Ruhaaniyat

00 | Prologue

'Run Kaira, take Aashu along with you Karn, don't look back...'
'I LOVE YOU!' yelled Yamini Sanghvi for one last time before turning back and embracing her unfortunate fate.

The children meant the world to her but she was helpless. Her husband, the love of her life, was dead.
Dead.
Killed in front of her eyes. stabbed multiple times after being shot on his shin and shoulder.

She could still hear the low guttural groans of Virat Sanghvi, combined with the petrifying sound of the blade penetrating flesh time and again.

To say he was a brave man would be an understatement, he refused to let himself give those bastards the satisfaction of seeing him in pain.

He had known this would happen, he had spent the past six months planning the escape of his daughter, son, and niece, he tried convincing his wife as well but deep down he too knew that she wouldn't budge.

Kairavi Sanghvi, Karn Sanghvi, and Aashana Rai were running to save their lives, quite literally. The naive children, 8-year-old twins, and a 6-year-old orphan respectively, knew that something was wrong, there had to be.

Otherwise, why would the typically jolly Virat ever spend months locked up in his office, planning an escape lest all his other plans fail?

They had been told multiple times, and very strictly so, that if they ever see anyone in or around their mansion with the tattoo of an eagle on their left wrist, they were to grab the bags packed for them, run inside Virat's study, take the holstered Glock-17 from inside the Latin dictionary and run down the trap door that would lead them straight to the basement of the Mehtas.

And that is exactly what they did. But what they didn't know was that Shivaansh Mehta, a dear friend to all three, was given similar instructions except he was to use the same route to come to their place.

As they were running along Aashana bumped into Shivaansh leading to both the older boys panicking and very shakily pointing guns at each other. They all heaved a sigh of relief once they saw who it was.

The relief didn't last long as they realized that all of their parents had shared the same fate.

'BOOM!' and then eery, deathly silence. The children looked at each other's faces, each knowing exactly what had happened but none having the nerve to say it out loud.

Their parents were now dead.

Not that they didn't know this would happen as soon as they left their homes but the fact that both the mansions had blown up to smithereens was an unwelcome confirmation that the older Sanghvis and Mehtas were no more.

Myra Kothari and Ved Sahani were running away — again — from the temporary shelter that they had found in a run-down lighthouse quite close to the city. They had been on the run from the system for about two years now.

It wasn't easy with Myra being just 7 and Ved being 9, every single person they met would ask them about the whereabouts of their family. But little did all those people know, for months now, they had been each other's only family.

The social services had once placed both, Myra and Ved in the same household — correction, same abusive household — and they had fortunately escaped with some money and the 3 pairs of clothes they each owned.

They had come a long way after that. They had been living off the streets for 2 years now.

Cleaning themselves up every once in a while at a gas station and eating food from a restaurant in the town, where the chef had been kind enough to offer them small jobs like bringing the raw materials from the kitchen pantry and passing him measurement cups, because young as he might be, Ved was taught to not take favors the hard way.

Needless to say, they had managed.

The lighthouse that Myra had found one night had housed them for the past 4 months, they were now in trouble because someone had reported the singing of a child coming from the abandoned building.

In Ved's defense, singing was just a way he kept himself and Myra sane when things took a turn for the worse. Which they had for a while now.

As they were running, Myra tripped over a stray branch and fell into what seemed to be the part of a larger freshly dug tunnel.

Ved, alarmed by the loud screams of the 7-year-old, jumped in to get to Myra but was greeted by three terrified-looking children who seemed to be about his age and a much younger-looking sniffling girl.

Shivaansh, Kairavi, Karn, and Aashana heard a loud 'Thud!' followed by the screams of a girl. All four of them ran towards the sound with inexperienced hands holding guns and fear in their young hearts.

As soon as she saw two children about the same age as them and as distraught and alarmed looking as she felt, Kairavi helped Myra up and immediately clarified that neither she nor her friends meant any harm. 

The dark night passed carrying its horrifying secrets away with itself. A new day arose as the newly-formed group of friends embraced a new beginning.

They would soon discover what the phrase 'Found family' really meant.