....
The mansion's premises were shrouded in mist just as they appeared from a distance.
A ruin whose walls were still as strong as they must have been in any era. There wasn't a trace of a crack in the walls.
In the moonlight, the moon was rocking it in its cradle of light, and the eucalyptus trees were swaying.
Whether they were happy or not, no one knew...
They were just moving and providing wind, which Raghav needed the most right now.
"Ugh!... Uh!"
Raghav's stone-heavy eyelids slowly began to open, and with them, the scene in front of him unfolded. His head still throbbed heavily, as if a car had run him over...
A car....
Raghav suddenly sat up as if he had been struck by lightning. Due to getting up so abruptly, the pain in his body intensified, especially in his left arm.
Clutching his left arm tightly, Raghav fell back onto the ground. The pain was sharp... as if someone had stabbed him with a knife.
He somehow calmed himself and got up. He walked and sat down with his back leaning against a pillar.
After sitting for a while, he noticed the sleeve of his left arm...
It was red...
It was warm...
It was sticky...
"Ugh! Damn! How... how did I get this injury?!"
He gripped his hand tightly, leaned his head back against the pillar, and closed his eyes. After catching his breath, he opened his eyes again, but the scene was the same.
Yes.
This was no dream.
The stars, the trees, the walls, the pillars, everything was the same.
Then, a realization touched Raghav like a cold gust of wind.
"Wait a minute! Pillars?... These... these walls are..."
Raghav's breathing quickened... as it should. And this time, he had no reason to slow it down.
All the memories swirled in his mind like a storm, and his already heavy head felt even heavier.
"What... what is all this... why me? N-Nawal? Ugh!"
Supporting his wounded hand, he ran towards the gate of the mansion's premises as fast as his body was capable at that moment.
He tried to break the door, which was twice his size, and somehow tried to climb it, but with a blood-soaked hand, he at least couldn't climb it.
Finally, when the attempt failed, he started banging on it and shouting.
"Is anyone there? I'm trapped here. Please help me!!!"
But the only answer he received was a gust of cold wind.
Raghav couldn't understand that he was with Nawal, and then that car came... and then...
Raghav tightly gripped his head and squeezed his eyes shut, but his mind couldn't recall anything properly.
And in a little while, his legs began to falter...
He managed to steady himself and reached the deserted courtyard of the mansion.
A courtyard where there were no flowers, only thorny bushes, and Raghav was not worried about this at all right now.
He moved toward a platform where once there must have been a very large tree. But today, only termite-ridden roots remained.
Just then, his already stumbling feet got caught in a bush, and his head was pointed directly toward the platform.
"Aaaaahhh!!!!"
But before he could fall, a hand, catching his left arm, stopped him from falling.
"Let go. Ow!"
Raghav quickly pulled his hand away and sat on the platform. He tightly gripped his left arm, from which blood was now flowing faster...
Raghav lifted his eyelids and looked at the figure that had saved him,even though he grabbed the wrong arm...
The man looked 40-50 years old, which his partly white and mostly black beard clearly indicated.
Besides this, his attire was old-fashioned—a dhoti kurta[1] and a long shawl.
"Who are you? How did you get here?"
Raghav asked, squinting his eyes a bit, as he didn't trust the man standing in front of him even slightly. But the man's answer confused Raghav even more.
"That question is what I should be asking you,kid! Where and how did you get here?"
Because of his calm and indifferent response, Raghav decided to keep his distance for now. How can someone in such a mansion, late at night, be so calm seeing an injured person? That's why Raghav didn't reply; he just stared.
"Yes, yes! Fine. Don't tell me. But at least let me treat your hand."
The man standing in front of Raghav tried to grab his hand, but Raghav pulled his hand back.
"Look! I neither know you nor have any interest in knowing you. If you know the way out of here, tell me that."
Looking at him, the man raised both his eyebrows, then chuckled softly, a laugh that didn't reach his eyes.
"You are sensible. But sensibility should be shown after thinking."
Saying this, the man turned and started walking away.
"Come along if you want to."
Raghav only ground his teeth. The man was right; there was no question of trusting or not trusting when he was the only person there.
Dusting off his clothes and holding his left arm, he began to follow the man's steps.
•°•°•°•°•°•
The slow firelight wasn't providing as much brightness as the man needed to bandage Raghav's arm, but it was enough to warm the cold air around them.
"Ouch!"
"Don't move your hand. Stay calm."
"It's not your hand that's injured, so you wouldn't feel it. It really hurts."
The man sighed, tightly bandaged his arm, and in the firelight, looked at Raghav's face, whose chocolate-like eyes looked golden.
"Go back. This mansion is not for you."
"I would if it were possible. I can't get out."
Just then, a light bulb went off in Raghav's mind.
"Wait, wait, wait.... How did YOU get in?"
Hearing him, the man just laughed.
In this environment, his laugh forced Raghav to look away. He put more wood in the fire, but his eyes were fixed on the fire that was now slowly dying out.
"I didn't come from anywhere. Sometimes, people write and forget. I am one of those forgotten ones."
His words left Raghav's mind untouched. But the charm in his manner of speaking, Raghav couldn't deny.
Any other time, Raghav would have definitely drawn inspiration from him and gotten ideas for story dialogue. But that time is not now.
"If you live here, why haven't we seen you before? I mean, when there was no ban here. And the people who have gone missing, you must know something about them."
Raghav hadn't even finished speaking when the man got up and took off the shawl wrapped around his shoulder and began to warm it near the fire.
"...Understand this much: I live here, but this is the first time I've stepped outside. That's why no one has seen me until today, and I haven't seen anyone."
"..."
One minute the man was saying trustworthy things, and the next, suspicious things. Raghav couldn't figure out what to think about this man.
Meanwhile, the man handed Raghav a small torch and sat down beside him.
"Go there, towards the west..."
Before the man could tell Raghav the way out, a small pouch in his dhoti began to glow faintly blue, which drew Raghav's attention.
"What is that? I need to see it. Now."
Raghav said sternly. His voice made it clear that this time the boy was going to find out.
The man rolled his eyes and opened the pouch...
Inside was a firefly-like butterfly, twinkling like a blue star, which immediately flew out and landed on Raghav's hand.
Seeing it, Raghav momentarily couldn't distinguish between reality and imagination.
"What... what kind of butterfly is this?"
But the answer he received was the man's wide eyes staring intently at Raghav, as if he had 5-6 heads. Raghav could almost feel the wheels turning in this man's mind.
"Oh...!"
That was all the man said, as if he had a great realization, and laughed loudly, very loudly. Meanwhile, Raghav had no idea what was going on.
"You keep this butterfly. It is your own imagination, after all."
This time, the man's voice felt different, but what was different?
What had changed?
The boy with the chocolate eyes had no information about this.
"Yes, so where was I? The path. Yes. So, look here, towards the north—"
"You said west earlier!"
"A mistake happens by mistake. Go north. There is a small tunnel there. There are many paths; you go straight. And in the end, you will reach where you should be."
Still... Raghav did not trust the man one bit, but again, the question of trusting or not trusting doesn't arise when he is the only person there.
The blue glowing butterfly sat on Raghav's shoulder as if it knew everything. And Raghav went the way he was told to go.
Raghav's figure, walking away, was clearly visible to the man even in the mist. Raghav's shoulders might not be as strong as Nawal's, not as strong as the man's, but they were trustworthy, dependable.
Seeing him, the man smiled, and with him, smiled that mansion wrapped in the misty white sheet of the moonlit night.
A shadow stopped behind the man, and the man knew it. He didn't need to turn around.
" 'He' has arrived! Now we move."
The shadow nodded, and when Raghav paused one last time to look back at the man...
No one was there...
There was only a gust of cold wind...
Raghav wasn't surprised because he hadn't trusted him until now. Raghav moved forward toward the tunnel, guided by the glowing butterfly and the torch.
Still, that man felt very close to Raghav...
...very, very close.
As close as a writer is to his characters... that close.
_________________________________________
To be continued...
[1] An Indian dress