Suramya

Chapter 8- The waterfalls.

The light blinded her. It seeped into the streaks of muscles, awakening her from what felt like an eternal sleep. But had it been so? Not really, considering the fact that it took her a few hours to drift into the so-called 'eternal sleep.'

Evara's eyes fluttered open as her eyesight slowly adjusted to the surroundings. The light finally entered her senses, only blinding her more. She dodged back, as if the light was an arrow, and rested her head back against the old bark. A leaf fell upon the light's pathway, blocking it from reaching her face.

Evara smiled at the leaf.

"Thank you, Gamla." She told the leaf.

The process of getting up from the ground involved a few yawns and groans until her feet were finally up and stable on the ground.

Now here's the thing. Evara had forgotten where her room was.

They all had a similar structure and colour, making it difficult for her to recognize the one she was assigned. "Uh..." She mused, twirling around checking out each hut, hoping she'd feel a sense of familiarity with one.

She didn't. Hence, she used the second-best method.

"One, two, three, four—" She counted the huts until she stopped at one when she reached "ten."

Walking right towards the respective hut with utter confidence, no one could've guessed it was the wrong room. She pushed aside the curtain door with a whoosh and immediately closed it again when her brown eyes met with the hazel of Raina's.

Raina's intimidation hadn't watered down even a bit, as her eyes remained as cold and piercing as they had before. Now, Evara was fully awake.

Apparently, Raina had seen Evara sleeping under the tree last night. When her energy had drowned off, and she was coming back to her hut, she had spotted a small figure sitting under the tree— more like sleeping.

The drained-off body had given Raina a total of 1 hour of sleep.

Better than nothing, maybe?

Raina had never been the glass half-filled kinda person. She had always been a 'I don't care as long as it has something.' kinda person.

Because in her life, she had never been given even a drop, let alone half a glass.

"I'm very sorry!" Evara said from outside, with her cheeks flushing with embarrassment.

And when she heard a sigh in the room, she took that as a cue for her to leave. She darted into the next hut, which she certainly shouldn't have, but this time, saw a man standing. Wait, not a man, he was almost as old as hers.

"Can I help you?" He asked, holding onto the sleeve of the kurta he was folding, as his eyes pierced through hers, looking for something, as if trying to figure her out on his own.

"Uh... no, thank you." Evara said shyly, now more embarrassment filling her. She readied her feet to leave. "I was only looking for my room."

"And you forgot where it was?" He asked.

"Yes."

Ruchya stared weirdly at her, both amused and confused. She seemed like a spontaneous type because normal people would only call out from outside to check if the room was empty or not. But she didn't second thought barging in a random room.

"You live here?" Evara asked.

"No, I reached here last night." He said.

"Oh, so you're new here too?"

Ruchya assumed she had come here yesterday itself, with the usage of the word 'too' and her forgetting of the paths of the place. And he also assumed there were others here. Including that girl from last night.