LOVE, LIVE, DIE | A TREASURE HUNT STORY

Lights brighten to show a burning village, what did our characters do?

"Fire, like emotions, doesn't go before acting its way to you."
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"Run!"

The fire had spread the village very fast.   Chaos everywhere as the smoke rose to meet the clouds. Noises and shouts could be heard from everywhere.

"Dada!" Parth screamed, pushing people out of the way. He ran towards Dada and Raju's house.

His gaze went to the fires on the side of the house, where a shadow emerged. Parth ran and saw Dada lying down there, burn marks on his clothes and coughing. He picked him up, placed him on his shoulders and ran to the nearest tree, a little away from all the fire.

"Are you ok Dada?" He asked taking out his wet scarf and placing it above the burn marks on Dada's face. He coughed a little.

Dada raised his hand up, as to say I'm fine.

"Glad that you're alive, where's Raju by the way? Is he still trapped in there?" Parth said turning his head and searching for Raju.

"The Britishers, they set the fire. I saw them."

"Okay Dada, but where's Raju?"

"I left him at his father's place; felt that he should spend a day with him. He will be safe."

"You shouldn't have done that." Parth said as he removed the scarf from the face and placed it in Dada's knees.

"Let me go and check on him." Parth continued.

"Parth," Dada said as he held his hand, "He is safe, will be safe."

.

Bushahr, the place they will ask the villagers to stay at, was another valley/ village like their own.

The odd thing was when he reached Laura's house, it seemed like any other house in the village; it had been burned, but someone had put off the fire.

"A little late you are." He followed the voice to find Laura, a scarf tied around her head and her left hand.

"The houses in the village are connected, meaning they stand close to each other; so it was easy to just burn one house, and let the houses do the rest of the work. But your house, it was away from every house," He said as he looked past her house to the woods behind it. The thing is that there was a dead end if someone went that way, as there were tall mountains and at this dark, no one goes there.

"What are you saying?" Laura asked.

"If someone had come this extra distance to burn your house, he could not have gone back this way from which I came, for he would have been caught."

"Why, he could have just burned my house and walk his way back outside the village."

"The chief has the keys to the village door, no one could have exited from that place, one could enter but after the fire the entries were sealed until everyone is gathered in the bazaar, but exit without been seen? No. All the fire was set from outside the village with arrows. But to burn your house, someone personally came."

"So you're telling..." She said as she stood near him, watching the woods.

"The one who burnt your house, he or she's still in there." Vikram said, pointing at the woods.