Trust??

"I'll fall, okay... Don't! Abhi, don't! I'll really fall!"

"Noooooo!"

Laughter erupted, bright and uncontrollable, spilling out of her like a long-held secret finally set free. It rang out through the open air, her voice echoing off the nearby walls, spilling into the world.

For the first time in what felt like forever, she sounded genuinely happy.

They were meeting for the first time—or so logic would say. Yet, it felt as if they had known each other for lifetimes. This wasn’t their souls' first meeting. It was as if they had loved each other before, across countless past lives, and the idea of unfamiliarity didn’t exist between them. How else could someone love another so deeply, so endlessly, so naturally?

"Here, time halts, and life begins. - GUNACE"

The words were etched on the information board at Shivapuri Peak, placed alongside the necessary details of altitude, longitude, and latitude. But none of that mattered. The breathtaking view stretched beyond the confines of human description. Snow-capped mountains and endless ranges—Ganesh Himal, perhaps, or Annapurna—rose like sentinels guarding the horizon. The breeze whispered through the trees, carrying the scent of wildflowers and earth. Everything felt impossibly perfect.

Abhi walked steadily, and she sat perched on his shoulders, though not by her choice.

“I don’t need to sit on your shoulders,” she had protested earlier, her voice filled with defiance. The last time she remembered doing something like this was as a child when her baba had carried her on his shoulders all the way to the temple. But she wasn’t six anymore.

Still, Abhi knew better. He had seen her exhaustion, though she tried her best to hide it. There was no way he’d let her struggle up the trail alone.

As she sat there, laughing, her voice rang like music through the forest. In that moment, she looked more radiant than the towering mountain ranges and the endless expanse of sky. She felt like a six-year-old again, weightless and carefree, as though the years between then and now had never existed.

They followed the trail, no map, no destination in mind. That was the plan—her plan.

"My favorite thing to do," she had told him once, "is to walk with someone I love, not knowing where the path will lead."

And so, they walked—just as she had always dreamed.

The hills stretched endlessly, their green slopes merging into the embrace of the sky, clouds weaving patterns like dreams over the horizon. It was a sweet, perfect moment—a calm before chaos. As she took it all in, her thoughts wandered to that movie where the girl dies. A girl with a bubbly personality, but only around those closest to her. To everyone else, she seemed distant, even rude. Her face was just like that—misunderstood. It wasn’t her fault.

They reached the end of the trail, where the earth gave way to a sheer drop. The weather was perfect, the scenery breathtaking. So breathtaking, in fact, that tears welled in her eyes. She always cried like this—at sunsets, sad movies, poignant books. “I’m fragile, so be nice,” she often said, though people rarely were.

Standing at the cliff’s edge, she wanted to peer below but couldn’t go alone. “Abhi, come on! Faster!” she called, pulling his arm as he finished his sip of water.

She held onto him tightly as they looked down together. The view was mesmerizing, a patchwork of valleys and distant rivers shimmering under the sun. Yet even in the beauty, fear crept into her chest. The height was dizzying.

And then, suddenly, it all changed.

A thrust—a force she didn’t expect. Her body lurched forward, and she was falling. Time seemed to slow as the ground disappeared beneath her feet. Her breath caught in her throat as panic took over.

Her eyes locked on Abhi. He stood at the edge, watching her with a cold, unrecognizable expression. No panic. No regret. Just a face devoid of emotion.

Her body hit the rocks below with a sickening finality. Her head struck first, and the world splattered red—her brain, her memories, her everything. Silence followed.

None of it mattered anymore—what she loved, what she feared, what she dreamed of. All of it dissolved in that singular, irrevocable moment.

And yet, as her body lay broken, one final tear slipped from her left eye, glistening like a fragment of a last goodbye.