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Disclaimer: This story is a work of fiction created for entertainment and reading purposes. The characters, events, places, and situations depicted are fictional unless otherwise stated, and any resemblance to actual people, living or deceased, or real events or places is purely coincidental. The story may contain fictional situations, themes, or material that may not be suitable for every reader. Some images accompanying this story may be generated using Google Gemini and may be fictional, stylized, or interpretive and may not accurately represent real people, places, objects, or events.

At the place of Verra and Venky

As the day passed, the moon started to show its light. Verra and Venky had their food and were sleeping on the tree branch.

In the middle of the night, Verra, who was sleeping, woke up after hearing a faint sound. He panicked slightly but calmed himself and started to focus on what the sound was.

Upon closer inspection, he found that it was the sound of a bell making a cling-cling, ding-ding sound.

As Verra wasn’t aware of what time it was, he assumed it was still early in the night. He thought about who might be out there at this hour.

As he was thinking about it, he soon started to notice that the sound was getting closer and closer to them.

This time, he freaked out, wondering who might be coming.

Since the sound was getting closer and closer, he couldn’t sleep, so he decided to wake Venky. He shook Venky until he woke up.

Venky finally woke up and was about to shout at Verra for waking him up, but Verra closed Venky’s mouth, signaling him to stay quiet and lower his voice.

When Venky woke up, the bell stopped for a moment and then started ringing again.

Venky, using hand signals, asked, “Why the heck did you wake me up at this time?”

Verra tapped him and signaled Venky to listen to the sound. Venky did the same and heard the sound of the bell.

“What is this sound?” Venky asked.

“I don’t know exactly what it is. It’s getting closer and closer,” Verra signaled to Venky.

Venky signaled Verra to move closer to the branch floor so they could peek from above and see what it was.

Verra rejected the idea at first, but with Venky insisting, he agreed. They both peeked through the edge while keeping their bodies hidden behind it.

What they saw was a bullock cart on the main road. Two oxen were pulling it, while a bell tied around one of the oxen’s necks was making the sound.

Venky and Verra sighed with relief.

“It’s a cart. It seems like it’s going towards the city,” Venky said.

“It seems so,” Verra replied.

They slid back onto the floor. When they tried to sleep again, they started to realize that the sound of the bell was getting even closer.

Venky signaled to Verra to peek again. They both did so and saw that the cart had actually taken the same route they had taken while escaping the lion.

Both slid back onto the floor to hide their presence, but it made a rustling noise, which alerted the cart rider and caused him to stop there.

A beautiful voice echoed from below.

“Who is there on the branch?”

It was a woman’s voice coming from inside the cart.

Venky and Verra stayed silent. They spoke in low voices as they were scared of the whole situation.

“Should we reply?” Verra asked.

“No. What if they turn out to be thieves or hunters? They will hunt us,” Venky replied.

“Of course, you may be right. But what if they could help us reach the city?” Verra asked.

“You may be right. They may be good people, but we can’t risk our lives. Soon, we will leave this place as the sun rises, so be patient and don’t speak a word,” said Venky.

To this, Verra stayed quiet.

She spoke again and asked, “If you are not human, I am going to throw this stone at you.” Of course, it was meant to scare away predators. “If you are human, answer me now.”

Verra and Venky, who were hiding and talking in sign language, became even more cautious after hearing what she said.

There was silence for a moment.

Verra finally broke the silence, stood up, and announced, “Don’t throw the stone, don’t throw the stone! We are humans.”

“Oh, thank God. You guys—jeez, if there had been any delay in announcing that, I would have thrown the stone. You scared the hell out of me. Please introduce yourself.”

Verra, observing how she reacted, thought that she might be just like them, someone who was scared, and that the cart driver might be as well.

“Well, I am Verra, and the other one is Venky. We are both heading toward the city. Due to an unfortunate situation, we are stuck on this tree until tomorrow. Once the sun rises, we will go on our way. Please continue your journey.”

She spoke, “Ohh, you guys are stuck because something came up. Uhhh, can I know what it may be?”

What is this woman even asking? Verra thought to himself.

“Is it necessary? But as a fellow human, I will tell you. As you can see, we got chased by a lion during the day, so we climbed this tree. It left around evening, so we couldn’t continue our journey and got stuck here.”

“A lion?” she gasped loudly. “You guys escaped a lion? How courageous you are! But that alone doesn’t make it safe to sleep in the middle of the forest. There are a lot of predators who wander at night. Will you be safe?” she asked.

“Hope we will, and we don’t have any choice either,” said Verra.

“No choice? That’s rude when you are looking at the choice itself,” said the woman.

“You have a choice? How?” Verra asked.

“Not me, but the village we are heading to is our village. If you want to be safe, you can join us,” said the woman.

Venky, tapping Verra on the leg, signaled him to say no to this. But Verra straight up said, “We could join you guys, but what is there for us, and what is there for you? And what if you guys turn out to be thieves? I have never even heard of this village.” He laid out a lot of questions.

“Ohh, that’s rude, calling us thieves. We are humble merchants who sell items by visiting villages. And why you have never heard of the village—I wouldn’t call it a village, but rather a community. Ahh, yes, we are a community that has stayed outside this forest. That is why there is a road here, don’t you see? And what do you get? Well, for that recognition, our community is still not recognized by the other villages, so they often choose other communities’ products. But if you came and spread the word about our community, we would become recognized. Even though it is small, we could become a talking community, you see. It’s a business. If you want to come, join us and be safe for the night rather than spending the night here and facing the consequences of your actions.”

As they both got down from the tree, Verra first looked at the cart driver. The driver looked straight ahead without paying any attention to Verra.

As for Venky, he went back towards the cart to climb inside. When he reached it, he saw a young woman looking at him with a gentle smile as she asked him to climb inside the cart.

Venky followed her words while thanking her for the help.

Verra was busy observing the cart driver when Venky called him to climb inside the cart. Following Venky’s words, he came back and climbed inside.

As they both got inside the cart, the woman ordered the cart driver to move.

The cart started to strated move.