Inside the forest.

And I realise thereafter that this was an experience I had been longing for. Tracing what eventually formed up the system which has prevailed past the centuries before the humankind opens you up to a phenomenal process and several reasons to utter an amazement.
We were in a forest. A forest trail. Maharana Pratap Trail. And this was a reason enough to find all kinds of evens and odds about a trek. Dr. Sunil Dubey, an elite person, a naturalist, an ecologist, a scientist, what not and an extremely humble man exposed us to a hundreds of plants species, trees, the understoreys and their stories. Penning down everything to a precision would be a treacherous task but the 24 of us were trying hard.

Clouds were hovering all the afternoon and winds were palpable on the climb.
We were moving down the hill now. Towards Badi Lake. Because we were moving down the slope, my classmates were walking a bit slow. Among those grasses as tall as me, I was trying to make it a bit fast and move on the rocky side when this girl on my right gave a scream. A scream!
I did not even care to look back to what did she see and what happened because all I sensed from the peripheral view was she screamed and began to possibly run.
I ran ahead of her. I could literally run and jump far distances at the moment only if the classmates did not create the traffic. In that motion, I heard her saying it was a snake. And I was still trying to run when somebody held my hand and thought I was falling down. But I was not falling off. I was running and I asked to leave my hand. Let me run. They possibly laughed a bit. But I was not performing a comic act. I had to leap. I did not even care to listen the reason at first when I heard the scream. I sensed the reason perhaps.  I know I am petrified of snakes but I never thought about it when entering the forest. I had to not to. So.
After a while, I took on the rocky patches wherever possible and trudge with eyes wide awake.
But it were the ears that woke up a while after. Nobody heard. I wondered why. It were just the three of us among the whole class who heard something. Something from deep down the throat. Something hoarse. Something wild. Something scary. From the near. I felt my pulse rev a little. We moved a bit fast. But the people from behind said, 'It was just a bird! We saw.'
The three of us were adamant. A bird? It couldn't be. It wasn't a bird. The snarl. It was not a bird! The growl. It could not a be bird.
So what was it? Possibly some leopard? And this near?
We hold the mystery in our minds for nobody to resolve.