31st December 2018, The last day of the year 2018.
Now that I look back, I haven’t done much this year, so I decided to pack my bags and go for beach camping happening at Bermuda beach, Mystic land. I informed my friend that I’m travelling far away from our locality and he decided to join me. We both started off from our houses by 3 o clock and reached the destination in less than 2 hours. We met people across Mystic land who came to enjoy the New-year under the stars and the moonlight. We all begun setting our tents and the time passed by very quickly, the organising team called us for dinner. I was so happy to see the open air BBQ after a long time. We had a great time with each other. We strolled around the beach for few minutes and returned to our respective tents. I had to share my tent with my friend, he was still roaming around the beach. I have heard many stories about the Bermuda beach in the past, but nothing was true. I lied down waiting for my friend and started reading the book ‘KAFKA on the shore’ by Haruki Murakami. I completed the chapter 1 of that book, time passed real quick this time. It was almost 2019. I decided to step out of my tent to find my friend but something seemed weird. He was nowhere on the shore. I tried calling him, but my mobile kept saying ‘can’t make a call to this number’.
I took my bag which had a flash, water bottle and a 5 minute sand timer which is gifted by my friend. I started walking towards the forest near beach, I hope no one saw me or else they would stop me from going in. I switched on my flash to see any obstacles on my way. It was very quiet, I heard someone coming towards me. I didn’t shout and kept my flash off to keep my presence unnoticed. Sweat was making its way around my neck from my cheeks. My heartbeat raised, I was still hearing the steps coming towards me.
I talked to me in my mind ‘Oh, God! Let me see my friend. I’m hell scared by this unexpected situation’.
I heard someone’s voice ‘what are you doing here’
Thank God, it was my friend who was walking towards me from the past few minutes.
I answered him back ‘I came out to search you, where were you? And what are you doing in the forest at this time?’.
‘Oh Oops sorry! I came here to bring these beautiful flowers’ he gave me the flowers with an apologetic look on his face. I accepted them with a smile.
I checked the time on my watch, its 11:59 p.m. We both were ready to greet each other.
I started counting the numbers in seconds ‘5….4….3….2…1’ anddddddd
‘what?’ I checked the time again it was still 11:59. ‘whats happening? Is my watch not working?’ I checked my mobile to verify, the mobile was stuck at 11:59.
I looked at my friend. He was scared too cause his watch and mobile were also showing the time as 11:59. We didn’t know what was happening, I opened my sand timer and put that on the ground to see how much time has passed.
The sand grains were slowly dropping down. None of us thought we should go back to the camping place. I feel like I’m struck in a forest. We both were tensed to see the time passing but our mobiles and watches were stuck at the same time.
I sat down on the ground beside my friend looking at the trees. We heard a noise coming out from far away, we didn’t take it seriously.
A person approached us with a knife in his hand.
“The boy, yes you! You will come with me” he said pointing towards my friend.
‘Wait, what? Who is he? He doesn’t have a face’ I stood up to protect my friend from the unknown person.
But everything I did went in vain as he was strong enough to push me away to the ground and take my friend with me. I lost my balance and fell down on the ground hitting my head hardly. I hope someone will come and save us.
My blur memory picturized that the person took my friend away, the only friend I had.
After sometime, I felt someone was trying to wake me up. I saw the sand timer was dropping its last sand grain down. ‘Oh..It’s been 5 minutes’ I said to myself. I checked my watch with my blurred vision, the time was 00:00.
A guy from organising team gave support for standing. I stood and told them what I have experienced just now. But everyone on the camp dodged my experience by saying that you came alone, you did not come with a friend. I cried explaining them what I saw and told them that my friend is missing. They dropped me at my tent.
‘Oh yeah the sand timer, he gave it to me today after reaching the camping site’.
I opened my bag to take out the sand timer, I took the timer and stepped out to show them the proof that I did not come alone.
My mobile buzzed with a message from an online store.
The message read ‘Thanks for purchasing the 5 minute sand timer from Zing, we hope you liked the timer. We wish to see you more often. ~Zing’
Why are they messaging this to me? I didn’t order this, my friend did.
I realised we had the same name ‘Phoenix’ and the most important thing I realised was ‘HE WAS ME, I WAS HIM’
I was suffering from ‘Dissociative Identity Disorder’. Thanks to this disorder, I made my friends within myself.
If 2019 wasn’t 5 minutes late, I wouldn’t have discovered this.