Nature's Comeback

2 A-🔥Fire Demands Respect🔥

Note: The scenes written after the symbol ☯☯☯☯ are happening in the current time of the story and NOT in the colourful book. They would be set in any other city/village/town/country, other than the research building.

While the symbol ★★★★★ means scene change/scene break.

Now you can enjoy the chapter!!

The team leader came back to his office after the conference call had ended, and was left speechless.

"Huh? What?...How?..."

He was flabbergasted to say the least. A bunch of kids gathered in his locked office was enough to give him the scare of a lifetime.

The teenagers who were crouched on their knees, fell back on their asses when they heard the team leader's voice. Apparently, no one heard him come inside while they were discussing the possibilities of truth behind the story in the colourful book.

Every kid above the age of nine looked scared and guilty. The smaller kids were seemingly unaffected, having put their whole trust in their elder friends to handle everything.

Taking a few seconds to calm down, the team leader finally got his voice back.

"Why are you all here? And how did you even manage to enter the room?" He asked, barely managing a calm tone.

All the eyes moved towards Rewa, the team leader's daughter, who looked sheepishly at her father.

"Sorry," she muttered and gave an urgent look to her associates.

That look was enough for everyone to get into action. They all ran past the team leader before he could even sense what was happening.

Ayaan, a six year old child, ran into him while running. But Sarah; yes Sarah- the one he never got along with, picked him up and ran out of the office, while he dangled in her arms.

The team leader sighed with a shake of his head, while looking at the door, from where they all had left.

"Dad."

He turned to see his daughter standing by the door.

"Next time remember to put something else as a password rather than my birth date," she advised him cheekily, before shutting the door loudly on his face.

A small smile formed on his face. He would never tell her, but he loved his daughter's shenanigans. She was a fresh breath of air in his claustrophobic life.

A ting sound made him come out of his thoughts. The translator machine beeped as the book wasn't properly inserted.

The children had forgotten to take out the book in a hurry. The team leader picked out the book from the machine to put it back in its place, but four small chits fell out from the secret pocket compartment made in the last page of the book.

None of the children had noticed it before. These chits fell off because the book was kept dangling.

Curiosity won over him as he picked the chits. As they were in another language, he too decided to use the translator machine. Picking up the machine, he kept it on his desk. Sitting down on the chair, he decided to put the bright red chit first and got utterly confused by the result.

"Fire Demands Respect."

☯☯☯☯☯☯

It was almost 10 o'clock at night, when a 22 year old girl was walking down on an almost empty road.

The heavy winds had made almost everyone stay inside, except the few who were still trying their hand on lighting a fire, to help them with the wind.

The night looked scary, with the branches of trees moving wildly because of the wind and the electricity shut down. Batteries were down, and no candle was able to withstand the force of the strong air.

"Here comes our entertainment," came a drunken shout from nearby.

There were a few drunk men, who were sitting on their bikes, with a wannabe bonfire in the middle.

"Night seemed so boring and cold. The drinks helped our cold and now the beautiful lady would make the night enjoyable," one of them said, as his body swayed out of control.

Removing one leg after another, he came towards the girl, while his friends cheered from their bikes.

"You shouldn't roam alone at night. Anything can happen to you. Don't worry, you don't have to fear when I am here," saying this while making a fake concerned face, he went to clutch her wrists.

Snatching her hands away from him, she warned, "Stay in your limits."

He laughed, "Oh! I am so scared. See, I am shaking."

They all kept laughing. But it didn't last long. The girl glanced at his bike while he was busy laughing. A spark erupted and that guy's bike got engulfed in flames. All other men got down from their bikes, to get away from that fire.

The guy who was harassing the girl, left her and went to see if he could do anything to save his precious bike.

The girl snorted and enjoyed the show as flames started rising. She was suddenly pulled back in an alley.

Having nothing better to do, Neer had come out of their house to meet his sister halfway, when he saw his sister standing there, while the bike burned.

"Ahana! What's wrong with you?" Her twin brother whisper-shouted while looking around to see if anyone saw them.

"He deserved it," she replied in a monotone voice.

"You could have exposed your ability and we would have to run away to another place again," Neer, her brother said in frustration, banging his hands on the tree.

"So what? What's even there in this place? If we are together then nothing else matters. Plus this town hasn't seen the face of the sun for days, and my energy has been dying out. See my poor work," saying this Ahana pointed irritatingly at the burning bike.

"If this was the work of your low energy, I don't even want to know what you would have done if you were at your usual energy levels," Neer spoke, his face turned into a mixture of shock and fear.

"Like I said, he deserved it."

"You cannot do that to humans. They could have died." Neer didn't know what to do about his sister's temper.

"Firstly, I wouldn't have killed him. Just third degree burns," she shrugged unapologetically.

"Secondly, I did them a favour. They were trying so hard to create a fire. There's no fire other than mine that can survive in this wind. See, I helped them indirectly," Ahana spread her arms dramatically, before getting serious.

"Thirdly, they aren't humans but monsters. For them, I was also a normal human. But what did they do to me? They didn't give me the basic respect of a fellow human being."

"Yes, they were wrong. But this action is too much."

Neer had hoped to put sense into his sister's mind but her answer made him realize that he was the one who needed to understand.

"You won't understand because this wouldn't have happened to you if you were walking on a street alone. No one would have tried to take your advantage. So don't dare to advise me on how I should react.

"I not only deserve to be respected like the males of this world, but I also demand it."

"I Demand Respect."