Chapter 10: The Wasp

It was eleven a.m. in the afternoon, and the sun was high in the sky. At first, he wanted to head home, but he changed his mind and headed toward the hills because he had gone there with his friends when he was younger and because it wasn't too far from his house. It used to take him about thirty minutes to walk there.

Rajgarh town was basically a hilly area and there were hills after hills so it was natural for the children to go for picnics in groups.

So he went and got on the peak of one of the hills since they already have a manmade route to reach the peak which was there so it was not that difficult to reach the peak.

He used to come to this spot since childhood since this was a place from where you get such a nice grand view of the town from above. Sometimes he used to come with Abhimanyu, his best friend or alone if he was not in a good mood.

Bharat was really saddened by the breakup as he did not know what to do so he just sat there looking at the view pondering over the situations in his life. Firstly his dad lost his job, then he was rejected in college selection, afterwards his dad had a heart attack and became disabled, then his girlfriend had also left him and now he has to leave his hometown as well.

Bharat thought: "Why is all this happening to me and my family? I thought at the very least Pallavi was my childhood friend so she will be there beside me whatever happens however she too left me. I had misjudged her previously. She would not be satisfied with me even if I tried to provide her everything but that Dennis could; therefore I believe it was for the best that she went. I hope she has success in life."

He sat there for hours pondering over the situations since the next day he will be moving out to a different location altogether with his family so he will not be able to visit this place. When it was around four in the evening and the sun started to set down, he got up to return to his home otherwise his parents may be worried for him.

As he was about to go back, he observed a bug perched on a large, smooth stone next to a tree. It may have been there for hours before he noticed it, but now that the sun was setting and the light was growing darker, he could understand that a blue light was coming from the insect and that it was different from a firefly because it was much brighter than one. He was able to notice it now because of the glow that was coming from it, but earlier he may not have noticed it because of too much sunlight.

Bharat wondered and a series of thought crossed his mind: "What kind of insect is this it seems like a firefly no a firefly is a lot smaller and less brighter than this however this one seems to be about the size of a human finger and the blue glow is also so bright I have never seen this kind of insect before. Is it poisonous or harmful or is it safe to go near and touch it?"

Bharat then noticed that the glow was not coming from the insect rather it was coming from its eyes as it had blue eyes which were glowing as if it was attracting Bharat towards it and the insect wanted Bharat to go near it so the curiosity got better of him and he went near it as if he was hypnotized by the insect.

Unexpectedly as he was drawing closer to the stone on which the insect was on, it began to fly in his direction and approached him, hovering right in front of his eyes.

Bharat noticed: "Hey this one is actually looking like a wasp, no it cannot be a wasp because wasps are not this big and they do not emit blue lights from its eyes."

For a little period, Bharat gazed into the blue eyes of the bug that was floating right in front of him and emitting blue light, yet he was immobile out of a mixture of fascination and nervousness. Then there was a flash from the insect's eyes and everything turned blue as if the entire world was blue. Bharat then appeared to have no ground beneath him and he just began to fall, not knowing where he was falling or how long he was falling for because it seemed like he had lost all sense of time. Abruptly he came to a stop and found himself floating in space, surrounded by bright stars and able to make out a far-off planet that was orange in color.

Bharat wondered: "What happened, did the insect poison me and cause me to have hallucinations or am I dead? Why am I in this state of floating in space?"

He was growing increasingly agitated as time passed since he was curious as to why he was suddenly floating in space and what had happened to him.

Initially he was nervous as he wanted to know where he had come or what was happening however after being floating there in space for some time he mustered his courage and shouted: "Anybody there? Where am i? Why am I here?"

However it seemed like no one was there to answer his questions or to bring him out of this situation. Miraculously he was in space and there was no oxygen however Bharat was still alive. Also it seemed that it did not make any difference since Bharat did not need to breathe there. Time seemed to stop like that and he did not know how much time had passed, however it seemed it must be for a few days as he was floating like that in space. He did not know what to do or how to escape from this situation.

Then all of a sudden, there was an abundance of blue light everywhere. It was as though Bharat had to close his eyes because he could not keep them open in the intense blue light. When Bharat was finally able to open his eyes, the light gradually began to fade. That time, he observed that there was an enormous wasp that had been hovering in front of him which was either the same one or a different one since it had a humongous body. Because of its enormous size, Bharat appeared to be hovering between the Wasp's blue eyes rather than in front of them. This is because the Wasp appeared to be so much larger than Bharat, giving the impression that Bharat was smaller than its eyes.

Bharat started to feel a bit scared since the Wasp was looking at him with those big eyes with blue lights emitting from it and he did not know what was going on. He wanted to ask the wasp what was going on however he did not know whether the wasp would be able to understand him or not after all it was just an insect, a very big wasp and insects are not expected to have human intelligence or does it have any intelligence he could not ascertain. It could also be possible that this wasp was actually an alien and had a high intelligence but it just looked like a wasp or probably the wasps were formed from this alien species. Maybe this alien had come to earth sometime and after breeding the different kinds of wasps were formed on earth which we see nowadays.

The wasp kept on staring at Bharat and Bharat also could feel the wasp's stare on himself as if the wasp was scanning and scrutinizing him very carefully and looking for something then unexpectedly there was a flash from the blue eyes of the Wasp and blue rays of light started to fall on Bharat furthermore he felt like he was being given an electric shock and experienced immense pain as if his body was getting burned alive on that occasion due to the pain he felt he fainted and everything became black then after god knows how much time he started getting his consciousness back and when he slowly opened his eyes it felt like as if he was getting up from a very deep sleep and was on his bed at home.

But he found himself lying on the grass on the peak of the mountain a bit away from the big stone beside the tree. He could see that it was still evening and the sun had not set properly, however it started to get dark. He got up on his feet and looked around for the wasp, however he could not find any trace of it in the surroundings. Also he checked himself and he found nothing out of the ordinary since there was no injury on him nor he could feel any kind of pain in his body.

Bharat wondered: "Where did the wasp go? What just happened now and what was all that about?"

While he was wondering about the wasp he checked the time and found that it was only four thirty pm in the evening that means not much time has passed till now but so much happened as if it was all a dream and it felt like a few days have passed however now it looks like only few hours have passed so it could be possible that it was just a hallucination or a dream. He started to wonder if any of this was true however he felt like he definitely saw the wasp and the events which happened were all true. At that point of time he remembered that he had to go home also since it was already four thirty in the evening and it was becoming a bit dark and the sun was low in the sky. So he started walking towards his home.