บท 60: Message on the wall - 1

"No way!"

Screamed Atticus, the moment he reached his bedroom.

He had gone up to get some clothes for Morpheous and Eva so that they didn't look like students who had straight come out from a drama theatre class. But before he could even reach his wardrobe, he saw something strange in his room.

On the white wall, there were words written with a marker pen.

"Find a way to harness energy from the amulet."

Hearing his shrilling scream, Morpheous and Eva, left the EMP device on the table and went upstairs towards his room.

When they reached his room, they found him staring at the wall. His face looked pale and his eyes looked blank as if someone had drained all the blood away. Although they couldn't understand why Atticus was staring at the writing on the wall or what was written on the wall, they could understand one thing - it was something that had disturbed the old man.

His brows were knitted and his face looked agonizingly irked.

As the script was different, there were only a few alphabets that Morpheous could recognize, but as a whole, the writing didn't make any sense to him.

"What is wrong?" asked Morpheous.

"This messgae," blurted Atticus.

"What does the message say?" asked Morpheous as he got worried to see beads of sweat forming on the forehead of the old man.

"My concern isn't the message. My concern is, it was not here till yesterday evening. Someone has written some non-sense on my wall again. I am used to people mocking me, calling me insane, but invading into my house and writing on my wall! This is outrageous!"

"What have they written?" asked Eva.

"Nothing. It's a mockery of my recent publication on energy harnessing. 'Find a way to harness energy from the amulet.' Some nonsense they have written but I am not leaving it this time. I am not insane. All my theories are correct. You people have landed here and proved that I was right. I will show them...."

But interrupting his words, little Eva stretched out her hand, and seeing the amulet on her palm, the agitation of Atticus was silenced in the fraction of a second.

"You... From where did you get this amulet? Was it here? In my house?"

Eva shook her head and said,

"This is my brother's," and saying that she looked at Morpheous as if she was asking him if she could tell this man about their recent observation and when Morpheous nodded, she said,

"There is something more that you should see I guess."

She looked at Atticus hesitantly for a moment and then said,

"Please come down with me!"

Atticus followed her but Morpheous stayed in that room a bit more. He looked around, scanning every visible object around him, registering them into his memory, and then reached for the wall. He ran his fingers on the writing, tracing the lines. Something was very familiar with that script, but he wasn't able to figure out what.

He stood there and pondered for a while and then returned back downstairs.

"Do you see anything? Does anything move?" asked Eva as she placed the amulet and the EMP device both in her hand.

"No, it just points towards you as you are a flux source," replied Atticus.

"Wait a moment!" said Eva and when Morpheous came downstairs, she placed the EMP device in Atticus's hands and handed over the amulet to Morpheous.

"Check now!"

The EMP device started swirling fast. And as Morpheous approached closer, it started rotating even faster.

"What kind of sorcery is this?" exclaimed Atticus and pounced on the Amulet.

It looked very ordinary. A rhomboid sort of metal piece attached to a piece of string. A small part of the string looked like it had been burnt. The metal looked like that of iron which had been hammered and shaped up. But apart from that, there was nothing extraordinary about it.

Holding the amulet in his hand, Atticus tried to connect the dots.

'How can someone else know that we have an amulet with us? Also, is the writing pointing towards this amulet or something else?' he thought and then looking at Morpheous he asked,

"Who gave you this amulet?"

"It's been with me since I can even remember," said Morpheous and looked at Eva.

Atticus consolidated his thoughts for a moment and then said,

"I think we can discuss more about your place and check your amulet later. First, we need to find the people with whom you came," said Atticus and picked up the half-eaten bowls from the dining table and placed then in the sink.

Then looking at them, he said, "You can use the bathroom to freshen up," and saying that he pointed towards the powder room but then he realized that they might not be familiar with its usage.

So he said,

"Come with me!"

He showed them how to run the tap and how to adjust the temperature of the water. Then he pumped a coin-sized amount of body wash on his palm and lathered his hands up.

As he cleaned his hands under the water, he said, "See, using this you can clean your body. This liquid will wash away all the dirt. But remember do not let it get in your eyes. I won't be responsible if it stings bad."

He smiled and looked at Eva who was looking at him dead seriously and a part of him wished for his students to have tried to listen to him this intently.

"And here are the towels," he said and then explained the whole mechanism of how flush and the doorknob worked.

"I will find some clothes for you and then we can go in search of your friends," said Atticus and then looking at Morpheous he said, "You can use the guest bathroom there," and saying that he went upstairs.

As Morpheous stood under the shower and let that water drench his body, his mind started rummaging through everything that had happened. This future man seemed nice and benevolent, but still, he was not able to trust him. A part of him was still uncomfortable seeing the message on the wall.

There was something that was going on beyond his scope of understanding. But he was not someone who was going to settle without knowing the answers.