Monday, February 05, 2007

All in the Game – part V

When Anil came back to his senses, he was lying on his back near a small river. There was peace and serenity all around and he could feel that there would be daybreak very soon. Although there was no bright light, it was lot less dark and he could see the things around, albeit everything looked hazy. He rose from his position and sat. He could see that he was in a forest of some kind. There were primarily a lot of shrubs with quite a few trees thrown around randomly. A river was flowing peacefully nearby and his view was restricted to a few tens of meters due to the density of vegetation around him.

As he was scouting the landscape with his eyes he could see a dark figure moving towards him. It was Imran.

Suddenly all the happenings of the previous day flashed before him. The onsite offer, his preparations, the take off, the hijack and finally horrific crash. He could feel his body shivering involuntarily as his mind went through the memories of the crash. By the time Imran had reached closer.

“Imran!!!!!! My God !! Are you alright???? Where…What……What happened man??”

For which Imran turned towards Anil. Anil couldn’t note the expression in his face due to darkness but he was sure that Imran hadn’t lost his composure.

“I am not entirely sure. I can only make an educated guess based what I had pieced together.” Said Imran.

“God!!!!!!!! Cut the crap Imran!! You are not talking to your boss. Just tell me what happened” replied Anil.

“Alright listen. You must be quite clear upto the point when the plane was hijacked. I think there must have been some attempt to overpower the hijackers in the business class or by the pilots in the cockpit. That’s when you felt as if the plane had caught in turbulence. As the struggle went on the guy from our economy class went to support his comrades. I think there must have been bigger struggle then which ended with a bullet being fired which could have broken the window glass.

“Due to this or some other reason the airframe must have been compromised due to which the plane descended .After all, sonny!!! Whatever goes up! must come down. Then there was boom!” so saying he clapped his hands as if he was playing cymbals!

“How are we here???what happened to the others?”Anil was too surprised.

“As the plane started its descent the airframe was getting more and more damaged as more and more air got sucked out of the plane. Any non rigid portion, like the doors were dislocated. This led to lot of holes in the plane. The ones who had not fastened their seat belts were thrown out of the plane through these holes and fell to death into this thick forest. We were saved as we were clutching the armrests like we were clinging for our dear lives”

“My god”, Anil closed his eyes as he tried to imagine the horrific scene.

Imran continued.

“but soon you became unconscious and your grasp on to the armrest weakened. And you started falling. I tried to catch and while doing that I lost my hold on the armrest as well. After being juggled into the plane we were thrown out of the plane. But by then the plane had almost reached the ground and we fell into a river. Any fall into water with such high speed will be like hitting into concrete. But the strong currents transported us for a while before we reached this calm part of the river. The plane touched down and was dragged on to the ground for a few meters before it blew into a huge ball of fire over there!!!!!! “

Imran pointed his finger onto a direction where Anil could see a fair amount of smoke rising up in a distance.

“Man!!!!!!! I cant believe it. Whatever you are saying is like its straight from a kollywood* or tollywood* movie” remarked Anil.

“agreed! all this sounds too flashy and dramatic but just because they sound that way doesn’t mean that it cannot happen” Imran replied!!!

“Hmm we are quite a long way away from the wreckage , isn’t it??” Anil asked with doubt ”how are we ever gonna reach there?”

“You can either swim upstream against the heavy current in this river or you can walk through this thick jungle by somehow finding your way through the trees and tons and tons of shrubs”

“oh my God!!!!!!!!!!! Are we going to die here??????????? I always knew this onsite offer shall be tough but I never prepared for this”

“Shut up!! I hate it when people crib!! Look at the beautiful sunrise.”he was pointing to the orangish pattern in the sky on top of distant hills.

“hey idiot , is that the only thing you can think of??? How will we get back , what are we going to eat?? Who knows where we are!! May be there will be wild animals here or even cannibals”

As he was speaking they could hear some ruffling sound nearby!!

Imran instantly became attentive and asked Anil to keep quiet by pressing his finger on to his lips.

Anil became silent and got behind Imran. As both of them were looking around for a clue, Imran turned to Anil and said in a low voice”Anil ,can you please walk upto the bush and see whether there is anything behind it?”

Upon this Anil was scared to his limits but he didn’t want to show it ”wh..whaat…what??? me?? Mme mmmme?? Why ..i mean.yeah sure ………..why not????he he” so saying he started to walk slowly toward the bush.

But before Anil could even reach the place he could hear a sudden sound of leaves rubbing against each other and then a huge scream.

He turned back to see Imran near another bush. He ran to the spot and saw Imran looking behind the bush with disbelief and a bit of guilt. There was a girl fainted behind the bush.

“Anil, could you please bring in some water??”

Anil ran upto the river and tried to scoop some water in his palms and bring it to Imran but the water drained off as he walked. He soon found a huge leaf nearby and brought some water in it to Imran.

“Think she must be one of survivors of the crash. I must have scared her. Poor thing, she already must have been confused.” So saying he sprinkled some water on to her face.

The girl sat up with a jerk as she regained her consciousness.

“Do not be afraid. My name is Imran and this is Anil. We are the survivors of the plane crash” so saying he pointed to the direction of the wreckage.

“My name is ……. My name is Puja.I………..I……….” she was struggling a breathe.

“Cool down and relax we can kinda figure out what happened and iam fairly sure that it must be the same as what we went through!!” so saying he smiled assuringly.

Puja smiled back palely but she looked very tired and closed her eyes.

Both guys decided to leave her alone for a while.


Imran looked around the forest. He had no clue what to do next!
To be continued………



· All in the Game - part I

· All in the game – part II

· All in the game – part IV

· All in the Game – part V

· All in the Game – part VI

· All in the Game – part VII

· All in the Game – part VIII

· All in the Game – part IX

· All in the game – part X

· All in the game – part XI

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