"What do you think of Mrs. Sharma's homework? Why does she always need to give such difficult tasks as homeworks?" the boy groaned while sipping on his twenty rupees sprite, which was the only thing he could get with his broken pocket money.

The friends beside him laughed. "It is quite clear that she hates you, you know. Did you take away her glasses or something? Because she is always pissed at you!" the group roared in laughter.

"I never did that! Where do you all even get this absurd idea from! As if I could bear taking her sweaty thick glasses. Dudes like me don't even need glasses heh!", he came back with the most absurd reason he could come up with.

"Anyways, let's forget about Mrs. Sharma. She is always always in our thoughts while doing homeworks. We finally get a holiday this weekend. Away from coaching and school after such a long time! So what do you say about going out and checking this new cafe that opened up here?" the boy named, Amish cheerfully asked.

It's been quite long since they have enjoyed any break except the summer vacation, which was again spent in completing projects, assignments and vigorous timetable of the coaching. Being in class 12th is already stressful enough for all of them. And all the responsibilities and backlogs are piling up, while here they are still stuck in completing their school homeworks. It's that period of time where they also have the stress of choosing the path and goals they would follow to build their life in future.

"But Amish, what about the homework the coaching gave us? Did you forget that the boards as well as the mains are coming closer? We didn't even complete our practice of solving the previous year questions!" Vichitra replied. She is a diligent student so she didn't wanna slack off by any means.

"Chitra, come on! This is the only vacation we will be getting before everything goes downhill. You do know that after this all we will be doing is studies and eating stress as if they are our most favourite food! Just for the last time! Come on! We don't even know that after all these exams and stuff, we will even be in the same college in future. We already are in different sections you know. We just get to see each other during the coaching period. I don't even get to see Reshma anymore! Since she's always freaking busy. So let's enjoy the available time that we have. Shouldn't we?" he smiled. He was almost proud of the long emotional speech he gave for the first time in his life.

"Woah! Who are you? Where's the immature Amish who hates red strawberries but loves red roses!" his other friend, Sumitra, snickered.

"Yeah! Where's the Amish who loves ice cream and will cry if he doesn't get it after every exams or test completed!'' Sudan laughed.

"Come on guys! What is this? Mock Amish day! I was always mature, you know!" he whined. Everybody in the group laughed. They all always had a great time teasing each other.

Amish, Reshma, Sumitra, Vichitra and Sudan, were all a tight knit group. They have been friends since childhood. They all used to be neighbours and went to the same primary school. Now they all have shifted their homes, but are still living in the same colony and are continuing the classes in the same school. They have been together pretty much their whole life and know almost everything about each other. It's hard to even imagine the group without any of the friends being absent. They were quite the troublesome group when they were young. And still are the colony's most naughty yet lovable group.

They often thought that they were gonna be friends forever. And when they grow old, they are gonna share the same stories to their grandkids and laugh with them. They already thought of each other as their own family. Even the school gets confused and surprised if they would see either one from the group not walking together. Whenever they had fights, it was as if the whole would sense that and try to rekindle them.

While they were walking back, and chatting about random stuff, suddenly they all heard their annoying notifications go off at the same time. It was surprising because this simply meant they all got a message at the same time together. And the aftermath of that particular message, was full of shock and horror.

Nobody knew that a happy day full of themselves giggling at each other will turn out this way.

"G-guys is the message true?'' Reshma, with her shaking voice, was the first one to ask, breaking the long silence of tension that hung in the air.

"Amish! Hey amish! Are you okay? Look at me, hey!" Sudan frantically grabbed him and made him look in his eyes.

The whole group surrounded him in worry.

And there was Amish, two seconds away from bawling his eyes out. He looked at Sudan as if he was begging for help. At that moment they all realised it was bad. Sudan immediately went to hug his friend, just wanting to comfort his friend, who was currently going through too many emotions.

They quickly went to the nearby park which was honestly just a playground of the government school of their colony.

It was the same park where they all had too many memories attached with. The same park which they stopped coming after that one unfateful incident.

Maybe it was their first mistake....

Sudan was still hugging his friend as if he was scared that once he would release him then he would vanish into the thin air. He was too afraid to lose Amish again. Hearing Amish's pitiful cries, the whole group started breaking down. They all knew what kind of terror they had to go through. All of them just wished, how they never wanted to experience stuff like those again.

They all were in a tight group hug, hugging each other and trying to forgive themselves for what they did. They just wanted to protect their innocence.

They thought it was the end. Oh how wrong they were!

They thought now they knew each other better. But each one of them deep down knew why they were still feeling guilty.

But nothing matters much more than consoling their friend.

Amish has always been the sensitive person. Being the youngest son of his family, he has always been pampered. Though not much because Indian parents are known to be strict! But being the youngest meant he had certain advantages. He loved soft things like teddies and flowers. He was also quick to act on his emotions. Some people called him the emotional corn. Though he had faced bullying due to this, his friends and family never left his side during his tough times. And it wasn't even that Amish was some sort of spoiled brat.

No. He was one of the kindest and considerate person, one could ever meet. The fact that he also was the smartest in the whole group made him shine more. Being the youngest he always knew that he needed to help his siblings rather than annoying them. So he would sit near them whenever he had time, just to listen to what his siblings were studying. He would annoy them like any younger brother would. But he would always make sure that he is not disturbing them when they are in the middle of anything important. The reason why everybody around him loved him. He was just this pure, kind and sweet soul who loved doing things that made him happy.

But that still didn't mean Amish was innocent. In Fact none of them were.

But everybody just loved pretending they weren't. Aren't we too like that?

And now since the message has appeared, this scared them all too much. They knew that telling this to anyone will just make things much more complicated.

It's not that only Amish was at stake, this includes all five of them. It was something they needed to be responsible for.

And oh! They were scared! They were scared as hell because they never meant it to take so far. And they are certainly a bunch of teenagers, where one could never guess what and who is right or what is wrong. But these kids were what others would call a group of "elites".

Their parents weren't too rich but they were certainly above the rank of middle class. In a town like Jajpur, where the whole land area was small, the number of people who had cars were just easily countable. In Fact all of their parents had cars which already made them rank above the middle class families.

The parents of these five kids were really stable and successful. They all had a central government jobs and some their siblings being doctors and engineers, made them a group of high class families. For a small town all these achievements were quite of a big talk. It's not even like the parents were some snobby rich people. Like their kids, they were humble. They knew the struggles of life. So they would always teach their kids to value and respect everyone.

Honestly they were all quite simple and peaceful families. Nothing was much wrong with their kids.

Then what was the problem?

Why did that one message make all the five happy teenagers a visibly confused and scared person?

And the final question: what was even written in that message that made them all go pale and Amish cry like that?

They knew it all. But nobody was ready to address this. All they were doing was just pray and hope that this will pass away soon too.

It's quite a strange occasion they all are locked in.

Nobody knows what to do except comfort each other. And at that moment nothing was even coming to their minds. They wanted to help and be free from this hell hole but at that particular moment nothing was clear.

All everybody thought was why?

Why were they the only ones to be stuck in this problem?

Their phones were blowing up with calls and notifications from their family members. It was quite late at this point, somewhere near 7:00 pm. It's not like they were over protective or something. The parents knew that their kids were friends since childhood and the families also had a good relationship between them. So as long as their kids are with anyone from the group, they are fine and even feel safe to know that. All they had to do was call and say that they are with them. The parents trusted their kids a lot. But was their trust misplaced...?

It's the first time, none of the kids are picking up the phone. So of course, they will be worried like any normal parents would. There were also calls from their older siblings. All in all every five minutes each of their phones were going off. But here they were on a cold park bench, rethinking their life.

It's also the first time that their kids did something serious like this and don't know how to handle it. So here they are crying and thinking of getting out of the situation as soon as possible so that the parents won't know about it. At least they could keep their happy reputation. It was all they could think.

But they forgot....

How gullible of them!

What they were facing was enough to end all of their lives...

And they also forgot that whatever they were discussing was on a bench of a public park.

A park where thousands of people pass by. A place if you are not careful, a thousand of stuff could happen. A place where they have no backup of safety, then to be safe in this chilly dark evening, was a bit questionable isn't it?

Especially when you are a school student who just got a life dangering message just an hour ago...

"You'll come tomorrow school right?" came Sudan's shaky voice. In Fact his hands were still shaking after getting the message.

".... yeah we will have to go anyway. If we won't then it'll be quite a hint as to why we are hiding...." Vichitra mumbled while wiping her tears

"Amish, you need to come. Do you hear me? Don't go into that headspace again please! Please remember we need you. And we'll surely fix this come on! Stay with us, yeah!" Reshma was the one ranting all these to the currently most silent person in the whole group.

He was still silent and just nodded. Nobody knew what he was thinking.

They were all afraid of this the most. And it seems like everything is happening the exact same way which they feared or maybe even worse..... Who knows?

Anyways, it was already quite late! So the friends discussed what they needed to do and started walking back home. Then they also had to explain to their parents why they were this late. So they all started going back hurriedly and removing all the tracks that their whole life was just turned upside down in the matter of 1 hour 30 minutes.

But then in the back pocket of one of them, suddenly the phone went off with the notification of a text message....

"Do you think going to school will solve all the problems my dear? Remember I'll not stop until you get what you deserve"

....................................................................................................