Cursed ✔️

74. Digging Up The Past

David was hospitalized. His eye was severely damaged. The doctor even said that there were 80-90% chances of him losing his half eyesight.

Rose drove David to the hospital all the way crossing three towns. None of the towns had a single living soul left. The spell had taken them all. She felt like she was driving through a graveyard - so quite yet so frightening.

Throughout the way, she was praying to not let anything happen to her husband.

After Skylar and Scarlett left with their parents along with all the packed things, John got a call from Rose telling him about the accident. Emily, John, and Clyde rushed to the hospital and waited outside the operation theatre.

Since no one else other than Emily and John could see Clyde, they had to be careful to not raise any speculations.

Rose was desperately pacing back and forth waiting for the red light to switch off and the doctor to give some good news.

"Don't worry, Mrs. Jackson," Emily said keeping a hand on her shoulder. "He'll be alright," She smiled sympathetically.

"Hope you're right, Emily," There was a sad, hopeful, and tired look in Rose's eyes. All she ever wanted was to have a happy family. It did not matter if they live in a big house or small, to her, her family's happiness and peacefulness were all that mattered to her. All she prayed for was for David to get better and Hannah to come back. To have her family just like it was before - before the storm.

It had been nearly two hours. The heartbeats of Rose, John, and Emily could be heard like a drum in the hallway. They were nervous but hopeful.

"This had gone far now!" John whispered to Emily and Clyde in rage in a corner. "Diana had hurt so many people! And none of them did anything to her!" He looked at his mother sitting helplessly on a chair outside the operation theatre with her hands cupped in which her head rested. "This had gone for too long now! We have to do something."

"Agreed." Emily joined in. "We have wasted so much time. But not anymore. Now it's time to end all this."

Clyde looked at the kids. The pain, the hurt, the anger, the determination, - all reflected on their faces.

Clyde took a deep breath and said, "Emily, back at Skylar's house, you said to me that the third stone is still out there. What does that mean?"

"So you are telling me that you don't know anything about the stones?" John asked doubtfully.

Clyde looked at John and was about to say something when Emily interrupted him.

"Remember the last time when we asked you the same question if you know anything about Diana and the cursed stones when you led us to Nick's house, you just left us there and vanished? So, why are you asking us what we meant when we know that you do know something about them."

"Alright kids, here's the thing, " Clyde began. "As you know Nick and I were best friends. We didn't have any secrets between us. He told me about his dad's condition and strange behaviors. We first thought that it might have been because of his old age but we soon found out that it was because of the stone - an emerald-colored stone - to be specific. The stone looked so innocent to do something this evil to anyone who has it."

"Clyde, how did you and Nick come to know about the stone?" He asked.

"When Nick and his dad came to a new place where Nick and I met, his dad was really a sweet guy - so caring and a happy-go-lucky man. One day when Nick told me about his dad's behaviors years before they were shifted, I couldn't believe it. It was like a complete shift of personality. One day Nick and I went back to his old house. When I tried to open the door of his dad's room, he yelled at me to not, that he wasn't allowed. I told him that it wasn't his dad's room anymore and why wasn't he not allowed. He did not say a word but kept me away from the room. I was confused but did not say anything."

"Wait," John interrupted. "Nick hadn't mentioned this event in his diary though,"

"Nick's diary?" Clyde made a confused face as he was trying to remember. "Oh yes, I remember now, he used to keep a diary. Yes. But there were so many incidents where he hadn't poured his heart out on the pages. He had kept them buried in his heart." With a pause, Clyde continued. "There, in the house, I remember finding the stone. Nick and I were too fascinated by it. It was so charming that we picked it up and brought it back. But only if we knew back then to leave it just where we had found it and not to bring it back with us. "

That's why Hannah and I didn't find the third stone anywhere there. Makes sense now. John thought to himself.

"Why?" Emily asked. "Why did you say like that? Did something happen?"

Clyde nodded.

"There's something about that stone that gets on your nerves, pouring all its negativity inside yours, eating your soul, making you go crazy."

John and Emily looked at each other. Clyde was right. Whenever the stone was near them, a bad omen had always occurred be it any death or accident.

"But it's not that you witness evil in its presence. When you have the stone for too long, it creates a tie, a connection with your soul. And then, even if you want to get rid of it, you cannot. The only way to free yourself from the stone is to set your soul free."

John then remembered how Hannah and he had tried so many times to get rid of the stone but it had always found a way to come back to them even when they thought the stone was in the Church, it had somehow escaped from there too.

John and Emily were listening to Clyde when suddenly John's eye caught a glimpse of someone he thought was familiar walking towards his left. It was a girl wearing a yellow floral frock with her back towards him. Seeing that, he remembered the girl who looked exactly like Scarlett who had given him the box. Her height was nearly the same as Hannah's. He wanted to call her when she was crossing her mother but kept quite. When John was about to turn back towards Clyde, the girl turned around and gave John a cold stare - a sinister stare.

HANNAH!?!? John jumped back and tripped a bit with wide, shocked eyes.

Before John could say anything, she raised her right hand in the air with fingers curled in and a thumb in the air which she moved across her neck.

"Are you alright?" Emily asked grabbing him by his arm to prevent his fall.

John gulped his saliva and nodded. He again turned to see if it was actually Hannah whom he saw but that girl was gone. Maybe I was hallucinating. But was that girl really Hannah or am I in too deep in all this that I'm seeing things?

"We had the stone with us" Clyde continued, "and slowly we began to notice a change in Nick's dad. He wasn't sweet anymore. He was turning into a monster every time the stone was near him. When we kept that emerald stone away from him, he was again back to normal. But it was so strange,"

"What?" Emily asked. "The fact that he had his personality shifted 180° only in the presence of the stone or the fact that how can a stone had such powers within it?"

Clyde shook his head.

"I always believed in the supernatural. But what was strange was the fact that the stone was strangely attached to Nick's dad. It was affecting him gravely and on a much deeper level. It was affecting Nick and me too but not the way it was affecting his dad. It felt like the stone wanted to take his life more than anything. Remember all the things that were happening to you since the day you brought the stone? "

"How can we forget?" John replied with a long face.

"The case with Nick's dad was far much worse than all of that combined."

"So, that means that you know where the third and the final piece of the stone is!" Emily exclaimed.