🌿"The Path that Disappeared"

🐒 Story:

The jungle began to change after the second day.

When Arjun and his friend Sameer set out from the small hill station at dawn, it felt almost playful. They carried a local map, a compass, and a promise to be back by nightfall. The plan: hike through a forgotten trail, sketch some rare birds, and return before their families even missed them.

By midday, the dense canopy swallowed the sun. Light filtered through in fractured beams, dancing on the mossy ground. Birds called in shrill, echoing bursts; somewhere, a troop of langurs crashed through the treetops, unseen.

At first, Arjun found it beautiful. The forest floor smelled rich — of earth, fallen fruit, and something older, like secrets buried under roots. But by afternoon, beauty gave way to unease.

The path, once a clear trail of broken twigs and flattened leaves, thinned until it vanished altogether.

“Are you sure this is the right way?” Sameer asked, wiping sweat from his forehead.

Arjun checked the compass. “East. Still east, like the map shows.”

But the deeper they went, the less the map seemed to matter.

The sounds of the jungle shifted. Birds grew quiet. Instead came a low hum — like wind, but the air stood still.

At a clearing, they found a tree unlike the others. Old, enormous, its roots curled above ground like sleeping serpents. Carved into its trunk were markings, almost letters — but worn by age.

Sameer touched them. “Tribal? Or something older?”

“Maybe,” Arjun whispered. The markings felt wrong, like a word you couldn’t quite remember.

They moved on. But every turn looked the same: thorny vines, moss-slick rocks, shadows that stretched and bent in the dappled light.

Night fell faster than they expected.

Crickets shrieked into the silence. Fireflies glimmered in patches, but their light only deepened the darkness around them. The air grew colder; the scent of wet earth turned sharp, metallic.

“Let’s camp here,” Sameer said, voice shaking.

They built a small fire with damp wood that smoked more than it burned.

At midnight, Arjun woke to a sound.

Leaves rustling. Slow, deliberate.

He sat up, eyes scanning the darkness beyond the fire’s glow.

“Sameer?” he whispered.

But Sameer was already awake, sitting rigid, staring into the black.

Something moved at the edge of light. Low, dragging footsteps — as if someone, or something, circled them, unseen.

“Who’s there?” Arjun called out.

No answer. Just silence, heavy and listening.

Hours passed. Or minutes. Time felt slippery.

At dawn, the jungle seemed to have shifted around them. The trail they thought they’d come from now ended at a wall of thorn bushes too thick to cross.

The compass needle spun lazily, no longer pointing anywhere.

They walked, hearts pounding, breath tight.

Finally, they stumbled into a clearing they’d never seen before. In the center lay a stone platform, cracked and swallowed by moss.

Scattered across it: weathered bones, half-buried in damp leaves.

Sameer’s face drained of color. “We need to go. Now.”

But as they turned, something caught Arjun’s eye.

A name, faintly carved into the stone.

Arjun.

His own name.

He staggered back, head spinning.

Sameer grabbed his arm. “Arjun! Don’t look at it! Let’s go!”

They ran. Branches clawed at their clothes, roots snatched at their feet.

Behind them, the jungle seemed to breathe — as if it watched, amused.

When they finally burst out into sunlight, gasping and filthy, the hill station lay just ahead.

But no one was there.

The road they remembered ended in rubble. The small tea shop was a crumbled ruin, vines curling around broken bricks. Rusted signs hung at odd angles.

Everything looked abandoned, like no one had walked there for years.

Sameer turned to Arjun, voice hoarse. “How long were we gone?”

Arjun had no answer.

Years later, villagers tell of the path that disappeared — an old trail people followed, only to vanish. Some say the jungle keeps those it chooses. Others say it’s not the jungle, but memories that lie.

Arjun and Sameer still walk, but sometimes Arjun forgets what he’s looking for. And sometimes, when night comes, he dreams of a stone platform in the heart of green shadows — with his name waiting for him.

🌱 Lesson:

Nature holds mysteries older than our maps and memories. Some paths call to us — not to be followed, but to remind us that not everything is meant to be found.

A story by: Pir Ashfaq Ahmad