"Oi! Isn't this a really bad idea?" I asked in panic as I saw his climbing down the pipes.
"Not really. We used to do this all the time when we're kids. Don't tell me you're gone soft after all these years." He mocked after reaching the bottom of the pipes.
"You know that's not what I'm talking about." I caught the pipe firmly and slid down to the bottom in one full motion at a faster speed than him.
'How dare he say that I've gone soft.' I cursed in my mind. But I knew that my pride was not the most important thing right now.
"Rahul. Aren't you going to pay the bills of the hospital?" I asked as I observed the surroundings. It was a rather dark environment with a few light bulbs here and there. I saw four line of cars in the dark room which told me that we're in the underground parking lot.
'Why does he wants to go home in such a hurry? What is he afraid of?' I thought.
Earlier when I told him that we had to pay the bills and wait a while longer before he could be discharged from the hospital, he got irritated and said that he wanted to get back home as soon as possible.
So we ran to the back of the hospital where no one would be able to see us and climbed down from the pipes.
"Isn't what we're doing kinda… bad?" Indeed, running out of the hospital without paying the necessary bills in a bit more than just bad. I'm pretty sure we're breaking some kind of law right now.
I looked around and realized that we're in the underground Parking lot of the Hospital.
Rahul stopped fiddling around with the car and turned around to look at me deeply.
He looked at me with a complicated emotion. As if fighting the urge to tell me something. But then, he shook his head and closed his eyes. When he opened his eyes once again, there was a hint of aloofness in them as he said in a tone filled with mockery "You've really gone soft. And here I thought that you still had some courage in you."
'Oi oi oi. What do you even mean by that. Wasn't it always you who stopped me from doing mischievous things time and time again. Wasn't it always you who reprimanded me for setting up a bad example for little Neha. Isn't what you're doing right now even worse than the mischiefs that I caused back in the school.'
Tock! I heard a sound and was shocked as he opened the door and entered the car.
'Wait! Did he just break into that car.' I was shocked by his actions once again. And while I was having such thoughts, he quickly searched inside the car and found the spare key after which he started at engine and looked at me with a mocking smile.
"You're gonna sit or not. Soft Boy."
'Did you just call me a Soft Boy? How dare you. I'll show you who's soft.' I murmured and went around and sat on the seat next to him.
I suddenly had the feeling that I was somehow be fooled into forgetting something important, but I was too mad to consider such things anymore. How dare he call me Soft.
But then again. Stealing someone's car was pretty hardcore. I felt a sense of exhilaration as he pushed the accelerator and went out of the underground garage with a Vhoom! sound.
"Rahul. When did you learn how to drive a car?" I asked as he drove the car to the main highway. "Why didn't you take me with you to learn as well." I suddenly had the feeling that there were a lot of things I didn't knew about him.
'Was he really a businessman.' I suddenly had a thought in my mind
'What kind of businessman knows how to break into a car in 2 minutes.' I thought in puzzlement. 'He's not working for some kind of underground organization is he?' I scrutinized his face closely, trying to pry into his secrets.
After all, this was the first time I had seen this side of him.
"Rahul. I never knew you're capable to such things. You really hid yourself well."
"Haha. You're observant." Rahul laughed in wiped the sweat off his forehead. I wondered what he's thinking right now.
'He's looking really suspicious ah.' I thought but suddenly I realized that something was wrong.
I looked outside and realized that the world had suddenly become a bit darker.
'Oi Don't tell me it's going to rain or something. Wasn't the weather perfectly clear when I entered the hospital.'
I looked up and realized that there were no clouds in the sky.
"What the hell is going on?" I asked myself.
"It's a solar eclipse." I heard Rahul's voice but, the voice had a grave tone to it.
I looked at his face and realized that his expression had gone dark as well. For some reason, it gave me a bad premonition.
"Solar eclipse. Such a dark solar eclipse. How come the news didn't report about anything like this." I looked out of the car once again and asked.
"Call little Neha" Rahul said in a grave tone instead of answering my questions.
"Why?" I asked. "What does this has to do with her?"
"Don't ask so many questions. Just call her." He replied with an annoyed expression.
"Alright." I replied and dialed her number in my smartphone.
After I passed the phone to Rahul, I looked outside the window and suddenly felt that the atmosphere had become a bit colder.
'Well, it's just a solar eclipse. It should subside in a few minutes.' I thought.
—————
Half an hour later
"Oi Rahul what are you taking all these supplies for?" I asked in puzzlement as I looked at him buying miscellaneous things like first aid kit, pain killers, vitamin supplements, high calorie food, antibiotics, bleach, etc.
But I got reply in return. He just continued to buy all the stuff with a grave expression. He had used almost all of the money from his bank account but I could tell that his grave expression was not because of a concern for money.
When our parents died, we often had to go through money problems. But even in those dire moments, he never showed such an expression in front of me and Neha.
It was not the first shop he had stopped in either. I looked at the back seat of the car. It was filled things like tracking bag, thin blankets, matches, ropes, one person tents, basic cooking equipment and so on.
"Are you planning on going on tracking or something." I asked to lighten the heavy atmosphere even though I could tell that he was not buying these for tracking. It felt like he was preparing for something instead.
I looked up and the sky which was still as dark as before. For some reason, the solar eclipse had lasted for an entire 30 minutes.
'I thought that solar eclipses only lasted for a few minutes before this event. This is really strange.' I thought and shivered a bit. The temperature had fallen a bit more in the past ten minutes.
'Maybe I was just ill informed?' I thought to myself but deep down, I knew that such was not the case. I could feel that something bad was happening. I didn't knew what it was just yet but I could feel it.
Something bad was coming. And a single look at Rahul's grave face confirmed my suspicions.
I looked at the news reporter in the TV speaking as she read the report.
"Indian Meteorological Department has just reported that this is a type of solar eclipse that only happens once in a million years. It has been reported that it will stay like this for an unknown amount of time."
"People are suggested to stay in their houses as 68 cases of thieves and robbery has been reported in the last half an hour in Delhi." She spoke calmly but I feel a hint of fear in her voice.
'What I she afraid of?' I thought to myself but suddenly, I heard a loud crashing sound coming from the other side of the streets.
I squinted my eyes and saw a few hooligans breaking into a Smartphone store.
'What the hell. Aren't they a bit too bold to be performing robbery so openly. What the hell is the police department doing.'
"Ignore them." I heard a voice coming from behind me. I turned around and before I could speak anything, I was handed a big polythene bag filled to the brim with medical stuff.
"Keep that in the back of the car. Be quick." He said and headed to start the car.
"Sir you haven't paid for the supplies." I heard the store manager's voice coming from behind me as I kept the polythene bag in the back seat and then sat down on the front seat beside the driver's seat.
After a few moment, I looked back at the store and found that the Manager had fallen on the ground and was trembling in fear for some reason. Rahul came to the car and started the engine following which, we quickly left the area.
'This is not a matter of being softcore of hardcore anymore. This is pure robbery. What's Rahul thinking?' I looked at him but he was solely focused on the road.
Although I felt pity for the Medical Store Manager, I felt even more worried about our own situation.
"Rahul. Why didn't you pay him?" I finally asked in a low voice.
"Didn't have enough money?" he calmly replied.
"But… Wouldn't the police come after us. They had CCTV cameras in their store. And we're not hiding our faces either."
Before he could answer I saw a group of people wearing hoods standing in the road side throw a hand made Molotov cocktail into someone's house. After the first one, a few more Molotov cocktails were thrown and the house quickly caught fire.
I looked at the scene in shock.
They were shouting curses at the owner of the house. I could feel the hate in their voices. But… 'Aren't they a bit too bold.'
'What is the police department doing? What's up with the Solar eclipse. And why are the people in the city suddenly acting this way.' I had a lot of questions in my mind but no answers.
"You do not need to worry about it." Rahul said in a calm manner. "The police will not come after us." His voice was calm but it was full of confidence. As if he knew what would happen in the future.
I felt a bit better when he said that and believed that the police really won't come after us. But that still didn't decrease the bad premonition in was feeling my heart.
—————
I looked at the watch in the car. It showed 4:47 pm.
We've been driving for a long time now. And by a long time, I meant 10 to 15 minutes. But those few minutes indeed start to seem like a long time when the driver of your car is intent on getting into an accident.
I looked outside once more. The darkness had not only not subsided but had increased instead.
It should be evening right now but the sky was darker than the darkest night I had ever seen before. I shivered as the cold wind passed by and finally decided to close the windows.
I looked at the speedometer in the car which showed 105km/hr at the moment.
'Well, the good thing is that if we get into an accident at this speed then I won't even know how I died.' I coaxed my heart with some lame excuse.
If it had been someone else driving the car, I would have stopped him long ago. But looking at Rahul's dark expression, I couldn't bring up the courage to say anything to him.
'He must have his own reason to do what he is doing.' I thought and started praying to the god of traffic once more.
It would have been perfectly normal to drive at 105km/hr in an expressway but the problem was that Rahul was driving in a normal road in which people usually didn't go over 60km/hr.
The expressway had seen it's share of accidents today and was thus jammed with cars so we had no other choice but to choose this road.
The car suddenly moved to the side as it dodged another car coming from the left side and I was flung off the seat and hit the widow on the left with a loud bang. Our car drifted in to the left side for a few seconds before it came back under control.
"Ouch!" I massaged my head and then sat back down.
It was the 7th red light Rahul had crossed and miraculously we had survived every single one of them.
I even received 7 bumps on my head to show as a souvenir.
"Hang on a little longer. We're almost out of the city." Rahul's soothing voice came from the driver's seat as I rolled my eyes.
'Haven't you been saying the same thing after crossing every red light.' I thought and massaged the latest bump in my head.
Looking at the driving scenes in hollywood movies brought me great thrill. But after experiencing it myself, I realized that it was not as cool as I had previously thought. It was very scary actually.
'I didn't knew why Rahul wanted us to get out of the city so badly that he'd risk getting into an car accident. Nor did I understood why he gave those unreasonable commands to little Neha.'
'Buy food and water for a week and then close the door tightly? Why would he tell her to do such unreasonable things. Does this has some connection with the solar eclipse.'
I looked at the sky and noticed that the moon had yet to move a single inch from in front of the sun.
'Hey. If the moon stopped moving altogether, then won't it just come crashing down on earth because of gravity.' I suddenly had a thought that puzzled me greatly.
I was not the best student in my class but I knew how gravity worked.
I also knew that if moon collided with earth then these three tracking bags worth of supplies won't be of any help to us.
I prayed that such a thing won't happen when the car suddenly came to a halt.
I was thrown against the dashboard in front of me. Thankfully, I shielded myself with my hands instinctively otherwise I would have really lost a few teeth there.
"What happened?" I asked as I massaged my arms. But one look at the front gave me the answer of my question.
In front of me I could see a long line of jammed cars packed to the brim for as far as eyes could see. And when I said, as far as eyes could see, I meant it.
'Gosh! What's up with city today.' It was not the first time I'd come to Delhi but it was surely the first time I'd seen such a long traffic jam.
The drivers were either honking their cars or shouting curses at each other. I could already see a few fights happening between the drivers.
I looked at the car to our left. The driver in it was listening to some kind of radio broadcast.
I tried to focus on it and realized that it was some old man's voice talking about the end of the world or something like that.
His words gave me the creeps and I realized that it would be better to not listen to the broadcast at all.
Rahul put the car in reverse but before he could turn it around, it was surrounded by other vehicles coming from the back.
'Shit!' I cursed in my mind and realized that we won't be getting out of this traffic jam any time soon.
"Get out of the car." Rahul suddenly said and stopped the engine of the car. "We're walking from here on out."
"Alright." I said and picked up the three heavy bags with difficulty.
"Leave one of the bag behind. We can only carry two with us." He said and took one of the bags from my hands.
"But… you used all your money to buy these bags." I said with indignation. But in the next moment, I was shocked as a fat guy wearing only a brown underwear came running from behind us and held Rahul's hands.
"We're all going to die." He shouted in the top of his lungs into Rahul's ears. "Hahaha. Serves us right. We're all sinners. We should all go to hell together. Hahaha." He laughed maniacally and shouted as he pushed Rahul's shoulders violently.
CRACK!!!
It was just a simple movement.
Rahul moved his left hand in a round about manner and got rid of that fat guy's grasp before he followed the swing and thrusted his elbow at his nose.
The hit broke his nose and he stumbled a few steps back and fell to the ground following which he held his broken nose and started crying.
I was stunned. It would be wrong to say that I felt pity for the crazy guy. But I was definitely shocked by Rahul's actions. That hit was not only perfectly executed, it also showed his determination and decisiveness.
I'd gotten into my fair share of fights back in the school and knew that even though that elbow strike might have seemed simple, it was not something that could be performed by an ordinary guy.
"Leave one of the bags." Rahul's calm voice broke me out of my stupor. I looked at his eyes and realized that he was not even the least bit fazed from this incident.
"Al… Alright." I nodded like a duck and left the bag we'd prepared for little Neha. Although leaving so many supplies like this hurt my heart quite a bit, I did as was told and quickly left the place along with him.
"We don't have much time." Rahul said as he gave the car one last look and started walking.
"Hey! Where are f**k are you going."
"Oi idiot. Don't get out of the car in a jam."
I heard a few curses from the drivers whose vehicles were stuck behind our car but Rahul totally ignored them, as if they didn't even existed.
I followed his example and ignored them as well as we quickly left the area.