Into The Jungle

Chapter 5

After driving for a long time they reached the gates of forest opening towards Mysore by 6:30 pm and finding it locked searched for the guards, who were not around. After eating the sandwiches Rhea had packed in the morning they went to sleep in the car itself.

Rhea was mesmerized by the twinkling stars in the dark sky, and was praising it, suddenly she heard snoring from Ricky in the adjacent seat, sighing she too went to sleep.

Somewhere towards the middle of the night, Ricky felt Rhea's hand across his neck, he thought Rhea wanted to hug him during sleep, a little later the hand moved further, and he could feel the bigger part of her arm enveloping his neck, he was waiting for her to come near, which for some reason didn't seem to happen, also her limb felt wrong. It didn't seem to have joints, he also had a quaint feeling that the arm didn't have bones in it.He opened his eyes and found a snake staring at Rhea after enveloping his neck, his body froze, he couldn't move his limbs, the snake was facing Rhea when Ricky found his hands instinctively reach out and grab the neck of snake. He saw his left-hand squeeze snake's neck and with the right hand, he opened the door of the car and threw the snake away. Immediately Ricky closed the door, he also closed the window pane, through which the snake had crept in. Ricky could not sleep through the rest of the night; his face had gone pale.