On My Way

Chapter: 9

From afternoon, we were now digging into evening. As we neared Bangalore, I had deciphered a lot many words which meant something like this:

I have @& urgent note for eo4. If eo4 stop your car on the way from Goa to Bangalore, eo4 and your mate will face what eo4 people call %^*~ 1. I hope we meet .:”=+  .

What did those letters mean? I tried to read it so that I could find some possible words. Like, @& could mean ‘an’. eo4 could mean ‘you’ or ‘Rahas’. But we should cancel out Rahas as the code was also further used. .:”=+ could mean ‘soon’ as it is used after ‘meet’. But what on earth means %^*~1 ? I had to find it out

I tried connecting those codes with the other earlier used codes. I was getting somewhere near ‘fear’ or ‘death’ or ‘problems’? It was really very difficult to find that word.

“Aren’t you tired?” I asked Rahas.

“Oh! No I am not. We’ll reach Bangalore very soon. Thanks for asking.” He smiled at me and I smiled back.

“What are you doing?”

“Oh nothing. Reading some ghost stories.”

“Why ghost stories?”

“I love them! I mean, they are very interesting and I know that it’s all fiction. They are thrilling!”

“Okay, continue.”

I wrote all the codes and their possible English alphabets to see if I could guess the right word. After half an hour I did find a word and it was ‘death’. And it really did fit in the sentence and made it meaningful!

 

“I found it!” I said that so loud that Rahas stopped the car. It was the first time that we stopped our car somewhere in the middle of NOWHERE!

“Oh my god. We are dead Rahas. The note said that if we stop the car, we’ll be dead!”

“Are you crazy? Don’t read those stuff. They are hacking your mind. Let me start the car and we can comfily continue our journey, ok?” He came near me and kissed me. I felt a little better.

He tried to start the car but it won’t listen. He tried it again and again. We checked the fuel and it was full. What was wrong with that car? It just won’t start up. The street lights around us started flickering.

“Rahas! I am scared. What now?” I held his arm close to me.

“What the h*** is wrong with this car?”

He was sweating now. The road beneath our car started shaking. We looked outside but didn’t step outside. The piece of road on which our car was, getting cut from the inner side in a circular way. The whole circle was now complete. We just couldn’t do anything. The circle, on which our car was, suddenly went 1 inch deep in the ground.

It was going deeper and deeper. Once our car was completely out of the road, the whole from which we entered, closed. We held each other tightly. I started crying frantically.

Suddenly that piece of road stopped and we I knew that now, I’ll finally face ‘The dead man’.

In front of us, far away, we saw some little white light. Rahas again tried to start the car. And this time, when we looked at the fuel meter, it showed empty sign!

Through the white light, we saw someone coming. I cannot tell if it was a man or a woman. But I was expecting ‘the dead man’. Around us, a cage of white mist was forming. I cannot tell if it was mist or something else. Because touching it would be giving yourself in the hands of death mentor.

As the person neared us, we realized it’s a woman. How can it be possible? All this time, was I being fooled? Is it all fraud? Is she going to kill us? I had more questions but no one to answer.

Rahas had no idea what was going on. As the woman took a step, the mist grew stronger making a more visible cage.

What was this all? And why was this happening to us? I wanted to go back to the orphanage. Live peacefully, satisfactory, lonely with my dreams, with hopes of getting my parent’s back, instead of being just one feet away from death.

Was this all a dream? I pinched myself and asked Rahas to pinch me as well. His hands were numb. Unable to move. He wasn’t even in a position to move a limb.

He was murmuring something under his breath. But I couldn’t hear him. But I could hear my blood flowing and heart beating, loud and clear.

This was not what I wanted from my life. This was not for which I was going to Bangalore. This was not what I was supposed to do. This place was not the place where I was supposed to be.

The only thing that for that was perfect was me, being with Rahas.

 

As the woman neared us even more, we could see her face. I recognized it instantly and Rahas had tears in his eyes with a mixed expression of joy and fear. But how could he know her? He had never met her. Because she was..