We will soon be reaching" Benjamin too now turned to the front upon hearing Cindy assuring his daughter which in the hindsight had no effect on Martha at all.
She had already lost her cool and now reluctantly awaited the colonies. As they approached the lights, Martha's fears came to reality and they were evident upon looking at her face.
She witnessed there were no houses nearby the fire torch, leave alone the colonies she'd thought of.
All there was to witness were fire torches lighting up the pathway for the three visitors.
The fire torches were placed along with the trees whilst maintaining a distance so to not lead to a wildfire spreading throughout the forest.
They flanged on both sides of the car and Benjamin adhered to the path carved out for them through the lit torches. Just as they crossed the foremost duo of fire torches flanking them on both the sides, a loud howl penetrated through the jungle only to reach the ears of Martha along with her parents – Benjamin and Cindy – and to further spread throughout a range of 5-6 miles from the origin of the howling sound.
As soon as the sound – rather the terror it carried – reached Martha, a Goosebumps appeared all over her body since whatever she had casually imagined earlier about lions, wolves and other wild animals only being able to live here, indeed came true.
She, under fear, cried out, "Mom!" Her mother didn't even acknowledge her fear and kept her eyes fixed on the road ahead. Seeing her mother didn't respond, she thought,
"Even if visiting daddy's friend here is a bad decision to make, getting attacked by some wild animals is even worse a fate before we could reach there and seek help" Immediately, she noticed the surroundings behind her getting darker.
She turned behind and saw the fire blowing out from every fire torch that they have passed through. She turned back and took to her parents to ask if they too felt the same she did.
However, she avoided it since she wasn't in a mood to entertain silence or unsatisfactory response to her questions right now. She noticed it again! "The fire went off as soon as they passed through that respective fire torch" Though she didn't resolve on looking back to see how it was being blown out, she could sense a breathing sound loud enough to peer through the window glasses and reach her eyes.
It was a groaning sound depicting heavy breathing. The sound, although not much audible to Martha, was so strong that Martha felt whatever was originating that sound is sitting right behind her, thereby serving as one of the reasons why she avoided to turn back to investigate the matter properly.
There have been multiple times those fire torches have been blown off from the array of the fire torches that further guided the motor vehicle to its destination.
After a handful of incidents of fire torches getting blown out, she tried to cope with this enigmatic phenomenon and attempted to the best of her ability to not get bothered by the circumstances around her.
But somewhere in her mind, she did get bothered with all of this.
They kept on traveling and that mysterious force kept on with his task of blowing off the fire torches which they have passed through.
This was intended to be done so if anyone else is present there, thought unimaginable for any other human being; he/she shall not get an idea of the whereabouts of this place – a brainchild of Martha's intellect. She could feel sweat on her palms even though the atmosphere was cold.
She wished if her parents had been on good talking terms with her so she could share her concerns with them. She even felt sweat building up on her forehead but didn't raise her hands to deal with it.
She just didn't want to move any of her body parts, leave alone hands, until it became unbearable for her to carry the sweat on her face that she finally rubbed it off with her hands.
She sought to take deep breathes in order to keep herself calm. Yet she had this suspicion that somebody had been following them now.
Somebody is blowing out the fire torches for reasons which are twofold – One so that nobody could reach out to us in case of emergency and other is to not allow us to sought help from anyone nearby either.
Though there is hardly any chance of finding help in this secluded region.
This is a secret society we are headed to. Let alone society, I haven't even found another human being for so many hours except the two people in the front seat of the car.
By the way, what is this thing or person or technology that's keeping up with the car pace so as to immediately wipe off the traces of going back by blowing out the fire? Must be some technology since I just cannot buy it that a living being could match the pace of this car for so long.
But what is with the heavy breathing sound? It must be the tiredness of this journey that's compelling me to believe in such bullshit. Even the howling sound would have been a hallucination of my mind out of tiredness since it was loud enough to make my parents react to that.
Since they didn't show any signs of fear or worry either, it is because it never actually happened in hindsight" Martha was on the brink of convincing herself that whatever matter she was creating a concern out of is nothing but false notions fabricated by her mind due to tiredness.
"And even dehydration!" thought Martha. "Dehydration plays a major role in deceiving one's own self into believing something which is untrue or something that our mind wants us to tell on the basis of our emotions at that time.
Just like it is shown in the movies that when somebody has lost their way into the desert and are going berserk over their thirst for water, they hallucinate an oasis and run towards it only to find out it is a mirage. Likewise, my fears are overtaking me with each inch of distance we are covering.