The Walk

The clouds were thundering, the lightning inviting the storm. The wind was swaying wildly as if wanting to take away everything it can. Trees were trying their best, asking their roots to hold on a little longer. The celestial bodies were nowhere to be seen but one could interpret this as their anger towards me. Me?

Where am I? And what’s happening?

I open my eyes. The sun has been overshadowed as the darkness stepped around but it isn’t accompanied by its usual comrades. It takes a few minutes for my eyes to get the vision right and see what’s scene around like.

And what I see is not what I have thought I would. In almost pitch dark, I can only see dark tall trees swaying, fighting aggressively against the anger of the wind. The repeated lightening warned me that there is no one around and I am on my own resources.

Where am I?  But most importantly, How did I get here?

The head began to ache as I tried to ask it for answers it didn’t want to give. I got up, understanding no cooperation from it. I stumbled against the strong gushes of the wind.

“Anyone there?”, I stammered. My voice wouldn’t even have reached the tree next to me and came back to me without any answers. I started to walk in the direction unknown. The intermittent lightening helped me not to hit the tree, though there were still high chances of me falling into a ditch. I kept every step with ultimate carefulness.

I don’t know how many minutes or hours it had been since I started to walk towards the unknown destination. It started to pour heavily and even the thickest canopy couldn’t save me from being drenched. I remembered, how  I used to hate getting wet in the rains. I decide to keep walking towards the rock that was visible to me at the distance now.

Standing outside the cave I calculated the risk of entering the cave and encountering a deadly beast versus staying out and getting eaten by up the same anyway. I decided to step into the cave and save myself from the storm first.  I wondered how it felt nothing suddenly if I walked in to the mouth of my own death. And at that instant all memories came back to me. A few moments made me smile despite my current situations but soon the regrets took over and grimace followed the smile.

Death, a strange word it is. It makes you think about all the best moments and the worst decisions almost instantly.

The idea of cave, that I had welcomed a few minutes ago felt stupid now. I lost my only source of light as I entered it which  realized as soon as I hit the rock and touched the ground. I lay there for a while. Getting up again, I kept taking one step after the other.

And the divine finally intervened. I could see a faint ray of light at the other end of the cave. The slight shadows of the pebbles told me that the source of light was far but very much there.

Another few minutes and I reached the source of light. There was a hole in the rock which was letting in the light from the other side. I tried to peek from there. What I saw astonished me.

I searched for the bigger rock to break away from whole. My shouts were still not reaching beyond a few meters. But the noise made my the rocks was loud enough to ask for help. The help arrived. I must have lost consciousness by the time I was pulled out of the cave.

The blinding light was hurting my eyes as I tried to open them. I sheltered them with my hand and looked around. I was in my room and my mom has pulled away the curtains from the window. I looked outside. There were no trees there only buildings. I closed my eyes in relief as a wave of shudder passed through me.