ADVENT

At around 5 AM in the morning, Sanjana had arrived in the Mahabaleshwar central station. When she landed the arena, all she saw was darkness, it was foggy all around, not a single sign of life, birds were lying all around the place, and there was not a single train either entering or leaving the station other than hers. Even her train left as soon as she made her departure.

She was instructed by Rakesh to wait in the station until he and Nidhi arrive, strictly warning her against exploring the area as it was very dangerous. Sanjana waited there patiently. At 6:30 AM, came the train of her parents. She helped Rakesh and Nidhi with their bags and the armoury, the most precious thing for the entire plan.

As soon as Sanjana saw her mother, she ran towards her and started crying. Seeing her cry Nidhi understood what pain her children have been through, especially Sumit, who wasn't there with them considering his safety. Rakesh, seeing her daughter's condition, was now even more determined to get this job done.

After coming home 30 years later, his whole body was trembling. A part of his was eager to go and find his "Lost Paradise", but another part of him just warned him to keep his excitement in check as evil has arrived at the place and worse is yet to come. After the small family reunion, the trio left the station to uncover the mystery of the place, the quest to save their family and reality, in the village out of time, Mahabaleshwar.

It was very foggy, not even the sunlight could be seen from the way the clouds have lined. They didn't find any auto-rickshaw or a taxi nearby from the station, which they found overly out of shape. And they scanned the surroundings only to find the houses and the buildings damaged, thinking there was a ruthless storm recently.

Sanjana, while looking at the area gets a blue glimpse inside her head, but nothing happens. It was like a video buffering on the internet, it comes and goes. Even though it happened many times, and she expected to see Gopala and faint, nothing happened.

The trio decided to walk all the way to Galol lake which was quite far from there, considering they couldn't find a ride to that place. They started walking down an abandoned road, which didn't have any sign of life or traffic, it was like the entire place had died and they are the only ones alive. They could smell something rotting, and the smell was filthy. They kept on walking and walking down the road for 2 hours head-on.

As Rakesh was going, to tell the truth so did Sanjana finally decided to tell him what Sumit and Ananya saw in the hospital X-Ray monitor, and hearing which both Rakesh and Nidhi were terrified.

On the way, Rakesh and Sanjana explained their part of what happened and what were they supposed to do. "Kanika was my sister, she committed suicide because she didn't get even a quarter of father's wealth, and with her mother, Mona and sister Shania, burnt themselves alive. I admit I never wanted to give her anything, but I didn't want her to die a horrible death", said Rakesh.

"And about Gopala, have you done anything to him, like did you guys make him disappear?" was the question posed by Sanjana, to which he replied "I and Uday were in school when father left for the town council. We don't know what happened, but father's sudden disappearance made me very sad, honestly."

Sanjana was a bit confused with father's reply as she was thinking up until now that he had something to do with Gopala's disappearance, but that wasn't the case. Neither did he have anything to do with Kanika or her mother and sister, then why is Sumit paying the price of the sin committed by some third party.

She enquired about this to her father as well, to which her mother replied "Does it have to anything with this staff? Because I remember whenever Sumit is around, and the staff never glowed even once since Sumit has left home for college?" Hearing this theory, bells started ringing in both Rakesh's and Sanjana's head, as she now realize that whatever Sumit said during the 'Welcoming Party' wasn't a lie after all. "The Staff of Abyss", as it was known.

Talking about all this, they reached Galol Lake, at the centre of which, lies the lost paradise of the childhood of Rakesh. As soon as he saw this tears started to fell from his eyes, as it reminded of his happy childhood days.

He could see his mother Ragini greeting him, welcoming him after so many years, sister Kanika running towards him, bringing chocolates and candies for him, and his father, in the same stern voice asking "Where have you been all these years?" Rakesh started to kneel on his feet and cried very hard. Nidhi couldn't help him even if she wanted to. Sanjana started taking pictures of the place to study the situation of the place in an in-depth manner.

Among all the pictures she took, she saw 1 picture weirder than others. In one of them, she saw some sort of blue tinge near the top floor of the mansion, but when she looked up, she couldn't figure out anything. At the same time, Nidhi was trying her best to calm Rakesh. When Sanjana came forward to have a look at her father, and when she saw his eyes, she realized he wasn't crying by his will, he was controlled by someone to cry. And that his eyes were begging to be helped. She was terrified and explained the situation to her mother.

Hearing which Nidhi looks up in the sky, and she loses her mind on what she sees. Sanjana, when looked at her mother, terrified of something, something above, even she tried to look back. When she did, her reaction was also the same, but she started screaming this time. Rakesh gave out a big scream when he saw the scene too.

It was probably the last thing they would have expected to see in their life, but it was so unbelievable that it was beyond imagination. From now on the three of them realized that the gates have opened and they were standing in the place where the worlds of the living and the death coexist.