Hunt for Survival

Can't Ignore

Shaurya

I calmed down and had also controlled my emotions, which were overflowing. Whatever that was, it was not really good for me and my pain. My brother’s passing away was the greatest pain in my life. Sometimes I wanted to say I could have done something for him and would have saved him. That day I should have right away called the police and then maybe he would be able to be with me in the present.

I looked around and found that someone was missing from my beside and then I suddenly remembered that Prashant was still not there.

I stood up and looked here and there, but he was nowhere to be seen. Is he still inside?

“Prashant?” I called out to him, but there was no reply from him. I am worried about him. Has he lost his way in the fog? Should I go inside or should I wait over here for a few minutes before going? But I am getting a bad feeling about this.

“Prashant. Where are you?” I shouted in the fog while keeping my eyes around in the hope that maybe he had come out and I hadn’t seen him.

“Prashant.” I called him again and again before I had finally decided that I would go inside this fog once again, though my heart agrees after what I have experienced in that fog, but if I have to find my best friend, then I have to go inside it once again and look for him. I don’t know if I would be able to find him or not, but I have to try.

I looked at the fog which had no boundary and there was no other way through which he could cross this but this. This was the illusion, which was another trap, of the king and, as everyone had warned them about this, his illusion was one of the most powerful. But I think that he trapped them by emotion and I have come out from there, but there is no news of Prashant. Was he able to defeat this t*****e? Suddenly, the fog started to be removed and that made me confused. This fog was so dense in the sunny times that I didn’t expect that it would even move, but now that they are moving, I guess it would be easier for me to find him.

“Prashant.” I again called out to him but there was no response. What must have been with him is that he is not even replying. The fog was getting away from my view, in fact, from everywhere around, and that was making me confused. I thought that this illusion would remain for the rest of the day, but it is already getting away. I was hopeful about this situation.

In the fog I saw a silhouette of a boy and that made me hopeful that he was the one who was inside, but I wondered if he was all alright. They could also have come out of the fog. Why didn’t he come out? I saw him clearly when the fog was removed completely and I saw him standing over there and he was having a smirk on his face and for a moment I thought that he wasn’t Prashant whom I knew.

He started to walk towards me while the fog was making way for him. It was like this was a scene from a movie where the hero is entering in style. After a while, he was in front of me.

“Prashant, are you alright?” I asked him and put my hands over his forearm but he didn’t speak anything. “Speak something or you have lost your voice.”

“I am alright.” His voice was quite deeper than before. I looked at him but he was just the Prashant whom I know. “What is wrong with you?” I shook my head.

“Your voice…” I couldn’t complete my sentence.

“I don’t know what had happened but I am feeling some pain in my throat.” I nodded. “Are we going forward or not?”

“We will.” We started to walk away and I was hesitating to ask him about the illusion that we were trapped in, or was I the only one who was trapped in the illusion? He is looking quite fine after coming out of it.

“Have you been in the illusion?” He asked me and I was taken aback. He asked exactly the same thing I was thinking.

“Have you started to read your mind as well?” He chuckled a bit before he shook his head. He rarely laughs and maybe after a hundred commentary of mine, but maybe he is just feeling light weighted.

“I am not, after all, I am just like you, a human.”

“That you are, but we are human without our powers.” I said, but he didn’t say anything. “By the way, I did see the illusion.”

“That illusion was trying to use our emotion to trap us.” I looked at him weirdly and he looked at me as if he had said something wrong.

“What is wrong?” He asked while rubbing the back of his neck and I chuckled a bit at his behaviour.

“No, nothing is wrong, it is just that I had also thought the same thing about this illusion, that illusion was really tough to endure and we also have the same idea about the illusion. That is why we are best friends, we have the same thoughts about many things,” I said in an excited tone.

“That illusion was tough; your emotion is something that is hard to control. How did you control them?”

“No doubt that when you face your past and that, too, when you are living it again, then through what emotion you emotions through no one knows except you. But it was easy for me to distinguish that it was an illusion. Firstly, when I entered into the illusion from there, I only had to put my guard up and became related to it, and my guards became stronger when I saw my old house, though when I saw my brother once again, I thought that it was a real one and I could be with him, even if it was for a few minutes but, soon enough that also break apart because he was so much different from the one whom I knew. He was someone who was cheerful and wanted to live and he never had the intention of pulling me and keeping his words and memory in my mind. I resisted myself from the temptation of the time which we were having. It was hard for me in the end, but in the end, I was the winner and, emotions over my emotions.”

“You sure are strong and smart enough,” he said, and I looked at him with widened eyes.

“You have complimented me for the first time. I guess now I can die in peace, but I won’t die this early. After all, to go back as well.”

“Yeah.”

“By the way, you took so many minutes?”

“Uh…I was badly trapped inside. I had almost let my emotion take over me, but in the end, I was able to `differentiate between the real and fake and was able to come out and when I realized the fog was already getting away.”

“I guess this illusion remains only until you get trapped or come out of it.”

“That might be the case.”

“By the way, we don’t even have to worry about this anymore, we are already out of that place and we can surely defeat more of this king’s trap ahead.”

“We can.” We were walking ahead and I was looking at him from time to time.

“Is something wrong with you?” He looked at me and shook his head. “But I do feel that something is wrong with you?”

“Why are you feeling like that?” He was kind of agitated.

“I was just pulling your leg. Why was it so serious? I thought that there was a personality change in you when you heard of the fog in style, but I think that it was just for a few seconds. For a moment, I thought it wasn’t you but someone else in your place and you were nervous like that. You met me for the first time, but when we met for the first time, you weren’t that nervous. What is going on with you? Firstly, what I asked was the leg pulling indeed, but this time I was serious.” We were not at a halt. I was the one who stopped while talking and he also stopped and I looked straight into his eyes, but this time his eyes were confident ones but they were still mysterious.

“Shaurya stop looking at me like this.” He said and looked away.

“Alright, I won’t look at you but I do demand an answer,” I said and looked forward.

“What answer do you want?”

“Prashant, we have shared the deepest pain of each other and even been through death and life and if you still try to keep things from me, then how can we move along? Now we both still know about each other a lot and if you will still be like that, then I am doubting if I was the only one who had always you taken a best friend?” And I again looked at him and he wasn’t at my side and I looked forward and saw that he had already took taken steps ahead.

“Have I ever said that we are best friends?” That shook me because I was the only one who had always said that we were best friends.

“So… I was the only one….” He cut me off.

“We are best friends no doubt, but I just now want to get out of here as soon as possible.” That brightened my spirit and I walked to where he was.

“We will surely come out from here, we just have to reach the castle and finish that king.” He looked forward and walked again and covered a few steps and I looked at him weirdly, but he looked at me over his shoulder.

“Are you sure that after we finish the king we will be able to go back from where we belong?”

“I think you have asked the same question before but I don’t know. I literally don’t know, but I want to give it a try. First we will make sure that this place is free from the curse that they carry on and then, if we aren’t will be able to go back after that, I believe that there surely is an exit which will take us away from here and will put us where we belong.” I said.

“You are looking confident about this.”

“In reality I am scared, I am really scared of the outcome. I don’t know if I will be able to survive the future traps of this king, but I know that if this illusion was too good, then I wonder how many hard traps would be ahead. I don’t want to underestimate my opponent and, because of the trap he has set, I can’t really underestimate him.”

“You think just like me and that is never underestimate your enemy.”

“No doubt, my mother always said that my father was the one who had never underestimated his enemy and we should never, but I guess I have failed one time and I won’t fail again.”

“I like your confidence.” I looked at him wide-eyed.

“You sure have come changes inside you. You have complimented me two times in a day. Please change slowly. Poor man like me can’t take this rapid change. See, I think I have got a sweet tooth.” I said and showed him my tooth and he shook his head and I chuckled, but before we could have moved forward, we heard a shrill voice that came from the right side of me. I looked at Prashant and he looked at me and we both ran towards that place.

By the voice, the person who had shouted was a woman. I don’t know if this is a trap, but leaving the person who must be in need. I can’t ignore it.