The Secret Temple

Swati gave a key to her 8 years old son Pranav and screamed, "Take this and hide it in a safe place. Run Pranav…. Run…”

He was standing in front of the ancient temple which was covered by thick trees. It was quite dark outside with no one around. He was scared, but didn't waste any time and ran as fast as he could to his village. In a few minutes, he reached his house, and a housekeeper opened the door. As soon as he entered inside, he searched for a safe place to hide the key. He saw a stairway to the basement and ran downstairs and closed the door.

The housekeeper knocked on the door many times, but he didn't open. He was panting holding the key in his tiny hands and shivering to death. His mother’s last words rambled his mind constantly. He looked at the key and looked around the basement to hide it. Though he was terrified to go out, he decided to hide the key first in some safe place. He saw a passage through the basement which led him to a secret chamber. When he entered inside, he saw a lot of big wooden trunks arranged one over the other from few small to big ones with a lot of ancient monuments stored in it. He looked around and found his father's spectacles case on the table nearby, and kept the key inside it and closed the box and hid it in between the other wooden trunks.

Soon he heard someone banging the basement door hard and opened it. He saw few people running towards him, and as soon as he saw a flashlight coming on him, he got so terrified that he passed out and fell on the ground.

*****

Pranav woke up abruptly and gasped for breath. He sat comfortably and thought about his dreams which he saw, almost every single day. Now, it had become a part of his life. He took some time to relax and then got ready for the office.In the office, his best friend Vinay asked, "What happened Pranav? I see you always stressed out. What’s the matter?”

Pranav explained everything about his dream to Vinay and said, "I remembered these things happened when I was 8 years old. But I don't remember what happened before this nor after this. When I opened my eyes, I was in the hospital, and my aunt told me my dad's office people got me admitted here and she doesn't know who they were or anything about what had happened in that temple. My parents were found dead in front of that temple. I was just a kid so, I didn’t go back to check. I went into shock for a few months. I only remember my mom's last words when she gave me that key and told me to run, and I saw her bleeding heavily. My aunt raised me, and I moved to a different city for higher studies and never went back to the village."

"Wow! Really… Don't you want to unravel the mystery? If I were you, I would have gone back to find out what had happened? Hey! As we have a long weekend coming, why don't we go and check? I’ll come with you. Maybe that key might lead us to a treasure.” said Vinay excitedly.

“No ways. Definitely, it wouldn’t be a treasure. I lost my parents that day. I saw them bleeding to death. I’m not going back.”

“So, you are ready to see the same dream every single day and die one day with a heart attack?”

"Vinay!!! I can't describe the scene what it was. It was horrifying, I can't get into it again."

"You were scared because you were a kid. Maybe there was a treasure, and some people killed your parents because of that. Did you see who killed them?”

“No!”

"Then don't be a fool. Let's find out. Be ready on Friday night, and I'll pick you up. We can come back on Monday with a treasure and resign the job and spend the rest of our life in luxury.”

“I don’t think it’s a good idea. We shouldn’t go back.”

After a lot of convincing, he finally agreed to go with Vinay. On Friday night, they drove to the village’s ancient temple where the incident had happened. By the time they reached the ancient temple, it was almost midnight. They switched on their torches and entered inside.

As soon as Pranav stepped inside, the bits and pieces of his lost memory of that day surrounded him. His mind took him straight to that day, and he remembered his family visited their friend's house in the city, and while driving back to their village, his father saw an ancient temple few steps away from the road, which he had never noticed before as it was covered entirely by thick trees. He stopped the car and decided to look inside. Though his wife was tired and skeptical about the place, he convinced her to wait inside the vehicle while he goes inside and checks. He opened the glove compartment of his car, picked up his torch and walked towards the temple.

After waiting for nearly an hour, Pranav’s mother heard her husband’s scream coming from inside the temple. She looked at Pranav who was very sleepy. She instructed him not to get out of the car and hesitantly opened her glove compartment of the vehicle, picked up her gun and an additional torch and slowly walked towards the temple. She entered the temple and noticed flashlights coming out from a small room. She slowly followed it and saw two men hitting her husband. Pranav's father looked at her and signaled her to save herself. She pointed her gun towards them and freed her husband.

Meanwhile, Pranav woke up hearing the gunshots sound and looked for his parents in the car. The road was empty with an eerie silence. He noticed a flashlight coming from the temple. He got out of the car and ran towards the temple. He screamed for his parents and entered inside. Soon he saw his parents were severely hurt and bleeding, pushing the door of a small room. His mother locked the door and held her husband who could barely walk because of the bullet wound on his legs. She saw Pranav looking at them and crying with fear. She smiled at him and called him near her. She hugged him tightly, kissed his cheeks and handed over the key and told him to hide the key and run to the village and call for help.

"Hey! Pranav, are you dreaming?" asked Vinay, pulling him out from his flashback. Pranav explained to him about his memory, and both ran towards that small room. They tried hard to open but the wooden door was solid, and immediately Pranav remembered his daily dream where he had hidden the key in his old house. Soon both drove to the village. Pranav told Vinay about the house whatever he had remembered from his dream. It was a house bought by his father from one of the villagers. As soon as they reached the villager, they spoke to a few of the villagers, but none of them knew anything about this incident. After a few minutes of searching the house, Pranav immediately recognized an abandoned house a bit away from the village center. Both excitedly ran towards the house, switched on their torches and slowly entered the house. The house had an eerie silence and filled with spider webs and bats. As soon as Pranav stepped inside, his memory of childhood days surrounded him. He remembered, this was his house, where he played with his friends. He looked at the entire hall which was once decorated with beautiful big colorful curtains and furniture, but now it seemed haunted. Soon Pranav’s eyes caught the stairway to the basement and both quickly moved towards it.

He opened the door of the basement, and a foul smell welcomed them. Both covered their noses and walked inside. Pranav led Vinay to the secret chamber. His memories flooded into him showing every single detail which he had buried inside him and had locked it away. He remembered everything. His father was an archaeologist scientist, and this chamber was his workplace, and he had worked on a lot of secret projects. They had moved recently to this village to explore in and around this place. He and his partner had found a mysterious key to a secret chamber which had an enormous treasure of the ancient days hidden somewhere around this village. He was obsessed with the facts of the history of this village, and from past 6 months, he and his team had dug many places which were suspicious of being the secret chamber but were still unsuccessful in finding the real treasure.

Pranav remembered where he had hidden the key and soon he found the spectacle case, and both rushed back to the temple. Both were panting and scared to see what was hidden inside. They hugged each other and took a deep breath and opened the door of the secret room. They stepped inside and were shell-shocked to see a couple of skeletons laying on the floor surrounded by many ancient golden idols and few big trunks filled with gold coins and jewelry.

Vinay got excited and started filling his bag and decided to come back later to pick up the rest. But Pranav didn’t feel right. He said, “There is something definitely wrong. This could be a trap. Don’t you feel strange? This much of treasure and so easy to find it and open it? Trust me Vinay, we should go back.”

"Oh! Come on Pranav. Don't be a fool. If you don't want to come back, then give me the key I'll come back for all of this."

Vinay grabbed the key from Pranav and moved towards the golden idols, and as soon Vinay picked up the golden idol, Pranav noticed and sensed the building would fall. So, he ran outside the room and screamed at Vinay to come out quickly. But, Vinay was so hypnotized looking at the treasure, he ignored Pranav's concern. Pranav tried to hold the door to keep it open, but soon he was thrown away, and the door slammed shut by itself. He noticed the building was shaking and the floor started to crack. He ran outside as fast as he could, and jumped out of the temple and saw the entire temple going beneath the ground without any trace.

Pranav fell on his knees and cried for Vinay's stupidity. But was glad to save his own life.