_____ April 8, 2018 _____

- jake -

The Media is smart. Whatever was told by Nick the previous day was shown on it, with captions that were OUT OF THE BOX!

"Missing: Three of the people who were with these kids went missing and what matters to these is their Tongue and Attitude!" One of the reporters started talking! Our pictures were running in the background. Where did they even get all those pictures?

"As you remember, the KRI missing case is opened again after 6 years with more missing this time. Three more people went missing in KRI and these are the people who were with them when this happened. From left, April, Niha, Tanav, Tanik and Jake, students of KITES which itself was the Founder of KRI, later, named after it! Yesterday, when our reporters went there for a friendly Question-Answer session, so as to help the police and the family of the missing people to approximately know where they might be, we were shooed by the Eldest of them, Tanik, giving a letter stating law. And today? He is behind bars with his Father, who happens to be the owner of the Property of KRI, currently, since years after it was left abandoned since the blast that occurred there, 6 years ago. These kids went there along with one of the blast Survivor, Doctor Murugan Mohan, who also went missing the other night. Mr. Swaroop Chowta, the owner, is accused of being involved in this along his son who was the master plan of the missing. This boy wanted drama yesterday, he is the drama today. You shouldn't fly just because you have a rich Dad, boy. See where it takes you.." 

I couldn't move. Nick and Uncle are in jail? The T.V. clearly showed that! As soon as me and Avi, who couldn't sleep the whole night, came downstairs when we heard Niha's and his Mom scream, we saw this on T.V. Right there, in the main headlines of the city news! They were such assholes! They changed the whole freaking thing of what happened yesterday here.

"I'll Drive." said Avi.

"Come on, Jake, I need you here. Girls, you stay with Mom." Avi went up to get Nick's keys.

"I'm coming!" said Avi's Mom and sat in the car as soon as Avi opened it.

"No Mom! It's the police station! Are you crazy?"

"At least we have to come, Avi! We are a part of it! There's media there!" said April. But..

"No!"

"Either you take us, or we take a Ric!" said Niha. "We aren't letting you get away. Mom, you be here with Aunty. In case you're needed, we'll call you! Now, let's go!"

We couldn't stop them! We were in the station in 15 minutes.

OH GOD!

The way all the cameras turned towards us and all the rush suddenly fell silent, Niha just started sobbing holding my hands tightly. I got Goosebumps looking at all that!

April was holding Niha tightly. I saw Avi who was seeing me. We shouldn't have brought the girls!

There, behind weird looking barred room, were Uncle and Nick, hiding their faces from the attacking cameras outside. This place was nothing like how they show Police Stations in movies. It's bad, very bad. No wonder it deals with crimes!

April and Avi ran towards Nick, who spotted us. 

"What the hell are you doing here? Why did you get the girls? You guys should have stayed home! Oh, you people!" He was shit angry. There was a satisfaction too. There was pain and fear crawling into him as we went closer.

"What the hell is this? Since how long are you here? Yesterday night?" asked April, completely ignoring his speech. "You didn't even bother to tell us?"

"Yeah. Sorry, I couldn't. They had taken our phones. After 24 hours of missing, we were here, since 12 last night. Until then, me and Dad had to be with the Police in KRI while the search and investigation continued. No network there. Probably my phone was unreachable. And then, at 12:30, they said they had to take us in. I agreed instantly, as, they said they have to take in everyone involved. I didn't want any of you to be bought here. So, took everything on myself. You should have understood that when you saw me and Dad on news, that there's a reason we didn't tell you about it. Instead, you came here without even an adult accompanying you and brought the girls as well? Come on Avi, you should act mature, at least now that I'm not there! This isn't as easy as it looks. You saw how they changed whatever happened at home yesterday. At least by that you should have guessed how the media really is. You just made it easy for them by coming here. I can write and give that they are not going to let you go until they're done making you cry for this. We lost three people and if all of us will be here, we can't find out anything more about this. I need you guys to go right now! Dad will see to the matter okay? I will be out soon. Promise." Nick was holding the railing way too tight. He was damn serious about this!

"Okay. But.."

"No but this time Avi! Last time you said that, you know what happened!" Ouch.

"Okay. We'll go." Said Avi turning towards the girls.

"Yeah." said Nick. "Thanks."

We dragged the girls out. No space to even walk. We were totally trapped.

Police dragged us into the media restricted area of the station, which was in between the two rooms that had people in it. Me and Avi took cover of the girls. The way those people were staring made the girls go all Feminist. We held on to them, signalling not to create another scene. They sat quietly in one of the chairs. 

"What do you want me to tell them?" started Mr. Daivik. He had this content in his face when he saw us all worried. "They told me to tell that you were just wandering around with that boy, Tanik. He took all the blame with his Father. Is that it? Or are you a serious part of this?" Such an asshole!

"That's it. We just came here to meet them as we were worried. We had nothing to do with this! Whatever was told to you was absolutely right. He was the one who dragged us into this as he wanted to know about our Brother who died there 6 years ago in the blast. We just joined in due to curiosity. All his fault. We want to leave now. How do we go?" God! Avi was acting like a total bitch! He got up to go. "Let's go, come on! I'm done taking other's mistakes on my head."

We all wanted to whack him, but at that moment we just followed him who was lead by Mr. Daivik to another way out of the Station. We quickly went into the car and dissapeared.

"We have to find out what's happening here! We have to know what happened to the three! By evening Nick and Dad will be out of that place, Dad will arrange that. Meanwhile, we have to do something. It's 9:30 now. We'll first go to college and put our attendance, it's been two days. Then we'll see what to do."

"Okay." said everyone. He did this so that the police never comes behind us. Acting on fleek!

We reached KITES. We went in. Staring eyes. God! Everyone knows! What the hell? We went to our respective classes to punch our attendance. I couldn't stand here anymore. Every eye was on me.

"Where's T, Jake? He doesn't have to put the attendance?" asked one of our classmate, mock was revealed his expression.

"Well, he.. He!" I was stammering.

"Went missing?" He knew. "And you came for your attendance? How very selfish! Your group is one hell of a group! People go missing and even to jail, and then there is some of them coming for attendance, instead of searching. Funny!" He gave this fake smile and some more people joined him. I couldn't move. Cruelty rules this world, you know!

"Jake! We have to go to The Principal's cabin. One of my classmate told me, he's been searching for us in college." Came in Avi. The girls were with him.

As we walked towards the chamber, I could hear my heart pounding! Unknowingly, we all caught each others' hands.

We entered the cabin after 10 minutes of wait outside as the Principal had guests. Longest ten minutes.

"Oh! The news breakers. Welcome." Shit! It was for that after all. "So, you took KRI as your project topic, didn't you?"

We nodded. How did he know? "But, we changed our topic to another institution as soon as we realized it was irrelevant." said Avi.

"That I know. But, teen-aging won't stop, will it? You have to put yourself in trouble and even drag innocent newcomers to the city along with you! Do you have any idea what's going to happen to our college's reputation if Hastha's parents file a case against us, that their daughter went missing because of a stupid topic that you chose for your project? Do you have any idea?" His voice raised as he stood up and banged the desk. He must have gotten too many calls for this as KITES was mentioned along with our names in the Papers and T.V.

We stood up. Heads down, tears falling. "We didn't mean or know any of this would happen! We are in a very bad condition ourself, Sir!" said April and started sobing. "We lost three people, who probably, we won't ever find again! We haven't slept, haven't eaten, we are everywhere, in news, in people eyes, everywhere! There's his brother and father who is in the Police station since last night! We escaped by a thin string from that nonsense. What do you want us to do now? At least we thought you'll understand! We didn't plan any of this! Not me, not these people, neither the ones behind bars!" She sat heavily on the chair. We held her and she hugged Niha while she started crying again.

God knows what happened, but the principal got up and came near her. Sat right in front of her kneeling down on the ground and said, "Dear, I know what you are going through but I have a college to run and I need to see to the welfare and reputation of this place. I am told by my higher authorities that to dismiss you from this project. I totally understand what you are going through but I am supposed to be like this, harsh and rude. I've also been told to cut off your GPAs. I told them I will, but I won't, I promise you. I am really sorry for everything that has happened. I know it isn't your fault but the whole world thinks it is, so I am supposed to go with the flow. Hope you'll understand. If you need any help any time, I'll always be here!"

"Yes Sir. We do. And we won't come to college until everything cools down. Thank you for understanding."

Saying that Avi took April up, and signaled me and Niha to follow. We quietly went out of the cabin. God! Almost as if the whole college was there! It was so hard to even walk with your heads up, as, only staring Eyes covered the way.

Soon, we reached the car where more Eyes were watching. Left that place as soon as possible.

"Guys. We need to stay in for a few days, at least until people forget about this. We can't do anything until then." said Niha.

"Agreed."

"Everything is over, guys! We lost our friends, we lost our reputation, we lost our marks, we lost our project, we lost basically our everything at the moment. We can't go out, we can't even stay inside! I don't know what are we gonna do. Hope, all this will end soon. I hate this!" I had all that inside. Just got it out. Just Hmms surrounded me. Everyone were in their own river of thoughts.

"We'll stay in for a few days like Niha said. Let Nick and Uncle come out. We'll see what to do next." said April.

We'll see.

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We are growing, Thanks to You Guys. No one's more grateful that me right now. I'm so glad you like what I'm writing.

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