst times, so i hope you like the chapter guys!

ps: from yas: can we talk about how gorgeously sarah is writing this story