[Special Appearance]
Chris Lai Lok Yi – Chris

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It was pitch dark when Bosco entered the aged warehouse while Kevin waited outside for him in the car. Aside from the brief creak of the rusted steel door, Bosco had walked into a building of complete silence. Being a man of guts and quite the arrogant boy, he wasn't going to swallow his pride by turning back towards the exit. Besides, he and Kevin had agreed that the task would take no more than 15 minutes; that Bosco would enter the building, inspect the cargo, sign the paperwork and leave.

“Am I the boss or is he the boss? Every time there's a delivery, I'm the one who has to do all the labour work while he gets to sit inside the car and enjoy the air conditioning.” It was a simple rant indeed, but perhaps he had been too absorbed by his own emotions that he carelessly walked into a wooden crate, banging his knee.

“Ouch!” He cried out in both pain and frustration. Without further hesitation, he promptly drew out a mini hand-held sized flashlight from his backpack and switched it on. A tiny ray of light flickered momentarily before it steadily illuminated a small radius of his surroundings. "What happened in here?" He whispered while looking around.

Scraps of cardboard foam, plastics, and broken glass scattered variously across the grey cement floor, giving the interior of the warehouse a disorganized and untidy appearance.

"Is someone there? Who are you? What do you want?" The faint voice of a man could be heard nearby, indicating to Bosco that he wasn't alone.

"Chris, is that you? It's Bosco. Where are you?” He shone the flashlight in several directions until he spotted Chris sitting in the corner of the warehouse. “Did you forget to pay your bills or something?" He joked despite the circumstances, then carefully made his way towards the man. “What happened?”

With one hand covering the back of his head, Chris explained dully, "I was preparing your cargo earlier, and then I heard footsteps from behind. I turned around, but there was nobody there, so I was thinking that maybe I was just paranoid, but then I got knocked out.”

"Are you hurt?" Upon reaching Chris' side, Bosco bent down and placed his backpack on the ground. Already ped, he took out a first aid kit and handed Chris the flashlight. “Hold this and shine it upwards by your ear.”

“My head...” His voice trailed when Bosco pressed a cotton cloth against his scalp, likely to stop the bleeding. “Anyway, when I woke up, the lights were out already. Nothing in here seems to be missing though. I don't know what happened."

How strange of a situation it would sound to most people, but not Bosco. In fact, he already had quite a good idea in mind regarding the mystery. "Let's get your wound patched up first. We'll deal with the weird happenings later."

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In eager strides of quickened steps, Sammul returned to Myolie's side and handed her the cup of hot chocolate she had sent him away to buy earlier. Impatiently, they had waited at the airport for nearly an hour already, yet much to Myolie's dismay, her brother has yet to arrive to pick them up.

"Maybe the traffic's really busy tonight. You always tell me that your brother is the best in the world, I'm sure he'll be here any second now." Sammul consoled as he sat down beside her on the suitcase, carefully so that it wouldn't tip over.

A disappointed Myolie remained quiet while Sammul put a caring arm around her shoulder to draw her near. Six long years ago, Kevin had sent her away to boarding school for a brighter education. In all those days when she felt homesick, she looked forward most to the day she'd return home and see her brother again. From her perspective, she had every reason to be upset and angry with him. "Some jerk of a brother he is, not even bothering to come to pick me up after I graduate. Let's just go home ourselves."

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Half an hour had already passed by since Bosco entered the warehouse. Having grown tired of waiting, Kevin promptly removed his keys from the ignition switch and got out of the vehicle. As he cautiously made his way inside, he sensed an indefinable feeling of being watched. For a moment, he tried to ignore the sensations, but they became too evident, too unavoidable.

Swiftly, he turned around and saw a shadow across the road moving hastily along the trees, which spread into a vast and dense forest of wood and evergreens. Out of impulse, he wanted to follow it; chase after it until he could determine what it was or whom it was.

"Kevin, a little help over here?" Bosco emerged from the warehouse, stirring Kevin from his thoughts. Carrying a large cardboard box in his arms, he breathlessly muttered, "The lights are back on, Chris found our box of antiques."

Kevin had fixated his eyes on the spot where he had last seen the shadow, but with Bosco's consistent nags, he was too distracted to pursue his schemes further. Putting a wide smile on his face as not to raise Bosco's suspicions, he turned around to face his friend, "So, you haven't been working out lately, huh?"

A short snort came from the younger man as he rolled his eyes, "Very funny. Since you work out everyday, why don't you carry this?"

"Nah, I'll leave the back breaking labour work to you. After all, you're the bigger shareholder of the antique shop. I'm just a friend that was forced into being your driver for the night, without over-time pay too!"

"Over-time pay? Like you don't have shares to the store too," Another few sets of steps led Bosco to the trunk of the car, which Kevin had opened up for him to place the heavy load in. "Technically, I'm your boss, and it's not like you have anything else to do tonight."

"Actually," Kevin put up his index finger and corrected his business partner and best friend, "I do have something else to do, quite important too. I have to pick up my sister and her boyfriend at the airport tonight." There was an evident tone of excitement in his voice, "Her plane arrives at 7:00 pm," He rolled up his left sleeve to take a glance at the time on his watch, "And it's only 6:00 pm right now, which gives me an hour to spare."

Closing the trunk, Bosco gave his friend a disoriented look, "What are you talking about? It's 8:30 pm right now. We left the mansion at 6:00 pm."

Unconvinced, Kevin gave Bosco a quizzical stare before realization set upon him. Without a pause, he bolted for the driver seat started the car, "Cheap watch must have ran out of batteries. My life is over, Myo's going to kill me!"

"Yeah, knowing your sister. She's ferocious," Bosco added with a panicked laugh when he noticed Kevin readying to back out of the driveway. "Hey, wait for me to get in the car first!"

Releasing the emergency hand break after Bosco got into the passenger seat, Kevin pumped on the gas pedal and sped off onto the main road. "Hey, can you do me a favour? Grab my cell phone from my pocket and check whether I have any missed calls or messages."

"No, what if I accidentally 'touch' you?" Bosco folded his arms while staring out the window, "I don't want to take any risks."

Not in the mood for much sarcasm, Kevin took his cell phone out of his pocket and tossed it lightly onto Bosco's lap. After a few 'beeps' were heard as Bosco pressed accordingly to the buttons followed by the message centre, he was notified of his mobile status.

"Yeah, you have 9 missed calls and 3 messages."

"What do the messages say?" Kevin asked, keeping both eyes on the road in order to ensure maximum safety at the high speed he was driving. "Are they all from Myolie?"

"All three are from Myolie.” Bosco slid his finger across the touch screen and brought up a new page that listed the messages in order. “The first one says 'I hate you!', the second one says 'I hate you, I hate you!', and finally the third one says..." Bosco could hardly contain his laughter.

"I hate you, I hate you, I hate you?" Kevin guessed with confidence, but he was far from getting the last message right.

Bosco chuckled heartily, "No, the third one says 'we're going home by ourselves.' What, her boyfriend's living at the mansion too?"

"Yeah, but she doesn't have the keys. We better hurry up and get home," Kevin double checked the rear mirror before slamming hard onto the brakes, then hurriedly making a U-Turn.

"Whoa! Slow down," Immediately, Bosco raised his arm and clutched tightly onto the arm rest, "I know you're in a hurry, but I'm too young and handsome to die!"

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En-route to a nearby taxi-station with their heavy suitcases dragging from behind them, Myolie noticed a flight attendant standing off to the side of the road with a bouquet of flowers in hand. Being slightly on the nosy side, she slowed down her steps until she could see a better profile of the flight attendant's face. “Bernice Liu?”

Sammul heard his girlfriend whisper and stopped his steps as well. “I beg your pardon?”

“My old high school classmate,” She pointed to Bernice, who had placed the flowers by the curb of the road and knelt down next to them. Only then did Myolie also notice a framed grey-scaled photograph of a man placed by the side of the road as well.

“Looks like someone was killed over there and she's paying her respects,” Sammul deciphered from the surrounding facts. “Are you going to greet her?”

Somehow it didn't seem very fitting to Myolie that after all her years of absence in town, she would have to offer her condolences to the first familiar face she encountered. “Maybe not tonight,” She decided and continued on her way towards the taxi station. "Sammul, let's hurry home, it's getting really dark..."

"Don't tell me you're afraid of the dark," He teased, though she did have an excellent point, "I guess you're right though. It's not really that late yet, but the sky's already really dark. Maybe it's going to rain soon."

As the two continued on with their way down the street, an eerie presence filled the atmosphere. Each of their steps became bigger and quicker; they dared not look back.

But if they did, perhaps they would've spotted the shadowy figure trailing not far behind them?

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