1

The Mystery of the Day

Adrienne was a 16 year old girl who was born into a middle class family. She was tall and had golden skin, she had upturned eyes. She was an introvert, who liked reading books and spent her free time listening to songs and sketching which were some of her hobbies. She was born and raised in the city of Fidi, a metropolitan city, and a major tourist area. The day was as usual as it had ever been. She woke up and then started getting ready for school.

Why do I have to go to school? She thought to herself as she put on her uniform. She thought today would be better. She gazed outside the balcony and saw the grimly sky and lost interest all over again. How was it possible to be happy when the world itself didn’t seem happy? She had no interest in going to school. Nothing interesting had ever happened. It was always horrible. Her mom served her breakfast. She slowly sat down on the table and mixed the cereal in her bowl for over a minute.

Her mother stared at her sideways. She looked up at her mother’s expression and stopped moving the spoon and started eating. In just a few minutes she was done with her breakfast. She went up to her room, took her bag and ran down the stairs. After saying bye to her mom and dad, she left for school.

Her home was really close to her school. Everyone used to be surprised when they got to know she lived that near to her school. Two classes went by, she got up and went to the washroom while her other classmates went to play on the ground. She came out of the washroom, stared at the gravel outside the grill, sighed and went back to the class.

Only two minutes until the break was over. Another class passed and everything was the same until her friend Ellen, started behaving in an extremely abnormal way. She had started speaking a language none of them had ever heard. She was not even sure if that was a language. For all she knew her friend was not feeling well. If you are thinking that it was Ellen’s mother tongue and they were not able to understand it then no, it wasn’t her mother tongue! They all spoke english and it was very obvious that there was something wrong. They all were flabbergasted at this marvel. Before someone could ask anything, she had become normal, but she was a bit dizzy. They tried asking her what had happened to her, but she didn’t answer. Although she kept saying she was fine, they were all worried for her so they took her to the infirmary where the nurse said she would be fine, but Ellen still had to take rest.

Her parents were called to take her home. Everyone had left for their classes but Adrienne stayed back with Ellen until her parents arrived. No one would have even bothered if she was not in the class. She thought it was better that she stayed with Ellen. When her parents arrived, they left the school and Ellen was very weak. Adrienne accompanied her till their home and then asked her mom if she needed any help, but she refused and asked her to go home, so she went home. She realised that her mom would have been worried about her too and it was already getting very late. Usually at this time she was at home eating lunch with her mom. She would moreover be furious for Adrienne staying out for that long without informing her.

On her way home she saw Leanne and Ramsey talking, but she didn’t bother to say hi to them because she had to reach home fast and couldn’t risk losing anymore time. She described all these events to her mom. She, at first thought that Adrienne was making up a story to make the day seem better considering that all her days usually go in doing home works and in school also it has always been the same routine, she was convinced that snails would have had a better life than her. After a lot of discussion, they ended up agreeing with what Adrienne had said. Mostly because there was no point of arguing about it. When her dad came home he had another extraordinary news. He worked in the Department of Ocean studies and Marine biology. He said that, their team at office found out about an unknown island and the life in the sea around it didn’t come under any of the species found till today. Adrienne refused to believe it, but her mom said, “It’s just like your story which you told me, so don’t tell me it’s hard to believe.”

‘It’s not the same, something had happened to Ellen!’

Her dad was really confused, so her mom told him the entire story about Ellen and her dad didn’t even react because he was busy watching television. She went to her room and just lied down. She was just thinking if Ellen was fine or not. She was just waiting for Grace to come back from India. Ellen and Grace were her best friends. She had the best thing anyone could ever ask for and that was friendship, even though she didn’t have love, they never made her feel that she was alone and that is one of the reasons why she loved them. Before she could think about anything else, her mom called her for dinner.

As soon as she saw the food, She lost all her appetite. It was the same dish that was cooked almost everyday. Her parents called it healthy but she never understood the point of that food. To her it was equal to eating flowers and leaves but she had to eat it. Her mom always says that her being able to eat food is a great thing and she understood that, but she just didn’t like the food. It was inevitable.

After dinner, they usually watched anything coming on the television but today the television was showing only one program on all the channels, it was ‘marine life around the unknown island’. Was it a sign?? She didn’t know, but it was simply so weird. She could only say one thing that if it was a sign, then why was it being shown to her? She believed she was overthinking because her dad was only searching through the news channels and this was the hottest topic of discussion in the town at the moment. She was getting really bored and they had nothing to watch, so they decided to watch a movie online, yet the only shows available were related to unknown islands. She just couldn’t believe this, but again her dad was searching movies about an unknown island. Her dad was obsessed with the unknown island and the life around it. Today had been the most weird day ever. She went to her room and just sat there thinking again about what had happened to Ellen. She was getting a weird feeling the entire time. Just like any teenager, she overthought! She decided to get some sleep because there was no end to her thinking.

2

The Best Friend

A few days later…

She had never imagined something like this will ever happen, She had totally forgotten about that unknown island and it almost seemed like the whole of Fidi had forgotten about it too until today.

‘Hello Adrienne’, Grace called her from behind.

Grace was her close friend, actually her best friend. She had not seen Grace for a while because she had gone to a foreign trip. Grace was not much tall but had really beautiful eyes, dark brown hair and a cute smile. She was one of the kindest people ever. Adrienne had never had good friends and after she met Grace she was convinced that she had finally found the one.

‘Hello Grace’, she replied back

‘How are you, Adrienne?’

‘I’m fine, tell me how was your trip?’

‘It was awesome, India is great! I saw Taj Mahal, the India Gate and so many other monuments and places. I loved it!!’