THE CIRCLE OF DECEIT
Kalakar Colony
Round-2
Chapter
11
Roohi
and Krishna
Read Chapter-10 here
“How
did you find me, Krishna?” Roohi was eager.
“Run,”
he said.
“Tell
me how you found me,” she insisted.
“Run,”
the young man only said.
The
sun was red hot and the road was a black oven fuming with vengeance. The road
seemed to be a forgotten bypass to some old work site. Roohi felt her soft paws
heating up inside the flat-black school shoes.
“Where
are we going Krishna?” Roohi mumbled. Krishna, this time, did not say a word.
Roohi felt safe in the tight grip on her right arm. The young man with a single
shiny metal earring didn’t seem to give up on her, when no one else showed
signs of looking for Roohi.
“No
one wants me Krishna,” Roohi managed to utter through a hardened throat and
shivering lips.
Roohi’s
mind wandered into a dream she had. The crowd of people moving away. Then she
thought about the photographer. Then the man with the fair neck and bullet
pendant. Her thoughts were crowded. But the faces of her father and mother
still squeezed in. Those two faces made her cry.
“You
have no manners, Krishna...no mutual respect,” Roohi complained. The two ran on
the narrow blacktop road towards what seemed to be a white sky and a few tree
lines. Was the sea beyond that tree line?
Roohi wondered. Where was she? She didn’t know. Perhaps, Krishna does.
“Manners…?
Why...What did I do?” Krishna slowed down for a breath.
“I
am tired...I am dying…,” Roohi said.
“What
did I do…? We have to reach to my bike!” the young man kept saying.
“Don’t
scare me, you understand? I am NOT being kidnapped. It’s a game I play with my
grandpa...” Roohi admonished him in a way only kids can. Kids who do not understand much.
“Where
shall we go now, Krishna?”
“To
a safer place,” he said.
They
heard a bike revving up in the distance. Roohi looked at the white sky at the
distance, where the road went up the hill. There
must be ocean beyond the treetops.
“Run!”
She heard Krishna command.
To be continued Here
Thank you for reading.
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