Tien sought for his car in panic as he desired to escape. Like everything else in the house, the car vanished. The kids were calling his name as they were slowly sliding toward him. Their feet never left the ground – they were dragging those on the rough, concrete surface leaving blood trail behind. Tien managed to back away a little, but then noticed he could only move in one place. When they came closer, he apologized for everything he did even though he could not remember anything, not even their names. The kids halted and made sad faces. The only girl with a blacken pink shirt broke out of the group, held his hands and stared straight to his eyes.
The girl’s hands were stiff and cold, but brought a warm feeling. When Tien looked into her eyes, at first, he was nervous, but then there was nothing but sentiment. Tien began to see a scene of seven kids playing together – one girl, and six boys including Tien. They were so happy and innocent. The six of them were heartbroken every time Tien went back to Saigon. After Tien left, the six of them had stayed in distress until Tien’s next visit. It repeated like that scene after scene, which upset the current Tien heavily. Then on the next scene, they promised to be together forever unconditionally. They even made a blood vow by cutting their palms. The boys hesitated so the girl had to do all of the parts. Since one of the boys had hemophobia, he rushed away after his left palm was cut, and never returned. Later, the adults told them that he got drowned. The remaining children were miserable, especially the girl – she swore to honour their promise by any means necessary. The current Tien grew concern for the boys as the girl found an old ritual buried under a dead tree. She ordered the boys to come to a secret location on time. All arrived to a corner of the cemetery, but Tien did not. They kept waiting for him until dawn of the next day. The scene cut off unexpectedly.
Five of children looked at Tien waiting for the reason of absence. Tien admitted that he forgot what happened that day. They smiled and all seven of them held his hands trying to pull him to somewhere. Tien allowed them but, on the way, he realized something did not add up.
In the past, the group had seven members, but the grownup Tien was here. The group should have six only. As Tien quietly had a glance at the faces of the two bowing boys, he realized they had no face. His childhood friends must be all dead and now their purpose was to add him to the group – All the previous incidents were all their doings. He was afraid that they wanted to do something horrible to him. Out of surprise, he used all his strength separating his hands away from the group and used them to hit his face hard.
With a bloody broken nose, Tien was back to reality. He had been sleeping in front of his mom’s old house. He ran quickly to his car. As he remembered the unfortunate morning, he decided to ditch the car and waved the taxi instead. As soon as he got into the taxi, his phone began to make many notification sounds. He had missed so many calls and messages from his wife and his mom. I guessed both of them were so worried about him because they could not contact him. Tien tested to see if he could make a call – his phone did not budge. Perhaps, it was better this way because they would not believe what he had been through. Tien decided, when coming back, to tell them that his car broke down and his phone had some technical difficulty – the latter was sadly the truth anyway.
A week later, Tien went to a doctor who was hopeless at diagnosing a cause based on his symptoms. By the way, he stopped by to pick up his newly repaired phone. The first one he called was his mom. He wanted to understand what really happened in Bien Hoa – he researched on the event of his childhood friends but ran into a dead end.
“Hi, son” said his mom enthusiastically. “Did you feel guilty that you could not help me with the moving? Don’t worry. I got a moving service already. They did a better job than you would.”
“Hi, mom. How are you today?”
“I’m alright. What’s wrong?” his mom’s voice turned worried. “Did the doctor say something bad? – did your ex-wife torment you again?”
“Mom … I need you to be honest with me,” Tien lowered his voice. “Do you remember my childhood friends in Bien Hoa? The ones, you and dad said, went away the last time I visited Bien Hoa when I was a kid.”
“It’s been such a long time. How can I remember? I think someone is ringing the doorbell.”
“Mom!” Tien growled. “I know you’ve been lied to me … They were all dead, weren’t they? Weren’t they, mom?”
His mom paused for a moment.
“Okay. I’ll tell you everything. But you have to understand, everything we did was all for you.”
“Do tell.”
“Yes, they were all dead. You were in Bien Hoa at that time as well.”
“How can’t I recall any of it?” asked Tien. “I know my memory isn’t the best but … I should have, at least, a glimpse from it.”
“How could you? You had dengue and were deeply in coma at the hospital. Your temperature was too high, we thought we would lose you,” sighed his mom. “Thanks for the God, you recovered three days after … the drawback was your memory lost.”
“So what happened to my friends? How did they die?”
“Suffocation.”
“Suffocation?”
“The police found them with black plastic bag covered their heads and, on the ground, there was a circle drawn by chalk with weird characters inside. They thought the children did some sort of ritual,” his mom sighed again. “I know your friends asked you to participate as well. You was lucky that you got sick instead.”
“Then why couldn’t I be able to search for the incident on the internet?”
“I don’t know, but I guess because the ritual was involved and the Vietnamese government considered it as superstition so they did not want to spread it.”
“Thanks, mom,” Tien stopped the call. He could not bear to think of when his friends struggling grasping for air before death.
Although being curious about the ritual, Tien did not try to investigate more on it. He was worried for his friends. It must be terrible for them to be stuck there for many years. He decided to free them. He contacted with the family church, but the priests refused to help him. They all stated that his friends practiced witchcraft so it would be dangerous if they got free. He went to other religion figures as well, but the result remained the same. Thy noticed her husband acting oddly, he took a long rest from his job and was barely at home. However, when he was on the same room, she sensed something grim, not from but around him. Thy trusted her instinct and begged Tien to stop whatever he was doing. He refused.
Eventually, Tien got a call from a priest in Bien Hoa. He said he knew about his situation from the family church and wanted to help him. The priest expressed concern over Tien going back to Bien Hoa because he would be toyed around by his friends – they were kids after all. The priest concluded that the best way was to come to Saigon to accompany Tien back.
With the priest and Tien praying, nothing happened on the way to his mom’s old house this time. After asking around, they knew where the children’s graves located. When they came to the cemetery, Tien’s body felt heavy like his friends intended to keep him there. They stood in front of the graves and started the ceremony. The priest took out a holy book and recited from it. During the ceremony, Tien noticed a scar on the priest’s palm looked similar to his – it must be a coincidence. As the ceremony was done, he wondered if they crossed over for good now. The priest confirmed with his thumb up, but to make sure, the priest would be with Tien all the way back to Saigon.
On the way back home, a policeman ordered them to pull over. Someone had reported that Tien’s car was overloaded with people. The officer searched throughout, even at the bottom of the car, and found nothing. He had to let them go. When the police turned away, he heard some sort of chanting. The sound gradually faded and disappeared as Tien’s car drove way.
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