The Devil's Harem

*Knock! Knock!

Without waiting for any response, a lean man wearing a nicely ironed dark blue suit walked in with a tab in his hands.

The room was large but was filled with smoke. The large chandelier hanging on the roof lit the room in a very dim light, barely enough for one to see anything around.

While it was hard to breathe in the room, along the walls of the room, there were machines giving off dim light that looked like incubators like things, and one could see plants growing into them.

That was certainly a weird way of carbon balancing, and it hurt your eyes a lot. But the man ignoring the stinging pain in his eyes, the man continued to walk towards the end of the room before finally stopping a few feet before the desk.

“Sir,” The man called out.

.....

“Do you know why I have these plants stored in here?” The old man sitting alone in the dark room slowly twirled around on his seat to look at the lean man standing in front of him.

‘This again,’ The young man thought, but without showing anything on his face, continued, “Because they... They belonged to him.” He said.

“Yes... Auhh... Yes, Yes... Because they belong to my beloved Asura,” the old man got up from his chair with the help of his cane and said, “You know, this was also a gift from him... He said that it was made from a very fine wood and there was also a pleasant smell to it,” the old man said pointing at his cane with a smile. It was evident that he liked it very much.

“Even my own son never thought to buy something like this for me... All he does is chase around that girl.” The old man suddenly got depressed thinking about his son. Soon the old man was in front of the young man.

The old man looked straight into the young man’s eyes, “But why do you think Asura did that to his father? Why do you think Asura left me?” The old man again jumped back to the guy named Asura and asked.

“Sir...” The young man hesitated, ‘How would I know... I am here filling in for someone, and it hasn’t even been a quarter for me with you,’ The young man thought.

“I asked you to find him for me,” the old man said, “But look at you...” The old man slowly crept up to the young man, “Your eyes have something to say...” The old man had a smile, a smile showing that he had found something, “Your know, your eyes never lie.” The old man said.

“And your eyes are making fun of me,” the smile on the old man’s face faded, “You think I am a nut-case, don’t you. For you, I should already be kicking the bucket instead of torturing you, isn’t that right?” The old man asked.

“No, sir,” the young man shook his head, “I would never...”

But before the young man could defend himself, the old man, in a swift movement, let go of his cane and grabbed the young man by his neck and, in a flash, smashed his head on the desk a few steps away from them.

“Then why haven’t I gotten any news about him,” the old man asked, not caring about the young man wriggling in his grip.

“Let me tell you,” the old man whispered in the ears of the young man in a dangerous tone, “I don’t care how you do it, but if he is dead, I want to see his body. If he is alive, I want to see him in front of me...”

“... I am the one who is going to kill him.” The man said with blood-red eyes, staring right at the young man.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Alex looked at his watch impatiently. It was already the nth time he had looked at it, and the frustration was slowly building inside of him. It was finally the D-day, and everybody involved with the project was at the airport, ready to leave for their destination. Well, everyone except for one, Rebecca, Jessica’s sister, was still not there.

The schedule of the project was split into two parts. One was to take place here, in Elenor, while the other was outside, in various locations.

For the last two weeks, Alex would regularly meet Jessica and Veronica after doing some research with his team at ‘AR’. Firstly, he was not happy with the duration of the shooting they had decided upon. It was three and a half months for the whole project. He argued and fought to have it increased to four months with a week more in the bag. There was not much of a protest from Jessica, but Rebecca was totally against it. Being the second in charge, she wanted to have her voice heard, but Alex shot her down almost immediately.

Then there was an argument that broke out between Rebecca and Alex over the profits. In the contract, Jessica and Alex had already agreed upon the net profit split. Despite pitching in twenty-five percent of the net capital expenditure, Alex and AR were supposed to get a nice chunk of thirty-two percent from the nett profit. Initially, Alex asked for forty percent, arguing how grateful Jessica was to him. But apparently, Jessica was not so grateful after all. And they had to settle on thirty-two, an odd number to agree upon.

But Rebecca was not content with it. She wanted Alex to bring more to the table, which he flatly refused. Alex and Rebecca were like Fire and Ice. They would fight every time they met on every point they discussed. And every time they disagreed, Alex and Rebecca would turn up to Jessica. And it was a headache for her. Jessica could see a glimpse of herself and Alex in Rebecca and him. Very much like sisters, but there was a bit of difference. While Alex and Rebecca were fire and ice, Jessica and Alex were like rock and egg in the beginning. Everything that Alex would say to Jessica, it won’t even flinch her, but Rebecca was easy to irk.

While Jessica was having a hard time, there was someone else having the time of her life. It was Veronica. Instead of helping out Jessica, she much rather enjoyed adding oil than water. She would be a part of every meeting they had, and she would agree with whatever Alex suggested. And when she was asked the reason, there was only one reply.

“Because Alex is saying so. And Alex is alwaaayyssss, right.”

And with that, the ‘peaceful’ roundtable negotiations went on for two weeks, until yesterday. Jessica would have rather agreed to what Alex proposed, but Rebecca was not willing to go down without a fight.

So, with the preparations down, Alex got up earlier than usual, prepared breakfast for his parents and leaving a note for them, Alex left the house. His father already knew about the schedule, and indirectly he had already put it in his mother’s ears as well. So Alex decided not to wake them up. But as soon as he left, the door of George and Martha’s room opened, and Martha walked out.

She headed straight to the kitchen and picked up the note. It was a habit of Alex to leave a note every time he was gone without telling them. With the paper in her hand, Margaret stared sadly at the closed entrance of her house.

And not just Martha, Alex left a message for Margaret as well, but he got no reply, which he had gone somewhat used to now.

At eight o’clock, everyone from ‘AR’ was already at the airport, and soon those from Theation also arrived, but Rebecca was nowhere to be seen. Veronica and other actors were going to fly in tomorrow after the preparation had been made.

Soon, time passed, and eight o’clock turned nine and soon nine-thirty, but Rebecca was still not there. Alex tried to call her and Jessica, but none of the sisters was there to answer his call.

Irked, he was about to leave Rebecca behind when a car stopped in front of them, and Rebecca stepped out of the car.

As Alex watched the beautifully dressed Rebecca step out, his switch flipped.

“You...” Angrily, Alex walked up to Rebecca, ready to bash her up.

“Just a minute,” But Rebecca stopped him, “Would you mind getting the luggage out?” Rebecca asked.

“Me?” Alex asked, surprised, pointing at himself.

“Yeah, you...” Rebecca looked at Alex, annoyed, “Put these muscles to some use, or are they just for show?” Rebecca grabbed his arm and asked.

But Alex did not move. He stood there staring at Rebecca, thinking how brazen and shameless this girl in front of him was.

“What are you waiting for? An auspicious time? We are going to get late,” Rebecca pushed Alex towards the back of her car.

“Are you kidding me?” Alex finally burst, “Now you are concerned that we are going to get late? Do you even know what time the flight is and how much time it will take us to go through the security check with all the equipment we have?

“I know...” Rebecca saw that Alex was getting angry and tried to calm him down.

“Do you even know what time the flight is? It’s now past nine-thirty, and we have less than forty-five minutes to go through the process. Do you think it is enough?” Alex did not let Rebecca intervene and continued to lash out at her in front of everyone, including those from Theation.

“Look at your sister. Even though she is a snob, she is punctual about the task at hand,” Alex brought Jessica in between, “Don’t you learn anything from...”

Now that was a mistake. Comparing Rebecca to her sister irked her. With teary eyes, she pointed her finger at Alex, gesturing for him to stop. Then she pulled out her phone and tapped a couple of times. Putting the phone over her ear, Rebecca walked to the side to talk to someone.

She was on the phone for a couple of minutes before she walked up to Alex, “Happy?”

“Hap...” Alex could not understand what she was talking about, but everything got cleared the next moment.

“Attention passengers, flight number AI-320X, from Elenor to Thar, has been delayed for an hour due to unavoidable reasons. The inconvenience caused is deeply regretted.”

* * * * *

(A/N: You should also check out my Fan-Fic, Against The World, All Alone)