'Chote'
'CHOTE, YASH, my little brother.'
(He is recalling everything from the start, when he and Yash get here and then went on a mountain trek. Suddenly, a sound came which made him unconscious. When he woke up, YASH was gone then the Landslide started. He was falling when someone caught him and brought him here.)
The memories hit me like a wave, sharp and cold. My chest tightened as panic flooded in. I tried to stand up, but my feet staggered.
I felt that my body orientation was slightly off. With some difficulty, I got control of my body.
Without thinking, I turned toward the mountain. My legs trembled beneath me, but I forced them to move. Step by step, I began walking, then running, back toward the place where everything had fallen apart.
I have to find him. I don't know how much time had passed.
He must be trapped somewhere in the mountain, waiting for me to come and save him.
Repeating the same thought again and again, I tried my best to move as fast as I could. The snow crunched under my feet, the wind stung my face, but nothing could stop me from finding him.
In spite of running for hours through the cold, I feel like I can still move forward. The air burned in my lungs, and every breath came out as a cloud of white. But when I finally reached near the mountain, I stopped. My heart froze.
The mountain, the same one we had climbed together, was no longer whole. The upper part of it had collapsed, torn open like a wound. The path we had taken was gone, buried under layers of rock and snow.
"No, no, no, no. This can't be happening?"
I stood there, shocked by what I was seeing, then my legs moved forward on their own.
"Yash."
"YASH."
"CHOTE."
"I have come back to save you. Answer me."
"Give me any signal, so that I can locate you."
"Yash, Yash. YAASSHH."
I shouted with all my strength, searching everywhere for him, to find him, to find any clue that would take me toward him
Moved every rock that can be moved. My hands were numb from digging through the snow, but I kept digging.
"YASH."
I didn't stop shouting. As a response, no answer came, only his name echoing faintly before being swallowed by the wind.
I tore through piles of rubble, my fingers bleeding from the cold. I found some of our things, ropes, and our bags, but no sign of him.
I searched every place I could, but no matter how hard I looked, he wasn't here.
As skylights start dimming, I realise that I have lost him, that I am never going to see my brother again.
At last, as realisation hit, I stood still, surrounded by silence, not having the strength to move.
"Aaaaaahhhh."
"Why does this happen to him?"
"Why him? I should be in his place."
This is all my fault. I shouldn't have forced him to come with me. He wouldn't have been gone if he was not here; I should be the one lying somewhere here, under some rock, not him.
"What am I going to tell mom and dad?"
"Why am I even alive?"
The word 'ALIVE' made me recall, how am I alive? I was falling from a mountain, and a fall from that height guarantees death, so how am I alive? The answer came next second.
The Giant Man.
Yes, as I was falling, he saved me and carried me towards the inn.
If I seem to remember correctly, he was 3 m tall, and that is not just rare, it was unheard of for someone to be this tall.
It's not just his height that was strange; even his presence, his aura, was different from a normal person. His presence hadn't felt human. It was heavier, deeper… almost divine.
If he had saved me, then he must have saved Yash also.
That thought gives me the hope I needed to move my body.
The old couple at the inn has been living here for more than a decade.
"I should ask them, they might know that man."
I tightened my fist and raised my head toward the sky. That giant was perhaps just my imagination, but I hope he was real because if he wasn't...
With these thoughts, I turned around and made my way back towards the inn.
There was a forest, or it can be said, a little fauna in between an inn and the mountain range. As I entered the forest's perimeter, something felt off.
When Yash and I had passed through here before, it was just a small forest. And I didn't bother to look around me this time, as my focus was on finding Yash, but now, the forest around me didn't look the same as before.
The forest seemed to have grown denser, and the trees seemed taller, thicker, their shadows stretching longer than they should. The air had changed too; it carried a strange hum, a pulse I could feel under my skin.
I couldn't explain it, but it felt like I wasn't alone, like someone was watching me. I also got this same feeling before, near the inn, and if I remember correctly, the vegetation near the inn was also not very dense before, but today, when I came to consciousness, I felt like I was in the middle of the forest in some snowy region.
"Focus Hira focus. You can analyse the plants and forest later. Right now, finding Yash is the priority."
Though my surroundings feel unsettling, I pushed these thoughts to the back of my head and started running back towards the inn.
A.N.- AS YOU CAN SEE/READ, THE TITLES OF THIS NOVEL ARE A LITTLE UNIQUE.
I HAD READ MANY WEBNOVELS, AND THERE TITLES ARE ALWAYS IN ENGLISH, SO HERE I AM TRYING TO DO SOMETHING DIFFERENT. MY TITLES ARE IN THE SANSKRIT LANGUAGE.
THOSE WHO ARE INTERESTED IN THE MEANING OF THE TITLE CAN SEARCH IT ONLINE. I WILL ALSO POST ITS MEANING AT THE LAST OF EVERY CHAPTER.
TITLE MEANING, 'THE GRIEF/SORROW FOR THE LOST PERSON.
NOW YOU CAN SHOW YOUR SUPPORT BY GIVING THE POWER STONES. I WILL BE WAITING.