nr2 chp8

CHAPTER 8

                  Arya was losing it. He was under the impression that Mitiksha was in some way related to the girl he’d saved on earth; and that Mitiksha knew Arya had met her. He thought that this was the reason why she had so much interest in Arya. But this was highly impossible… Although I had to agree, the most impossible things were happening with us these days. “Arya, Lune? Do you remember when we were site seeing the first day here?” Marsella asked. “Yeah so? What about that?” “You do remember don’t you? Mitiksha had compared the leaves to the gold on earth. I’d seen something in her eyes. Something like fear. I felt like she was hiding something, but she’d covered it well”. This bought back the memory. Even I’d seen her eyes widening. “Even when she was helping me with Lusciata after Tony’s attack, she was in a two-state mind, whether to help me or not. But I’m glad her good-side won”, Marsella added.

                  “We need to talk to her” I said. Arya was pretty confident something was fishy. “You think we could just talk her into it?” he said. “She’s a pretty strong woman, not just physically. I don’t think she’d be willing for a conversation.  Especially one, which involves her secret.” Arya was right. “I guess we’ll be taking the most native step then!” Marsella said with an it’s-so-obvious look. “Let’s kidnap her.” Grandpa was still on bed, with the others taking care of him. No one would even realize if we were gone. We all went to where Mitiksha was. She was near her rora as usual. I really hated it. “Maybe we should come some other time. We’ll never be able to fight that rora of hers”. Marsella was right. But Arya had made up his mind. It wasn’t in his nature to back off. He turned around and said, “Brains are mightier than the sword”.  Arya went ahead to talk to her. He was going to convince her to come for a walk with him, send the rora away and then we would ambush her.  All went according to the plan.

                  As she was walking with Arya, Marsella and I attacked her and tied her to a tree. She was outraged and man! she looked bloodcurdling! “Mitiksha, calm down! We’re not going to hurt you.” Arya kept saying. But she was in no mood to agree, “Then why you attack me? Why you tie me?” I felt guilty for doing this to her, but this was the only way. She started screaming so we had to tie her mouth too. Luckily, after some time she gave up and stopped struggling. Arya reached Mitiksha. He treated her like she was fragile. I wished Arya liked girls, he could stay happily here with Mitiksha and leave Yen alone. God! What was wrong with me! I couldn’t lose my focus.

                  We started our interrogation. We told her about all the clues we’d gathered. “You know the girl I saved that day on earth, don’t you? Tell me how you know her. Are there other humans that you have here? Tell us the truth Mitiksha. Please tell us the truth.” Was she rolling her eyes? She was impossible! A few moments later, she had the most innocent `damsel in distress’ face. We slowly released her mouth. She was breathing heavily. In a second, her expression changed back to ferocious. “I was wrong. You all bad. You have no love. Always kill and hurt us. No respect, no respect…” She was mad at humans. She closed her eyes. We thought it was disgrace that she was showing, but Marsella guessed right. “Oh no she’s calling her rora! We need to run now…” We hadn’t even processed all of this when Mitiksha’s rora showed up. This was the second time we’d seen it angry. We didn’t want to put up a fight, because we didn’t wanna hurt any of them. To show the same, I released Mitiksha in front of the rora. I thought they’d understand my white-flag gesture. Ofcourse, I was wrong. Mitiksha had the advantage of the situation. She took us down very easily along with her rora, and now we were the ones tied to a tree.

                  Once we were all tired of freeing ourselves from the rope, surprisingly, she sent her rora away. I guess she didn’t need it now. “You want to know our plan. I’ll give you your last wish.” We gasped. “Please don’t kill us Mitiksha. I don’t know how to make you understand. What we did with you was wrong. We shouldn’t have kidnapped you.  We only wanted the truth out of you.” Arya explained. Mitiksha replied immediately, “You mean that kid’s play where you tied me to the tree? That’s nothing. What’s bad is you nature. You tricked me in this. First Pikshtra hurt us, now you. You want to kill us. NO, I WILL KILL YOU”. “Please Mitiksha, trust us, and please tell us how you know that girl on earth. Are you sisters? You’ll look the same.” Mitiksha was in a dilemma. She gradually gave in and said, “All Prismates hate humans. Pikshtra had made blast here when he took Fiddle and Fiona. Many died, all were crying. We wanted revenge. We made our weapons and space shuttles.” She had to be kidding. Prisma had space shuttles? Mitiksha continued, “The girl you saw Arya, was not my sister. Was me…”

                  “We planned. From two years, we have been visiting earth. All we see is chaos, riots, stealing and bloodshed. All bad. Even pollution. People on earth destroying themselves. We just making it easier for them. We have mission-destroy earth. When I came to earth, Arya saved me. I don’t know why. Earth people don’t save, only destroy. And you came with Fiddle and Fiona. That’s why I asked my rora to stop on the first day. But I see you are all players. You will die… I destroyed your shuttle, I killed your friend, and kidnapped the other one.” Out of all the things that were happening with us, this left us stunned for the longest time.

                  We were here to save Prismates from Tony. But the breaking news was that Prismates were already on their mission to destroy earth. We couldn’t think, couldn’t move. We were aliens on earth as well as Prisma. Was there no planet I could call home? Prismates were planning to destroy earth merely because every time they landed, co-incidentally they witnessed only murders, riots and thefts. That was insane. Mitiksha continued, “Now you know everything. You are free to die.” With that sentence she simply left. Why did she go if she wanted to kill us? We were numb anyways.

                  We heard large thuds of footsteps. Now we started moving our heads to search where the voice was coming from. “I hate Mitiksha!” Marsella cursed, “She very well knows how much we hate them.” Within no time, we were surrounded by roras. They had the same expression, like they had on the day we’d arrived. All of them together, with no Mitiksha this time...

nr2 chp7

CHAPTER 7

                  I never knew we had complete control of our connection. Mitiksha told us the techniques. It was really just a question of will power and commandment over one self. She was a very good teacher. We could successfully block and allow each other into our minds, but reading someone’s mind without letting them know our presence was really tough. None of us could do it. On the other hand, Mitiksha was a pro. She said, “We are taught this when we turn twenty years. But your grandparents were taken before that. So they probably are learning it right now.” I hoped what she was saying was true. And that they were safe.

                  There was very little time left for us to practice because the moon was about to set. I was proud of how much I could learn in so little time. The moon-set on Prisma was so much more beautiful than sunsets on earth. I always wanted to watch a sunset with Yen, but now I wished I watched the moon set on Prisma with him. I recalled how he had given me his Audi for my birthday. I wondered how he made his parents agree to it. His dad loved their car. He hadn’t told me what all he had to do for such an amazing gift. Thinking of Yen made me remember of Arya’s feelings about him. It hadn’t really left my mind the entire time, it had only sidetracked. I’d imagined a hundred different jealous girls who would try to take Yen away from me. But I had never considered Arya one of them. He’d told me he wouldn’t give up. I’d have to fight for Yen, well at least not physically. I missed Abhi too. He had always been there for me. Always. He was the best best-friend anyone could ever have.

                  A large thud interrupted my thoughts. It was Mitiksha’s rora again, “Oh God Mitiksha, could you please keep those things far away from us?” Mitiksha scowled and said. But next to it, was another rora. It was Shikhar. The stories of Prisma said that if all the clan members of an orea died, the corresponding rora would become as tiny as a normal eagle. But Shikhar was the same in size. Since it only belonged to grandma, I knew she was alive. It was such a relief! As I walked towards it I saw grandma. “Thank god you’re alive!” I went to hug her when I saw her supporting grandpa. He had blood all over him. Even grandma looked tired. “What happened?” we all gasped. All of them looked towards Shikhar. There was something on its back. We had to stretch our legs to see. It was Tony, dead.

                  “How did all this happen?” “We first need to get Fiddle to Ospea.” Grandma said. Assuming Ospea was something like hospitals, we tagged along. Mitiksha spoke in Pris, but I recognized the word Lusciata. Mitiksha removed that powder like thing. But it was very little. We reached the jungle again. I hadn’t imagined Ospea like this. I don’t know why I was expecting doctors. Grandpa was kept on a golden leaf-bed. Some of the Prismates started searching in the forest and came back with some soil. The soil here was medicinal. Grandpa didn’t show signs of improvement as fast as he’d shown when we used Lusciata. But it was working since I saw grandma calming down.

                  Grandma turned towards us and said, “We were talking to the others and telling them all about what was happening.  That’s when the news of the soil storm reached us. We left to find you’ll immediately. But the jungle had changed completely. The moon was up and tried to connect. We could only hear screams and we felt the connection slowing down. Gradually it faded and left us scared. We searched and searched but couldn’t find any of you. As a battle practice, we were training for connection control. After several hours Shikhar showed up. It showed us what all Tony had done. Mitiksha’s rora had told Shikhar all about it. All the royals connected with us, and started our search. Luckily we hadn’t eaten any of the food. One of the other roras had seen Tony hiding in the jungle. We followed directions and found him, but he put up a good fight. Every time he was hurt, he used Lusciata and became stronger every time. He did this to your grandpa. Eventually the game turned in our hands. He’s dead now.”

                  I wished I was the one who killed Tony. Anyways, at least he was dead. We had hated the roras right from the start, but we were alive today, because of them. I walked towards Shikhar and Mitiksha’s rora. I was closer to them than I ever was, but I still maintained my distance. I noticed how beautiful and thick each of its feathers was. It was hard to believe I was thinking of them beautiful. As a thank you, I did the walking-fingers gesture towards it, like all Prismates had greeted us. Grandma laughed out loud. “This is not how you thank a rora. If you feel gratitude towards it, you look straight in its eyes, let it look at you, and it will show you what it feels. “Show me? As in it’s gonna dance if it accepts my gratitude? Haha!” “No Lune, it has its own way of showing you stuff.” “Huh?” I wasn’t really sure what to interpret when Marsella quickly commented, “You said earlier that rora showed you about Tony. What exactly did you mean?”

                  Grandma looked at us like we were kindergarten students asking her a complex mathematics question. But she answered any way. “When you have a rora, it is assigned to you, but that is not the only relation between you both. You both can communicate.” “So one connects with their rora? When the moon is up?” Arya asked. “No dear. It’s nothing like the connection that we have. Each rora communicates differently with its members. Some roras prefer talking, its nor Pris nor English. It’s a different language altogether. And oh they sound really harsh. Some roras transfer their memory, so you can see everything that the rora has in its memory. Some of them simply make you feel what they want you to know. Shikhar is among the roras who communicate by showing you their memories.” Wow! I was really in a magic fairy tale. [with lot of villains in it!]

                  I did what grandma had told me, I looked intently in Shikhar’s eyes. I waited for it to look at me the same way, but it just turned around and flew away. It rejected me! This was so embarrassing. Everyone was laughing at me! Argh!! I was never gonna look at it the same way again. Shikhar had missed his chance of friendship with me. His loss! In the meantime grandpa started to feel better. We could see him recovering. All of us were so relieved. Before I could step out I saw Marsella crying silently behind a tree. She was missing Abhi, of course. I went and hugged her tightly. She started crying even more loudly now. After some time she gained control of herself and we joined the others.

                  “Hey Lune?” Arya called. “Do you remember I told you that I had seen Mitiksha’s look-alike somewhere?” “Yeah” I replied but Marsella was completely lost. “What?” she kept repeating over and over again. We gave her a quick recap and Arya continued, “I just remembered. Once I heard my dad talking about some riots that were prone to happen. I rushed to that area but the chaos had begun already. There was only one girl left who wasn’t running away. She had no expressions on her face. I went to help her but she only looked at me. I dragged her away and saved her from a roof which was about to fall on her. She looked pretty amused and shocked. I didn’t get it! Without saying a word, she just left from there. She ran away and I couldn’t find her. But this was about a year ago. I swear she looked the same like Mitiksha.”

nr2 chp6

CHAPTER 6

              No. This couldn’t happen. “Tell me you’re lying” I yelled at Tony. His smirk told me otherwise. No. No. Was that the reason the connection didn’t work earlier? I didn’t want to believe this. Marsella, my grandparents… no. The surroundings started to blur and darken. “What did you do to them?” Arya was also screaming his lungs out now. “Oh you want to know the details then. Okay. Your royal dear grandparents have probably eaten their food by now which is poisoned. Guess who poisoned it?” he laughed so cruelly I had the most instant urge to kill him by tearing him apart. “And as for your pretty little friend, I shot her right in her heart. With this very gun! Now you tell me your plan. If you don’t, I’ll make you. You two were lucky to escape from that storm, go to Samar, kill him, kidnap Rhodes and come back here to hide. But I figured it all out. If you wrecked the shuttle, you won’t be able to get back either. Come on, spill your backup plan. Tell me how to travel back to earth.” He was one, we were two. We could take him down. But I didn’t want Tony to die so easily. I’d take the life out of him like a psycho-killer. Slowly, part-by-part. He’d killed the people I loved. I was barely aware of tears trickling my cheek. While I was in the midst of deciding which kind of torture would hurt him the most, Arya spoke in a very convincing way “Okay. Looks like you figured it out already. You’re smarter than we thought. Lune, I think we should tell him the truth. But Tony, in return I want our lives safe.” What was Arya talking about? We hadn’t even seen those two guys. Let alone killing and kidnapping them. He definitely had something in mind. “Oh yes, sure” Tony replied a little sarcastically.

                  I felt sort of numb. What was happening? Why couldn’t I be a normal human? Why did I have to be an alien? I wished I had a normal life. But I had to come back to reality. Arya was leading me and Tony lingered behind. I had no idea what Arya had in mind. Today was one of the few days when the moon shone. Arya connected at about the same time when I thought of it. “What are you going to tell him Arya?” “I frankly don’t know Lune. It’s just a distraction. We have no weapons and he has a fully loaded gun. A fight could turn into his favor.” We discussed what to tell Tony. His harsh voice interrupted us, “Speak up fellas. What’s the plan?”. “There’s another shuttle”, Arya said, “When Pikshtra invaded Prisma, he’d hid an extra shuttle here to be on the safer side. When I and Lune escaped, we encountered that shuttle and planned all of this.” I added, “We’re reach there soon. And remember your promise Tony.” I told him in the same tone he used for us. I wanted to kill him so badly. Arya now spoke through the connection. “There’s a long rope like thing under my leg. Don’t look at it right now. Its long. I’ll pass it over to you on the count of three. When we stretch it from both sides, let’s hope Tony trips over.” I was in.

                  The plan executed successfully and we snatched the gun from him. Arya pointed the gun towards him but I was not gonna let him die so easily. ”Wait Arya” I said, “He has killed them. He killed them all! He deserves being tortured at every step while he drags himself to hell. But first I want to know his purpose. Speak up!” I was sure Arya was on my side and he felt the same way. As an agreement, he shot both his legs first, making him immobile. “Tell me why you wanted to come here. Before you even the others have tried to implement the connection in human brains but it never worked. You thought it would work if you came here? What did you want Tony?” “I really can’t believe you’ll are that dumb kids. It’s not only about the connection. You see this place around you? It’s magical. I know about the lamors and lusciata. The leaves are made of pure gold. The air is so pure.” “What’s lusciata?” I asked him like he was my science teacher. “You seriously don’t know? Your dear grandfather didn’t tell you?” He hadn’t. “Figure it out yourselves kids” Arya had his gangster look on his face like before, “You are under my gun. And you think such kind of an answer is going to help you?” Tony looked scared for once in his life. “lusciata is a kind of plant with medicinal properties. It can cure any wound within seconds and has the ability of curing cancer completely.” Why didn’t grandpa tell us about this? May be he’d just forgotten. “So you thought you’d take all of this to earth and get a fortune that’ll set your life?” “No kid, I didn’t want to take any of this to earth. I wanted to make this, another earth. The amount of money I would get is beyond counting limits. But more importantly, you know what I would become? God!” His eyes told me how much he was yearning to complete his mission. He might even have completed it if he hadn’t told us how he’d killed my family. “Good plan Tony, but now it’s your time to die.” I snatched the gun from Arya and shot his shoulder. He started crawling towards his left. He took out something from his pocket and said “Haven’t you heard? Never wound something that you can’t kill”.

                  He threw the soil in our eyes. Before we could attack him we caught a glimpse of him sprinkling the powder on his shoulder. It was like magic. We could literally see the wound getting dissolved in his skin. We caught him before his next move. “Did you seriously think you would be fast enough?” We’d held him tight but by the time he had already put the powder on his legs. He was fit and fine as before but he didn’t have the gun. We had. I put the gun straight in his mouth. I was about to pull the trigger when I heard a voice in my head. Marsella’s voice. It said, “Kill him Lune. He killed Fiddle and Fiona. Kill him!” I was obviously imagining her voice asking me to avenge her and my grandparents. But then something weird happened. Arya connected to me and he was telling me the same thing. We could feel another presence in our minds. Marsella was alive? But Tony had shot her in her heart… “Guys I’m alive. Thanks to Mitiksha. I’ll tell you the rest later but first kill Tony.”  We both were so happy to hear her voice we’d lost hold of Tony. He had disappeared from our hands and we saw him running far ahead. We chased him but he was fast too. We barely heard his voice saying, “Hey guys, I think I forgot to mention this. But lusciata gives you great speed too!” We lost him. Shit! I had a gun on him, and I let him go. I’d never felt so restless and guilty in my life. We searched and searched for him but couldn’t find him.

                  We tried to connect to Marsella and told her everything. We could feel her disappointment too. She told her where she was and we followed her directions. She was sitting on the ground beside Mitiksha. I hugged her so tightly, it hurt both of us! I was just so happy that she was alive. Even Arya did the same. “How did you survive?” he asked her. “It’s all thanks to Mitiksha.” She said. Tony shot me but didn’t realize Mitiksha was nearby. He just shot and left. Mitiksha told me that she was going to get something for me. I don’t remember anything after that but I think I survived!” she said laughingly. Now Mitiksha spoke, “Tony bad human. He doesn’t know we have heart on right side. Not on left. So Marsella alive.” What? Even I didn’t know this. Thank heavens. It was such a relief. Marsella said, “I can’t even feel my bruise. She told me that she had used some plant extracts called Lusciata.” So Lusciata it was. “Tony had the same thing” we informed her. I and Arya told them the entire story. “We’ll catch him” Mitiksha said with confidence. We also told them about lamors. Mitiksha was pretty impressed. She told us that inspite of living here her whole life, she’d never seen a lamor. Hm. We were lucky. “I think we must go to the royal building or tent or whatever it is. We need to take care of grandma and grandpa.” I said. Both Mitiksha and Marsella looked at each other.

                  “Lune, before shooting me, Tony said that he had poisoned them and killed both of you with a tree or something. I thought you’ll were dead. I couldn’t even feel you’ll in the connection. But after I connected with you, we both went to the tent-house where Fiddle and Fiona were. But there was nobody there. I couldn’t connect to them. I have no idea where they are. But we saw the food right there. So they haven’t eaten it.” So they’re alive too? But where were they? Mitiksha was listening quietly, but now she spoke, “They blocked you out.” We all replied with “huh?” She was laughing. You’ll need to know a lot about connection. She closed her eyes and her rora came before us. Why had she called it? She kind of hugged its neck and it went away. We were still uncomfortable with the roras. Specially that one. But he flew away immediately. “I will teach you how to block, allow and be invisible in the connection. Let’s begin.”

nr2 chp5

CHAPTER 5

I was so used to fainting by now. Every time I fainted, I woke up in a new place. As I opened my eyes slowly, I was wondering “where would I be now?” It was pretty small, dark and rough. I was used to this too. At least nothing was moving. So I hoped I was far away from the jungle. Arya was still unconscious. I tried waking him up. “Where are we?” he asked in his rough voice. I really had no idea. “I don’t know” is all I could say. “Can you peep outside from that little hole like thing?” he pointed at a small opening above my head. The place was so tiny he couldn’t even come over to me. The hole was above me and I had to stretch but I finally made it. “Oh crap!” I said after realizing where we were, “We’re in the jungle itself. And I suppose we’re underground, under a tree and this one’s the only one fallen. We’re out of luck I guess”.

“On the count of three” he said. “One Two Three” We tried our level best, not once, not twice but several times. The tree wouldn’t move even an inch. I felt like yelling my lungs out. Arghhhhh!  We sat down disheartened. Several minutes passed. Arya’s look reminded me of the conversation that had remained incomplete before we left. “Hey why did you ask me about Yen?” I asked breaking the silence between us.

“Forget it Lune. Let’s just pretend that didn’t happen.”

“No I want to know” I insisted. I didn’t want him to hold on to false hopes. I would tell him what I felt right away. I could sense him bracing himself for something big. For the first time, I heard his soft and pleading voice. “Promise me this will remain between us” It was unusual of him to request. His next words were expected, “I’m in love” he told me. “Arya, really I had a crush on you, but that was before Yen. I love him now.” I tried to be diplomatic by adding, “There are plenty others out there. Better than me, smarter, more beautiful…” Now Arya interrupted me. “You’re getting me wrong.” He said nothing else and his silence was killing me. “What do you mean then?” Arya looked up and added after a long pause, “I’m in love with Yen”.

“What!!”  That was a bummer!I had a hard time stomaching it. Arya was so manly and rough and handsome and strong. He couldn’t be gay. He had to be joking. He guessed what I was thinking and said, “What? I don’t walk like gays? Don’t dress up like them? Don’t look like them? Which part is making you hard to believe?” “Uhm… all of it actually”. He gave me a small smile. “Lune, that doesn’t matter. It is a kind of misunderstanding that all gays behave like that. Some of us are like me, and I’m not the only one trust me. On the other hand even some of the straight guys behave like gays, but they are straight.” I didn’t know how to react so I went with “ohh…kay”. Suddenly a question popped up in my head, “Arya, you should hate me, in that case. And have you ever told Yen about this?” “No” he said. “I don’t hate you, you’re my friend. But I’m not gonna give up on Yen so soon. Anyways, all of this is inappropriate at the moment.” He was right. We needed to get out of here first. But I don’t think this was ever going to leave my head. At least for the next few weeks. “If I survived that long” I added in my head.

Suddenly I noticed the moon from that little hole. I tried connecting with the others but I couldn’t feel any presence in my head. The same happened with Arya. Maybe the connection was different on Prisma. Damn! What was happening? Arya started singing our song. It relieved me. Before I could start thinking practically, Arya, for a change, asked me an absolutely impractical question “Hey does Mitiksha seem familiar to you?” “What??” Everything that Arya was talking about today, made me reply with only ‘what’s in different tones. “How is that even possible?” I stated obviously. “I know, he said. She’s an alien and all. Maybe she has a look-alike on earth. There’s something odd about her. I’ve seen her, I mean her look-alike somewhere on earth. But I can’t recall”. “Don’t bother much Arya. It’s probably a co-incidence.” While I was assuring him that he was wrong, a flash of how Mitiksha looked at Arya played before my eyes. When I told him that, we agreed on the fact that something fishy was going on.

Out of the blue,actually out of the black, we heard a soft noise. I peeked out of the hole again to see if someone had actually come to help us. I saw some tiny creatures hopping like rabbits. They distinguished themselves from the other weird looking insects and small animals because they were extremely graceful and cute. They were light yellow and light pink in color, had big black eyes and were tiny, almost as small as our face. They had short ears and long length fur on their head. I felt rather crazy to find them gullible. All of a sudden, one of them had an eye exactly in front of me and I banged my head on something behind. “What is it?” Arya asked me. I told him about them. But to my surprise, he started laughing. “What is so funny?” I asked him, confused. “Not funny, Lune. We’re gonna be safe now. Didn’t you realize? They were lamors. Grandpa told us about them remember?”

Oh yes! Lamors, the one-time genies. “Remember what Fiddle told us?” Arya said, now excitedly, “Lamors are like genies. They grant you one wish. But the wish has to be made in your head, and they read your mind once, through touch. But each one gets only one wish and it shouldn’t violate the laws of nature according to them. They’re pretty intelligent. You can’t find them. They find you.” Yes! Yes! I think the lamor knew we were going to ask for their help. One of them extended their paw-like hand through the small hole. “Go on Lune, grab it and make a wish to get us out.” I did. But nothing happened and they hopped away. “Maybe it was just a fake story” I told Arya. Shit! One chance we had at getting out and it was… Suddenly the ground started vibrating. The soil storm was starting again but this one was mild. The tree which had fallen rolled bit by bit. After a minute or two, it slowed and finally stopped. We helped each other out. It wasn’t a fake story! We were so hungry we felt like eating the fruits but we had no knowledge about them. What if they were poisonous? We couldn’t take a risk.

We tried to find our way out but it the entire jungle had changed after the soil-quake. I wished I had wished for us to get back with the others. That would have been better. Stupid me! Well anyways, at least we were out of that pit hole. We walked and walked until we finally found some fruits that we recognized we had eaten after we arrived here. We quickly climbed the tree and ate like we were breaking a hunger-fast. I didn’t even know I could climb trees. Prisma was teaching me a lot of things. Now we had some strength and enthusiasm too. We started finding our way back.

Out of nowhere we heard a voice, Tony’s voice saying “Night risers, hello. Good to see you’ll back and alive.” We couldn’t see him anywhere. “Oh no!” Arya said and looked up at the exact moment when Tony jumped on him from the tree above. He spoke in a very dangerous tone. “I cut the entire tree in such a way that it falls on you two, but you still survive. Lucky.Hm. Is that why you avenged me? By killing Samar-the pilot, by kidnapping Rhodes-the payload specialist and by wrecking the entire shuttle? How the hell are we supposed to get back?”

“We didn’t do any of this!” No matter how much we raised our voce he didn’t even blink. “And why the hell do you want to kill us anyway?” It was Arya who answered his own question, “You just needed some support here. We are of no use to you anymore huh?”  “Yes. You’re right, smart boy. And I know very well that you have wrecked the shuttle because these aliens do not know of my intentions and all the other night risers are dead…”

                                                                                                                                                                                                

nr2 chp4

CHAPTER 4

               I started bracing myself for death again when I saw a rora enter. Unexpectedly, this time it didn’t look ferocious or raged. This time it looked like a friend. We all stepped back except our grandparents who were cooing. “Seriously Fiona?” Arya asked, “It’s not a dog. It tried to kill us some time back. The way you are treating it, it seems like your pet.” Arya was angry. So was grandma now. “It only attacked us because it thought we were dangerous. Wouldn’t you try to kill a person who you consider as a threat to your life?” That explained everything. “And you dare not speak anything about Shikhar.” Great, so now they had names. “Shikhar is my rora” she said with a few tears trickling down her cheek. “I thought roras were assigned to a group of people” I asked. The reply was obvious. “Yes, but belonging to the royal family has its advantages.” Another rora appeared from the entrance. “I assume this one is yours grandpa” I presumed and he nodded. “How does this solve the sleeping problem anyway?” Marsella asked. My grandparents looked at her intently and said, “Prismates sleep on their roras”.

               “A maximum of seven to eight people can sleep on a rora. That is, the entire group.” I didn’t quite understand how that would be comfortable. Just then Shikhar opened up one of his wings and I saw the armlike structure again. Grandma climbed onto it and demonstrated to us how one slept. She put her head over its arm and lay the rest of the body on its wing. Shikhar embraced her like a mother. They looked so peaceful and contented in such a position. Nevertheless, I wasn’t going to go anywhere near them. Marsella and Arya agreed with me. But Tony wanted to try. He climbed on Shikhar as well but Shikhar started screaming in his crow-like voice. Tony was hurting it. What else could we expect?

               The three of us took the corner and slept away from the creature. Peaceful or not, it still scared us. The lonely feeling started taking over me. I wasn’t alone here, but I missed my parents and my brother. I also missed Yen. These were the four people I loved the most and without them my heart felt empty. Gradually I drifted to sleep. When I woke up, it took me a minute to recall everything that had happened. There was no concept of day and night here, due to absence of the sun. They slept as and when they got tired. From the corner of my eye I saw Arya awake. He was staring at nothing. “Hey” I called him. He was so involved in his deep thoughts that he didn’t even hear me. I went to him and he was startled for a moment. “What happened?” I asked “Are you serious about Yen?” he asked me firmly. I could only respond with “huh?” Where did that come from? Before I could ask him anything else, we saw Mitiksha enter. She started blabbering about something in Pris. This woke the others. She looked so sweet and elegant as she smiled. No one would have believed that she can be fierce enough to stop the roras. Grandma was the translator again, “they want to show you guys around.” “Are we sight-seeing on Prisma?” Marsella asked sarcastically. But we eventually agreed and left after some time.

               Fiddle and Fiona announced that they needed to talk with royals. They told us to go on a short tour with Mitiksha. “How will we communicate?” Tony stole my thoughts. “I speak English” Mitiksha said in a different accent. It left our mouths hanging open. “How do you know English?” Arya spoke each word distinctly. Fiddle told him that Pikshtra had trained some of them for English, perhaps it kept passing on. Mitiksha smiled in agreement. “You come with me or no?” Her english was not fluent, but enough for us to understand. Though her question was rude, the way she said it made it sound sophisticated and erudite. It kind of fascinated me. She closed her eyes and the rora she’d stopped earlier, came before us. “Climb” she said. Actually it was more of an order. “No” Marsella and I spoke together. “Let’s go on foot” I insisted. “Mad?” she asked with one eyebrow up. “No, we’re serious” we said. She only said “mad?” again. Now Arya came before her and spoke, “We’ll walk”. She reluctantly agreed, but I was glad she did. At first I thought Mitiksha had a crush on Arya. He was a handsome stud after all. But she never showed any flirty or romantic gesture.

               We started walking the beautiful lanes. “Are the leaves made of real gold?” Tony asked Mitiksha. She gave him a sharp look and said, “On earth, different gold. This, only color same. This, pure. On earth, mixture in gold.” So this was purer than gold. Maybe this was the reason Tony bought us here. No matter how much we asked him the real reason, he wouldn’t tell us. Tony and his little secret were getting on my nerves as it is when I realized Mitiksha staring expectantly at Arya. Something was definitely going on in her mind and it bothered her. It reminded me of Arya’s question earlier. Why had he asked me if I was serious about Yen? I had a crush on Arya back then but I loved Yen now. Was Arya interested in me? He never gave me any signs. Why else would he ask me such a question? Maybe he was trying to be brotherly. But there was something in his eyes which told me that it wasn’t brotherly concern. Yen would be so jealous! I could fool around with Arya a bit. No, I couldn’t play with Arya’s feelings. I hoped it didn’t get awkward between us henceforth. But now wasn’t the time.

               As I came out of my thought cloud, I felt rather odd that Mitiksha said that the gold on earth was mixed. Before I could ask, Tony stole my question again,

“How do you know this?”

For a split second I could see her eyes getting wide but then she said “Fiddle told me”.

She continued with her tour guiding. Occasionally, even she asked us questions, actually many questions about earth. The question answer session stopped abruptly when strong wind started blowing. It was a bit scary actually. The sound of the wind was nothing like that on earth. The sound was more like a roar of the most ferocious lion with an echo effect. We started running back again when Mitiksha started cursing us in Pris. It was easy enough to guess. “That’s why we go on rora” she kept saying, louder each time.  “Noha Noha” Mitiksha was screaming at the top of her voice. When we turned to the direction she was looking towards, we almost froze. “This is storm of Prisma” Mitiksha tried to explain.

The trees were moving. At least that’s what we thought at first. But soon we realized that it wasn’t the trees. The soil below the trees was moving, along with the trees. They were changing directions so fast that it was impossible to trace our path back. But that wasn’t the main trouble. The trouble started when the trees started coming in our direction. We all ran as fast as we could but the trees in front of us also started moving now. The levels of soil kept changing as well which made us fall down a lot. We didn’t even realize when we got separated. Arya was by my side, Mitiksha and Marsella were together and Tony was right behind them. I could literally see waves of soil. If I were at a distance, this could have been the most magical and beautiful view I had ever seen. But with our life in danger, this was a curse. There was chaos all over and there was nothing we could do. I could feel the storm slowing down, but that’s when a tree came from behind in full speed and knocked me and Arya down. We were about to get up when something hit straight on my head. The place was also spinning now. I was probably on the verge of fainting. Arya lend me a hand. Before I could grab it, something hit him too and he lay unconscious beside me. Bit by bit my world started becoming darker and soon I lost consciousness.