The father-son duo disappeared into the darkness, leaving all the others shuffling around in suspense. After around five minutes, Venkatesh appeared looking amazingly gleeful, along with a disgruntled Adinath. Harini stood by the door, looking at them all with a gentle smile.
"I'll come too." Adinath said, wearing his shoes.
"Let me get the mashaal out."
He proceeded to dislodge the mashaal from the village center. it had not stopped burning even after two consecutive days.
"What have they even put in that thing?!" Anjani asked, amazed.
"You'll get to know soon, dear. You'll get to know many secrets today." Harini said mysteriously from the doorway.
Ishar furrowed his brows. Why was everyone acting so secretious? Unless…unless…unless they worked for Dev Rathore! Could it be that Venkatesh was trying to lead them to that man? To have them seized?
He whispered in the most unsuspicious way into his earpiece, "What if he's trying to get us captured?" Everyone's eyes went wide with the possibility.
Karan softly replied back, "STAY ALERT, at all times. It would be a big dishonor if we allow ourselves, highly trained soldiers, to be caught so easily."
Adinath and Venkatesh returned with the wooden torch. Night had started to rule across the sky, but the light of the mashaal swallowed darkness like no other brightness he had ever seen.
"Come on." Venkatesh said.
Ishar and the team followed the gleam of the flames through the Forest of Aralam. Ishar had to admit it, it was the mixture of the most exotic and dangerous natural beauties he had ever seen. The forest floor was covered with green herbs and ferns, which crept like shadows in the night. The towering trees spread their olive branches far and wide, a prime spot for hundreds of fauna.
Every second, they had to duck, squat, dodge and keep their eyes open wide to avoid being bludgeoned by a tree. Pratap however, was too anxious to notice the darkening charm.
Venkatesh had not-so-purposefully told him that there were wild dogs inside the forest, and Pratap, having the 'terrible, terrifying, traumatic' experience of Moti, was scared of the wild dogs every moment.
"Geez, Pratap, calm down." Naren said, after Pratap furiously screamed and tried to attack a rabbit, which he had mistaken for a dog. Ishar thought he would die of a heart attack.
However, even Ishar himself twas starting to be unnerved every second. He didn't know if anyone in the team noticed, but every now and then, he could spot weird scratches on the trees, so light that only a true observer could spot them.
It was always a bad sign whenever you spotted one of them. It was a sign of an ambush, of an attack, of a war.
After thirty minutes of silent following, Ishar was sure that Adinath and Venkatesh were planning to get them captured. Just as he was about to make a confrontation, the villagers stopped abruptly. They were in front of a big, rocky cliff, with vines tumbling down from the edges.
It was a dead end.