THE LOST PARADISE
by - R. Hasan

CHAPTER FOUR

No one is talking, no glass is clinking, no chair is screeching on the wooden floor of the pub. Utter silence.

Every pair of eyes is boring on me.

Then a glass falls and shatters. Sound echoes in the hall. A boy rushes there and engages himself in clearing the glass shards.

“What are you doing here, Ralph?” Helena asks, not-so-dearly.

“Same old, same old,” Ralph answers with a shrug and i-don’t-care-who-you-are attitude. Dude must be brave… or super stupid. Probably the second one.

“I did not ask you how you are,” Helena sneers, “What are you doing here? From what I recall, you were banned from here.”

He, who is most probably Ralph, smirks, “I -” dramatic pause again, “Bought the pub!”

Helena seems surprised, for a moment, then collects herself and turns towards me.

Holy shit! What the hell did I do now? I didn't help that guy to buy this freaking pub, did I?

I am planning how to get the hell outta this place when Helena says, “Give me your PassCode.”

I almost tell her the PassCode when Pete interferes, “What the hell? Only he is supposed to know it. Why are you all asking him to give it to you?”

Helena remembers she is not supposed to ask me this, “Oh sorry,” she tells me. Wait! Helena told me sorry?! Hell must have turned cold!

“He is here by the order of Mrs. Skeleton,” Helena tells Ralph, “Do you wish to get in trouble with her?”

Ralph seems like he wanted to… he makes a sound like a grunt, turns back and walks off.

People start to chatter again, glass starts to clink and chairs start to screech.

Alex walks forward and sits down on one of the empty chairs. Helena next. Then Pete hurries off to sit next to her… that boy!
Then, I find, there is no empty chair left.

Great.

A guy, with white mustache, a checked artist's cap on his head and wearing sunglasses (note that this is moon-time now), probably around his mid-sixties is looking at me. Or I guess he is, I'm not sure because, well, the sunglasses.

He looks down at his mug then takes a huge swig, gulps it down, takes another huge swig, gulps that down too and stands up from the chair.

He walks towards me, touches my arm and gives me a small nod. Then he walked out of the pub.

I sit on his empty chair and think if I have seen him before…

“We should order a glass of butter-scotch!” Pete suggests.

Helena glares.

“Uhh… I don't think your dead body can drink even a glass of water, mate!” I whisper in his ear.

“Shut up!” Pete tells me, without turning around from the lady.

“What?” Helena says.

“No no no,” Pete's hands are in front of him, “I was talking to him,” he indicates to me with his thumb.

Then He-who-must-be-Ralph comes in. A weird typewriter in his hand. He places the typewriter in front of me.

“Type your PassCode here,” he orders.

I look at Pete. He gestures me with a nod to go on.

I dig out the paper which contains my PassCode, now heavily wrinkled, from the back pocket of my jeans.

Alex snorts.

I quickly type the code on the typewriter. Ralph takes the typewriter and presses a button. A rectangular white plastic card slides out from the typewriter. He takes it and hands it to me.

Nothing but my name is written on the card. Blake W. Austin.

“This is your PassCard. You and only you can use it. It can detect your DNA and then it works. If someone else uses it, it will know that, that someone else is not you and thus won't work,” Ralph says in single breath and leaves with the typewriter thing. Not even asking me if I have any question or not. Not that I mind.

Alex stands up to leave.

“Wait… what about Butter-scotch?” Pete seems genuinely eager to drink whatever that is.

“No one is drinking anything,” finality comes out from the lady.

Pete grudgingly stands up from the chair. We all move forward.

We walk toward the opposite side of the pub. Where Ralph went. We see a door. Alex opens it and there is another pub, not so filled with people, it's mainly empty.

The walls around us are not plastered. Only bricks. Red bricks.

“How can I help you?” A voice, not manly… not womanly either, asks. I can't see the source of the voice, probably coming from a hidden speaker.

“Code Delta Nine Six,” Alex says. What's that supposed to mean?

“Please put your shoes on your head,” the voice replies. What?!

I look at Pete. He is grinning. Okay.

Alex goes forward and taps a brick. It slides open. Then he places his own PassCard there. Then-

Whoa… the wall engulfs him! How is it possible?!

I look at Pete. He shrugs. Like I-was-stunned-too-when-I-first-saw!

“How the hell is it possible?” I ask aloud.

“Higher Mass Quantum Tunneling,” the lady answers and gets eaten by the wall too.

It's just me and Pete.

“Don't ask me,” Pete warns, “I know nothing about these scientific shits.”

“Yeah, I know,” I nod, “So, you are going next?”

“No, you go first,” he says.

“Umm… how?” I eye the brick made wall.

“Get your PassCard,” Pete pulls out his own PassCard from his back pocket.

I pull mine out.

“Put it in here,” he puts his PassCard on the hollow where the brick previously was, “Face down.”

Then he gets sucked in by the wall too.

Wow!

I do as Pete says. The moment I put my PassCard on the hollow, the wall low hums and then I feel like every atom of my body is being pulled apart, comfortably, warmly. Then all I see is black and bricks. Various types of bricks. Red, brown, black, big, small, normal…

Then the next thing I remember, I am in some kind of building. Stone built. Ancient looking.

I kinda feel like… umm… vomiting now...

Alex, Helena and Pete are standing beside me.

Pete grins wide, “It will get easier.”

“Newcomer here,” Alex shouts, “A bucket, please!”

A bucket? Why?

A black haired girl, most probably teenager, approaches me, a bucket in her hand. She stretches it forward to me.

“Uhh… I don't feel like it,” I say, my cheeks aflame.

Then the girl digs her hand in her pocket and hands me a white pill.

What's this for?

“Take it,” Alex says, “You will feel better.”

I gulp the pill.

Immediately I start to… you know…

Luckily the girl knew what would happen. She hurriedly places the bucket in front of my heaving mouth.

Yuck! Quantum Tunneling sucks.

After getting cleansed, and being fresh, we sign a paper and start to walk toward the main door.

Alex opens the door.

Helena gets out.

Pete gets out…

And then I get out…

HOLY-FREAKING-SHIT!

★     ★     ★

What am I seeing here?! I rub my eyes. I know it’s stupid but I can't help it. Then I open my eyes again. Same things. No change.

Here is what I am seeing right now-

We are standing on a small island. Before us… There is a huge water area and far ahead… I can make out a silhouette of a huge building. Standing tall and proud.

I can see there are boats for taking us across the canal or river or whatever the marsh area is.

It's night. So, I can't see far. But I can make out that the Island is surrounded by trees and greeneries… which is very rare in the world outside.

It feels nice. Cold air hits our skin from time to time… some strange sort of creature is cricketing. Probably they are crickets? Who knows. Water in the canal is making clear and calm rippling sounds… It really feels nice.

“We should take a boat,” Helena suggests, rubbing her arms. I feel goosebumps rising on my own arms.

Alex walks ahead and grabs a boat, “They are called canoes; not boats,” oh… okay.

Helena rolls her eyes.

“Step aboard!” Cheerful Pete beacons me forward.

Helena and Alex take another canoe. It must have created a frown on Pete's face, but I can't tell because it's dark.

I get in with Pete. He takes one set of rowers and hands me another. He starts to row. Gently pulling them up, dipping them in and dragging them through the undisturbed water which creates small waves from our canoe. I follow his lead.

Mostly for my inexperienced rowing skills, our canoe bumps with the plates of frozen ice and falls back from the other one. Pete grunts, “Do it with rhythm, man!”

“I am!” I defend myself, “You are the one who doesn't have any rhythm.”

“Uh huh?”

We continue rowing. To my despair, rowing a canoe is not as fun as I had assumed a while ago.

After ten minutes of rowing and turning my hands to lead, we touch the other shore. Alex and Helena are already there. Pete jumps off the canoe and lands smoothly on the sands. Then quickly hurry off toward the others.

I follow his lead and sadly discover that this jumping thing needs experience. I stumble forward and land on my all fours.

Quickly getting up and brushing sand off my clothes, I glance at the threes. Fortunately, they didn't see me stumbling.

Pete waves me to get there. I walk forward.

After walking through a broad road with different kinds of houses on both sides, we reach a building which looks like a castle. This is the huge building I saw before crossing the canal. The building has a narrow round canal surrounding and securing itself. Probably thirty meters in diameter.

There is a wooden bridge to cross the canal which can be pulled up any moment from the castle-side to prevent the unwanteds from getting in.

At this moment, the bridge is pulled up.

“I told ‘em to let it stay down till we come back!” Pete huffs.

“Security reasons,” Alex says.

“Hmm,” the lady agrees.

“Fuck those shits,” Pete grunts, “It’s only one night! Now we have to stand here and freeze till it comes down.”

“Or, we can sit down!” Helena points out.

The bridge makes a creaking sound and starts to descend. Very slowly.

I look at it. How painful it is to watch such slow work… I start to feel irritated.

Suddenly it comes down fast and drops with a thud.

Pete, who was sitting down per Helena’s suggestion, jumps up.

“Whoa!” He exclaims, eyes wide, “It never happened before!”

Alex and Helena look surprised too. I feign being surprised too. What can I say?! Surprising thing!

Alex eyes me. But seeing that I'm surprised too, he averts his gaze.

“Well,” Pete declares, “It's all good! Let's cross this damned bridge and get somethin’ in our bellies!”

★   ★   ★

After entering the ‘Castle’, as Pete and all others call it, nothing special happened. It was already one o’clock at night and everyone was asleep.

The Security In-charge checked us again for anything suspicious (at which, the lady very subtly expressed her annoyance).

After that, we were given food which we all shoved down our throat using both of our hands.

After that, Pete, Helena and Alex were sent to their dormitories. I, being a new student here, was given a temporary room. They said, I'll be given a dorm room tomorrow.

Now I am lying on my temporary bed. Not so comfortable like my  old one was. But it's okay.

I'm lying on my stomach, chin on my hands. Looking through the window. Waiting for the moon to appear again from behind the temporary curtain of clouds.

What will happen next?

Do I want to know? Do I need to know?

I sigh. The moon appears again. My eyes close.

Let the future come, I think, Let the future come...