Before we go further into this story you must know what happened the day before the last day of school, the incident which triggered these nightmares like a medieval pandemic, which has no cure, you have to survive it or be one of a million dead.
The day started as any normal day for a high school senior would start, yawns filled with laziness. I woke up late. It had become a norm that we both walk to school together. Till last year he used to go with me but after the trip he stopped, now he goes to school with his other friends, early for football practice.
Do you all remember Ishita? Yes, the girl who I was gonna make out with, stole the first kiss. After the trip she started going to school with me after the trip daily. It was the only time we used to spend together or else we didn't know each other.
I met her first on the school trip last year and after that never forgot her because all juniors and seniors were mixed up for the trekking in groups of seven. I came to know on the trip that she used to date Shobhit from the next class, my peer.
Today it was all cloudy, the skies were gray and filled with dark clouds stretching from one horizon to the other covering the light of the sun in a blanket. I don't really like cloudy days; it makes me gloomy and bummed out.
When we reached school, it was already pretty late, the gates were just about to be closed, little droplets of rain were falling too. We rushed to our respective classrooms. The hallways filled with gossip, and seniors. Tomorrow was the last day; everyone was planning something or the other.
Vivaan was already at the desk with Arushi and Shobhit discussing how the weather changed suddenly today despite the warnings. For a moment they all went silent after seeing me. Shobhit usually doesn't come to our classroom but today he came because it was his birthday. He must have come to discuss his birthday plans with Vivaan and Arushi and they all must have been bummed out seeing the gloomy clouds like me.
The silence was broken by the storm hitting the closed glass windows, almost shattering them. Despite the heavy rain you can hear the wet crows cawing continuously on the gulmohar trees near the window. It appeared as if they all had gathered in numbers outside our window only. Their screams mixing in the shout of the storm made it all look like the start of a horror story, but we all know it began a long time ago and it was coming to its climax now.
Arushi all of a sudden said the cawing of the crows in storms is considered a bad omen in these parts. Despite her name she was a proud Christian who went to every mass and wasn't afraid to show her lord and savior Jesus Christ, around her neck the cross was always there.
The bell of the first period rang, it was English and revisions were going on before the exams. Today's topic of discussion was Indian mythologies. When the teacher came, the point of discussion on its own became bad omens seeing the effect of crows. One would think Arushi would participate a lot in the discussion but after Shobhit left for his class, she was dead silent.
Someone said cats are a bad omen and was countered by how they were worshiped in Egypt, same with the crows and mermaids. It all came down to local beliefs and laws that bind those lands. But definitely crows were considered bad omens in this part of lands and a pack of crows worse.
But to be honest, it looked like I had seen these crows before, their cawing was like something I am familiar with but wasn't able to recall from where? As if parts of me, parts of my memories have been locked up, frozen somewhere in an unnatural form.
For a moment I felt like, I was in a thick forest covered in pine trees, covered in a white fog with no visibility, for a moment I felt like I was being hunted by a creature of this pines. I heard the cawing again and there were those crows, their red eyes glaring at me clearly through the whit fog and the next moment I was on a bridge with a stream of red blood flowing through me and on the banks of it…
Trust me, you don't need to know that now, its not the right time for you to know what I saw down there, we should come back to the past because I was bought back by the sharp ringing of bells.
When I came back, I saw Vivaan staring at my face with worry, I asked him what happened? To which he replied nothing, it looked like you were terrified and trying to scream because then he pulled his hand up.
I was clutching his hands like a maniac; someone will do that only if they were trying to scream for help. I immediately released his hands and he said I thought you were having a panic attack because it's the last day of school. I said nothing because I was having a panic attack, I could feel my chest humping up and down and I was scared for what I remembered I wanted to tell him but I couldn't because my whole face went numb, my jaws not able to move, with the taste of vomit filling my mouth.
The bell rang again to mark the start of second period and Vivaan offered me some water and held my hand softly to calm me down and went on to say its okay, everything is okay.
In a few seconds it was because when he held a jolt ran through my body and I was okay, kind of okay and present in now.
The physics teacher came in shouting that he had a surprise for us and connected his laptop to the projector and started playing photos and videos of the trip.
I was scared that I might see something again but all the photos were normally good, all smiling faces but as soon as photos with juniors came everyone started murmuring, I didn't know why but said nothing and kept quiet.
I was still feeling pretty bad but forgot what was the reason, Vivaan was still holding my hands like an Idiot.
You should know that after watching the photos on the projector screen my memories were locked again and I was feeling pretty normal but had a heavy sinking feeling in my heart as if something bad had happened and it was gonna repeat itself.
The storm outside stopped and the pack of crows had flown away a while ago but the skies were still gray.
I thought everything was fine but in fact I was dying slowly, losing myself and my memories in bits and pieces.