watcher

chapter 8

I tried to Go to dense thicket but my leg slipped i got into river flowing away while he could not see me..i am scared..i can't swim in this state..am i going to be dead?? sister..

Abhi's POV:

I stood at the edge of the road, my high-powered tactical flashlight slicing through the mist. The beam hit the mud where you’d landed—I saw the slide mark, the flattened grass, and the spot where the earth had given way.

"Maya!" I shouted, my voice cracking against the roar of the water below.

I swung the light toward the thicket, expecting to see you crawling through the thorns. But there was nothing. No movement, no sound of snapping branches. I turned the light toward the creek. It wasn't a stream anymore; the heavy rain had turned it into a churning, brown vein of ice-cold water, white-capped and violent.

I saw a flash of the white thermal blanket caught on a jagged rock twenty yards downstream, spinning wildly before being sucked under.

"No..." I whispered, the flashlight trembling in my hand.

I scrambled down the embankment, sliding on my chest, tearing my clothes and skin against the rocks. I reached the bank, the spray from the creek soaking me instantly. I shone the light over the surface, but the water was moving too fast. One second you were there, hidden by the dark and the foam, and the next, the current had swept you around the bend into the deep gorge.

I had spent months tracking your every heartbeat through a screen. I knew your location down to the centimeter. And now, for the first time, you were off the grid. Truly, completely off.

I stood in the freezing mud, the red emergency lights of my dead van still pulsing on the road above, casting a rhythmic, bloody glow over the trees. I stared at the water that had taken you.

"I'll find you," I choked out, a terrifying sob breaking through my chest. "I'll follow this river to the ocean if I have to. You don't get to leave me like this."

Next morning

Abhi's POV:

The sun rose as a pale, sickly gray smudge behind the mountain mist. I hadn't slept. I looked like a ghost—my clothes were torn, my hands were caked in dried mud and blood from scouring the riverbanks all night. My van sat dead on the trail behind me, a useless hunk of metal and fried circuitry. Without my servers, I felt blind. I felt human. And I hated it.

I walked along the lower bend of the river where the water finally calmed into a wide, shallow basin. My eyes were bloodshot, scanning every piece of driftwood, every clump of river weed.

"You're not dead," I muttered, my voice a dry rasp. "The data doesn't end like this. There’s always a backup. There’s always a recovery file."

Then, I saw it.

Pressed into the soft silt of the riverbank were small, dragging footprints. They were weak—one foot trailing deeper than the other—leading away from the water and toward an old, rusted hunter's shack a few hundred yards up the slope. Beside the tracks lay the thermal blanket, shredded and heavy with sand.

A jagged, hysterical laugh escaped my throat. You were alive. You were broken, freezing, and miles from help, but you were alive.

I reached into my pocket and pulled out my ruggedized handheld GPS—the only thing still working. I didn't need a cell tower. I just needed to follow the trail you left in the mud. I started up the slope, my pace slow and predatory.

"Good morning, Maya," I whispered to the wind. "Ready for round two?"

The Hunter's Shack

Maya, you woke up inside the shack. It’s freezing, smelling of old pine and rust. You’ve managed to start a tiny fire in the woodstove using some old newspapers..

i put fire everywhere around..I can .. i wanted him to think that i died in this fire...i could be free from him...

Abhi's POV:

I reached the door of the shack, the smell of woodsmoke hitting me. A surge of triumph raced through my veins. "I found you," I whispered, resting my forehead against the rough, rotting wood of the door. "I told you there was no 'somewhere else'."

I kicked the door open, ready to catch you, ready to end this game.

But the interior was a furnace. You had knocked over the woodstove, and the dry, ancient floorboards were hungrily devouring the flames. Thick, black smoke billowed toward the ceiling, choking the small space. In the center of the room, right in front of the collapsing stove, lay a dark shape wrapped in the remains of the old coat. It wasn't moving.

"No!" I screamed, lunging into the heat. "Maya! No!"

The fire roared, a wall of orange heat pushing me back. I shielded my face with my arm, reaching for the figure. I grabbed the fabric, pulling it toward me—but the weight was wrong. It was light. It was just a bundle of old rags and the coat, positioned perfectly to look like a body in the haze.

I looked up, coughing violently as the smoke scorched my lungs. The back window was shattered. A single, bloody handprint smeared the frame where you had climbed out.

I stumbled to the window and looked down. The drop-off was steep—a dizzying slide of loose shale and jagged rocks leading into a deep ravine choked with morning fog. There was no sign of you. Just the sound of the wind and the crackling of the shack as it burned behind me.

"You... you let me think you were in there," I gasped, the realization hitting me like a physical blow. You hadn't just run; you had staged your own death to stop me from following. You played with my head the way I played with yours.

I stood at the edge of the burning shack, the heat at my back and the cold void in front of me. For the first time, the hunter felt like the prey.

Maya, you are at the bottom of the ravine, hidden under a shelf of rock. Your leg is screaming in pain, but you are out of his sight. Above you, the shack collapses in a roar of sparks. Abhi thinks you might have fallen into the abyss, but he's standing at the top, watching the smoke rise. This is the quietest the world has been in days..