The Cursed City

“A parcel..” Elouise tried to project with much enthusiasm, however the exhaustion throughout her body won over and her joyous words sounded more like sarcasm.

Elouise exhaustedly compiled all the mail and packages in her hands as she lazily trotted towards the entrance of her home. After a long day of work, she believes the best therapy is opening a package she had been awaiting on since her online order, submitted a few days ago.

“A package a day, keeps the headaches away.” She mumbled with encouragement whilst she seated herself in the living room, putting aside the pile of standard sized envelopes for the time being. Holding onto the large A4 rectangular shaped envelope, she could feel the bubble wrap inside, at this stage a guessing game of ‘what could it be?’ ran through her mind, maybe it was the new self improvement book she had just purchased recently on Amazon. But that game ended as quickly as it began when she carefully pulled onto the ‘open here’ tab and gently pulled the object into full exposure of her vision.

Unamused she stared at the little black book resting in her hands, a simple, plain and boring looking journal was not enough to bring her spirits back up after a long day. From memory she couldn’t recall ordering such a thing, knowing well that if she did purchase a journal, it would look at least more interesting than what was presented to her. Whilst caressing the book, she could tell that the journal itself wasn’t empty, the surface was decorated with crinkles and the book itself had obvious factors that revealed it had been used.

Naturally, Elouise begun to flip through the pages, the first page revealed a hand drawn map of an old ancient building. Elouise froze, she stared at the illustration in front of her and wondered why it looked soo familiar, she begun to brainstorm through her mind of similar buildings she had seen before.

“Angkor Wat?” She assumed, however this building appeared smaller than the famous Cambodian temple, and the fact that she had never been to Cambodia was also taken into consideration. Deep inside Elouise felt for certain that she had physically been to this place before for. She decided to flip through the book to learn more about what was shown on the initial page. The pages that followed contained little drawings of objects ranging from vases, gold, ornaments, tools, clothing and all kinds of objects that represented what the people from that particular era utilised during their daily activities. The strangest part about these drawings was that Elouise was able to depict how exactly these garments are supposed to be worn, including what the objects were used for despite not having any written messages or annotations to determine its real use. Images flashed through her head as if they were a hidden memory that only became available at this current moment.

Curiously and cautiously she studied the information this little book withheld, she carefully analysed every single detail from large to small. She learnt that the building was from Lao, a landlocked country, located in between Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam. Another page contained the how and whereabouts of this ancient building, from theories to tales, and figuring the truth behind the city. This particularly caught her attention to the extent of finding herself immersed and reading the source of textual information out loud.

“Archeologists believe that hundreds of years ago, a large scale earthquake allowed an immense flow of water from the Mekong river to drown the entire city, leaving only the temple behind. However for many generations, villagers have believed that a curse caused the earthquake to wipe out the entire city..”

Before she could finish, her vision was no longer fixated on the book, like she had travelled to a different realm and the building she had seen on the first page, is now displayed in a third dimensional form in front of her. The most strangest thing is it didn’t look as old as it did in the drawings. There wasn’t any collateral damage done as shown in the illustrations. Instead it looked well maintained, interestingly people were crowded and walking around, the entire area was filled with life. The people were all adorned in the exact garments from the illustrations, could it be that she had drifted into the mysterious world of this journal?

As if she was hypnotised, she stood in her current stance for an immeasurable amount of time, admiring the architectural structure of the building and visually digesting the environment around her. Oddly, an overwhelming amount of sadness engulfed her as she watched the scene around her play out, yet she couldn’t understand why. It wasn’t until a petite lady had ran over to her, grabbing onto her arm which snapped her out of the trance.

“Nang, it is time, we must start the preparations.” The lady gestured. Elouise observed the lady who desperately steered her away from the building. The lady was addressing her with a name that wasn’t hers, however the sound of it felt familiar, almost like her soul had merged with the owner of the body that she was possessing.

“No.” Elouise freed herself from the firm grip that the lady had on her. At this moment, Elouise realised she had no control over this body. Her movements were paralysed, yet the eyes of this body worked like an open window, allowing every thing play out like a film.

“We cannot run, there is no place for us.” She sternly stated. The lady sent her a puzzled look and before she could retort, Nang continued to explain.

“Even if we travel up North, do you think that their kingdom would allow us into their territory? We killed more than half of their warriors during the war, they would exterminate us like rats and our women would all be used as the lowest level servants.”

The lady opened her mouth to speak, but nothing came out. Knowing well that there could be a high possibility of what had been said to actually happen. Multiple scenarios ran through her head of all the dirty work she would have to do. She didn’t want that, but also staying in a place where the whole population knew this city was going to fall, bothered her.

“The North and the East worked together to perform this curse, if we run to them, we lose. Our only hope to winning is to allow the mother of earth to swallow our land. They may have cursed us and our people, but when we become one with the river, they cannot take what is ours.”

The little lady stared at Nang with sorrowful eyes, hoping that she could find a way out and spare her own life.

“But I’m afraid..” She whispered.

Elouise saw the worried expression that appear on the woman’s face. Consolingly, she lightly grabbed onto both of her hands, hoping that her faith would be transferred through the touch of her fingertips.

“Come with me, I will plant my spirit here on this land. My soul is devoted to this soil, I will protect this land for eternity. Join me and our ancestors.” She offered. It was clear to her that the woman had a look of hesitation, she watched the lady looked around in discernment observing the buildings and the people as if it was her last time seeing it all.

“But, we could be stuck here forever.” The lady answered disputably, her eyes rested upon the building that appeared ahead of her. “We will become cursed souls, trapped on an abandoned land, there’s no way out for us.”

Elouise shook her head, she squeezed the lady’s hand in order to gather her fullest attention, fortunately for her it worked. The lady peeled her eyes away from the scene and refocused her attention back towards Nang.

“When the time is right, we will discover this place once again. We will not be forgotten and our land will be found. One day this stupid curse will be broken.” Nang encouragingly forced a smile of comfort before she commenced, she rose her voice, and yelled towards the direction of the temple. “If the sky and the Gods believe that the good can win over evil, no matter how long it may take, I’d like to make a wish, right here in front of this temple. In another life, I wish to be of assistance in rediscovering my kingdom and the loyal souls of our civilians will be free once again!

With those words, Elouise found herself back in the modern living room that she was extremely familiar with, tears fill her eyes as she searched for the little black journal which had fallen out of her hands while her mind wandered into a journey of the past. She picked the book back up and noticed a folded note, which must’ve slipped out when the book it fell onto the floor. She opened the note and read out the text aloud.

“To Mr. Brown,

I hope this package finds you well, I wanted to send you this journal of the discoveries from an abandoned city in Laos. The findings are quite spectacular and the people here truely believe in the legendary tale. You’ve always been interested in cities connected with mythology. Favourably, the new water dams built just outside the capital are lowering the tides from the river and I was able to discover this beautiful temple.

Anyway, let me know if you’d like to seek further into this.

Regards,

Chris.”

Elouise picked up the package searching for Mr. Browns details, to her luck his address was plastered on the front of the yellow envelope, revealing that his home was just a walk across the street. Without much thought she found herself standing at the front of his house and ringing the doorbell. She was greeted by a middle aged man, who she assumed was the person she had been looking for.

“Mr Brown?” She asked to confirm. Mr. Brown nodded and sent her a look of uncertainty.

“It seems like your package was accidentally sent to the wrong house, my apologies for opening it without taking any notice.” She confessed. She passed the opened envelope over to the man who accepted the parcel without removing the confusion expression on his face.

“Also, I would like to assist you on researching the discoveries of this temple.”