An October Evening

The school ended at 4 o clock. As usual, the kids in the area were going on their way home. The streets were empty as it was late afternoon. The sun hung low in the sky. It casted soft orange hues upon buildings that were slowly being illuminated by the setting sunlight.  

It was a cool October evening. With the sun starting to go down, the chill in the air made it feel like the time had slowed to a crawl. 

“Appu, do you know why it is so cold in October?”  a voice asked, as the pair continued to walk down the street.

“no...why’s that?” he replied in between yawning.

Chikku laughed lightly, ruffling his messy hair.

“You really haven’t heard before?” he questioned, still laughing lightly.

He shook his head slightly, yawning once more. 

“It's because there is a monster in the mountains that breathes cold air, like a breath of death itself! It breathes freezing air and if you let it get into your lungs, it freezes you over and you die! That’s why we don’t want to go up there...unless it’s summer”. 

He looked at Chikku with an odd look. His mouth slightly opened, he blinked rapidly twice, then spoke.

“But that’s just a story. What are we supposed to do about the monster that lives in the mountains?” he retorted, crossing his arms over his chest. 

Chikku thought for a moment, shrugging his shoulders. He hummed quietly and looked back ahead of him.

“I don’t know…maybe if we see it, we can find out what it is and how to stop it? Or even fight it!” Chikku suggested.

“ok, we can go to the mountains now and see if there is a monster,” Appu said in a brave voice. 

Chikku smiled and nodded along with the idea.

The boys continued down the street, talking about everything and nothing, not caring about the coldness or the fact that they were both wearing only shirts.

Eventually, they reached the foot of the mountains that surrounded the town.

It was getting dark and it seemed as though it was colder than earlier as well, but somehow the boys didn’t care.

They stood under the shadow cast by a large tree that stretched above them, making the place look like the middle of the forest. The sun would set soon too, casting a warm glow over the forest. The shadows began to lengthen as the hours passed, and the moon came out from behind the clouds.

It was the beginning of the night, and with all the lights around them, the two boys could hardly make out where they were going. They walked through the woods without a clue what they were looking for until suddenly something caught their eye. They stopped, standing still in their path, staring intently in front of them.

“Appu?” Chikku whispered.

Appu didn’t reply right away, he stared at something, squinting a little.

Chikku noticed this.

“What’re you lookin’ at?” he whispered again, trying not to startle his friend.

Still, Appu didn't respond.

When the light from the moon finally showed up enough to show what was in front of the two boys, they both gasped, falling silent immediately.

There, in front of them was a big white creature that looked fearsome and evil.

It stood tall and proud as if it wanted to scare whoever dared to come close. Its black claws glistened in the light coming from the moon, as it stood perfectly still. Its eyes were glowing a deep crimson red.

It was huge!

The thing wasn’t exactly scary, in a sense; it didn’t seem as though it was going to attack them or anything. 

“It looks dangerous” Chikku mumbled, taking another step back from the beast.

“Maybe we should run away…” Appu replied quietly. 

The monster didn’t see the boys, it didn’t hear them. Instead, it stared straight forward at the ground.

Chikku swallowed. He looked over at Appu who was watching the strange white figure. 

Suddenly the monster fell into the ground onto all fours.

Both boys were shocked at that sight. There was no movement from that monster just shallow breathing noise. Appu was feeling something about that monster and started approaching it slowly.

Chikku stood, frozen. He felt scared of the monster. He knew that he shouldn’t be. After all, there wouldn’t be anything in this mountain to hurt them anyway.

Yet, something inside of him was telling him otherwise. Something inside of him told him that this was a bad idea.

Appu approached the beast and looked at its body, it was shivering because of the cold. He felt sad about the monster as he stood next to it, the boy’s hands curled into tight fists.

Slowly, very carefully, Appu held one of his hands out for the monster and touched it gently. The beast sniffed the air in surprise. Suddenly, after noticing the boys hand near it, it lifted its head towards them. The boys were petrified at this, their bodies stiff and trembling.

Then, almost hesitantly, Appu took his other hand and rubbed softly against the beast.

The monster didn't react, instead, it leaned forward towards the boy's hand and sniffed them. Then the creature sat back down.

For a minute, they didn't dare move or say anything.

"Are you okay?" Appu mouthed. The beast ignored him and laid down.

Chikku sighed, feeling relieved that he was fine. 

Appu opened his schoolbag took out the tiffin box offered the leftover food to the beast and brought it closer to the monster. The monster lifted its head and sniffed the food. Then, it grabbed the tiffin box and ate it without any problem. The boys watched as the beast finished eating the food.

"See?" Appu whispered excitedly to Chikku.

Chikku looked at the beast, and then at Appu with wide eyes.

"That was so weird," Chikku whispered to his friend.

Appu rolled his eyes.

The beast felt little comfortable after eating the food and stood on its legs. The beast pointed its furry hands to a cave nearby and started walking towards it. Appu and Chikku got the confirmation to follow the beast to its cave, as they lost the fear of it. The beast went inside first and started to hit two stones to make a fire. When the stones lit, a few flames formed and a small fire started.

Appu pulled some wood sticks out of his backpack which he collect on his way which he was planning to make a small fire. He threw the wood sticks to the fire pit, making the fire steady. 

The beast came back out and lay down beside the fire pit. The boys watched as the beast settled and started drawing something on the cave floor with a twig.

 At first, the boys couldn’t make out what the beast was drawing, later Appu started recognising something about the drawing. 

"It's a picture of our village" Appu stated quietly.

A smile crept upon Chikku's face.

it was drawing a picture of the village with the villagers! 

There were a lot of similar-looking monsters in that picture, Appu pointed at the picture and asked the monster “where is the rest of your people?”

The monster looked at Appu sad and closed its eyes. The boys felt sorry for the beast, but they did understand why the monster looked so sad.

The beast sat with its tail wrapped around itself like a ball. It rested its paws on its chest with its eyes closed and sighed heavily.

The monster pointed to the trees and started growling in a sad noise. Both Appu and Chikku understood that the beast is not from here and is completely alone. 

Chikku’s heart ached for this poor creature.

“We will help you” Chikku whispered as he placed his hand over the beast’s furry arm.  The beast stood up walked to the entrance of the cave and started lying down. He yawned and stretched, before curling his legs underneath himself, laying down with his back facing the boys. Chikku and Appu looked at each other.

“Let’s get some sleep now, I think it might get a little late soon.” Appu declared with a smile.

“Yeah” Chikku agreed and nodded with a grin. The boys laid down near the warm fire where they slept well and peacefully.

They woke up hearing the voices of people outside the cave

. It was morning already.

The boys jumped off of the pile of ashes that had fallen from the night before and ran outside.

Chikku quickly saw that there were lots of other children and parents outside. They were looking for both Appu and Chikku. After seeing both of them they were happy and both of their parents started running from the crowd and hugged them tightly.

Chikku looked at Appu who was smiling broadly at the sight of his mother embracing him. 

“Why did you kids runoff from the school, you got us worried,” said Chikku’s father

“We were searching for the monster in the mountains and we found it,” Appu said pointing to the direction of the cave where the monster slept the other night.

There was nothing but a big tree full of white flowers and a small patch of grass there; the monster had been gone. There was no evidence that it had ever existed. Both of the boys looked at each other in shock, the two boys couldn’t believe they’d actually seen the monster with their own eyes.

"Is everything ok guys? Is something wrong with your teacher or anything that you ran away from school?" Appu’s father asked.

“No, but there was the monster,” Appu said in a low voice.

“Ok enough with the monsters and everything, let's get you home and please don’t run away like this” Appu's mother said while putting her hands on her son's shoulders, making the boy look up at her.

“Sorry, mom” Appu answered with an apologetic look on his face.

“Well, it's alright. Come on, let’s get you kids home” said Chikku’s parents.

As they started walking the cold wind blew showering their heads with white flowers. 

They looked up and found it was the tree that was formed in the place where the monster slept the other night.

The boys could only stare up at it.

The white flowers seemed to glow in the sunlight and the sky had turned a beautiful shade of blue. Birds chirped cheerily in the distance, and even though the weather was cold, the air was calm. It was peaceful.

Both boys couldn’t believe what they experienced but also couldn’t deny how peaceful everything seemed right now.

It was as if time stopped.