1 Chapter 1 Loss and Gain

One simple word to describe everything that has happened to me in the previous week is really just – DESPAIR. Even though I am still the same person, I am still the guy who believes in paying his parents back by giving good results academically., the guy who believes in helping each other, the guy who is stoic( I am just telling you how good as a person I am or I was) and the guy who stills believes in power of beliefs but my eyes....., they don't say a thing like that. They are plain black and complete dead as if I am a soulless human but isn't that the power of despair itself? I sometimes can't hear and see people asking for help. I am paralysed or maybe I am 'living dead'.

"Three days, three days have already passed...huh",I said to myself. Three days seem like three decades when someone close to you leaves you away forever...SUDDENLY. My sister, Lily was one of the greatest persons in my life. She was the one who taught me about the power of beliefs, the greatness of hardwork and aboveall the amazingness of standing up after falling.

Oh, I forgot to introduce myself I am Red and I am sixteen years old.

"I am back from school",I passed the words in a gloomy texture to my parents looking at my sister's photos. My family had become consumed of despair, not a single ounce of hope and beliefs could help us with the shock. I hated this feeling, the feeling of despair. I couldn't do a single thing, I wanted to help my parents but I couldn't help even myself to get out of the infinitely large ocean of despair. I gotta say I am not worth anything. I am her brother but if I couldn't protect my own sister than what worth do I have. I need something to grab on, to help me breath and not let me get drowned in the ocean of the darkness.

I lied on my bed and didn't realise when I had fallen asleep.

"Red, dinner's ready",my mom waked me up and I tried to think If I was in a dream as my mother and father and I had only ate cup noodles after my sister's death. I came to the dinner table after washing my hands and sat on the chair. At that time, it seemed to me if nothing had happened. My father was reading a newspaper normally and my mother was filling up the glasses with juice. "Uh..Red, we are terribly sorry. We just totally went blank for these days and didn't even worry how that thing had affected you.",my father apologised while he kept the newspaper aside from his face. My mother further said to me," I know you are also feeling awkward but you need to stand up. I am sorry, Red. I am terribly sorry."

I sighed smilingly. " I was actually worried about both of you." we all laughed a good laugh or atleast a fake laugh but it sure was necessary, wasn't it?

Normally, happy moments would come after things like this but I was wrong. I had been way too wrong.

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I observed my sister's room first time in my life this much carefully. It was really normal, just plain girly stuff and whatsoever. I had been told by my parents to clean her room to shut her room in her remembrance. And thus here I was, keeping the stuff to be given to mother for storing and rest to be dumped. There were a bunch of photos of her with her friends, I gave the look 'she looks so happy there's like I was a ninety two year old man Remembering his life.

I opened the Drawers to clean them. There were only boxes in the first drawer. Maybe it was supposed to be that way. I opened some of the boxes and found photos which had both of us in them and also that of our parents. Others had stationary items. I saw some papers lying beneath the last box. I lifted the box to get a good look on them. "Uh... Rubbish", I said to myself as they had rough work. I picked them up and threw them in the dustbin.

BUT "That organisation", I said to myself. I picked the papers out of the dustbin. It was morse,"SHIT, that's morse language!", I burst out in a flabbergasted tone.

(ONE DOT AND TWO DASHES)(ONE DOT AND ONE DASH)(ONE DOT,

ONE DASH AND TWO DOTS)(ONE DASH ONE DOT ONE DASH)

(2 [literally just written as numeral])(THREE DOTS)(ONE DASH)(ONE

DOT)(ONE DOT TWO DASHES ONE DOT)(THREE DOTS)...

The code went on till three pages. It said:

Walk two steps out of my room in right direction. Follow the stairs down. Open the front gate

and go into the left side of the garden. Try to find a star like structure. Try to find more

papers by digging a hole there.

I found five pages of morse there. They said:

Take the back door of the house. Go into the kitchen. Try to find a snack named,

'The heroically super crunchy... Potato chips'. Try to find it in the third drawer

in Upper shelves. Open the potato chips and you will find a key. Use the key to open

a chest which is also found in the packet and you find a paper slip. It is the last

to the documents.

"Uh...documents. What documents? Maybe she hid her secrets in them",I said to myself. "Don't be a dumb fool.", I replied to my own comment. The last slip said:

Take the stairs. Go into my room and open the first drawer and the upper part has the

documents sticken to it by cello tape.

(One second), I looked in air looking helpless and like a fool. Even someone foolish by his desperate actions would have found about the documents. The puzzle like thing took me one hour and I am still standing where I stood one hour ago. Damn you – Morse.

The document had a paper attached to it which fell when I picked up a packet that might have contained documents. The paper's first line said:

I used to work for UTO,

UNITED TERRORIST ORGANISATION.