Prologue

Away in the Rockies... a hiker wanders alone...

‘I can’t believe we came for a hike without water!’ Stuart murmured away in disbelief while walking briskly through the forest of tall, evergreen trees. He had been travelling through those hilly wilds of Rockies for about an hour, without a sight of anything that looked like human.                          

His mind was filled with the evil curses for his beloved friends, owing to whose incomparable intelligence and absent mindedness; all of them were left in middle of indefinite acres of spiky, green canopy looking for a consumable water source. The morning breeze was the only reason because of which he was in condition to continue his search even after miles of walk on the irregular terrain.

By his left hand, he carried the empty water camper that his sister, also a fellow hiker, had mistakenly packed with the luggage instead of the one which was filled for the purpose. The unbelievable fact of the story was " they actually reached their hiking site without a clue of the mishap. How couldn’t she notice the difference in weight, the question was over his head.

Hence, passing through beautifully tiring mountainous regions, his search continued. He looked around as he walked on, his ears searching for babbling of water springs or flowing chatter of  a river at her young stage when, unimaginably, he reached a clear area. The labyrinth of wood had ended. But what stood in front of him was even more puzzling.

He was looking at a building, visibly belonging to medieval period of knights and wizards. It was standing there, magnificently glittering by the touch of sunlight of the morning sun. A steeple rose above from it and extended its cerise coloured spire towards the sky. It looked like a church, but does not felt like one. It had a strange aura and it was eerie and mysterious.

‘What is this? King Arthur’s summer castle?’ he said in bewildered voice and standing there, bug eyed, thinking if he had just discovered a mark of untold history in middle of one of the most admired hilly areas of world. He went closer for exploring. There were, however slim, chances of some inhabitants being there.

He reached to the entrance, which was an oak door, decorated with woodwork which definitely looked antique. The door knocker held a figurine of a book. With his mind firmly believing that the act was useless, he banged the door with knocker, just for sake of general etiquettes taught to him in his early years.

No response.             

Just to make it sure, the knocking was repeated but the response was not attained. With all his doubts clear about the place being now a member of empty heritages, he prepared himself to break his way in. He was preparing his shoulder for the paining job when

“Creeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeek”

He was made to jump out of his skin by a tired scream of the opening door. A little figure, about 3 feet tall appeared from the inside of the thought to be deserted building. He had a fresh face, curious smile and, the feature for which he had to look twice, blood red coloured eyes. So, the place was inhabited after all.   

Disappointed by the fact that his discovery was not really a discovery, Stuart gave a smile.

‘Hey kid, can you help with this water trouble? I and my friends have ruined a well- planned hike vacation as we brought an empty water camper, can you believe it! By the way, I’m Stuart. So, I was wondering if you people can give me a hand.’

For a minute he could see the kid blinking in clueless manner. Then in croaky voice heard the words ‘wat-er, wa-ter, what’s that?’

Stuart gave a nervous laugh, ‘Water... I said water... H2O.... You don’t know what water is? The thing that flows in rivers and falls during rain. The liquid stuff that we consume after eating food...’

                           

‘Food, you say. I don’t need food, I prefer Blood’ the inhabitant said with a twinkle in his eyes.

                                                               

‘Bl... Blood?’ Stuart turned pale ‘What do you mean?’ At once, everything could make sense. Of course, that could have been a vampire’s hideout. But no, he did not believed in vampires! But his imagination wandered in no other direction.

                           

‘I mean, let’s scrap out water and talk about breakfast’ the kid grinned, a sight at which Stuart made up his mind to  skip on his feet and run away all the way back home but emergence of another dweller made him stop.

                           

There came out a beautiful woman, with a glowing face at end of which had an angular chin at end and at top the beautiful blond hairs that flowed down to her waist. Other than the pair of smoky, black eyes, she also owned the monalisa smile which could ignite the fire of any artist’s heart.

‘Do not listen to him, sir. He’s kidding.’ The lady placed her hand on the dishevelled head of her little pal. Then she held out her hand ‘here, let me fill this up for you.                                                                

After sometime, Stuart had his container again, now filled with water. ‘He really got me there’ he gave out a fake giggle, even though his heart was still recovering from the almost attack it nearly got ‘we are going to have a barbecue, would you like to join?’

                           

‘Oh no, we are alright’ the fair maiden shook her head.

                           

‘Then we can bring something for you and this young man here.’ He insisted, at any cost, they had helped him.

                           

‘No, don’t bother; we’ll be moving away from here.’ She pulled the gate to close it.

                                                               

‘I meant today, within an hour.’ Stuart chuckled. It was impossible for him to imagine how they were going to pack all the things that would be in there and to think they were to abandon the place, even though rational, seemed absurd.

                                                              

 ‘I meant the same’ the woman gave a light smile as she closed the door.

                           

‘That was weird.’ He thought as he tried to make sense out of the sentence. He looked around and ran to a tree while producing a red handkerchief from his pocket, and tucked it on the bark ‘I’ll bring them something, after all.’

                            

The woman closed to door and started  arranging some books in the shelves when her little mate asked in thrilled voice, ‘Was you serious?’ his manner was full of excitement ‘the part where you said we were leaving?’

                          

  Without an answer, she continued her arrangement work. After completion she stood up and walked to a cupboard. She opened it and took out a huge hourglass which was decorated with antique carvings. The upper glass cup was dripping away the last of its golden sand in the lower glass cup.

                                                               

  ‘Oh! It’s already been a century!’ The kid exclaimed with a chuckle.

                          

  ‘Time does pass away fast.’ She said in a low voice and with a sudden jerk turned the instrument of time upside down.

=+++++=

‘I still can’t believe you were able to find people living in palace here!’ Stuart’s sister exclaimed as he told her about his strange discovery about the area they were going to have hike at.

‘Well, those people were cool. The kid almost froze me in fear; though’ Stuart chuckled ‘it’s nice you people found a spring of fresh water nearby. It would have been a shame, if we were to trouble them again. We’ll send them some grilled...'

  Suddenly a crackling sound echoed through the wild and a dazzling light covered the environment. It was so bright that they had to hide their faces away to save their ability to see. After five minutes of blazing, the show was over.

Slowly, they opened their eyes.

 

‘What was that?'

‘A lightning?’ Stuart’s friend guessed.

 ‘Now, wasn't it you, Robert who just thanked God for clear weather today?’ Stuart’s sister retorted.

They rushed to the direction they had seen the light emitted from. Stuart could see the rushing trunks of trees, bushes as he ran at fast pace hoping to find the source that almost blinded them. Among the rolling scenes, he noticed something that made him stop.

‘Stuart, what happened?’ others came to him ‘Stuart?’

 

But Stuart had his attention fixed on the endless wild that was in front of him.

‘Stuart, What is it?'

‘No... Nothing. I don’t know but this is supposed to be the place from where I got the water .’ He replied in trembling voice while picking up his handkerchief that was tucked on the tree. 

TO BE CONTINUED....

Author's Note

The prologue starts quiet away from the place the story is settled to be...