CHAPTER 4: LA LUNA SANGRE HOTEL VACATION
***
Three hours had melted away under the afternoon sun.
Inside the chartered bus, the scene was one of total abandonment. The aisle was clear, the seats were vacant, and every surface was immaculate.
No one lingered, no forgotten items lay scattered—not a single chip of food remained to mark the journey's end.
All that was left was Trizha, curled up peacefully in her window seat. A warm, knitted blanket was draped over her, and she was sound asleep, her head tilted at an awkward, diagonal angle.
A soft snore escaped her, and a tiny line of drool marked her cheek. She was smiling, obviously lost in the pleasant depths of a wonderful dream.
Her phone, resting on the empty seat where her friend Wyne had been, suddenly activated.
The jarring, insistent blare of an alarm clock ripped through the silence, forcing Trizha's eyes open.
She groaned, swatting the air blindly until her hand found the screen and silenced the noise. She yawned, stretching her arm and rubbing the sleep out of her eyes. Her voice was thick and laced with exhaustion.
"Are... are we there yet...?"
She turned to her right, expecting to see Wyne. The seat was empty.
She glanced across the aisle—empty rows.
She blinked slowly, her sleepy mind barely processing the silence.
After a few seconds of dull contemplation, she simply shrugged, attributing the emptiness to a strange, half-dreamed illusion, and began to slump back down onto the cushioned seat.
Then, she shot upright, her eyes wide. She tore the warm blanket from her body in one swift, panicked motion. The realization struck her like a bolt of lightning.
"Wait a second...!"
She scrambled to her feet, her gaze sweeping frantically around the deserted bus cabin.
Everyone was gone.
The luggage racks were cleared, the scent of stale air conditioning and old vinyl seats the only remaining occupants.
A wave of acute panic washed over her as the full weight of being left behind hit her.
"Wyne, you idiot...!!"
She shouted her friend's name—a mix of rage and genuine fear—as she gathered her travel bag and backpack in a clumsy, hurried rush.
Within moments, she had practically fallen down the steps and out the bus door, her vacation supplies nearly tumbling onto the pavement.
The oppressive mid-afternoon heat immediately enveloped her. She found herself standing on a sun-baked asphalt lot, surrounded by tall palm trees that swayed in a gentle breeze.
Suddenly, a figure appeared right next to the bus door, standing in her periphery.
It was a girl whose face was completely obscured by a curtain of long, straight black hair.
She stood motionless, a spectral presence that seemed to have materialized out of the shadows beneath the bus.
Sadako?
The figure lifted its head slightly, and a chilling, drawn-out sound emerged.
"Trizhaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa"
A primal, raw sound of sheer terror erupted from Trizha.
"AAAAHHHHHHH!!!"
She recoiled violently, jumping so high her feet nearly left the ground. A profound, icy dread shot down her spine, freezing her in place.
Her eyes went blank, devoid of pupils, her body paralyzed by an overwhelming surge of fear—a genuine, heart-stopping moment of believing she was facing a horror movie ghost.
The tension was broken by a sudden, intense flash of light.
The click of a camera's shutter brought her back to reality. Her senses rushed back into her body, and she spun around to face the source of the flash.
Standing several yards away, Wyne was bent over double, struggling to contain an explosion of laughter.
Next to her stood T. Myrcella, the ever-observant chaperone, who had a professional-grade camera hanging from her neck, a faint smile playing on her lips.
Trizha stared, her chest heaving.
"Good afternoon, Blondie. You're late." T. Myrcella snickered.
Wyne was finally unable to hold it in, the sound escaping in loud, breathless bursts.
"Trizha...! Y-you should see your face- WUHAHAHAHAHAHAH!"
She gestured wildly toward Trizha, her laughter escalating to the point of wheezing.
Trizha felt her jaw slacken in disbelief, a mix of relief and growing fury warring inside her.
She slowly turned back to the 'Sadako.' The figure giggled—a distinctly human sound—and pushed the long strands of hair away from her face, revealing Margaret.
"The face of horror... hehehehe."
All the pent-up terror instantly converted into kinetic aggression.
"Margaret...!! Why?!?!"
Trizha grabbed both of Margaret's shoulders and began to shake her back and forth aggressively, although Margaret just lets it happen nonchalantly, unfazed.
Her eyes were glazed over, the unshed tears of fear now tears of frustration.
Suddenly, a heavy, warm hand settled on Trizha's shoulder. T. Myrcella had appeared silently behind her. The teacher's smile was warm, but her eyes held a spark of dangerous, uncompromising intent.
"Hoy. I said you're 'late'."
The intimidation in T. Myrcella's tone was palpable.
Though the teacher was smiling, the air around her felt charged with professional displeasure.
Trizha knew T. Marcela hated tardiness, especially on important trips. She instantly stopped shaking Margaret and began to flail her hands in a desperate, panicked attempt to explain herself.
"I-was-was i- w-was—"
T. Myrcella leaned in, her smile becoming positively mocking. "Awawawawawawa- don't care, didn't ask."
Without warning, T. Marcela delivered a sharp, cracking hand chop straight to the top of Trizha's head.
The force was enough to make Trizha groan in genuine pain and clamp her hands over her skull, shouting, "Ouch!"
"Yeah, should've thought about learning how to wake yourself up—not everyone will stay by your side!"
With that, T. Myrcella let out a short, wicked cackle, savoring the moment before she turned and walked away toward the group, leaving a stunned Trizha.
"Ow..."
Wyne, still chuckling, wiped a tear from her eye.
"Heh, sorry Trizha, but better luck next time—"
Wyne didn't get to finish the sentence.
Trizha spun around and grabbed Wyne's shoulders with the same ferocity she had used on Margaret, only this time the shaking was faster, more furious, and driven by a 'friendly' betrayal that was momentarily indistinguishable from true rage.
"WHY DIDN'T YOU WAKE ME UP?! YOU DAMNED CURLY BI–"
Wyne's smile vanished, replaced by an expression of green-tinged distress.
"W-wait-! I'm going to puke- Nghh-!! Help...!"
Margaret, meanwhile, was circling the violently shaking pair, wringing her hands and trying to intervene.
"Trizha wait! This was Myrcella's plan to test your awareness after a long bus ride, and I was just the..."
Realizing that Trizha was in no state to process logical explanations, Margaret's shoulders slumped. She gave up with a sigh of defeat.
"Nevermind..."
She clasped her hands together in a gesture of silent prayer, looking down at Wyne, who was rapidly losing consciousness from the excessive movement.
Margaret wasn't praying for Wyne's survival, but for the repose of her soul.
"Hoy, Margaret- Hoy- HOY! HELP-! HOY!!!!!!"
The frantic shouts of Wyne—whose slow-witted mind assumed Margaret was praying because she thought she saw a religious symbol—were ignored.
Trizha kept up the relentless pace of shaking.
Suddenly, a gentle, soothing sound interrupted the chaos: the trickle of water.
Trizha abruptly stopped moving Wyne, her expression transforming instantly from fury to wide-eyed fascination. Wyne was left momentarily suspended, bubbles forming on her lips, her eyes glazed over from the sudden unconsciousness.
"Wait… is there a fountain nearby?! Woohoo!"
Completely forgetting her pain, anger, and the fact she had just nearly liquefied her best friend's brain, Trizha let go of Wyne and darted toward the sound, already pulling out her phone to take photos for her social media profile, a sudden, blinding smile on her face.
The world was all rainbows and sunshines again.
Margaret caught Wyne just as her knees buckled, surprised that her friend hadn't actually expired.
"D-did I make it...?"
"Uhm... God said your mind is so slow that he lost patience waiting for you... so, no, sorry..."
Wyne blinked slowly, trying to re-center her vision.
"I mean if I survived...!- Oh wait, I guess me speaking clearly proves that I did... tables turned, huh."
She managed a weak, exhausted smile before turning her head slowly to Margaret, her face pale and her eyes pleading for help.
"Y-your turn to pull me out of here..."
At this, Margaret's eyes widened with renewed sparkle and excitement.
She quickly took Wyne's arms over her shoulders and began to half-drag, half-walk her friend, following Trizha toward the fountain.
A new adventure awaits the trio. An unexpected adventure…