In the Palace

Walking unsteadily through the corridor, he entered into another hall which was double the size of the hall they had visited first.

“Oh God!”, exclaimed Shreya. “This hall is bigger, bigger than my home. I have never seen such a large hall.”

“I do”, added  Aditya. Flashing light on the ground, he walked inside the hall; shreya followed him. His eyes drifted on the pavement in center, which was  larger than a bus. He walked unsteadily towards it, because the floor was instilled with sand and pebbles. He flashed torch back on shreya.

“Hay! Here is a large pavement, wanna see it?” asked Aditya, standing near the pavement, observing that the height of the pavement was more than his own.

Flashing light on the pavement, shreya walked nearer.  Aditya saw a stone pillar on the pavement. He walked round the pavement, searching for something. Finally, standing at a point, he called Shreya,“ See, here is a stone ladder to ascend.”

He ascended on the pavement followed by Shreya. Flashing the torch around, he saw, on the side hand of the pavement, many small square pavements. They were present at an equal distance from each other,  on either side of the large pavement “What the hell, they used to do here”, Aditya thought.

“There is something inscribed on this stone pillar.”, uttered Shreya.

He noticed, there were small symbols inscribed, all around the stone pillar, but he could not understand its meaning. “Can you read it?”, he asked.

“No. But I am sure, it is written in ‘Pali’, an ancient Indian language, used before Sanskrit was popular.”

Aditya strolled around the pavement, flashing light on walls. “There is something evil about this place.”, he thought. What a damn place, all dark and terrible.

“Let’s get back”
“Can’t we see another room?”, asked Shreya.

Aditya could not deny her childish request and they again came in the corridor; Aditya walking ahead and Shreya following him. After a while, he took a left turn, then a right. “ It is a long corridor”, he thought. We had been walking for long, but no other room so far.” He glanced at shreya. “ She is a brave and foolish girl; brave because she is not afraid of this grim palace, and foolish because she can’t think that I can do thing with her; no one can help her in this lonely place.”
Finally, his torch flashed on an entrance. Walking in, he saw identical carved portraits on the rock wall near the roof;  the portraits reflected a man of heavy mustache and wide eyes, wearing a crown. Aditya noticed, each crown had embedded pearls and shining emeralds. He flashed the light straight on wall. To his amazement, there was a rock sculpture on the same man as carved in the portrait. The man in the sculpture seemed cunning and crafty, But the thing attracted his attention most was the golden crown on its head, which had a wall-nut shaped emerald embedded.

“Shreya, look, here is the sculpture of the king, king of this palace” said he, while his eyes still glued at the crown. “If I steal this crown”, thought he. “I can make good money out of it. The crown would worth half a million or more than that; may be, the emerald itself would worth a million; After all, it was embedded in king’s crown.”

He flashed the torch back to see Shreya, but she was not there.
“Shreya!  Come in. “ , he cried. “ I have found something that will help you score an ‘A’ on your project. Come in, what are you doing out?

No reply, no sound came indeed. Aditya trotted out of the room; flashed light on either side of the entrance. There was no one. No reflection of torch neither a sound was audible except for his noisy breathing.

“Where the damn, that girl went”, he thought. “she was walking behind me, she went astray, something happened to her, damn, why she didn’t call me then.” Aditya was shaking his head in irritation, sweat dribbling down his face on the sand. Suddenly his torch turned off. He shook it, patted on the his palm, but nothing worked.

Now, he was all alone, standing in the corridor of a ghastly palace. His companion had gone astray or might have died, perhaps, out of terror. For a moment, he could not think anything. He stood blank with wide opened eyes, searching for something in the dead dark silence. When his consciousness returned, he could hear his pounding heart beats like a train running on track. He was shuddering, so he crouched down and tried to calm down.

“You have to control yourself” , he started talking to himself. “ It was just a co-incidence, the battery went low;  shreya might have returned. She called you, perhaps, but you couldn’t hear because you were way ahead. It is all just a co-incidence. in vain, you are frightened.”

Suddenly,  he heard a hissing sound; something passed beside his feet. He hurriedly jumped, dashed his head to the stone wall in front and lost his consciousness. When he opened his eyes, his head was aching as if someone were hitting his head with a hammer. He pressed his head tightly. Noticing the wet hand, the past reflection flashed in front of his eyes.

He placed hands in the sand where he his head had lied on the ground and found it completely wet. He started crawling like an infant, blood dribbled through his head. He had not gone a far ahead, when a pebble pierced his palm. He spelled a poignant shriek; tears filled his eyes, slowly made their way through the nose down on sand. for a while, he sit there groaning and whimpering. Then, Holding wall, he somehow managed to stand up and started moving ahead unsteadily, , keeping hands on the wall. The wall felt dank and smelt musty. Both blood and tears dribbled down continuously. he was moving ahead slowly, but luckily he was moving; his eyes getting heavier with each step and finally, he just banged on the ground.


When Aditya opened his eyes, he found shreya and prof. Sharma standing in  his front. He noticed, kavita and little anand beside him. He was lying on bed in City Hospital. He touched his aching head covered with bandages. Dr told him that he would be all right in a week.

Little anand caressed his face and asked, “ Does it pain to much, dad?”
“No man and don’t worry, I will be ok soon”, replied Aditya. He looked at shreya with questioning eyes.

she explained that she had seen a sculpture in the corridor and was glued to it. When she called him, he had gone ahead, out of her sight so she returned.

“I am really sorry for it”, she said. “later, workers heard your shriek and found you bloodstained on the ground. Your head was severely injured so we directly brought you here.”

“What happened there, how did you get injured?”, asked kavita.

“That’s a long story”, said Aditya smilingly.