BLUE SCARF

CHAPTER 24: The Cherry Tree.

Goma and Rika embraced death with a hug of love as they both enveloped each other with warmth and affection.

The sun shone bright crimson on the faces of the teen love as bright and radiant as the feeling of affection they felt for one another. Whether it was the cold breeze or the fleeting nervousness in Rika and Goma's stomach that made their mouth dry, it was hard to tell. The sweeping wind might be very powerful because the orbs of water squeezed from the sides of their eyes. But the shade of crimson that covered their ears and nose were suggesting otherwise. Slowly opening their eyes, not to look around at the apparently falling world, but into each other's eyes for one last time, they almost caught each other teary. But the unannounced rains had other plans. Sparkling drizzles covered their faces as nature hid the weakness of love. A distant cuckoo was heard singing at the top of the voice adding the required calmness to the sphere as the young love was bidding adieu.

They hardly had 50 seconds before the fall, but it felt like 50 minutes as they thought about their lives. For Goma, it was love at first sight. The strange girl that he had seen outside the florists' shop, turned out to be someone so special to him. The boy Rika had first assumed to be her killer, the first person who could touch her bare skin after her human death was this very boy in front of her. This very boy was in the rescue team when she was found half-dead in the old abandoned factory.

Goma looked closer to her and held her head close to his as he told "You looked very beautiful on the Soy Libre Day. You look beautiful every day", his voice weak and brittle as they fell head to head. Goma's tears were now visible to Rika even when the rain was dangling on their faces.

"Your grey eyes"

"Huh?! "

"Your eyes Goma, it means so much to me. I feel I know so much about you! But... But", Rika could not finish as Goma broke harder and lay his head on her shoulder gripping her tight from arms. He prayed silently to be in and around a tree-house or a cave or anything the mighty forest can provide to save their lives. But he could not help thinking about the many forest-borne or lab-borne animals that might rip their soul apart.

The vertical fall seemed to pause for a second: right in mid-air when both of them withdrew their hug and looked around to examine what had happened. The pause ceased and both of them drew a breath as they thought that this might be just another illusion of Rowl. Next moment, the scene around them zoomed, spanned, splattered and the green backdrop changed to a weird gradient. Their body too, clenched and moved funnily like they were pushed into some container every second.

"AHHHHHHHH"

Both of them made a shrill sound as they felt that they had been pushed into a final container.Their surroundings came to a halt. They felt a surface beneath their feet. The wind around themselves was silent. The atmosphere was warm too. They only had funny sensations in their body because of the recent events. It looked like an old cave or a mine of some precious resources. It was old but not dusty. There were just big stones around or the skeletons of small creatures, maybe rats or cats that might have come there to take a shelter. There was a large opening facing which, stood Rika and Goma. They looked at each other, held hands and let out a laugh of relief to see what their fate had for each other.

"Did we just teleport?" Rika asked unsure.