13.3 Arena Roja

I could not reply at once. I was in a shock. Then I remembered what Asmr said. Don’t stir the dream. Let it flow. At this point it was pretty difficult to let it flow. I have to find out what happened yesterday. There were so many questions to ask. She was a grandmother and not a teacher but a deputy minister. And what about that face I just saw!

She folded, “I feel cold.”

“Let’s go home!” my voice was low and unsure.

“Wait until dark,” she insisted.

“It won’t get any darker than this,” I was feeling very uncomfortable at that moment. I certainly won’t stay until dark.

“Are you in a hurry?” she quivered.

“No. What is on your mind?” I asked uneasily.

And it was what she murmured to me right there that kicked me back to my senses. “I want to get a little closer to the wreck,” she uttered without an accent, “They say you can feel the heat.”

“Well!” I glanced at her.

“Shall we!”

Afterwards Asmr told me what would happen or what would have happened if I woke the dream. It chilled me. At this point just remember the brick red face of a gargoyle with little red fangs and horns on the crown. We hopped downhill on foot in some excitement tackling the beach grass and rosemary shrubs. Crossed over the thick rope lying low touching the grass because too many folks pull it.  I could see that falda blown in the wind revealing slim yellow legs. It was the other leg that I keenly gazed, the one that disclosed the under thigh.

Halfway through we came to a standstill. By now the ship appeared twice as big. Something just happened. A powerful beam lit the windscreen panels on the bridge. For a moment, the whole interior of the ship appeared lit by a rotating beam inside. I thought first it was a reflected ray of light. Then the light went out shutting down panel by panel from left to right.

“Did you see that?” I asked Sophie Nadz.

“I saw it! I saw it!” she screamed excitedly, “They powered the ship!”

We continued at a moderate pace keeping close. It was dead out there apart from the gush in our ears. The sky in a luminous propensity gave light around: a natural phenomenon. By now, the sun would have set.

Abruptly, she grabbed my arm. I saw more lights but this time it was those vehicles. A number of vehicles and headlights seemed to be approaching at fast speed.

“I think they detected us! We are in breach of the no-go zone. Let’s turn back!” I cautioned her.

She paused to think. Then we retreated quickly dashing for the hill. Those vehicles were catching up fast with sirens going on.

“They can see us in the beam!” I cried out, “Hide! Hide! Hide!” And we dived behind those rosemary bushes before the headlights hit us.

Those vehicles came right towards us. I was very scared and felt like splitting in half. They would stop and pull the nozzles of their weapons at us.

Phew! That was close! They passed within a few yards of us and climbed the dune screeching the wheels. Three cars stopped at the top of the dune with rotating beacons of the emergency lights going on. I thought this was it. They would pick us like rats on their night vision binoculars and a sniper would pull his trigger.

I could not see Sophie and I was scared to raise my head over the grass. “Sophie! Sophie!” I called.

She stood up to her full height, “Where are you? Kawla!”

“Get down! Get down!” I shouted and crawled up to her, “We must get out of here fast!”

“Why?” she asked breathing heavily.

“This area is under strict rules of a cordon,” now I spoke to her in a whisper, “They are going to shoot us down with sniper rifles. See! They are waiting for us.”

“What do we do now?”

“Follow me!”

We tracked back crawling slowly negotiating the bushes for cover.

“A point-five calibre bullet makes no sound,” she murmured, “you can’t even feel it. You are dead before it hits.”

“Shut up!” I grunted. She just added some extra scare in me of a silent bullet.

It was falling dark. We climbed keeping a good distance to the police vehicles on the dunes. There was some kind of alertness around the vehicles and more cars kept moving towards us with overhead signal lights going besiege, blinking and shedding light around the area. A couple of inspectors traced their binoculars on the wreck.

“Something went wrong down there,” I assumed to my best judgement.

“You mean that light from the ship!”

“Maybe!”

“Maybe it is melting down!” she uttered sending another shocker down my spine.

“A leak! They must have experienced something severe.”

“Do you think they saw us?”

“I don’t think so,” I grasped her wrist, “Stay here! I go grab my bike.”

 

Soon I dropped Sophie home and stopped at the café to watch television and take dinner. That light from ship was caught on live telecast, so they were telling me. However, it wasn’t repeated after that and not even in the mentioning afterwards. Could be suspended under some surveillance guidance. I learnt from the folks, “That ship came to life for a fleeting moment, my eyes do not lie. I saw it clearly, that ship ignited from the inside and it is the bridge room that lit up.”

“Who was it?” I asked.

“An alien ship,” expounded the guy next to me, “Inspectors heard a deafening noise throbbing eardrums of a high frequency and heat temperature rising steadily. They withdrew the area in a hurry.”

Another guy added, “Ship restarted its engines.”

“How may I ask?”

And he explained his theory, “Even if there is no crew, suppose they are dead, those nuclear batteries keep going and working on its autopilot running.”

“It is a short-circuit,” assumed yet another, “fuse blown.” Nobody knew exactly what happened.

“Is there any warning or an alert level issued by now?” I enquired these folks.

“For what?” cried an elderly fisherman.

“To evacuate the island just in case.”

“Evacuate yourself!” he uttered, “They don’t tell us and we are not interested to know anything about it. Have you seen a single dead body on this island?”

“I don’t remember.” I could not.

“Or a grave?”

“No, no graves.” I was sure about that.

“They are buried in the Caribbean. If we die, we die in Los Varados,” he concluded, “There is no place to go.”

I half uttered, “Buried in the Carib…”

BOOM!

That was extremely a loud noise we heard and everyone rushed out of the café. You guessed it right. The Titanic advertisement board fell down to the middle of the road. The irony is…it fell in front of the eatery called ‘Iceberg’.