A Journey from the Old Village

"Ammayi, do you see that? The sky is already turning darker," said Ravi as he adjusted the bundle on his shoulder. His voice trembled, not just from the weight of the load, but from the weight of the fear that seemed to be gripping everyone's hearts.

Seetha, his wife, barely lifted her head as she walked beside him, clutching their two young children. "We don’t have time to look at the sky anymore, Ravi. We need to keep walking."

The path they were taking was rugged—worn down by countless feet before them, each step a reminder of the uncertainty ahead. The ground was uneven, and the landscape was desolate. The trees they once knew had withered and turned to dry, brittle branches that seemed to reach out like ghostly fingers. Their village—once full of life—was now behind them, abandoned, silent, and consumed by the illness that took away everyone they loved.

They were walking westward, leaving the dying village behind, heading toward a distant town that had promised to provide refuge. How far? No one knew. Days, perhaps weeks? The road stretched on, endlessly.

"Remember, Seetha, when we used to walk this road with laughter?" Ravi whispered, his voice almost lost in the rustling of the dry leaves underfoot.

Seetha's face tightened, and for a moment, it seemed like she would break down. The memories of happier days were too much to bear. "How could I forget, Ravi? But we are walking now, not talking. The children are tired. We cannot stop."

They passed by the fields where Ramulu, their neighbor, had once worked. The crops that used to sway in the wind were now barren, stripped by the disease. The disease that had started with Sankara—just one person. But that was all it took. The fever, the coughing, the shaking, and before long, no one was left unaffected. First, it was one or two villagers—then it spread.

Ravi stopped for a moment and looked back at the empty village, the smoke still rising faintly from the few houses that were left. "It’s like the entire earth has swallowed everything we knew, Seetha."

Seetha nodded, her eyes distant. "What can we do? We have to survive."

They kept walking.

The sun was dipping lower in the sky now, casting long shadows across the land. Ravi tried to gauge how far they had walked, but it was hard to say. Hours? Days? How long had they been on the road? The heat was oppressive, and the dust from the dry fields stuck to their skin. The wind picked up, carrying with it the smell of something unfamiliar, something new.

"How far is the town, Uncle Raju?" Seetha asked the elderly man walking beside them, who had been their village’s elder before everything fell apart. His eyes were tired, but his will was unbroken.

"Can’t say, Seetha. Maybe another two days? Maybe more. We’ll rest when the sun sets. We must keep moving forward, though. There is no other choice."

A child cried out ahead of them. It was Lakshmi’s daughter, who had fallen behind. "What is it, little one?" Seetha asked, rushing to pick up the girl, who was struggling with the heat and the journey.

"I’m tired, Auntie... can we stop?" The child’s voice cracked, heavy with exhaustion.

"You know we can’t, my dear," Seetha said softly, lifting the girl into her arms. "We must walk for them. For everyone we lost."

The child nodded, her tiny hands clutching Seetha tightly as she continued on.

By nightfall, they reached a small clearing by the side of a dried-up riverbed. The tents were going up, one after another. The once lively village, now reduced to a group of wanderers, was camped here—tired but not defeated. The flickering light of small fires illuminated their faces, casting an eerie glow over their tired eyes.

"Do you think we’ll ever find a place like our old village again?" Ravi asked, his voice low as he spoke to Seetha by the fire.

"I don't know, Ravi. But we have to try," she replied, gazing into the fire, her thoughts distant.

A child’s laughter broke through the silence. It was the little one who had been carried, now playing near the fire with some of the other children. Their innocent laughter seemed out of place in such a world of sorrow, but it was a sound that brought hope, however faint.

As the night deepened, Ravi and Seetha lay side by side in their tent. "Do you think we’ll ever be safe again?" he asked her softly.

"I don't know," she whispered, tears welling up in her eyes. "But we have to keep walking, keep surviving—for the children."

The next morning, they packed up and resumed their journey. It was another long day of walking through barren land, with the occasional sign of life—an abandoned hut, a dried-up well, but no people. The road ahead was uncertain, but they had each other, and that was enough for now.

As they moved forward, Ravi turned to Seetha one last time. "Maybe, just maybe, the new village will be the place where we begin again," he said.

Seetha looked back at their old village, then at the horizon. "We don’t know what the future holds, Ravi. But we will face it together, as a family. We must."

And with that, they kept walking.