THE TRAP - FICTION

Note from Author : Eerr, Its a long read, so grab some popcorn and coke/coffee before you get started :-)


There she was, the girl of my dreams...
In love with her on first sight, I fell.
There she goes, as I follow...
My feelings for her, I couldn't tell.


And I followed her, the girl of my dreams.


She was the most beautiful girl that I had ever seen on this earth. Her large dark eyes on a soft pretty face hypnotized me every time I looked at her. Her lovely black hair that was always covered by a dark netted head scarf made her delicate features look even more prettier.

I fell in love with her right from the very first time I saw her join our class and sit quietly in one corner, away from everyone. She was a new student of that batch and new to the area as well. I saw her always alone and she didnt have much friends.
I wanted to make friends with her, but I was just too shy.

She intrigued me with her enthralling mystic beauty. I always had a big time crush on her but could never gather enough courage to tell her my feelings. I could only follow her around the campus like a faithful little puppy.

Days became Months as I continued being enchanted by her beauty. And now the news of her upcoming marriage shocked and bothered me.
So, that day after class I followed again, this time I followed her home.

❤❀❤
She lived in another, far away part of the city. There was a compound and inside she went. I followed her in.

It seemed like I had entered a totally different world. My mind told me to go back but my heart kept urging me to follow her. She kept walking in front of me, and I kept following while the passer-byes kept walking by on the busy narrow streets to and fro. Everyone seemed busy, barely noticing us. A strange 'hummm' noise resonated from the place.
Not distracted, I had eyes for none else but her, so I followed.

Slowly it became evening. She had become aware of me now. Suddenly she stopped in her tracks and she turned. And then, all of a sudden she ran towards me and hugged me tight. I was surprised. This, I had never expected. I felt her soft body against me, her fragrance mesmerized me.
Time stood still.

"You should've told me before," she said. I could feel her breath, her lovely warmth.
'"But now it's all too late. You should've never come here." Urgently she continued, "You have to go from here. At the earliest, else you'll never be able to get out from this place," she looked very worried.

"Why?" I asked, "I'll go back the way I had come."

In fact, the truth was I didn't want to go anywhere. Now that she was so close to me, I just wanted to hold her close like I was doing now, forever. It felt so good, so right to have her in my arms. I simply did not want to let her go.

"No!" she was saying, "they've locked the entrance now. Once you're inside you cannot get out, ever. You have to hurry."
I was surprised, I wanted to stay with her but she was right. She belonged to someone else now. There was no point in lingering on. So, indeed I had to leave.

"Wait!" she said, "There are two ways I know, how to go out from here. One is the graveyard way to the 'right'. But it is very stinky, filled with dead bodies and you have to be very quick and careful, otherwise you'll find it very hard to go out."

"Which is the other?" I asked.

"And other is the big wall to the 'left' that has some cracks on it but is heavily fortified with guards all the time. You can go out only when the guards change duty or are not watching properly or they are distracted.

"I'll choose the graveyard way," I told her.

She hugged me tight again.
"You're sure?" she asked.

I nodded my head.
"Be careful," she whispered and quickly she walked away.

I followed her for some time with a heavy heart not wanting to separate from her. She walked through the busy market place taking quick steps and ultimately vanished from my sight.

❤❀❤
It was dark now. I started walking 'right' towards the graveyard way to head back home. When I approached it, I saw a sign board outside that had 'Graveyard' written on it in bold. I went in and saw that it was a very strange graveyard. Not the ones I had usually seen.

Here to my utter surprise I saw that the dead were not buried, instead they were laid out in the open. The bodies lay on an elevated platform, some had dried up, some still dressed and some had turned skeletons. It was an unpleasant sight. There were countless bodies both human as well as carcasses of animals that I had to walk over to reach the end.
The stench of the place was nauseating and made me sick. It reeked morbid.
As I started walking, like a maze the pile of dead bodies simply grew overwhelmingly in numbers making it impossible to reach the end. Was there an end at all?

After hours of walking over them I seemed to reach nowhere. Exhausted now, I gave up and decided to take the other route i.e. the high fortified wall. I remembered her words that people could go outside through the cracks there, but only if the guards somehow missed observing.

I went back to the place where I had left her and now headed towards 'left' for the wall. The wall was huge and the cracks were many steps up. I saw people were walking up and down the steps of the wall, some sitting on the sides while some stood gossiping.
And the same intense 'hummm' noise buzzed in the air.

I decided to ask someone to guide me there. I approached a man standing nearby and told him that.

"It's impossible to go out, you must be dreaming," the man said, looking at me as if I lost it.

"But I have to," I replied quite frustrated now, "Please help me out."

"OK! But you must be quick and you'll have only one chance. Do as I say, follow me closely behind. I'll try to distract the guards and you can slip out.

"OK!" I agreed.

Suddenly he bolted up the steps. I heard some guards standing near the wall murmur, "He won't escape, will he?"

They had seen him run up. They got suspicious and two of them followed after the man quickly. While two of the other guards stayed behind. Hearing the guards, it slipped my mind completely for a while that I had to go after the man too. Instead, seeing the two guards behind I hesitated and thought it'd be better if I asked them politely to let me out. After all I had done no wrong.
There was no reason why I shouldn't be let out.

With that thought, I began to walk towards the two guards. But, just then a swarm of people walked by in front of me out of nowhere, and by the time they passed, those two guards were no more in sight. I searched for them, looked all around my sides, they were just not there anymore.

I stopped a girl who was going up the steps and said to her, "My friend has gone up to the cracks, please tell him that I've decided to ask the guards myself to let me out. So, he can come back and do thank him for his help on my behalf."

She agreed with a smile and went up. Meanwhile I started to search the guards but no one was there. I asked the people around if they saw those guards, they shook their heads. No one did. Confused, I decided to go up to the cracks myself.

Once there, I saw many guards, who were in uniform and holding guns. They were standing guarding the cracks and it was simply impossible to go past them.
Just then, I saw the man who had agreed to help me. He was walking down the steps with the girl whom I had just sent up with my message. I had only one chance, he had said and I had lost it by being distracted. Now that chance was gone. He didn't even look at me now, he won't help me again!
No one will help me, I thought.


Disillusioned, I walked down the steps, back to the market place where I had last seen her.

❤❀❤
I didn't know how to get out of that place. I felt trapped. I was trapped.
I walked to the entrance of the compound that I first walked in when I had followed her earlier that afternoon.
Huge, tall and thick iron gates stood padlocked heavily. There was an army of guards here too now, barricading the place. They moved about alert, patrolling. They would not let me out, I thought miserably.

I walked around the boundary wall. It was a huge place. I walked some more wondering if I'll ever be able to get out, till I reached a particular spot.
In one corner of the wall, there was lot of commotion going on. A huge electrical tower had fallen from outside and a large crowd had gathered to see the repair work being done. Everyone was talking and discussing looking at the fallen tower in wonder.

I saw some boys standing near the metal fence of the wall. I asked one of the boys what happened. He said that the tower had fallen inside the compound and it was being quickly repaired so that no one gets harmed.
I asked him if there was a way to go out.

He laughed out as he said, "No chance! Are you crazy? Once you are in, you cannot go out from here in this lifetime."
"Please help me," I said, "I need to get out. I don't like it in here."

I had tears in my eyes looking desperate and pleading to get out.

He looked at me closely for a while studying my face carefully before saying, "There's one way. But you must be quick and once you are out you cannot come in. Clear?"

Relieved! I said okay. I didn't want to get back in here anyways. Any way I can get back home is good for me, I thought.

With the loud crowd so distracted, nobody really aware of us, the boy quickly pulled up one corner of the fence that he was standing by.

"Be quick," he said, as he showed me the small escape.

I quickly ducked, slid through and moved out of the little hole that he had made by folding the fence up. He closed the fence back firmly after me.

❤❀❤
And finally, I was out of the place. Hurray! I could breathe free now. It was so good to be out at last. I ran towards home.
I ran as fast as I could.

But suddenly I came to a screeching halt because just in front of me was a thousand feet deep fall. One more step and I'd have fallen to my death.

"Just in time, you nearly broke your neck," a man nearby was saying.

I looked at him, he was an old man. He was looking at the deep fall now, shaking his head and then looked at me.
"Everybody experiences that, once they escape from there," he pointed towards the compound I had just escaped from. "Many fall right into it any way, and few like you and me are lucky to remain alive or ....maybe not."

I did not understand what he was saying. Where was I? I thought.

Seeing the confused look on my face, the man then showed me around where I was standing. I was standing on a tiny piece of land with thousand feet deep falls from all the sides and at one end stood the gigantic fortified compound which I had escaped. There was just a handful of people ( barely 5-6 ) scattered around where I stood outside on that little piece of land, while the cheering crowd was inside the compound.
They had repaired the electric tower that had fallen and everyone was cheering that.
And then suddenly all was quiet. The crowd had become silent and everyone had gone their own ways.

"You cannot go anywhere from here now," the man was saying. I looked at him incredulously for an explanation. Which he gave!

"It is the punishment for those who try to escape," he paused a while and said pointing towards the compound. "You cannot go back in there as well and no one will listen to you now. You are trapped here for life."
After that, he then walked away.


"Wait! Stop...," I said. But he didn't. He simply ignored me and kept walking away from me.
No one will listen to me now, he had said.


I stood looking around me hopelessly. Indeed I was trapped and there was no escape now.
I thought about the girl of my dreams, following whom had led me to where I was and whom I'd never see... again....

❤❀❤
If only I had listened to my head and not heart and not followed her...but it was too late now for regrets. I was trapped.

Copyright 2013 © Nandini Deka

P.S : This is a work of fiction and bears no resemblance to anyone living or dead.
( Images - Google )

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