Curiosity Killed the Cat

Last year in the month of December, I went to my native village where my grandparents live in a cottage on the foothills of the Himalayas. One day, I was standing on the edge of a dense forest. Suddenly, I hear this singing voice. Beautiful yet chilling. It seemed to be coming from the middle of the forest. I recognised it as a female voice, just singing vocables, no lyrics. I, being the curious person I am, decided to find the source of this beautiful sound.

I began my journey through the forest, relying on my hearing to direct me through the vast forest. It was no easy task, seeing that I hadn’t exactly planned on going on a trek through the forest, so my clothing was not that thick and didn’t provide enough warmth to get me through the forest. But still, I really wanted to find out who was singing the beautiful melody and this desire proved to be much stronger than the cold.

I was going on strong, trudging through the snow, even after millions of frostbites made their appearance on my hands. The voice seemed to be soothing my wounds. The source being the only destination in my mind. So I kept going on this journey through the forest.

I trekked through the dense forest for almost half an hour and I reached the end of the tree line. I seemed to have reached a clearing. It wasn’t very cold anymore and there was a thick fog that engulfed the clearing, making it difficult for me to see anything. I also noticed that I didn’t have to strain my ears to listen to the voice anymore. It was then that realisation struck...the female singer was here! In the very clearing where I was!

I still didn’t have a face to the voice though. It seemed to be coming from the middle of the clearing. So I decided to push through the fog and see for myself, who it was. I took slow and soft steps towards the centre, in order to not startle the person. As I crept, I felt the air around me become warmer. Well that was strange! The voice too was becoming louder and stronger. I couldn’t take the suspense anymore and broke into a sprint towards the centre.

In minutes I found myself in the centre of the clearing. The voice was so beautiful and heavenly that I just closed my eyes and stood there for a minute or two, ravishing it’s glory. When I opened my eyes, I discovered that the cause of the thick fog was a hot spring! In the middle of the clearing!

The sight of the hot water was tempting, that I threw out all of my inhibitions out of the window and I dipped my hands in the water, which was soothing yet painful to my frostbitten hands. The sound of my hands breaking the calmness of the still water was most definitely heard by the singer, which prompted her to stop. When I realised that the beautiful melody had stopped, I raised my head in the general direction of the singer and I found myself to be barely 3 metres away from her. The fog was still thick, so I had to squint my eyes to take a good look at her. After a minute of trying to see her, a horrible realisation dawned upon me. I knew that woman. I knew her very well. It was my very own sister!

That’s right it was my sister! I couldn’t believe my eyes! I couldn’t believe that what was happening was real! She realised it was me as well. She waited, for my reaction. I was so shocked out of my mind that I didn’t even stay to question her about her secret singing ability and ran back the way I came. I didn’t stop until I reached the cabin and barely took the trouble to remove my soggy clothes and directly went and sat in front of the fire, taking all the time I needed to replay and process the day’s events.

Moral- Curiosity killed the cat, but satisfaction did NOT bring it back!

Author’s Note: This story is a reconstruction of the story that I had written for my English Board Exam in February 2020, carrying the value of 10 marks. The first two sentences are the prompt given in the paper. This story was inspired by AURORA’s vocals in the movie Frozen 2. After writing the story I found it so amusing that I sat there and laughed to myself in the examination hall.