Cursed ✔️

49. An Old Friend

John squinted his eyes due to the sudden brightness and slowly began to open them as he became accustomed to the light. After a few blinks, he looked around. He can't believe what he saw. He was in the Church.

It's the Church? What just happened? Did she just teleport me here? Why? I was on the streets literally just a second before and now I'm here, in the Church? I'm so confused right now. Anyway, I think I'm safe now and I think that's what matters. Now all I have to do is contact home.

He began searching for his phone in his pockets, but no luck. Then he remembered that he must have left and forgotten it back at the house.

"Great! Fear really can shut down your brain's common sense!" He let out a sigh.

"I didn't know that you had a common sense. I mean, it wasn't there when you picked the stone from the water."

John turned around.

"Emily! Oh my God! I cannot even tell you how happy and relieved I am to see you right now!"

Emily smiled.

"and hey!" John folded his arms and pouted.

"Relax, it was just a joke. No need to get offended. " Emily giggled.

"Alright," John threw his hands in the air. "but how did you get here?"

"You two are here and you expect me to leave you guys? We are family." John smiled. "So, as soon as I was discharged, Mr. Jackson told me that you were on your way to Nick's old house which Hannah had asked me about from the photograph from Nick's diary. So I drove here and had a feeling that I would see you around this Church. And that's how I ended up here."

"Emily, as much as I am thankful to God for sending you here, please tell me you are not possessed too," John wanted to make sure before he does or says anything. He didn't want to repeat his mistake again.

"Possessed? What are you talking about?" Emily giggled as she first thought that John was messing with her too but the serious look on John's face that didn't go away even after a few seconds had passed by made her believe that John was not joking. "Oh, you are serious,"

"Tell me what was the reason you left Hannah alone on her birthday."

"Why are you suddenly asking me this? " The question caught Emily off guard.

"Emily, please," John begged as he limped his way to a bench and sat down.

"Ok, Ok," Emily took a quick pause to think, and then she spoke, "That was the time when Hannah first told me about the stone which she thought you were giving to her as a gift for her birthday. I remembered something relating to the stone and that's why I had gone back to my house to make my doubt clear."

"And what exactly did you tell her the next day at school?"

If it's you, Emily, then you had to know this. Diana wasn't around at that time, so only you, Hannah, and I know about this.

"I told her about the museum which told everyone that they were going to display something incredible that no one has ever seen and that it's one of its kind and that it was haunted but then they never displayed it. Everyone thought they were making it up just to get popular but the thing which they were going to display was this stone itself. No one knows where they got it from but the night before the display, the stone somehow disappeared. And then I told her that it's a cursed stone and it is said that it brings misery and death to anyone that has it and everyone near it or the loved ones of that person. And I also told her that the person which supposedly brought the stone to the museum met a mysterious death the night after he handed the stone to them and that she should stay away from that thing as much as possible."

"Oh, thank God, you are yourself. " He rested his forehead on his right palm with the elbow on the wooden bench and exhaled.

"Yay?" Emily made a confused face. "Now will you tell me what's with the questions and how on earth did you flash here out of thin air and where is Hannah?"

John got up and told everything from their car breaking down, the second encounter with the eerie woman, the house, Hannah being possessed, Father Williams, being possessed next, how he knocked him unconscious and how he again met the eerie woman till being teleported in here by her.

During the whole thing of John explaining and painting the picture of the scene, Emily couldn't believe her ears. Her mouth was opened due to shock even when John was finished.

"Oh God, oh God, oh God, No!" Emily hyperventilated and sat down to soak it all in. "Oh lord, what have we done. But wait, why did the bat-lady help you?"

"We are on the same page on this one. I can't understand it either but wait, bat-lady? Nice name." John scoffed a smile.

"So, believing that your timeline is correct, Hannah must still be in that house, conscious or unconscious, same for Father Williams and Diana could be anywhere though. We cannot leave Hannah like that."

"I agree, but we are helpless all by ourselves. I know what being this close to death means like - twice!" John said raising his fingers with only a little gap between his thumb and index finger - trying to let her know visually, how close he was to die.

There was a brief moment of silence and then John said in a sad voice - a voice that had lost the hope but deep within knew that there has to be a way out which isn't known yet -, "So, now what?"

"C' mon, John," Emily placed her hands on his shoulders and squeezed it a bit. "Don't give up now. This ain't the end and I know it for sure!" Emily's encouraging voice started to give John a little encouragement. "First things first. Get yourself together and second, let's get out of here. I'm driving us home."