It was dark. I lay on the cold floor of what seemed to be a cavern. My leg hurt, now if I remember correctly I fell here while I was evading from the demon. To be honest, I've no idea what it was, but it made a horrendous sound. Like the call of the demonic beasts.

Anyways, there will always be time for processing the situation, granted I make it out alive. Somehow I managed the strength to lift my body on my feet and began climbing down the slope. That probably is a bad idea but if my hunch is correct, this moist cave should lead me to a water body that will ultimately guide me out to safety. But considering my luck till this moment, the chances are very slim. I came here as a part of the four-man research team sponsored by Advaita Pharmaceuticals in partnership with some British Pharma Corporation (Honestly, I didn't even bother to remember the name). We were supposed to be researching the ayurvedic medicinal herbs that the tribals have used for centuries. Prior research, sanctioned two decades ago had established that these herbs could induce longevity. The research was abandoned under mysterious circumstances. Though much is not known about what happened back then, there is a rumour that the team "disappeared". What became of them nobody knows. Let us not become one of them, I thought to myself. As of now, I had two major goals. First to get out of this mess and the second find my teammates. 

It all started a week ago when, we began our research work in the Kaala Forest. It was located in the core region of the Chaprala forest reserve. As the name might suggest no human or any kind of human intervention was allowed in here. So in a way our work wasn't exactly legal, but the company somehow managed to extract the "permission". 

Our project wasn't exactly sailing smoothly. It was only on the third day of our stay when we finally set our camp and were ready to explore the forest it happend. It was a note written in crimson ink that was pinned to our whiteboard by a knife. It read:


It read in hindi, "If you want to stay alive, leave. Don't think of it as a threat but a warning." Oh definitely a crimson letter pinned by a knife wasn't a threat. Seriously! What will this guy claim next? That Al Qaeda is a humanitarian organisation, fighting for women rights and educating underprivileged kids?

Anyways, I drafted a letter to the HQ. Dr. Bond, our project manager, claimed it to be a prank by the locals and adviced us to focus on our research. Well It is easy for him to say sitting in a luxurious air-conditioned office in New Delhi. What an ass. We had to dismiss the event as a prank, but Professor had his doubts. The ability to induce immortality would bring chaos to the world. But even then it won't be immortality in the real sense. It will in way will not let a person grow old. And theoretically the person will always stay in his twenties.

Now theoretically it's possible, but practically, not really. The whole research is based on the concept of Telomeric Nonsensical Codon Sequence (TNCS). And these herbs somehow manage to activate the elongation of these DNA sequences. How? We have no idea. Atleast based on the science we had known, it all felt absurd. It should not be possible. The place holds something beyond our understanding and common sense. Something far more complex than what can be described by equations on paper. Something, if I dare say, not natural.

It's been some two hours maybe. You know, time doesn't come easy when you're stuck in a dark cavern alone. It kinda reminded me of a research I once read, something about the Human Circadian Rhythm. Fundamentally, in noob terms, your biological body clock gets screwed in absence of day and night cycles. So seems to be the case with me right now. But somehow I walked on towards the feeble source of light, my only hope of salvation.