XV (Part II)

This mass grave is enormous that I believe the pool lit part is as big as a professional soccer field. I cannot see the ends of it, though, as the unlit part gives an impression that its land area is as huge as a stadium. However, I can see silhouettes of gravel piles and backhoes in the corners of the huge room. There must be thousands of dead bodies lying down here now. Imagine, this hotel has been going on for 64 years already.

Steven comes to us, and I notice that Stacey is no longer hanging on his back. He sits next to Harris and me.

"Where is Stacey?"

"I found Stacey's grave, so I decided to lay her body there. It will be useless for me to continue bringing her everywhere when she can properly rest here," and he exhales. I can't see his face properly as Harris has taken me somewhere on a far end of the room, but I can hear the hopelessness in his voice. "Actually, I have found a hollow grave next to hers, which I think is meant for me, but I'm not dead yet."

"What do you feel?"

"I don't know. I'm at a loss for words at the moment… No one is waiting for me out there now."

"It's okay to feel lost, Steve. It's all-natural. Your reaction is normal as everything that is happening will always be a shock to us. All of these are happening in just one night. It's okay to not know what to do or where to go. Let's just continue living to know what is waiting for us at the end of this road," I tell him. "We will never know but, a miracle might happen. That… that we might wake up from this… this nightmare."

I feel so funny. I have just finished freaking out when I have found out that we have been walking above a huge might-be-illegal gravesite, yet I have the guts to tell these to him. Am I just doing some wishful thinking? Or is this just being pathetic? That something… something might just happen at the end of this road.

That the being from above, if someone is actually there, has not given up on us… yet.

"But what if we don't?"

"Let's stop attracting negative things, bro," Harris taps Steven's shoulder. "Let's continue to strive, okay? You still have me. We'll continue playing basketball out there. You'll be designing clothes for a lot of celebrities. Isn't that your dream? I'm sure we'll find another reason to live soon if we'll just be patient to ourselves."

Steven becomes silent as he tries to digest what we have been thinking.

"I should find my mom's," in a shaking voice, I tell Harris after I calm down. I stand up and am about to walk when I feel a warm handhold on to my right wrist to stop me.

"But-," I cut Harris off.

"I have to make sure that she has been here or if she is able to wake up from this nightmare or if she is able to," I pause, "save herself from all the tragedies we've been through … like us," I tell them, and I feel his grip loosen. "The reason why Steven's hole must be empty is that he's not dead yet. I want to make sure of my mom's."

I cannot see them properly, but I can sense that Harris stands up, and he shrugs off the dirt from his pants, "I'll go with you." He then refers to Steven, "How about you, Steve?"

It took a while for Steven to respond, "I feel powerless right now, Harris. I'll stay here for a moment. You and Amy should go."

"Okay, we'll just be looking for her mother's section. Just stay here, and we will get back to you."

"These graves are lined up by year vertically and alphabetically in surname horizontally. Stacey's is the bottom, at the year 2021. The others must be there, too."

"Okay, Steven," I tell him. I admit that I am quite hesitant to leave him alone here because of what we have gone through and experienced. It is best if we continue sticking to each other's side. But he does not want to go. And I understand. All I can tell him is, "We'll be back."

Harris and I walk at the head of the pile 2006 and walk towards the end, looking for the pile 2021. It did not take us a while because 2021 is the current year. There is only an empty deathless half of the total area of this gravesite that has no dead bodies on it yet. They might be reserving it for future customers.

Once we have reached the pile, we start following the lined-up markers and try to read their names in this darkness. No one seems familiar. It's so sad that some of these people are actually with us at the Iodestone earlier, or they might be somewhere in this hotel, and they die along the way to survival. There must be some actual workers down here, too, that took their bodies from there and brought them here.

There are some empty dugouts, too. There must be survivors like us out there. They must be hiding, too.

Of course, there are still things that I do not understand yet. For example, what's the real deal about that hotel's monster? And who shot Stacey? How did these bodies arrive here? What is really going on?

Or what if we've been in reality all along?

It is not that long when we have found Stacey's grave first. We stand in front of her to say a little prayer for her soul. Her grave is neatly covered in gravel, unlike the others, which seems like they have done sloppily. Steven might have done this earlier.

Clarke, Stacey (2021)

And beside her lies an empty and hollow gravesite that says,

Clarke, Steven (2021)

I try to look at the place where we have left Steven earlier even if I can't see him. It must have been scary for him to actually witness this. He's been so strong. I understand why he did not want to come with us again when he had been here earlier.

We continue walking, and we find another familiar name a few dead bodies later.

Garcia, Melvin. (2021)

His grave is unruly like someone has actually tried to dig him out but couldn't.

It must be Steven, too. He must have gone here earlier while I have been freaking out. I feel empathic towards him. This place is just too much. I can feel Harris step forward and kneel on Melvin's grave. Eventually, I hear his sobs.

For the first time in this night, I have witnessed Harris have cried.