The Turn Of The Night

Chapter 18

Darsh and Aarush took some moments to scan over their surroundings. The mass of trees had subsided to bushes and hedges. However , miraculously, there were structures or to say, dilapidated houses of the imperial age scattered over the landscape in definitief rows and columns. To their right, stood a two storied building, long, not in height but breadth. It's walls were falling over and the plaster had come out in almost all places. Creepers covered the upholstery, the windows were broken and hinges stood as the lone remnants of the doors.

In front of this isolated dwelling lay a bunch of tall trees , with their yellow leaves forming the undergrowth. As the two boys emerged out of the forest, a patched and blotched road came into view. The road curved at their right and disappeared out of their view. To the other side of the road, lay dilapidated old houses, the same kind of houses with similar designs were arranged in columns . They had an ochre coloured stair combined with a light blue colour which could hardly be deciphered in the dark. The windows were falling apart. Mass of hedges and thorny bushes had grown in front of the houses. As they came upon the road, the boys were more astonished if not any other things. The place looked exactly similar to a place of their realm. However the only difference was that it resembled the previous eras and not the modern world of the living realm.

'Darsh, these are houses , that too there are two floors in each of them, does this mean that people ever lived here?' Aarush wondered. 'I don't know, but…wait a bit.' Darsh replied as he ran down the streets to take a closer look at the buildings.

He froze when he came nearer the houses though,prompting Aarush to go to him. 'What ?' he asked. 'Have you ever seen photographs of our city before it was renovated and all the new buildings came up?' Darsh enquired while still looking at the houses put up in straight lines in front of them. 'Nope...why?' Aarush asked. 'This place is what I had seen in a photo my mum showed me some months ago..my grandpa was one of the architects at that time and he had taken some photos and ...it's the same.' Darsh shivered as he said it silently. 'Really?' Aarush asked, amazed.'But how can that be possible?'

'Okay okay...I am getting it now.' Darsh said as he surged through his brain. 'Getting what now? Tell me bro.' Aarush said. Both of them were standing in front of one of the houses, with their hands arched back to support their hips after their long and demanding ordeals. 'Okay, I think it's like this...you see , long ago I mean before fifty years or so, our city had been built and planned by the British. There were rumours that certain experiments were being conducted here and there was supposedly a lab here once. It was rumoured that the Imperial government would bring bodies here and would do monstrous experiments here. But the rumours remained rumours.

After independence , when all the outsiders went back to their home countries, this place was ostracised for years, inhabited by villagers. My grandpa was one of them, however he went for higher studies and came back as an architect. He was the one who took the initiative of renovation. He planned our city and destroyed mostly all of the British buildings and also the lab if there had been one and then he had built our place. But what does it mean if this realm resembles old age?' Darsh wondered .

'Well you see if that's it, then probably since this place is a signia for all the destroyed and lost things, it resembles our city in its previous form, which to us is dead.. That's the most probable explanation you see. And also, your grandpa was the one to come in this realm once when he was younger, he must have seen things , things which inspired him to rebuild his village into a town.' Aarush reasoned.

'Yes. He did come back alive too. Wish he told me what we had to do…' Darsh hoped. 'Umm, i think we should see the place a bit.' Aarush thought as he turned and looked around. 'Yup let's take a walk. And we will also find a place good enough to crash into for some time, I mean not these houses for sure, these will break anytime and fall upon us when we are asleep.' Darsh said with horror on his face. Being killed by a falling house was top in his list of ten ways of not dying. Aarush chuckled but contemplated whether a falling house would kill them after what they had survived.

The boys took the path to their right where it bent upon the corner and followed the path. 'It would be good if my clock showed me how much time we got left.' Darsh said as he jerked his watch back and forth.

They turned round the curve and came upon another set of similar houses to their left and bushes and hedges covering smaller long houses to their right. The path lay straight up and the boys continued their walk.

There was always something which would amaze Aarush. Sometimes it was the way some creeper twisted over a house or sometimes the wildflowers growing in the bushes. Sometimes it was how the trees intermingled with each other and at other times the mere fact that they were in another realm and even that such a realm existed surprised him.

The two walked in silence as they passed one more row of houses where walking straight ahead, they came upon a dissection in the road . One continued in forward direction while the other encircled a large field, now covered with tall grasses. At three sides of the field, stood three buildings, which too belonged to the imperial age but were however six to seven stories tall. It was surprising how different the place looked to their current home of their own realm. Darsh's words were hard to believe . But Aarush knew he was speaking the truth.

'Let's take a look at these buildings.' Darsh said with a mocking heavy accent as he intentionally went upon the field and walked towards the building in front if it, skimming through the soft but tall grasses. 'What are you waiting for huh? Come.' Darsh said as he turned back to see Aarush still standing in the dissection. He himself had come halfway through . 'That building in front looks good doesn't it ?' he yelled. 'Yeah maybe.' shouted back Aarush as he stopped his contemplations and ran to join his friend.