SMELL OF THE ROTTEN APPLE

I had my bags ready to get off the train. The screeching of the brakes, the noise of the crowd, and the rush of people all blended into one chaotic sound—but my brain filtered it out like background noise, focusing instead on the thought: "I am in Puri." 

Including me, there are six of us on this trip.

“Before we get out of the station, let’s first take a starting photo near the Puri station board,” I insisted.

“Yes, it’s a good idea—let’s do it near that board,” Arnolt said.

Arnolt is an energetic guy in our group who adds a fun element to any conversation. He’s also my companion on this trip, as only the two of us are single among the two couples.

Everyone posed for the photo and snap—we successfully took the starting photo. Now I was ready for the adventure.

“From which side do we have to get out?" Milly asked.

The fucking annoying character. Woman out of all women. Can’t she figure it out after trying just one side? Anyway, we have Shaun with us. Somehow, we’ll reach the hotel. He’s a dependable and calm person. Also, he has a cute smile.

“Come from this side,” Drake said.

Well, Drake is a nice guy—just always nerfed because of Milly. He’s like a beast in front of the boys and an idiot puppy in front of her. Fucking annoying, isn’t it?

“Let me take one of your bags,” I said, taking a bag from Angel.

“No, no, it’s fine. I can take them.”

“It’s fine, I can also take them.”

Angel is a sweet girl—always helps me out. I like helping her in return whenever I can. Shaun and Angel seem like a compatible couple.

Shaun and Arnolt began asking auto drivers to take us to the hotel, but no one had heard of the Golden Eco Resort.

“Damn, no one knows about the hotel,” Arnolt said with a tired, depressed expression. He hadn’t slept well on the train.

“What are we going to do?” Milly asked, her face troubled.

“I’ll call the hotel,” Shaun said, concerned.

Shaun called the hotel, and they said they would send an auto to pick us up.

“How is it possible that no one knows about the hotel?” Drake asked, a little angry and concerned.

“Maybe because it’s cheap and a bit far from the main area. Don’t stress over it,” I added, slightly annoyed.

“It’s fine, it’s fine,” Milly said, trying to comfort him.

After a few minutes, the auto arrived and we left for the hotel. On arriving, we were welcomed by the receptionist—possibly the owner. The staff took our bags with a smile. For the first time, it felt like hospitality sure does existed in Odisha.

“Welcome. Can I see your IDs, please? I need to make sure you are over 18,” the owner said politely.

 A tall, dark-skinned man stood there, smiling creepily, sending chills down my spine. I know I shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, but my animal instincts were telling me to stay away from him.

We handed over our IDs and finally made it to our rooms. We had two neighboring rooms—one for the girls and one for the boys. A staff member brought us the necessities, and we were chilling in the AC room.

“These family suites are really nice,” I said. “They have a living room at the entrance and an AC bedroom inside. Feels like a 1 BHK flat.”

Stretching out in the bed in satisfaction, Drake said, “Yes, it’s a great deal.”

“But one of the rooms is locked. I wonder why.”

Arnolt muttered with a nasty grin, “Maybe it’s a haunted room and something is sealed inside.”

“SSSHUT the fuck up. Pray that’s not the case,” Drake said, his voice shaking.

Drake is absolutely hopeless when it comes to horror stuff. After some lazy downtime, we got ready to leave for the Jagannath temple. Obviously, it wasn’t easy—since we had girls on the trip. I don’t get why things can’t just be as simple as when it’s only boys. With girls, there’s always some or the other problem. Anyway, it’s fine. Arnolt and I managed to convince them to stick to the plan. Shaun and Drake can’t say much to their girlfriends, so we had to take the lead.

Reaching the temple, we were surprised by the majestic architecture of the place. While Milly was busy praying to various gods inside the temple, Arnolt and I were busy carving every detail of it into our hearts. Milly even told us some stories about the gods present there. In the end, we had fun and even learned a few things. Drake’s misunderstanding of rabdi as kheer was also hilarious. Angel took the responsibility of completing every drop of kheer, as she would never waste even one drop.

After enjoying ourselves, we returned to the hotel by lunchtime — the sun was definitely not planning to go easy on us if we dared challenge it. Throughout our travel, we used the hotel’s auto service. Maybe the hotel really is that unknown. We reached the hotel, and the first thing Arnolt did was crash on the sofa near the reception.

Arnolt murmured weakly, “I’m hungry.”

“Yes, the food is on the way—we already ordered it,” Drake said reassuringly.

“I’m hungry, babe. Let me eat you,” Milly whispered in a soft voice.

Drake tried to hide his embarrassment with a smile, and I couldn’t help wondering why I had to listen to this shit.

“The order is just nearby, I’ll go pick it up,” Shaun said.

Angel, being considerate, asked, “Should I also wait for the food?”

“No, it’s fine. I’ll wait with Shaun to pick up the order. You can go ahead and start setting things up,” I said.

“We’ll eat in the boys' room,” I insisted.

Shaun and I were waiting for the food while the others went up in the elevator. When the owner returned to the reception, he saw us and greeted us warmly.

“Should I prepare lunch for your room?”

“No, it’s fine. We’ve already ordered from Zomato—it should arrive any minute now,” I replied politely, Shaun nodding.

“It’s no problem. Please, let me prepare lunch. Why order from outside when I can provide food?”

“No, it’s really fine. We’ve already placed the order.”

“Oh, okay. It’s fine then.” The owner left with the same creepy smile.

“What was that about? He was really pushing it,” Shaun said, puzzled.

“Don’t know. Leave it.”

He didn’t show it, but it felt like he was genuinely disappointed. Anyway, the food arrived, and I figured I’d save my overthinking for later—after I’d eaten. We brought the food to the room and had a feast.

Afterwards, we needed a good sleep. The boys' and girls' room arrangement became meaningless since both girls wanted to sleep with their boyfriends. Also, the AC in their room wasn’t working, so they had to shift to a room on the 3rd floor.

 I had no intention of moving an inch, and Angel was on my team—she had already claimed the bed by crashing on it. So me, Shaun, and Angel stayed in the upper room, and the others ended up downstairs on the 3rd floor. At no time I got dizzy and passed out on the bed in nice, chilling AC.

Being a little unconscious, I woke up to someone knocking at the door. The AC wasn’t working—maybe the power had gone out. Without being fully aware of my actions, I walked sleepily to the door and opened it. It was the same staff boy.

 He was saying something, but I wasn’t paying proper attention to his words; I only caught the part where he was asking if we had eaten lunch at the hotel. Maybe he was asking so it could be added to the later bill.

After he was done talking, I shut the door and sat on the couch in the living room. I had gotten my share of sleep and was planning to go see what the others were doing downstairs. As I recollected myself from that drowsy state and stepped out of the room, the power came back. I smiled at my luck and left the room, sliding the latch shut from the outside. I didn’t want to disturb Shaun and Angel by asking them to lock the door from inside.

I called the lift and just stepped in, pressed the button, when the power went off again. The lift also stopped because of that. Fortunately, the doors hadn’t closed yet, or I would’ve been trapped inside for a while until the power returned.

I took the stairs as a precaution and saw the three of them weren’t sleeping but playing games. I joined them for some time, and later we had to get ready to head to the beach.

Arnolt and I went upstairs to wake Shaun and Angel.
“Wait!” Arnolt said with a mischievous smile. “Let’s go slowly and peek into the room. What if they’re doing something that shouldn’t be done?”
“Brilliant idea. Let’s do it. Let’s catch them red-handed,” I said, clearly excited by the plan.

We slowly pushed the door open little by little, only to see Shaun over Angel while she was asleep.

As I gradually opened the door to see more clearly, Shaun began turning his face toward us—realizing we were watching him. He quickly ducked under the blanket.

“We caught you! We caught you!” Both of us started celebrating our unexpected success.
Our noisy celebration, mixed with Shaun’s frantic denial, stirred Angel awake. As soon as she opened her eyes, we began teasing both of them. Funnily enough, Angel couldn’t quite grasp the situation, and we were having a great time messing with them.

After some time, we all got ready to go to the beach—the main event of the trip. When we reached the beach, to our surprise, it was completely empty. We could hardly see anyone, and even those few people were far apart.

“Why is this side of the beach so empty?” Drake asked, a bit concerned.

“Maybe this is the haunted side of the beach,” Arnolt said in a creepy tone. “Maybe it’s cursed, and the locals obviously know it—so they don’t come near this side, especially with the sun going down.”

“And if you notice,” I added, playing along, “this side of the beach is only near our hotel, which is kinda distant from the main area. Don’t you think that’s suspicious, Milly?”

A frightened Milly clung to Drake, who himself was shaking. “What are we going to do, babe?” she asked.

“C-calm d-down, Milly, I’ve got your back,” Drake replied in a shaky voice.

Angel laughed. “It’s fun scaring you guys.”
“Aren’t you scared?” I asked her.
“Ghosts don’t scare me,” she said, smiling confidently.

Shaun stood at the corner of the group, smiling cutely at the whole situation.

After having fun at the beach—thanks to the lack of a crowd—we returned to the hotel once it began to get dark.

Back in our rooms, we freshened up and got ready for dinner. All of us were very hungry after acting like idiots on the beach. Sitting in the living room of the boy’s room, we thought about ordering from Zomato, but unexpectedly, a typhoon began outside. Online delivery wasn’t available anymore, so we called the hotel manager to arrange food for us.

He sounded very happy—probably because we hadn’t ordered lunch from his hotel earlier.

“Hey, don’t you all think the owner is kinda creepy?” Milly asked, her face troubled. We were all sitting in the living room of the boys’ room.

“Why, what happened?” Drake asked with a worried face.

“Earlier, when Angel and I were bathing in the third-floor room, I felt like someone was outside the door, maybe leaning against it, trying to listen in,” 

“We even heard the sound of the door a couple of times, confirming someone was out there.”

Well, I don’t trust Milly’s words that much, but I couldn’t ignore the fact that she suspected the owner. Even if I hypothetically believed her, I wondered—why the owner?

“Why do you think it was the owner?” I asked curiously.

“I don’t know, it’s just my gut feeling. And he looks creepy,” she replied.

“I don’t know if it was the owner,” Angel added, “but I do think someone was outside the door.”

Now that Angel had said it too, I had to take it more seriously. If I had to guess who it could be, yeah—it would be the owner. He did give off a creepy aura.

“You think so too, Angel? Then maybe something is really up,” Shaun said, furrowing his brows.

“We have to do something about it then,” Drake said frantically. “ Girls were planning to sleep in the room downstairs.”

Arnolt and Shaun tried to calm him down—when the in-room phone rang.
Tring-tring. Tring-tring.

Somehow that created pin drop silence, tension lurked in the atmosphere. No one was going to answer the phone.

After a few more rings, Arnolt stood up and picked up the phone. It was the owner, informing us that the food was ready and the staff boy would deliver it to the room.

After a few seconds of silence, the doorbell rang.

Drake and Milly were on edge. Arnolt and Angel remained calm. Shaun and I went to open the door.
It was the same staff boy.
While handing me the food, he leaned in and whispered, “Did you forget what I told you in the afternoon?”
I gave him a surprised look, and he quickly left—like he was afraid of something.

We sat down with the food, but we didn’t have any plates to eat with. I tried calling reception from the in-room phone, but it wasn’t working.

Shaun stood up and said, “Alex and I will get the plates.”
“Don’t start before we come,” I added.

Going to take the plates, as we got out of the room, I noticed something odd at the door of a room. Anyway, I moved forward.

While in the lift, I said, “I remember now.”

Making a curious face, “What?” Shaun asked.

“In the afternoon, that staff boy came and asked if we had eaten lunch from the hotel. I was half asleep then, so I didn’t pay much attention, but he told me not to eat at the hotel.” Shaun’s eyes grew wide with shock

“I SMELL ROTTEN APPLE IN THIS SITUATION.”