‘What the hell? We were just talking on the phone a moment ago.’

Debbie called Kasie, Dixon, and lastly Kristina. All of them had turned off their phones. ‘Hah! Just when I need them the most, none of them can be reached. What kind of friends are they?’ Debbie was so frustrated she wanted to smash her phone. She gritted her teeth angrily. When she raised her head, she saw rows of tombstones standing there. It was as if they were all looking at her. Her heart started trembling and the cold breeze drove shivers down her spine. “Um… be cool, guys. Rest in peace. I am not looking for any trouble,” she muttered, as she spun around to make sure nothing was behind her.

Meanwhile, her friends had been taken to a restaurant. A few men, dressed in black, had taken their phones and confined them to a room.

Completely unaware of what was happening to Debbie, they enjoyed the gourmet food spread out on the table.

On the other hand, in the cemetery, more than ten minutes had passed, but Debbie still hadn’t been able to call in a car or a taxi to get her out of that terrifying place. Anxious, scared, and alone. Salty tears spilled over onto her cheeks leaving a tight, dry feeling. Crouching under a tree, she kept calling her friends on her phone and just about anyone she could reach at that moment. However, the reception was too weak. She tried and tried, but luck wasn’t on her side.

‘Am I going to spend the night here? Surely, I’ll be dead in the morning, ‘ she thought to herself, sitting on the cold ground. ‘That asshole Carlos. What an arrogant, insensitive bastard to leave me alone here like this! What did I do wrong in my previous life for God to make me his wife and punish me?’

“Martyrs, heroes, I’m sorry, but I don’t mean to be rude. Please don’t come near me. Please, please, please, please…” she begged, looking at the tombstones with her hands folded in front of her.

‘Kasie, Kristina, Jared, and Dixon, if I make it out of here alive, I swear I’ll never speak to you guys again. Oh, help me, God.’ She wondered what her friends were doing and she couldn’t understand why her best friends had all ditched her when she needed them the most. Then she thought of her husband who had put her in such a difficult position in the first place.

‘Carlos Huo, you evil man. No wonder you have been single for the past 28 years.’ Then she realized something was wrong with that sentence. ‘Oh, right. He is my husband. We have been married for three years.’ She remembered. “You deserved to be single for the past 25 years, you jerk. You’re lucky to have me,” she murmured to herself angrily. Again, she tried to contact everyone else on her phone, but the line didn’t connect her even once. Debbie sat there, tired and dejected, as she buried her face in her arms.

There was only one person left, her husband, the last person she wanted to ask for help.

After letting out a deep sigh, she raised her head and dialed Carlos’ number. Due to the lousy reception, she couldn’t connect through until after she had dialed more than ten times. “Carlos, I’m sorry. I was wrong. Please take me back home…” she blurted as soon as the phone was connected. Unfortunately, before she could finish her words, the reception broke off.

Debbie was bordering on insanity.

Onc

w,” Jared joked.

Debbie’s friends wouldn’t have dragged her into the dinner recklessly, without knowing who those bodyguards worked for.

It puzzled them immensely why someone would anonymously invite them to a dinner out of the blue and force them to eat.

Finding herself in no mood to talk, Debbie looked out the window. After a flash of lightning caught her by surprise, she got out of bed and drew the curtains. “Go back to the dorm quickly. I think it’s going to rain soon,” she said to Jared.

“Okay. See you tomorrow. Good night.”

At 1 a.m. there was a heavy downpour. The sound of emptiness was disrupted by the loud gregarious boom of thunder which lit up the entire room.

Debbie clutched the covers tightly. Generally, she wasn’t scared as long as the lights were on, but tonight, her visit to the martyrs’ park had frightened the life out of her.

Lying in bed, she turned and rolled, afraid to close her eyes. Feeling restless, she took her phone from the night table and started to read the updates on Weibo. Outside, the rain was getting heavier. A jagged bolt of white hot lightning split the chilly sky, and within seconds the rolling boom of the thunder reverberated overhead.

As if things weren’t bad enough, an introduction of a horror novel popped up on her screen. The book was about the wedding of the dead. The pictures of a coffin and a dead bride in a wedding gown, along with the introduction was cripplingly horrifying.

Debbie was so shaken up, she could barely suppress her scream. She sat up immediately and looked around her bedroom.

A few deep breaths steadied her rapid heartbeats. Only then did she remember that Carlos was in the next room.

‘At this late hour, he must be sleeping.’

Here, she was losing her mind, trembling in fear, while he was sound asleep in the next room? Life could be so unfair sometimes. ‘Hmph, he wishes!’

Debbie clutched a pillow tightly, and got out of bed.

Quiet as a deer, she opened the door. It was pitch black in the hallway, so she retraced her steps to the night table and got her phone. With the phone light switched on, she sneaked towards Carlos’ bedroom, and turned the doorknob to get inside.