By Kuhu Gupta
Two hikers along with the members of their team were traveling through a dense forest in
the middle of the night to one of the high hills located in Uttarakhand. Since Arun and Shashi
were best friends, more like brothers and novice trekkers who were still getting to know
their new interest, they trailed behind. They could hear strange, muddled sounds coming
from the area as they ascended the mountain. "There are rumours that this forest is home
to a lot of wild animals and other entities/creatures that are not visible during the day, or
better yet, cannot be seen with the naked eye," Arun smirked.
Even though Shashi was a kind person, he was secretly terrified. He thought angrily, "Wild
animals are understood, but other living entities? We have nowhere to run to right now, is
he really kidding? "Can you just shut up and focus on catching up with others? What's the
point of bringing this up now?" was his reply. On the other hand, Arun was completely at
ease and probed further, "I guess you are terrified, isn't it? Don't worry, nobody would dare
to come near you while I'm here with you..”
But Arun could not finish his sentence, in fact, he was nowhere to be seen. Shashi turned to
see if he lost Arun, but he was nowhere to be seen as if he was never there with him. Shashi
completely freaked out and started running and shouting trying to reach out to someone
and then he just stopped, but it seemed that the others could not hear his voice and he was
stranded. Everything around him had become deadly silent and eerie as though even the air
had stopped moving. The only peculiar sound which he could hear was of small insects. The
hair on the back of his neck sprang up, signalling danger, and he was so terrified that he was
unable to move a single limb. He checked his phone but there was no network connectivity.
Then when he thought of moving ahead, he saw Arun sprang in front of him, but there was
something wrong with him. He appeared extremely pale as if he had been drained of blood,
his eyes were unfocused as if he was in a trance. Shashi wildly glanced around him before
turning to face Arun and spoke in a trembling voice, “Arun! Arun! Are you okay?”, he shook
him to bring him back to his senses, at that moment Arun lost his balance down and fell to
the ground. All the energy consumed from his body it looked he could use few bottles of
blood.
Shashi started to pray assiduously; it was the first time in his life that he prayed so much
desperately driven by the desire to join others or escape the location before anything else
found him first. For few minutes he just stood rooted at the spot thinking about what just
happened, unable to comprehend the possibility of the situation however, at that moment
miraculously, a couple of villagers appeared out of nowhere, carrying a lamp in one hand
and a stick in the other, and they appeared to be headed directly towards them. Not
believing his luck, he loudly started to call them. The villagers ran towards him and saw Arun
comprehension drawing on their faces. “Sir, this place is very dangerous at night, this forest
is home to a variety of wild animals and other creatures.” If something’s attention is focused
on you at this hour, nobody can save you. The creature who attacked your friend, we call it
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‘the one who never sleeps’. You shouldn’t have come here at night? What are you doing here
currently? Moreover, you must know at night even the hills are alive”, asked one of the
villagers. Shashi shivered, “We are a part of trekker’s group, and we came here to trek to the
hilltop however, we both got separated from the group. I need to save my friend; it looks the
entire blood has been drained from his body. Please could you help me, we will be eternally
grateful.” The second villager Ramu said, “Sir, we humans are seldom grateful. Neither to
mother earth nor to anyone else but fundamentally self-centered with a propensity to
disrespect and destroy everything admirable. However, I think you are quite fortunate sir, we
have an elderly woman in our village who knows the cure and she might be able to help you,
but we will have to carry him there as he cannot walk. Your friend is going to take a long
time to recover”. Shashi relieved to hear and only people to place his trust on responded,
“We will be forever grateful, please could you lead the way, I’ll carry him.” Mentally Shashi
had prepared himself, he was going to investigate this weird case, “It is not normal, it is not
an animal attack. He would have been hurt, or worse, killed, by an animal. This is something
else. It is true, despite my desire not to believe it.”
Slowly, they dragged themselves towards the base of the mountain, the constant eerie
silence continued as they moved as quietly as possible carrying along with them. After it
seemed like hours they reached their destination. As soon as they reached the village, the
villagers called upon the old lady and other villagers. The lady was a famous clairvoyant and
healer of that village. As soon as she saw Arun, she asked them to move him into the small
hut she used to stay. It was a tough task to take Arun inside as suddenly his body became
quite heavy, and he agitated. Somehow, he was taken inside, the old lady then started a
peculiar process of drawing energy from the elements in her surrounding and placed her
hand on Arun’s forehead. “There he returns”, she said softly. Slowly the blood seemed to
return into his body and his face flush as a tomato. The old lady smiled and said, “He is now
out of danger, but you should not go trekking at night, whatever business you have; do it
after the sun rises. You were lucky to find these people and me, the creature that strolls the
forest is not a creature that should walk the earth. That creature usually does not expose
itself but is a result of destruction that humans have started to cause unheard of until now
but there will be more of such creatures in future. The creature could not harm you because
of your strong aura. Something saved you today from it and you should be grateful”.
Hearing all these things, Shashi started feeling dizzy. “Am I seeing things? My friend who was
standing right next to me suddenly disappeared and when he appeared he was drained out
of blood. BLOOD! This weird old lady healed him within minutes, as if nothing happened to
him earlier. I... I will lose my mind if I must hear any more of this, even when I don’t want to
believe in these things, I will have to because it is happening”, he thought. And she says
there will more in future, how does she know? Are they from a secretive mission which are
unnaturally creating blood draining creatures? Is this creature a ghost, a spirit, a vampire or
a zombie? And how did she cure him? Everything is so peculiar and creepy.” As though
sensing his thoughts, the old woman replied, “I know what you are thinking, however, the
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lesser you know the better. I am not involved in any secret mission of erasing humankind
though. Your friend was saved today because you were there for him, you could have run
and saved your life, but you never left his side. All that matters in this world is purity in love
and friendship. Lucky is your friend to have a true friend like you”. While she was talking her
eyes changed color, they went from black to hazel and then back to black. Shashi blinked his
eyes, “It seems I am too exhausted to take and accept all these weird stuff for now, all I want
to do is to sleep”. Shashi called the villager and asked if they could stay the night and the
kind villager readily agreed and provided a space to both.
Shashi fell asleep as soon as his head hit the bed and he dissolved into nothingness, it
seemed he was drowning in the ocean, deep ... deep down. “Shashi you are so heavy, wake
up! WAKE UP! If you don’t wake up, I am going to throw you into the river. Oh! I do not have
any other option then I guess”. Big droplets of water hit Shashi’s eyes and he jerked awake,
he was lying in a tent, and it was raining. The tent had a hole on the top and droplets of
water were pouring through that hole. Shashi was feeling dizzy, he shakes his head and looks
at Arun. “Good morning sleepy head how are you feeling now? You really freaked us out
yesterday, if you were not feeling well, you should have stayed back”. Shashi gets confused,
“what are you talking about? What happened to me? It was you whom I had to carry on my
back but ... but where are the villagers? And the elderly woman who treated you?” Concern
etched all over his face, Arun said, “Are you kidding because if you are, this is not the right
time or the right place to mock about yesterday. You freaked us all out; you were walking
just behind us and then suddenly you disappeared. Then when we thought we lost you, you
suddenly appeared out of nowhere; your hair disoriented, your eyes unfocused as if in a
trance. Your body looked as if it was all drained out of blood, we were scared that we won’t
be able to save you. It was such a paradox of a situation. You were lucky that there were so
many people with us, we had to bring you down to this village and then an old lady cured
you. However, we couldn’t find her since morning and that’s weird. Anyways, if you are
feeling all well now we will have to leave this place. What are you gaping at me for?”
The information was too much to process, Shashi felt all the color left his face for a moment,
he said to Arun, “Are you mad? You were the one who disappeared; you left us behind and
then you were gone like smoke. We were lucky that the two villagers found us and then they
helped me to bring you to this village. After everything we endured last night, how could you
possibly make things right now?” An argument broke out in between the two. All the team
members were also standing there surrounding the two friends. They stared at each other
and decided to search for the old lady. While running towards the paddy field desperate to
look for the only hope and source of information, they saw an ancient huge banyan tree and
sitting under that tree was the old lady looking so radiant and peaceful. It looked as if a
white light was emanating from her surrounding and protecting her which they didn’t notice
last night during their individual encounters. “It’s her, isn’t it?”, asked Shashi for confirmation
to Arun. “Yes, it’s her. She is the same old lady that I met last night, the one who treated
you”.
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Swallowing Shashi and Arun went towards her, there steps brisk. At that point of time, fifty
meters seemed like miles to cover. Finally, they went and stood in front of her, she looked at
them with the same calm smile and gestured them to sit. “I know you two have some
questions to ask”, she asked. Her eyes had a piercing gaze as if she knew exactly what is
going on in your mind. Shashi blurted out, “It’s weird and I don’t even know how and where
to start. Every aspect of yesterday’s encounter that happened with us last night and the
attack which Arun suffered did not just happened with him, he says that the thing instead
actually attacked me and that he was the one to bring me to you. That means in our stories
at least two things are common one is the creature that attacked, and the other factor is
you”.
The mysterious lady stood up calmly as if it was a just a walk in her garden while the two
boys were almost off the edge. What she said next was no less than a riddle:
Deep within the Universe lies the answer to all questions.
What one goes through is the epitome of fear, might be a mere fragment of
others’ imagination.
One may have to pay for their deeds even if not at the same time or place.
Good and evil are only metaphors when it comes to human race.
How ingenious is the plan of the universe, isn’t it?
Both the friends exchanged puzzled looks; they were taken aback by how absurd everything
seemed at the time. They noticed the woman going in a new direction and standing a foot
apart just as they were preparing to ask further inquiries. She no longer looked old but
young and beautiful. She turned her head and smiled towards them and then just vanished
like a smoke. It was like the previous night, when they'd both seen each other disappear in
their separate experiences.
In an attempt to escape the situation at hand, Arun started off by saying, "Listen, Shashi, I
think we need to get out of here first." I think I'm starting to lose my mind. Let's go home
and discuss this when we've had enough sleep.” Shashi nodded, “I cannot agree more.”
Both proceeded to the village and began to leave the area with their teammates. They had
just taken a few feet when they noticed the monster; this time, they noticed it
simultaneously as a pair. It possessed large ears, snake-like yellow eyes, and pale skin. The
thing was staring at them directly as though examining them while also emitting confused
feelings of rage and grief. Then it smiled mischievously and vanished as quickly as light into
the forest.
By Kuhu Gupta
Amazing work Kuhu...
Awesome story kuhu
Indeed it is an interguing though a scary short story. Easy to understand. It emphasize the value of true friendship. It has an important message, we should mind our own business and dont mess with nature...
It is very captivating. Full of new ideas. So so good Kuhu. You are a born writer.
Thrilling journey of two friends..purity and power of true friendship. Good story ...keep going ❤❤