Hello there, I know that there have been questions like this in the forum but none of them helped me and this is kind of an emergency because my plant is dying really fast and I'm in great panic.

I'm a college student that goes to school at night and since our house is quite lifeless from the inside (and out), I thought that I should buy a plant to lighten up the surroundings a bit. (I've tried it before when I was a lot younger but with a Katakataka sapling and it died in a few days. Tried one with a lucky bamboo years ago and it also died. I am bad at keeping things alive.)

A senior of mine started selling plants (cactuses are the majority) but since my aunt is very superstitious (pointy plants are bad luck inside the house, she says) so she decided against them.

Went to my senior's house and his mother helped me in picking a plant. Most needed sunlight and since our part of the house is very dark, I chose one that she said didn't need light that much. Okay, before you cringe or something, let me inform you that she didn't know what kind of plant it was. Just that it doesn't need that much sunlight, is very pretty and is easy to take care of even for me who doesn't know anything about plants (boy, was she wrong).

So she repotted it and I only got to receive it 2 weeks or so later (very late than what we initially talked about because there was a summer storm and I wasn't allowed to leave because the summer storms are worse than normal these days) and it looked like it's wilting. When I asked why it looked weird and crunchy, she said that it's because the sun is setting and it curls up at night. I took it anyways and paid her. This was the first week of August, the third month of summer.

(The plant was in a normal plastic pot at first and they relocated it in a glass pot when I bought it. All the pots they sell were glass with pebbles arranged to form a design which got me to buy from them in the first place. I found out much later that the plant needed pebbles for humidity(?) but I did not really know how it works so I kept them there.)

For some sort of reason, I waited until the next day to search about it and found out that it's a Calathea Roseopicta(?)(again, we didn't know what it was and I assumed since it looked like the ones in the pictures, just a lot smaller) and found out that it is a hard plant to raise.

I don't have a picture when I first got it because it didn't exactly look really photogenic.

After a few days, two of the leaves opened again but the other two at the bottom stayed close. I searched for answers about it and found out that there's no hope in those two.

I was hesitant in clipping the two crispy ones at first but hey, sacrifice and stuff. So I cut them and the plant looked more alive than when I first got it, I was really happy.

It was healthy for a month and a half, I didn't water it that much (just little drips on the soil) and only watered it again when the soil felt dry to the touch.

The third leaf looked like it was going to unravel soon and all of us were really excited (yes, the whole family, even my aunt) and it even became customary to greet it when we walk by.

(You can see little dead skin near the base, that's where I cut the dead leaves. Please mercy if I did it wrong, it was my first time doing it.)

This was on August 31, it was cloudy so the light isn't harsh but it's bright nonetheless.

For a plant in this particular area of the house, it got healthier than we expected.

Here's when everything goes bad.

Everything online said to be wary of winter and since we have no winter here, I thought that the plant was safe. The cold wind only arrives at late September and continues until January.

The rainy season started to drip bit by bit and for some sort of reason, the lower one of the two leaves started turn dark at the base and yellowish in the center. I tried to look up reasons online but to no avail. The higher one didn't seem to look bad but there were slight yellow parts (but it's not that noticeable). It went like that for a week with no further problems other than the dark base spreading very very very slowly (almost unnoticeable, only noticed it on the 3rd or 4th day, it happened about the 3rd week of September or so).

I have to leave the house for a few days (the dawn of Sept. 23 until the noon of 25, very recent) so I watered it the same amount as always and told my aunt to watch it while I'm gone (she knows how I water it since she always see it).

On the day of my return, we didn't go home right away and the whole family was out to have fun, leaving the lone plant unattended for the day (dog doesn't count as company for the plant, right?).

When we arrive in an afternoon that was very uncharacteristically hot and sunny, it started to look bad, the leaves looked like they were dying, like a little curled in itself when I first got it but not dry and crunchy. They were damp.

The biggest leaf was still good but the other two were not.

I know this is bad because I read somewhere online that you shouldn't leave water on the leaves but I am not sure if this is true (read somewhere in the forums that they got a lot of misinformation).

I asked my aunt about it and she said that she was doing what I have always been doing. I am not sure what is really happening but I thought that it may have been very cold since the only natural wind and light source is almost directly above it and it seemed to have rained a lot at home while I was out. The sky was very bright but this year has been very tricky, the weather was erratic and so random that even the news warned us about it.

After a day, the damp leaves went dry. There was rain for a few minutes at erratic times, both weak and strong, but the sun stayed bright and painful to the skin. (Monday)

The next day, before I left for school, the biggest leaf has already dramatically curled in on itself and the color was weird; It's like the dark green was fighting with the yellow. The other leaves show no signs of going back to normal even in the day. I was not able to really look at it much since my class starts at 3 pm and the travel time to school is more or less 2 hours depending on traffic and I normally wake up at high noon. Our classes ended and when I got home, all the stores are closed and everyone was already asleep (this is normal and we even had an early dismissal). I can't open the lights since it will wake them up so I can't see the color of the plant. (Tuesday)

Two days and I got positive that the plant was really dying. The weather said there was 60% chance of rain in the morning and cloudy in the afternoon but the day went on without a single drop, only the strong wind that feels hot and sticky and the bright sun drying everything up. The weather said that the night would be clear but it was really dark and really heavy rain started a little after 10 pm. I debated whether I should bring the plant inside my room and have it live off of the bathroom light but I was afraid that the sudden change of environment will make it worse. (Wednesday)

I searched forums online, reviewed the "How to take care of..." pages I've already read tens of times and nothing was helping so I thought that I really had to post about it in this forum.

Here's what it currently looks like:

(Notice the wet part on the stairs, that's water from a light rain earlier this morning, about 3 hours ago, 7 am or so. It is partly cloudly when I took a picture and very sunny while I'm typing this sentence.)

Here's how it's placed now.

I use the water in the bottle to water it because the dish I keep out was being infested by mosquitoes (that doesn't happen before. It only happens now because it's that time of the year). I read online that you shouldn't use tap water directly because the plant is very sensitive and they advised to keep some water out near the plant.

Here's the light source (and the only ventilation in this part of the house).

That's the position of the surroundings and the weather was sunny and nice while I was taking the picture, like the calm before the storm (It's brighter in person, my phone just can't capture it).

Oh, and it is raining very hard while I'm typing this sentence.

I reviewed these paragraphs about 3-4 times to make sure that the important details are in there and that I'm not being very redundant and while I was checking, it rained, became very sunny, rained again, got sunny again, then rained again and again and again. I count about 7-8 times with varying strengths and it's very scary since the wind and rain seem to cannot decide whether they want to suspend classes or not.

I was writing a paper for my class since last night so I didn't sleep but I don't think I want to leave to pass it either if it's going to die in my care!

Today is 11 AM of Thursday, the 29th, and I'm afraid that if I leave to go to school later and come back in the evening, there will be no more redemption for its life.

What should I do? Can I still save it?

Is the erratic weather the main cause and should I just bring it in my room after all?

Did I do something gravely wrong during the last week?

The plant has been very dear to us already and we don't want to lose it. We've loved it so so very much!

Please help!