After she returned home from dancing practices she began to clean her school bag. At once her blood turned into water as she saw that mysterious book inside it. She kept her hand on her chest. "What the hell? How did this come here" Olivia said to herself. She felt bewildered by thinking whether who had done this. "Is someone trying to scare me. But why?" Numerous questions aroused in her mind. She took the book into her hands. Olivia observed all the pages very carefully. Now it was more confusing because the earlier incomplete chapters were wholly completed but still there was no any name of an author. Olivia slowly turned the pages and began to continue from the place where she had stopped.

He was too weak. His mother wished for his death. His father who was very much older than his mother died from a heart attack. His mother loved only money so she married the old man but hated him so much so that she hated his offspring too.
She spend most of the time in night clubs and bars. The little boy went to school. His father sent him to a good school but this little boy never had the chance to get too close to his own father because he died soon. This woman married another young man whom she found from the club. This young mother lavishly spent money on his new husband and they both treated the little boy like their servant. His mother never took any step to prevent the little boy from being abused by her new husband. One day he saw his step father consuming illegal drugs while his mother was out of the house. Then this man would attempt to abuse him. Not only verbally but more than that. He would pull the little boy into the attic and burn his skin with a cigarette and drag him all over the floor. He would beat him hard and pull the innocent little boy forcefully. He would sometimes order the little boy to undress and little did he knew. He got blue and red marks all over his body but he had to hide them. His mother got killed by this devil but no one except the little boy knew about this. A slight tear ran down but was it for sorrow or hapiness? He couldn't figure it out. On the same day this monster wanted to dump this boy but the boy pleaded for he had nowhere else to go. He was helpless.
"If you listen to what I say and do everything I want you'll be given everything." This cunning man asked. The young boy agreed helplessly. "Remember you must never say what's going on. If you fail you'll not even be dumped but also killed" He laughed viciously. So he remained silent and endured everything this devil did to him. He also brought young men and women into this house. This boy saw the lewd and bawdy behavioural patterns of the adults. Even he was forced to do the same.

It was painful but he received food,shelter,money and was given the freedom to go to his school. He loathed this life... He grew mentaly restrained and troubled.... He even got bullied in school. No one knew about the pain that he underwent and kept on bullying and torturing him. He couldn't even utter a single word about this........
The only thing he recieved was hate........

Olivia quickly closed the book and threw it aside.
"OMG! What kind of a story is this? I am traumatized. Why am I even supposed to read this shit.  Why did I find this interesting when I found it inside the library ? Who had put this inside my bag? For what purpose?This maybe an act of some rescal in our school. Yes probably Nithin's work. He is the one who always stalked me. Now he's approaching me by trying to scare me with this kind of shit" Olvia went on saying to herself. She was too sentimental so that the content of this book always haunted her mind. Eventhough she blamed Nithin how can she assure that it was Nithin. Why would he create such a disturbing story.

The whole day she thought about the story. Her aunt noticed something different in Olivia's mood. "Olivia are you feeling alright dear?" Joel asked. Olivia nodded "yes. I feel a bit tired. I think I should have some rest punchi" Olivia went into her room.

Powercuts were a frequent scenario now. So they had to spend the night in the dark.
In order to forget the disturbing content she took her mobile phone and scrolled through the tik tok. She laughed for as she saw hilarious scenes and at the same time she watched the edits for her favorite song , Indila's love story. After few minutes a phone call interrupted her. She checked the number but it was an unknown one but she answered it.
"Hello" Everything was silent.
"HELLO" she said loudly but no one answered her. "Nonsense" she cuts the call and scrolled through the old photos where there were images of Ryan as well. She sighed and skipped the photo. Olivia still regretted for she couldn't meet him before his death. Again she received another call. It was the same number. She got angry and took the call.

"Who is this ha? You phoned me earlier right? Just speak up." Beneath she could hear a slight whimper. She became frightened. "Hello. Who is this?" She heard a faint voice but it was not clear. The whimper grew louder by subduing the faint voice. It turned into a moan and echoed through her ears. Olivia quickly cut the call and kept it aside. She breathed heavily. That call sounded strange. Her phone began to vibrate. She took it and she saw a new notification in her messages. It was sent from the same number. She got scared but she opened it upto see a mysterious message saying

"My eyes are always on you"

Olivia got startled. "I guess someone is playing a bloody game with me. Probably a prank." She went to block the number but suddenly another message appeared.

"I am not joking. You must read the book"

Now she understood the fact that the unknown writer of the book is the person on the other side of the phone. She grabbed the phone aggressively and phoned the number. This time nobody answered. She thought to send a message to this number.

"Who the hell is this. If you won't stop this I am gonna report this number to the police"
After few seconds she received a reply.

"If you do so you'll have to regret"

Olivia got sartled even more. A few seconds later she recieved an image. She hesitated to open it but finally she opened it. She got flabbergasted by seeing the image. It was her aunt seated near the stove. Olivia's whole body shivered and she perspired. Olivia went to the kitchen and she saw her aunt seated in the exact same way. Her fear reached to it's maximum. She started typing.

"Who is this? Where are you? Speak up for gods sake. Don't you dare hurt my aunt"

After a moment she received a reply.

"Now you believe me. I am always following you. If you want your aunt to be safe you must not reveal this number and  you must read that book"

Olivia became flabbergasted. She felt helpless. In a huge fear she got down from the bed. " How did that person take a  photo of my aunt? Is there anybody inside the house?  What am I supposed to do now?" She thought. She embraced her head as if she had gone insane.

Finally she thought to light up the torch and search the house without startling her aunt. She slowly crawled out of her bed. The whole surrounding was dark. She took the torch and lighted it up. As soon as she lighted it up the power cut was over.
"Ha finally. Olivia come dear. Let's have dinner" she heard her aunt calling her. Olivia switched off the torch. She wiped away the sweat off her temples. She was still shivering in fear she attempted to search her house but only the two of them were there. She kept this as a secret and hid her fearful, tormented expressions from her aunt.

            - Tharushi Ranasinghe -

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