Episode 9: KRI

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_____ February 18, 2018 _____

- jake -

Damn! That girl is fast!

April was on the other side of the gate in like two minutes. I still think it's a bad idea, I'm not really a gate climbing guy!

"Wow! I mean look at that. It's such a magnificent view guys! Come on soon. I suddenly have a good feeling about this. I might even go in without you!" April was screaming so loudly.

The gate was dense. We couldn't see the other side of it. Avi, Nick climbed past. Niha along with T's help and then me and T, we jumped cross the gate.

OMFG!

Everyone stared in awe at that huge and wide infrastructure that stood there right in front of us.

It was like a mini castle. Beautiful gardens, huge space, and all these water dripping and flowing at the sides after the rain, made it heavenly. But it no more seemed like a castle now. Looked like after war scenario. Seemed more like life was taken from it real bad! Clearly, it was untouched for years, as ashes were still left here and there that gave this place a tiny kind of haunted look. There was one part of KRI which was completely burnt down. It was black all over. Wow! All these years and those blacks still there! Damn! Such an amazing work of art devasted. Nature has its ways, doesn't it?

After gathering in all the courage we ever had and praying to all the gods we ever knew, the six of us moved ahead to enter the building. As far as I could see, there was no one there. Maybe nothing was going on there like how we assumed. It was just a property nobody cared about. But then why would Avi's dad buy it?

"And I thought that something serious is going on in this place but seems like nothing is going on. Its quite awkward to know that dad would ever leave a place barren and broken like this. This is not him. We have to see what's there inside guys, as outside ,this place couldn't be any more perfect. So we go in?" Avi spoke my mind out.

"Waiting!" said April who was the first one to run.

It wasn't a difficult task to enter the building, as the windows gave us a way. The doors were sealed obviously. The window next to 5th window in the right wall of the door was easy to break. Nick, as always was good in that. Duh! Strength was his middle name. Always working out and staying fit. He removed all the remaining glass pieces off. The window was a little high for our body level. We had to help each other climb. One by one, first the girls, the we helped each other. The last person remaining was lifted up by the others.

Inside, another view awaited us. The 15 feet tall room partially burnt and partially broken down, walls of which had a mixture of faded red and golden paint, floors had the marble touch and dimmed shine made them look antique. There were certain elements in that room that still seemed alive. Like the black with silver lined curtains that hung from top of the other window round the corner looked new, and those beautiful pearl shaped glass lights that were everywhere on the walls looked neat for a 6 year old building. The different paintings from different era's and different artists told you a different story in themselves. This room was probably at the other end of the place where the blast actually took place, as it wasn't affected much.

"I think we should go to other rooms and try to see if we can find anything. Like what's even happening here?" Avi said. Both Avi and Nick seemed very confused and irritated as to why did their Dad even get this place in the first place!

Dispersed. There was a huge door welcoming the room to the building. After to much of force and pressure, we opened it. That probably was the lobby of KRI, dancing hall of the castle it was! Where am I even?

"I guess your Dad had plans of living in a castle when he bought this! I've never seen a lobby so beautiful in my life, though partially burnt up! Which cruel man or cruel act would that be that burnt such a wonderful place down? Ughh!" said April, still looking straight up at those beautiful carvings on the ceiling.

"I don't think this place is even touched by anyone. I mean look at all those things, no one would leave it like that!" said Niha, pointing at a huge frame fallen in the corner of the lobby. It was a painting as it seemed. Obviously, if someone had been here, they would at least try to straighten the frame up!

"Let's split and see around. See if we can get anything even regarding the blast, now that we know it's untouched in years!" I said.

"Okay. Good idea. Jake, T and April search this floor, while, Avi, I and Niha go up."

Dismissed. The ground floor was huge af.

In between those pieces of ashes and cement, we tried searching something, some clue, anything that we could find, regarding the blast. Nothing! Almost an hour of searching and still nothing!

I must say, this place is lit for an 8 year old architecture! There were like 11 rooms in the ground floor! Most of the rooms were locked as they were research rooms. Boards on door said that. 5 rooms weren't locked. We checked in them. They were burnt. Papers lay on the floors. Just the same bills and some equations filled them. No one even bothered to stack them back up. I still couldn't believe Avi's Dad owned this place. As far as I knew, He was so particular about the places he bought. He never wasted his money on something he would leave like this! He always started working as soon as he bought a place. He's a Civil Engineer. His ideas of infrastructure was very different from what you usually find. That's what made him so well-known. This place was like one of his idea of Infrastructures, vintage and amazing. But to see it left like this, kind of got me irritated.

April was going around seeing everything with Awe! She even flipped every cardboard to see if she can find something. T was there with his face so worried, I smelled something fishy. Or he is just being himself, the new himself. For all I knew, the old T would have been too excited for something like this. He always liked to do dangerous things! Now he was just coming to the rooms with us, without even touching a thing, actually, not even entering the room completely. We found some papers with KRI logo on it. Actually almost all papers had that logo. It was so similar to the KITES logo excpet for the little conical flask in the left corner and the huge, KITES RESEARCH INSTITUTE in the middle.

"Guys! T! April! Come up! Fast" Niha was screaming leaning on the corridor of KRI. We didn't even observe how well people from the top floor could communicate with the people on the ground floor. There were these little corridors in every room on top that saw right throught the ground floor room. Almost every room had this from the room above. Niha was screaming from the corridor near the spiral square stairs. There were three set of stairs going up. One was room the lobby, huge and wide. Remainig two were in the extreme edges. There was one elevator in the corner of the right side of lobby. Niha was in the right staircase.

We rushed upstairs, just to find many more doors. It was same like the bottom floor, except for the huge lobby area divided up into rooms. One of those room door was opened wide and we could see through it. This room was full of burnt down tables and cupboards. Must have been the record room as it had many racks that were empty. Niha dragged us to a room that was right next to it.

Avi and Nick where right there. As soon as we went, Nick came running with some papers in his hands. I don't remember him having papers in his hands before.

"Guys! Guess what we found? When we just thought that KRI was nothing, I mean no one gave a shit about this place, we came to this room and Avi noticed this." He dragged me along with him, pointing to an enormous painting placed next to Avi on a table. He was examining it. The painting was of Horse race.

"What about it?" said April.

"The date!" said Avi.

OMFG. How's that even possible? The painting was dated, 12/10/2015. Wait, what? 4 years after the blast? And also after Avi's Dad bought the place. What the hell even!

"And that's not it! We found these papers behind the painting. Avi is removing the remaining ones. 60% of the back of the painting was filled with papers. And look at this. It's a language that even google couldn't find out for us! I think I have to talk to Dad. But what if Dad's doing this? I have a strong feeling that these papers have a lot to do with KRI! A lot! Because see this.." Nick pointed at a vague drawing on of the papers. "This is the room that's right opposite to the one you're standing in right now. And see this.." He shuffled and then pointed at another paper. "Come on! I'll show you." April was the one to be dragged this time. He took us to the extreme end of the floor that completely invisible from the entrance we came from.

Hexagonally shaped, hollow in the centre, this corridor was one of its kinds. We didn't notice this corridor before as the rooms below it were all sealed and locked. At every corner of the hexagon was a door that was designed in a very uncommon fashion. Here, was a place that was the exact replica of the place below it, a hexagon with 6 rooms in it's corners. The epic centre of the hexagon had a one foot size diamond cut blue stone in the first floor that was placed on the junction of steel rods that extended through every diagonal of that hexagon, meeting at the centre and holding that coral colored stone very artistically! Above was glass roof. The ballroom kind of. We could see clouds forming outside. It was getting darker.

The picture was indeed of that stone and the corridor and the roof.

No one uttered a word as to saying they recognized ehat Nick tried to tell. We went back to the room. Avi was removing all the papers. He and Niha were examining them one by one. I really like the way they manage things together.

"Guys! There is this another drawing here, recognize this? It is n't in the first floor." Avi handed a paper to T.

"I remember this!" said April. "This is the corner that was completely burnt up black? Remember guys, Iasked why is this corner so black when the other sides weren't?" Oh yes! She did complain, I remember.

"And this?" said Niha. "This is the side entrance right? The one that had huge security related stuffs on it. I noticed it when we April was busy examining the waterless fountain that was at the middle." T was joining in real fine!

"So, all the drawings are pieces of KRI and the writings are in a font we don't understand. Plus, It's not hand written, it's printed! 40% of the painting is still left! That means, these papers arent the entire set. There is more to this. Now, I really want to know what these words say! Dad isn't doing this, is he?" Nick turned to Avi.

"No! He isn't. Probably he has no clue of this! Dad doesn't have this font anywhere in any of his working computers, laptops. If he has kept something just for this, then I don't know. But, I have this feeling this isn't Dad! We can't even ask him. He shouldn't know we were here. He would fire us! But, he is the only option right now. As, if this is happening in his absense, then he should know that someone is doing this! But, if he knows about this, we might have put oursleves in serious trouble here."

"Aghh! What to do now? Don't talk to your Dad, Av, it's problem! Looking at this, it only seems, KRI isn't completely forgotton after all. There's much more to this than what the papers say. And Avi, your Dad is immensly involved in this. He bought this place, left it untouched, didn't tell anyone about this, and now when we thought that there is nothing going on, we discover a painting that was bought right after he bought the place and there are papers in it in a different language! Don't you think it's is a little weird when we put this together. We need the remaing pieces of this story so as to understand it!" said April.

I had no idea what to do! T's expressions were like shit! I had no idea why was he sweating so much. He also wanted to know more, his face said that. But, since day 1 he had this thing on his face which definitely wasn't related to the break-up. Now I really think it has something to do with KRI. He wants to tell something, but he is binded. He has a secret right now in him. I couldn't help noticing him throughout the painting and papers thing. It was like, he knew something.
I have to ask him.

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Thank you for your patience and support with this book. Loads of love, Magicians.
-Disha
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