"The wheels rolled past forgotten lands,
Beneath the sky so wide, so still—
They laughed, unaware the road ahead
Would bend not to their will."
The highway unspooled like thread—long, dry, and indifferent. Asphalt melted into dust after the city's last flyover; the world had become a flat, breathing thing of parched fields and rusting billboards. Inside the tempo traveler, the chatter tried to fill the vastness outside. It did a good job at first—like a band playing loudly to keep a sinking ship from feeling like it is sinking.
Kabir sat at the front, sunglasses on despite overcast skies, knees angled like a man ready to leap. He had that practiced ease: a pose, a grin, the kind of posture that could convince the room that whatever he suggested was a festival idea rather than a sketchy weekend plan. Tonight, the audience obliged.
Rohit and Yashpal were in one of their familiar shouting matches—Rohit in favor of old horror songs for "maximum creep vibes," Yashpal arguing for silence because his brain liked to keep statistics intact. Saanvi, always the practical one, lobbed a packet of chips between them like a referee tossing a tennis ball. Priya framed her face against the window glass and scrolled through filters as if mood could be edited into existence. Meghna sat with a paperback, the calm center of the noise.
Diya, who had that soft laugh that turned into a hush when a joke landed wrong, wore a faded denim jacket and a travel-worn grin. She kept stealing sideways looks at Kabir—part amusement, part the kind of affectionate exasperation that only old friends can give.
Abhay was folded into the back by the luggage, hands loosely clasped. He had said very little that morning, offering only small facts about groundwater levels and the region's rainfall patterns—things nobody wanted during playlist wars. He watched the outside world slide by with a gaze that sometimes seemed meant for somewhere else entirely.
They drove through a landscape that belonged to no calendar—half-forgotten billboards advertising products that had outlived their companies, the skeletons of roadside tea stalls, hedgerows stabbing into the sky. It should have felt cinematic. Instead, there was a small, growing itch in the air; an expectant pause like the breath before laughter or a scream.
At a derelict toll gate—an arch of rust choked by vines—the tempo slowed to idle. A lean attendant leaned against a column, more sleep than posture. He waved them through with a lazy hand. As they idled, a soft, deliberate rap came at the van's side.
When Rohit wound the window down, the sun struck a face of sun-creased skin and a beard like dry straw. He wore saffron that had forgotten its color. Bare feet, the kind that carry someone across years instead of kilometers.
"Beta… ek bottle paani mil jaaye to kripa ho jaayegi," the man said, voice thin as wind through reeds.
Kabir, the author of bravado, waved a hand. "Here's your moment of cinematic pity, people." He dug into the bag, produced a bottle, and tossed it through the window. Rohit made a show of handing it over like a trophy.
The man took the bottle with slow, deliberate motions. He smelled of temple dust and something older. For a second he looked like a harmless relic, a person who earned his days by asking and, perhaps, listening.
Then he spoke, and his words were not the ones they expected.
"You are eight," he said, and the syllables fell like a pebble in water.
"But you are not eight."
Laughter—thin and brittle—peeled from the van. Priya clicked a picture. Rohit snorted and cracked a joke about spooky riddles. Kabir rolled his eyes and said something smooth about roadside theatrics.
The old man did not smile. Instead his face unbent into something that could have been pity, or hunger, or memory. He added quietly, almost like an aside:
"The road remembers. Those who mock the thirsty… drown in thirst unseen."
He turned and disappeared down the side lane, his bare feet carrying away the sound of his words like a half-remembered song.
For a while, no one spoke. Not because the moment had been terrifying—there was a reflex of scoffing—but because the tone of the van had subtly shifted. The volume of jokes dropped a notch; laughter grew smaller, the way people lower their voices when a book reaches a painful sentence.
Diya was the first to breach the quiet. She rubbed her palms together theatrically and said, "Okay, prophecy man gets water. We win moral high ground. Can someone pass the playlist?"
Yashpal muttered something about statistics and probability. Rohit made a face and launched into a mocking accent for the old man. The rhythm of the group returned, as if the social muscle had been flexed and was each time rewarded.
Abhay said nothing at first. Later, in the back where the conversation had become a softer hum of gossip and jokes, he leaned forward and said, low enough that only Diya and Kabir heard, "He didn't curse us. He recognized us."
Kabir grinned without heat. "Recognized us for what? Our fashion sense? Our excellent road trip choices?"
Abhay shrugged. "Just… he saw something. Maybe he's old and lonely. Maybe it was nothing."
Sometimes things are 'nothing' until they are not.
Night came like a slow curtain. Trees arched over the road, their branches knitting together into a shadow tunnel. The GPS on Yashpal's phone winked out without fanfare—there was the abruptness of a light switch being flipped. "No signal," he announced, tapping at the screen with a false calm.
"Classic," Priya chirped. "Plot point: no network equals character development."
"Cliché number two," Kabir added, leaned back, and tried to reclaim control with humor. But the air felt changed—tighter, as if the trees had leaned closer to eavesdrop.
The road smoothed as they left the last toll booth behind. A green board flickered past under the dimming light:
"Bhairavpur – 5 km."
"Finally!" Priya clapped her hands. "Civilization again. I thought we'd be stuck on this haunted road forever."
Laughter rose, light and unbothered. Even the driver cracked a smile in the rearview mirror. Rohit leaned forward to nudge Kabir, teasing about who would survive the village's food first.
Meghna closed her diary, slipping it into her bag. "No more stories today," she said, but her eyes sparkled as if one was already brewing.
Abhay, however, stayed quiet. His gaze lingered on the fading treeline, where the shadows stretched unnaturally long. For the briefest moment, he thought he saw movement—something shifting between the trunks.
But when he blinked, it was gone.
The van rolled on, steady and calm, the laughter inside mixing with the rhythm of the engine.
To anyone watching from the road, it looked like nothing more than a group of friends on their way to a weekend getaway.
Just another journey.
And yet, somewhere deep within the forest, the silence seemed to listen.
"A bottle denied, a bell unheard—
Mockery plants seeds that feed the worm.
Laugh tonight with bright, safe eyes,
But some hunger never dies."