A Mystery To Be Solved

Search Operation

"Pooja! Kartike! Rohit! Get up everybody! Wake up. Look, Aisha isn't here! I think she's gone out somewhere, and without even telling us. Oh, I'm so worried! She just came to the village today, she doesn't know anybody around here, and this area is even more remote. There are forests all around. If she gets lost, what will we do? Please, let's go and search for her!" Avantika frantically exclaimed after she had climbed back up the tree house.

"Oh, Avantika, she would be somewhere near. After all, who would be stupid enough to roam around alone in an unknown village?" Pooja, without getting up, said to comfort her friend.

"No one but Aisha!" said Rohit, yawning widely.

"See, let's not waste time in arguing. We don't know where she could go, but at least we can hurry up and try looking for her, can't we?" Kartike said, understanding the gravity of the situation. "Look, guys, Avantika's absolutely right—she was the one who was pleading us to take her for this trip, and we know what kind of a girl she is—if anything happens to her she'll tell her parents that we coaxed her to come along and so it's we who were supposed to be responsible for her well-being." Avantika nodded. Pooja's mouth set in a straight line and her eyebrows furrowed as she pondered over Kartike's words.

The foursome quickly gathered their camping bags, grabbed a flashlight each, and went down the ladder to the slippery ground. They followed the faint footprints for a long time, and were surprised to see that Aisha had indeed taken a different, unfamiliar path. Even then, the friends continued down it, determined to find her no matter where it led.

But in a matter of minutes, they felt their decision wavering. As they emerged out of the network of shrubs and trees at the edge of the forest and onto the area before a paved road, they stood shocked seeing what lay ahead.

Uh-oh.

Aisha had taken the path leading to the old mansion.

'But why?' was exactly what they all wondered. She didn't know anything about it, and hadn't been near it with them on the day before, either. So, what could be the reason behind it?

The fading clouds were now returning, darker than ever. It already seemed like night, although it was only five in the evening! The friends hurried up the road to the gates of the mansion. They were made of wrought iron, and barred too. The building itself stood some way inside the brick boundary.

They prayed Aisha didn't go in there. It was so creepy, Aisha would never dare to! But the footsteps were now clearer—so she had to be in there only.

Eerie shadows started forming behind them as the wind howled and made the clouds travel faster. Just as they were mustering up the courage to go in, Avantika saw two small, bright red flashes of light on one of the windows on the first floor. They were blinking continuously, like someone's eyes.

She nudged Rohit, who followed her gaze and gulped. Pooja and Kartike also turned to see what had made them dumbstruck. Suddenly, there was a brilliant flash of lightning which illuminated everything as if a blinding spotlight had been switched on the earth, just for a fraction of a second.

What they saw gave them goosebumps—it was a silhouette of a cat, sharply outlined by the intense light, and indeed the red orbs were its eyes! But it was supposed to be a shadow—a silhouette, then how could its eyes still be glowing red? A shadow doesn't have colour! And even a real cat does not have such unnaturally red eyes!

The silhouette, with its gleaming eyes, vanished as the earth returned to darkness once again. Deafening thunder began to roll above in the clouds.

The friends were already numb. Had Aisha gone there?