The secret wish

Part 5

Skydiving was the last thing that Noah had expected.

"How did you know?"

She asked eyeing Shaan, who blushed

"A king knows the secrets of his princess!"

Noah left out a laugh and jumped on Shaan's chest and whispered in his ears.

"But a king never trespasses!"

"Only if he is not allowed..."

Shaan started to tickle Noah's pale feet and she started to giggle and jump around. Anya was viewing the happiness of her daughter through the rearview glass. She felt as if her daughter was living a better life.

"Both King and princess will be in heavens if I miss the road. So stop jumping around so much! Noaaahhh..."

"Who cares!"

Said, Noah, as she again started to jump and hop around, Anya's smile disappeared, hearing her daughter's words. She whispered with her eyes starting to get wet again

I do...

***

From the moment Noah got out of the car and stepped on to the smooth cement road of the air station, smile never got out of her face. She kept on looking up to the sky and flap her hands like birds, and utter the same words over and over again

"I am going to fly!"

Shaan was happy that he was seeing his daughter's cheerful face, but Anya was doing something more than just watching her little, not yet bloomed child. She was hoping. Hoping that the miracle that Shaan believed in would happen, and Noah would live with them forever.

But still...

The airport was jammed with three aircraft that were ready to carry the people who dared to jump, could say the people Who dared to flap their wings. Surrounding the airport was just the vast bareness. There was nothing more than a stature, a building and the grey of the road and the blue of the sky. No people, no noise and no joy. Even when it felt silent and calm, Anya sensed the surrounding as melancholic and that started to distress her. But the hope she held within herself shined the brightest, just like the sun in the cold winter morning. After all, she had been left behind by both Shaan and Noah, while she was still waiting near the entrance.

When Anya found Noah and Shaan standing and waiting for her in the passageway to the booking counter, she stood and looked at them with the eyes of wildfire. She started to walk towards Shaan and he slowly hid behind his daughter's frail body. When she came close, Shaan said

"The monster has come to defeat the king, save me! my little princess..."

Shaan held the little pink t-shirt that Noah was wearing. When he got closer to his daughter, he sensed the aroma that he could never meddle with. The scent that signified innocence. The smell of a little human baby.

How could be god so cruel to kill the little child of mine?

He thought as Anya jumped at Noah, and held him and and his daughter tightly

"Now, no one will save you both from me, you both are going to live with me for the eternity."

"My...dear king..." Said Noah giggling within the strong grip of Anya "I actually love this monster! We shall live with her till the day..." She sneezed and started to sniff in and laughed at it. Shaan laughed at it too, but Anya still thought

Till the day you live... Noah?

As the family was in a bound form someone gave a cough and Shaan turned around to find an old man with a pad in his hands and grey hair on his scalp. He was wearing black formal that covered him from neck to toe. There were certain shining stars and emblems on the blazer of the old man and he wore round circled frame glasses. There was a smile on the freckled face.

"Are you Mr. and Mrs. Verma..." He glanced at the little life that was enclosed by the bodies of her parents, he smiled and asked: "And you, Noah?"

Shaan almost stood up and made an attempt to salute thinking the old man to be a kind of officer. Noah and Anya giggled looking at Perplexed look on Shaan's face. The old man also managed to give out a laugh.

"I am no officer for your clarification, Mr. Verma."

The tensed face of Shaan eased, as the old man led the family towards the other side of the room, a very big room with all the materials needed for the skydiving stacked in neat rows. The nylon and smell of new plastic were intoxicating. The red colored parachutes were an instant favorite of Noah and she watched them with a kind of awe that Shaan and Anya loved to watch. There were several other people who were being instructed by the instructors. Some were lying with their abdomen on the floor and their legs and hands raised. The old man directed his hands towards a young man who came as enthusiastic as he could be

"He is Varun. He and his mates will be your skydiving partners for your tandem jump..."