{CHAPTER-4} Pt-2 The person I care for

It may be... was the building in the back yard, the 'missing classroom'...

I let the curiosity get the best of me and unnoticingly entered the building for which felt like lost and abandoned... like it had been there for several years, which had seen the flow of time at its very best from the closest... all alone in that place.

That building felt uniquely aged and something of the sort that I or maybe anyone had never noticed from the outside of the school campus.

The building gave off a unique mystique scent...

It led to more hallways, but this time they were even more complicated than the last ones, they felt chokingly narrowed and seemed as if they were unending.

More than a hallway it felt like the threads of a knitter entangled into a jumble of passageways, which had no beginning or end.

Among this hassle of mine came a voice, a voice so soothing that it made my heart stirring with unease melt with comfort.

It was a person behind me; it was a girl... an extremely beautiful one at that. Her face felt familiar, even though I have never met someone like her in my entire life.

Her face, so strikingly gorgeous, for some reason kind of reminded me about that man in the raincoat. Her long shiny silver hair, just like the rays of moonlight, tied around with her black hair ribbons. Her bloody red eyes felt so deep as if I could drown right into it, they were as addictive as a glass of finely aged red wine.

"I am Veris, don't you remember" she replied with a smile.

I must have had an extremely confused look on my face for her to reply...

"Of course, you won't, will you?"

"Huh" was the only thing I could say in return.

She smiled at me, and it was heart-melting, I don't even know her but it felt like a long-awaited reunion with someone close and important to me.

The way she just looked at me and smiled every now and then, just felt familiar as if I have had this kind of conversation with this person many times before...

"Do I know you?" I asked.

"Do you? I wonder" she replied jokingly.

We had been talking to each other while walking in some direction whatsoever, the passages which first seemed unending now seemed to be finally reaching their end destinations.

"Where are we going?" I asked her.

"Oh, you will know soon, after all, it is your favorite place or should I say it used to be"

A room appeared on our right; it was a library a quite grand one at that, at its starting was placed a humongous 'Grandfather clock', I don't quite remember the time it was showing but it was most probably nearing noon time.

We traversed the library going through all the kinds of corners and shelves looking at the unique books present there, the books there seemed very different, quite fantasy and otherworldly like actually, the books were based on themes like 'The truce of the races of the earth', 'The great war', 'The passage to the other side, 'The lost words', 'those enchanting memories'...

All of these books were from authors that I had never heard about before; they felt really unknown to me.

But somehow, it felt quite very nostalgic to read books like this in this library along with Veris. It had its own somber feeling which felt as if I had been missing it for a very long time.

"Here, it's your favorite book, isn't it," Veris said to me while handing me a book titled "%%#&!(*&(@".

It was indecipherable to me, I couldn't read it...

"I am unable to read its title," I said to Veris...

It seemed as if she's been expecting that,

"He he" she giggled, "don't worry you will be able to read it when the time comes" she followed.

"What do you mean?" I asked her.

"Is there anyone inside?" came a voice from the hallway outside, I felt like our principal's voice...

"The time is coming soon... Karna, you will soon understand and remember everything, I will meet you soon... but not in your dreams this time... till then take care of that book and yourself as well"

"Remember the date 22nd of May, at the old shrine in the woods... where our promise began, I will be waiting for you there Karna"

"Hey, you! Boy! What are you doing here, alone in this library?" said a figure standing on the library door, It was the school principal.

"Alone?" I questioned all puzzled, and then I turned around to find nothing but the bookshelves standing tall.

"Hey, you, what are you doing here? I suppose your classroom is not in this building? You should not be here, you should go back to your class immediately at once, and what are these student notebooks in your hands, aren't you going to deliver them to their rightful places?"

I just stood there dumbstruck; many things had happened at once, Veris had suddenly disappeared after abruptly ending our conversation on a weird note and had handed me a book which I couldn't even read along with the class notebooks that I had completely forgotten about and still needed to deliver.

Along with all of this confusion, I still did not understand that how in the world she knew my name and what she was talking about and how could she have known about the shrine hidden in the woods...

All of these questions were confusing enough to make me faint on my standing feet. And just like that...

Ting Ting~~~~!!!!! Ting Ting~~~~!!!!!

Ahh... ahhh... huff...

I wake up gasping for air, drenched in sweat, while my alarm clock screams waking me from another piece of a dream...

A tsunami of emotions and feelings like anxiety, excitement, happiness, and anticipation came flooding over...

.

.

.

.

Just to ask the questions...

Who was she?

How did she know about me?

Will I meet her again?

.

.

.

I want to meet her again, for real this time.

The journey to the woods begins...

Writer's note

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