The secret Tunnel of life and love episode 6
The Secret Tunnel Of Life & Love (episode 6)
Our guts and instincts are hærdly ever wrong. Always allow your instincts to lead you and listen to your guts as much as you can because there’s nothing that seeks your best interests like those two things. If Derrick hadn’t listened to his guts and entered that antique store and if Claire hadn’t followed her instincts to open that photo album, they wouldn’t have cracked the mystery behind the anti-aging plant they had been researching on for so many months. The fact that they finally found out the reason why all arrows kept pointing towards their school as the geographic location where the mysterious plant once inhabited, made them extremely happy like they haven’t been in a very long time. Now it all made sense!
“Wow!! So you mean our school used to be a farm and the couple in this photo album were the farmers who owned the land? No wonder this area was always in the center of all our location researches. Now it all makes sense and I am super happy we have come this far” Claire happily said while still flipping the photo album. Derrick was happy as well and couldn’t be more relieved seeing his partner happy after so may sleepless nights trying to solve the mystery behind the plant. He was glad they had crossed a major bridge in the research and couldn’t wait to see what’s next.
As their excitement grew, the store attendant confusingly sat there staring at them. He didn’t know why they were extremely happy, so all he could do was watch in awe. Shortly after the excitement in the atmosphere had died down a bit, Claire proceeded to ask the store attendant more questions about their findings. “Sir, do you have any idea where these plants can be found?” She asked and showed the old man the anti aging mushroom-like plants. He stared at them deeply and hummed. After being silent for few seconds, he spoke up; “I haven’t seen the plants before but my late dad told me about them” he said.
Curious to know what the store attendant’s late dad told him about the plants, Claire probed further. “Sir, what did your father say about them? We will like to know because we have been researching on this plant for months now and as cosmetologists, we believe it is a powerful beauty ingredient. Any leads on where we can find them will be very much appreciated and you will be rewarded handsomely” she said.
There was a brief silence in the atmosphere before the old man spoke up again. “I haven’t seen the plants in real life, I have only seen them in that photo album you have in your hands. However, my dad said they were just discovered by the farmers few weeks before they passed in a ghastly moto accident. It was found growing in an underground tunnel at their backyard and no one ever knew what they were for. My dad tried using the mushrooms to cook but they tasted terribly so we never cared to go for it anymore. The school moved in few months after the farmer died and the farm was totally renovated to the massive buildings there now. I believe the tunnel was bulldozed while the renovation was ongoing because it isn’t there anymore. That’s sincerely all I know about those plants” the old man said. They tried to get more info from him but there was no more to give. Contented with what they already had, they thanked him for being welcoming and walked away from the store.
The walk back to the school campus was a quiet one. Derrick’s mind was occupied with lots of thoughts and so with Claire. They pondered on the new entail they had gotten from the antique store and didn’t know how to feel or what their next course of action would be.
When they arrived at the school campus, they located a nearby chair and sat down to cool off and talk. “What’s on your mind right now?” Claire asked, “Nothing much, just how to locate where the tunnel used to be and see if there are chances that these plants could still be in existence” Derrick replied.
Derrick was s₱0t on with his reply and Claire couldn’t help but concur with him. “You are right, what we need to do now is look for where that tunnel used to be and see where our research goes from there. However, the sad truth is that I don’t think there is any tunnel in this school because I mean, if there was one, then where is it?” She said.
There was a huge point for consideration in what Claire said because if there was a tunnel anywhere in that school, at least they would have seen it once or twice since they got admitted into the school. The school was big quite alright, but not to the extent of hiding a tunnel. As they sat there deliberating on where this tunnel could be, it dawned in them that it was getting late so they had to call it a day and retire back to their various houses.
When Claire arrived at her apartment, she made dinner and saw a movie before sleeping off on the couch. By around 10pm, there was an expected knock on her door. By that time, almost everyone in the building were in,side their houses so who could be knocking on her door at such ungloldy hour. Scared and tensed, she remained mute and didn’t utter a word. The person knocked for the second and third time before the knocking ceased.
For about ten minutes, Claire was quiet in hopes to hear another knock but it wasn’t forth coming. She walked towards the door to peek if she would see anyone but there was no one on the door. Just as she was about going back to the couch, she looked down and saw a note on the floor. “Was this here before?” She wondered as she bent down to pick it up. Immediately she picked up the note, she opened it to see its content and it boldly had the inscription “Stop Your Research!!”.
Immediately Claire saw the write up on the note, her heart dropped drastically. It was there and then that it dawned on her that her life could be in danger. Without hesitating, she picked up her phone and dialed Derrick’s number. Her hands were shaking as she punched in the digits. The phone didn’t finish ringing before he picked up.
“Hey babe, you are still awake?” Derrick calmly said. Before he could finish his sentence, Claire ch¡pped in; “Someone is at my door, someone is after my life. I need you to come right now because I am scared” she said while crying. The fact that Claire was crying made Derrick jump up from his bed and head for the door without processing any other thoughts. He was fortunate enough to get his car key and put on his joggers. In less than fifteen minutes, he was at her house.
The manner at which Derrick headed for Claire’s door showed that he indeed cared for her more than he even realized. At that moment, he was more concerned about protecting her and making sure she was safe than anything else in the world. Immediately he knocked on her door, she ran and opened it. “Baby!!” She cried out and ran into his arms. He held her tightly and tried to reassure her that everything was going to be alright.
At that moment, Derrick didn’t even care to find out what was making Claire cry, all he was interested in doing was get her to safety and the safest place he knew at that moment was his apartment. Without wasting time, he asked her to pack up few clothes and they were out the door in a flash of light. When they got into the car, he asked if she would like to stay in a hotel in town but she refused and insisted on going to his apartment because the last thing she wanted was to be away from him for even a moment and that was low-key was he wanted too. With her approval, they headed back to his house.
When they arrived and had settled down, Derrick now proceeded to ask Claire what happened that made her cry and she began explaining. When she was done talking, he was flabbergasted and shocked that their harmless research was now becoming life threatening. Curious to know who could be behind these recent strange happenings, they began to ponder on it.
“Who do you think is behind all this? The missing books in the library and this strange note you have in your hands. If you were to guess one person, who do you think it will be?” Derrick asked. The fact that they didn’t know too many people in that school personally, made it h-rder for them to figure out the person behind the recent happenings. Unable to answer his questions, Claire took a deep breath in and out. “I think whoever is behind this knows something about this plant and is bent of making sure that no one finds out what him or she knows. For now, there’s no one I can pinpoint but the handwriting on this note can be a lead in this investigation. For now, all we can do is look for who has similar hand writings with this. It will be a difficult task but I believe whoever wrote this note knows us and might be in the same social space with us. Let’s just be careful and pretend like we are up to nothing while carrying out our investigation” she said.
Without doubts, Claire’s idea was brilliant and it was the best way to figure out who was on their necks. They agreed to photocopy the note so they could both have a copy and look separately to hasten their search. The next day, the search for who owns that hand writing began. They were very careful not to be caught by anyone and they made sure to leave no stone unturned. They borrowed notes they didn’t have need for just to do a quick check on the hand writing.
It’s been a month now since they began searching for the owner of the hand writing on the mysterious note. Since after that incident, Claire has been spending the night at Derrick’s place. She had few of her clothes and necessities at his house. She was still traumatized and needed some time to heal before going back to her house.
After about a wh0le month with no breakthrough in their search for who owns the hand writing, their zeal to keep pushing began to diminish and they were about giving up when something happened one fateful day that gave life to their search.
It happened one day that Mrs Eva had an impromptu test with Claire’s class. Her classes were usually done via video conferencing so the students thought the test would be online. As everyone walked into the hall in haste, Claire hurriedly took a seat in the front row and began to prep her mind for the test. Shortly after everyone had settled down, Mrs Eva began to pass the test script around and after everyone had gotten their copy, she walked towards the board and boldly wrote “Start time 9am, Stop time 10:30am.
The way Mrs Eva wrote the ‘Stop’ rang a bell in Claire’s mind but it felt wrong for her to even think about what was on her mind. The test began shortly and everyone began to write. It lasted for an hour 30 minutes before it was up.
As Mrs Eva went round to get the papers from everyone, Claire sat on her chair waiting for the class to get dismissed so she could leave. Just as she sat there looking tired, Mrs Eva got to her turn and took her test script. They didn’t have any eye contacts so nothing was weird just yet.
Shortly after, the class dismissed and everyone headed for the door. As Claire was about leaving too, Mrs Eva called her and handed a previously marked test script to her. “Thank you” Claire said but got no response from her.
As Claire walked out of the class, she looked at the script to see her score and was shocked by the striking resemblance of the hand writing on the script and that of the one on the note in her hand bag. Without hesitating, she opened her bag and brought out the note to examine both hand writings and was shocked by how well they fit as one. It was then that the hand writing on the board began to make more sense as to why she first thought it looked familiar.
In a flash of light, Claire went down memory lane to the very first day Mrs Eva introduced herself to the class and how everyone was in awe at how young she looked. Every tiny puzzle began to fit into one big piece.
Without a reasonable doubt, Claire was convinced on who had both hand writings. Shocked and surprised, she stood still in the crowded hallway and muttered the dreadful name “Mrs Eva”.
End of episode 6 😉
Stay tuned tomorrow to see what happened next.
✍🏼 Written by Sonia Okehie