I woke up the next morning with a pounding in my head. I shrugged it off and although it was a little early to be up on a Saturday and instead of going on my routine hourly jog and a visit to the gym, I got dressed in my sports attire and headed to the basketball court for a few pick-up games to invigorate myself after a bad start to my long-awaited weekend. After spending some time sweating things out, I smiled and felt satisfied with the way I played the game, knowing that I’ve come a long way since the day I first picked up the ball a few years back when I used to ask myself if I should bring a gun whenever they asked me to shoot the ball. As I made my way back home, I could not help grinning and wondering how happy Paige and I would be given the extra time we would have later. We have already postponed a few activities that we were supposed to be doing together due to my excessive and ridiculous workload and I realised that the lack of inadequate quality time was starting to get to her. I opened the door jovially, expecting to see a surprised look on her face but I was greeted with silence. The house seemed to be void of any signs of life and the quietness in our house was unnerving to me. Usually, she would leave the radio on or at least the MP3 player so that it would mislead would-be thieves to think that there are people in the house plus, basketball scores and latest reports are not something that an avid NBA fan like me would want to miss. I called out her name to check if she was home but there was no reply coming from the room nor the kitchen or even the garden in our backyard so I thought to myself that maybe she was out with her friends for breakfast. I decided to get changed out of my clothes and took a shower so that we could maybe go out, grab some lunch, do some shopping and spend the rest of the evening together strolling in the park. The sound of water rushing through the showerhead helped break the tension of silence around the house and as I was preparing to step in, I had a nagging feeling. Something was not right but I could not nail it down. I looked around nervously to see if I was being watched but then I came to the sudden realisation that that “something” was horribly out of place. Our toiletry rack which we usually placed our soaps and shampoos had disappeared. You may call it paranoia or just brush it off as something trivial or silly but I chose not to do so. That very rack was riveted into the wall by the previous owner and for those who do not know what a rivet is; it is a permanent attachment to a surface which you cannot simply remove. Even if you managed to, it would have left markings and holes on the wall like how all screws and nails do but that part of the wall which I was staring at was a clean slate. It was as if the wall was brand new. I walked over to it to get a closer look and then I noticed that there were fine lines that formed a rectangular shape which fitted the size of our rack inch for inch. I tried tapping on it, straining my ears to hear for any sounds that might indicate a hollow orifice behind it but since my effort was in vain, I resorted to gently pushing and prodding the panel and the most surprising thing happened. The sound of rushing water ceased and the showerhead started to rotate, forming a lever-like apparatus. I was dumbstruck. How could this contraption stay undetected throughout the months we’ve been here but most importantly, who created and left it behind? I pulled the lever without a moment’s hesitation and the walls began to grunt and shift heavily but steadily. When they stopped, I discovered a dark, hidden room which was as big as the room Paige and I were sleeping in and I stared into it, trying to make out the outlines of the objects in it. Initially, I thought that I was looking into a mirror of some sort but what I realised hit me like a speeding truck. Where was my body?
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