Nature's Comeback

41- An oddly familiar statue

Having finally managed to pull Neer and Avan away from each other, Sameera glared at Neer. "What's wrong with you?"

"Why are you shouting at me? He was the one who pulled my hair first. I just retaliated."

"He is a kid, what's your excuse?"

Neer opened and closed his mouth, not being able to argue back. In his defence, it was Avan who started everything by being a chameleon. But yes, Neer too had provoked him intentionally.

"Sorry," he apologized with a pout.

Sameera shook her head, seeing him trying to get out of scolding by looking cute. "And what's wrong with your sister? How can she just go to sleep when the fight had erupted?"

"Ahana reacts to the fights in only two ways. We should be glad that she chose the better option," Neer said, faking a shudder.

"What's the other option?"

Sameera's eyebrows furrowed when instead of replying, Neer snapped his fingers. "What...are you doing?"

"Patience lady, patience." Neer requested, before snapping his fingers again which was followed by a loud "BOOM," sound.

A slight scream escaped Sameera's lips as she was startled by the turn of events.

"It is the mercy of luck that this scream wasn't out of pain," Neer chuckled.

Neer didn't have to spell it out for Sameera to understand what he meant. That loud 'Boom' was enough.

"Yeah...it is better that she chose ignorance over anger," Sameera remarked while trying to calm her pounding heart.

"Ahana Didi, don't sleep. I want to talk to you."

Sameera jerked up when she heard Avan's voice. She looked back in fear to see him shaking her with all his force.

"Avan, we shouldn't dig our own grave. Don't wake the sleeping lion," Sameera warned.

Avan rolled his eyes, before correcting Sameera, "Aunty, it is lioness. Ahana Didi is a female."

Sameera chuckled as nothing made sense to her. "Right," saying this she made up her mind to not get into an argument with him.

"I think sleeping is actually the best option," Sameera muttered before closing her eyes too.

Neer shook his head as he saw that almost everyone had gone to sleep. The talks of games and picnic went out of the window as soon as they all got settled in their seats. He couldn't blame them either. Adrenaline was finally leaving their body. As soon as the body got the signal that it was safe, it started shutting down.

He looked back at the frowning Avan who was still energetic.

"Want to play a game?" Neer whispered with a smile and just like that their fight was forgotten.

★★★★★

Everyone had been playing a game, when Ahana's gaze suddenly went outside the window.

"Ahana, it's your turn," Payal called her when she noticed the girl wasn't paying attention.

"Can...can we stop the bus for a minute?" Ahana asked in a distant voice.

"Shit! There's no public washroom around here. Even if we run the bus in the maximum speed limit, you will have to wait at least for ten minutes, or else we might need to knock on someone's door," Gyaan replied, thinking that must be the reason for her sudden request.

"No, not for the washroom," Ahana denied offhandedly, while her actual attention was on something outside the window. She walked towards the backseats to see more, as the view had already passed.

Everyone was confused by her behaviour and eventually the bus came to a halt.

"What's wrong?" Neer asked in a gentle voice, trying to look what had grabbed Ahana's attention.

"That statue, I don't know why it seems oddly familiar," Ahana muttered.

There were so many statues of freedom fighters around the country, but the placement of this statue and small area around it seemed like she had seen that before in her life. Like it meant something to her.

Lines formed on Neer's forehead as he tried to recollect. "The statue does seem familiar, but nothing else on this road does."

"I guess you travelled through this road before coming to my home." Gyaan's words changed their undivided attention from the statue to him.

"What do you mean?"

Not only the twins, the researchers were also curious.

"If we take a right turn instead of going straight, then we will end up at my village in about 5-7 minutes. So it is my guess that you saw this statue when Grandpa brought you to our home eleven years ago," Gyaan explained. "It's been too long and many things have developed in all these years. The statue is the only thing that has been here since ages."

"There must be a huge infrastructure change, if the twins can't recollect anything else," Kriti remarked.

"Gyaan, you said your village is nearby. Can we come and see?" Tej asked excitedly, before understanding hit him like bricks and he sheepishly turned towards Reyansh, "Is it possible to stop and rest there?"

Reyansh shook his head with a laugh at Tej's puppy look, "Only if Gyaan has no problem."

The bus started again as everyone else chatted among themselves about the turn of events. In their excitement, they all didn't notice colour draining from the twin's faces.

Ahana and Neer looked out of the window as the bus passed by the statue again because of the u-turn taken to go to Gyaan's village.

Ahana's eyes were welled up but she managed to stop her tears from coming out. Neer wasn't that lucky, a few stray tears had gotten out, making him hastily wipe it away before anyone could see it.

This wasn't just any random road they had taken to reach Gyaan's village. The statue was built at the entrance of their village. It was the statue beneath which they had been shivering in the cold night before Grandpa found them.

This statue belonged to a place that had thrown them out, calling them monsters. It belonged to a place where the twins were wronged by their own family. This was where they were abandoned and from where their new life had begun.

It was the place where their parents had hurted them more than the burning fire and the drowning water.

It was the place where the firegirl and the waterboy were born.