Zia-her story

Zia bid goodnight to the students, to Luke and Sherpa. She then went into her tent to sleep. She was sharing her tent with Zoya. Zoya had also decided to sleep early. Actually, all the 5 girls were tired and had also decided to call it a day and sleep early. But sleep was not easy, it just did not want to come into anyone's eyes.

Phones were no longer working. No internet facilities were available at this height. They were practically cut off from the rest of the world. The SMS and normal calling facilities were also not working. Zia ma'am knew this would happen and had informed all of them. So, no one could access social sites or connection to family and friends. In addition, there was no YouTube. Actually, it felt like they were back in the early 1980s when there were no mobiles. Actually, it was quite peaceful in a way without disturbance from anyone. Tomorrow morning, they would all assemble and try to see if the guest house had a system to contact their relatives.

All were in the sleeping bags, warm and snuggled inside with eyes closed trying to sleep but sleep was far away from visiting their eyes. A few of the students started to count sheep, others started counting backward from 100 and still, others tried to sing themselves to sleep like their mother used to sing them a lullaby.

Zoya closed her eyes and was trying to sleep.

Zia could not sleep also. She was restless. Her restless was not due to any pebbles below her tent. She was restless due to an apprehension that things were not right. The danger was lurking in the shadows. She had a sixth sense which indicated that it was a lull before the storm. As she could not sleep she started recapitulating about her life up to today.

She was born in City A. Both her father and mother had studied Science. Her father, Robin, and her mother, Rose, had been studying at the same college. Robin was in the final year of college while Rose was in the first year. They fell in love and within a short while, they found that they could not bear to be without each other. So, they decided to get married as soon as Robin would get a job which would help them set up their little world.

Robin had graduated and was now doing post-graduation. He was also appearing for various competitive examinations to get a Government job. As soon as he got a job and Rose was in the final year of her graduation, Robin and Rose got married. Within a year of their marriage, baby Zia was on the way. Rose somehow managed to complete her graduation. However, she could not pursue her studies beyond graduation. Rose decided to have her baby and take up her study for the Master's Degree after her baby would reach 2 years of age.

Two years later, her younger brother Arvin was born. So her studies got postponed again from 2 years to 4 years. After 4 years of being at home Mom, Zia's Mom lost interest in pursuing her studies and was more interested in taking care of her children. Taking them to school and bring them home after school was quite fulfilling. Helping them with their homework and helping them with their assignments was a more satisfying venture. Time flew by, the children from Nursery school went on to Primary School then to Secondary School.

Zia and her brother did well throughout their schools and naturally, both chose science for their graduation and post graduation. Zia went for Botany and her brother, Arvin, took up physics. They went on to do post graduation and graduation in their respective fields. Both wanted to be professors. Zia went on to do her Doctorate in Botany whereas her brother was doing his Doctorate in Thermodynamics. Zia turned out into a pretty, tall girl and not one of those model-like females who looked as if they were suffering from malnutrition.

Zia had a god given gift since childhood. She had the ability to perceive events in the future i.e. beyond the normal sensory contact, meaning she was clairvoyant and clairaudient. She could feel the vibrations of animals and plants, whenever she moved a palm or both palms over the plants or animals. Thus, she instantly got to know what was troubling them. If the plants or animals or even birds were ever sick, in pain or needed food or water or someone to just talk to them, she would be there to help. She felt that the plants and animals and birds would communicate with her via telepathy. She strongly believed in the saying that we are connected to mother earth through each living thing, but modernization had had its effect on this sensitive bond. People did not care or even if they had this trait they would keep it hidden for being laughed by the people.

Recently, she had started seeing Aura around plants and animals and anything that was living. She could also see grey areas in the aura which signified that the plant or animal or bird had an illness coming. She did a Google search and found various websites on spirituality as well as healing energies. Zia thus gauged a lot of information from various websites. She was on the lookout for someone to teach her these things so that she would develop this God-given gift to its full potential.

She had heard that Reiki was a good healing therapy which used positive energy / spiritual healing. At a higher level of learning, you would be in a position to send spiritual healing to persons who were living far away. It was something like telepathy and this energy would only do good as it was positive energy using god /spiritual/universal energy. Positive energy is always good. It did not harm anyone.

The system of healing called Reiki was discovered by Dr. Mikao Usui (1865- 1926), a Japanese monk from Japan who died in the early 20th century. He had rediscovered the healing technique that had been used by Buddhists monks to send healing to each other. But the healing method had disappeared from India due to the destruction of ancient books of medicines and various healing therapies etc at the ancient University of Nalanda at Gaya in India when the Muslim invaders came. But the ancient healing therapy was rediscovered in Japan. She really wanted to learn Reiki.

She already had a god given gift and had been able to use her own energy for healing. She had found out from various websites on Reiki that there were two types of positive energies. Reiki used positive energy called God/Spiritual/ Universal energy, this energy was got by tapping into the universe by means of certain symbols or totems. The other energy was personal energy which was your own energy. This personal energy would be depleted, so one was not to use it. She could actually use this personal energy and wanted to learn how to tap into the abundance of universal energy to help heal plants and animals and humans too.

When she was coming on this camping trip and while on the way through the forest, she had a premonition that there was danger and they were likely to meet it soon. She could have avoided it but duty is a duty. She had been given an assignment and she had to fulfill her duty. As regards to any dangers, the danger was there in living too, so, one could not run away from living. One always faced challenges in life. This danger was also a challenge. If they tried to avoid it, it may surface as a bigger problem later on.

Thinking all this within a few minutes it was around 2 a.m. and she fell asleep. As she slept, she had a dream about her walking through the forest and Luke walking being beside her. In this dream world, he was talking to her, explaining about himself, his life, etc. She seemed to be very happy, laughing away while chatting with Luke.

Suddenly she tripped on something and Luke at one caught her around the waist. They were very close and made eye contact, she was looking into his eyes and his eyes seem to want to say something to her. They were all soft and teary with stars in them. She at one got up from her dream and sat up. Her heart was literally pounding and she put her hand on her heart to somehow calm her heart. She could not figure out why her heart was behaving like that. She could not understand what was happening to her. That stranger was getting to close to comfort. Even if it was a dream it was not too comfortable.

"It was just a dream girl," she tells herself. "Why should he have any feeling for you? This is just a projection of your imagination."

Telling herself all this and think positive, she fell asleep.

It was around 5 a.m. when she woke up again. There was a lot of noise coming from outside the tents. There were screams, and grunts and of persons running here and there. Then there was firing from a gun. She got up immediately to move out of her tent to see what was happening. It seemed that a wild animal had made its way to their tents and attacked. Then there was another shot. But who could have fired a shot? Hope whichever animal it was, it was scared away by the gunshot and was not injured by a bullet fired from that gun.

This must be the work of Luke, she thought. He did say he was always prepared for any eventuality.