Nature in Hiding

29- Death warrant

"Heal him please," Ahana said in a broken voice, looking at Gyaan with teary eyes.

"My healing doesn't work on emotions," Gyaan said in a slow voice, "And it is better that Neer is unconscious right now. Staying awake would only bring him pain."

"Let's first get out of here," Sameera said, as she saw that a crowd was starting to form around them.

"Do you need water?" A random man asked, forwarding his water bottle, as he saw Neer lying unconscious.

Ahana snorted internally at the irony, water for waking up the waterboy.

"No thank you, he has this illness where he falls asleep anywhere at any time. He will wake up soon on his own," Gyaan lied through his teeth, before moving to pick up Neer.

Ahana gave him a hand to help make Neer stand up. Placing Neer in the middle of them, and his hands over their shoulders, and their hands on his waist, they dragged him back to the alley way.

The alley was their safe heaven for now. Coming to their spot, they placed Neer at the exact same place near the tree where Gyaan had placed the unconscious Ahana earlier.

"What just happened?" Sameera questioned, still baffled by the news.

"This isn't something that came out of the air. All the things that happened in that video clip were within Neer's powers," Gyaan mused over thoughtfully.

"Are you doubting Neer?" Ahana growled angrily, covering her unconscious twin protectively from the peacemaker's eyes.

"No, I am not. I know Neer isn't a villain. But the video didn't seem morphed. All I am saying is that something huge must have happened for Neer to do this," Gyaan said to all, before moving towards Ahana and saying in a low voice so that only she could hear, "Something like what happened with us. We too burned the whole laboratory down. May be something like that occurred-

"Neer wouldn't do that even if he was facing death," Ahana replied through gritted teeth, furious that Gyaan could even suggest such a thing. "And how are you so sure that the video wasn't tampered with?

"Do you really think you can find out if it was morphed or not just by seeing it on television. In this day and age of technology!!" Ahana yelled the last sentence in fury.

"Neer said it was fiction," Sameera spoke up suddenly, breaking the fight as she remembered the last words Neer spoke before fainting.

"Fiction?" Ahana and Gyaan asked in unison.

"What does fiction mean?" Avan asked, not understanding the big words all others were throwing at each other.

"Something that isn't real. A made up thing for entertainment like in movies and stories," Ahana explained in a quiet voice, keeping her anger on the situation aside.

"Stories...,"Avan muttered thoughtfully. "Wasn't Maanvi didi trying to change her work from real documentaries to stories?"

"What?!" The other three exclaimed in shock, before reality of what happened started sinking in.

"How do you know that? None of us were aware about it," Gyaan asked Avan, before looking over at Ahana to see if she knew.

"Koko told me," Avan answered simply.

"Maanvi's dog is surely helpful," Ahana muttered.

"How about we wait for Neer to wake up? Let's get to know what happened directly from his mouth," Sameera suggested.

She didn't think Neer could do something so vicious, but even if he had, they had to know the reason and intention behind it, before they decided to judge him.