Nature in Hiding

38- The warmth of Fire-girl

Huffing, sighing, groaning, grumbling; they all somehow reached the forest. However, their destination was still far away. They had to walk a lot more if they wanted to reach the part of the forest which was free of humans.

"How are we going to walk past them?" Sameera whispered, looking at the woodcutters.

She turned towards her group, who was kneeling and hiding behind a huge rock with her.

"They are everywhere," Ahana muttered, as she moved her head in all directions to see if any path was clear.

"We will have to wait until night to start our journey again," Gyaan said, before making himself comfortable. "It's going to take a long time."

"How are we going to walk in the forest at night? There's no streetlight, and I don't think the moonlight would be really helpful," Sameera questioned.

"You are forgetting my existence," Ahana said, winking at Sameera.

"Oh yeah! How can I forget we have a living source of light with us?" Sameera laughed softly.

"Can't we just create our rainbow in the sky and walk on it to reach the destination?" Neer asked.

Gyaan bit his lips, contemplating on Neer's idea, before shaking his head sadly. "It won't work here. It was possible to use the rainbow and go undetected before because of the layer caused by the city's pollution. There's little to no pollution here, so we might get found out."

Neer let out a huge exhale, before saying, "Let's just wait then."

They all waited carefully, moving stealthily from one rock to another when someone came near, until the dawn came and those men left.

"Looks like we don't have to wait until tonight," Ahana said, stretching her arms as she stood up.

Others too stood up, patting their clothes to remove the dust, before agreeing and resuming their journey.

They moved across the tall trees, and disheveled path, putting all their trust on Gyaan's ability to remember the way. If it was upto the elements, they would have been roaming in circles in the same area for the whole day. Everything just seemed one and the same.

"Are we there yet?" Ahana asked for the 100th time.

"I am really confused about who is the child in our group," Gyaan muttered, tired of her constant questions.

"Have we lost our way?" Ahana asked yet another question, she had been asking for the past two hours.

"No, we are on the right path. Just a little more, and we will reach," Gyaan answered.

"You said that ten minutes ago," Ahana said.

"Then stop asking me the same question every ten minutes," Gyaan shouted, throwing his hands in the air.

The other three chuckled at their bickering. Their banter provided them with a huge amount of entertainment, which made the journey a little easier.

Hearing the chuckles, Ahana smirked, before starting yet another bickering session with Gyaan. Gyaan took a huge breath, taking all the energy he could to fight once again with Ahana.

They all were hurt by the back-stabbing, but it was clear that Neer and Avan had taken on more emotional damage as their hearts were broken ruthlessly by the ones they loved. Sameera too was in the same condition since she returned after trying and making a call with Ravi. She might have said that the call didn't go through, but her eyes seemed to say otherwise.

Those three tried their best to seem normal, but whenever the conversations ceased, sadness took over the silence.

Ahana and Gyaan couldn't take away the pain of the other three, but they were trying their best to sprinkle some amount of happiness in the whole pot of sadness.