Chapter 5 — The Pack
And thus begins Chapter Five.
Now.
There I lay.
Stretched across the bed.
Grinning at the ceiling.
The mountains outside.
Reality inside.
And whatever remained of the magic pancakes somewhere in orbit.
The council nods.
A peaceful scene.
Then the door opened.
The council immediately becomes interested.
For through that door walked a fellow traveler.
A roommate.
A temporary companion assigned by fate and hostel management.
Now.
The strange thing was this.
He spoke my native language.
The council smiles.
At last.
A familiar face.
A connection.
A piece of home.
Children.
We immediately began speaking English.
The council collapses.
Correct.
To this day I have no explanation.
Perhaps we had already committed to being travelers.
Perhaps it felt appropriate.
Perhaps we were both idiots.
The answer remains unknown.
Now.
Acquaintance formed rapidly.
The same way golden retrievers become friends.
Meet.
Sniff metaphorically.
One minute later.
Best friends.
The council applauds.
The purest form of friendship.
We talked.
Shared stories.
Made plans.
Spoke of adventures.
Future destinations.
The usual traveler ritual.
Then.
I never saw him again.
The council pauses.
Children.
To this day I do not know what happened.
Did he ghost me?
Did I ghost him?
Did he change hostels?
Did I?
Did he ascend into a higher plane of existence?
The council writes this down.
A plausible theory.
All I know is this.
One moment he was part of the story.
The next moment he wasn’t.
A traveler.
A memory.
Gone almost as quickly as he arrived.
And somehow,
that felt fitting.
Now.
Eventually I wandered back outside.
Another cigarette.
Same spot as before.
The council nods.
A sacred location.
Only this time,
the ghost town was gone.
People had appeared.
Travelers.
Backpackers.
Stories waiting for introductions.
And among them sat two men.
The council leans forward.
Naturally,
I said absolutely nothing.
The council applauds.
Consistency.
You see,
contrary to popular belief,
wandering does not magically cure social anxiety.
It merely relocates it to more scenic locations.
Now.
Had destiny been sensible,
the story would’ve ended there.
Three strangers.
Three cigarettes.
Zero conversations.
But destiny has never been sensible.
Children.
If a story wishes to exist,
it will find a way.
And in this particular case,
it found an author.
Unfortunately,
I no longer remember his name.
The council gasps.
An archivist forgetting a name?
Scandalous.
Children.
Names vanish.
Stories remain.
So we shall call him.
Gunman.
The council immediately has questions.
Simple.
He had a gun.
The council nods.
Fair enough.
Now.
Gunman looked at me.
Studied me briefly.
Then asked.
“You from Kerala?”
The council applauds.
An opening.
A bridge.
A connection.
“Yeah.”
I replied.
Then naturally asked.
“Are you?”
“No.”
The council waits.
That was it.
No explanation.
No follow up.
No context.
Just.
Kerala?
Yes.
No.
Perfect.
Friendship achieved.
The council collapses.
Now.
Without another word,
he invited me to join them.
And suddenly,
without effort,
without planning,
without even trying,
I found myself sitting beside two strangers.
The council smiles.
Because this is how wandering works.
Not through grand revelations.
Through accidents.
Now.
The second man possessed a beard.
A magnificent beard.
A beard worthy of recognition.
Thus he became Beard Man.
The council nods.
A naming convention both efficient and deeply lazy.
My specialty.
Now.
The joints were rolled.
The stories emerged.
And before I knew it,
something familiar happened.
The council recognizes it instantly.
Children.
I had found a pack.
A temporary one.
Not permanent.
Not eternal.
Not the chosen family Lucian spent his life searching for.
Something smaller.
Something brief.
A campfire family.
The kind that exists only because three roads happened to intersect.
And gods,
those families are beautiful.
Now.
We sat there all night.
Exchanging stories.
Passing joints.
Talking about lives we’d never fully understand.
Listening to people we’d probably never see again.
The council grows quiet.
Because there is something sacred about that.
No expectations.
No history.
No future.
Just the present.
Pure and temporary.
The way campfires were always meant to be.
Now.
The hours slipped by unnoticed.
Midnight became morning.
Darkness became dawn.
And eventually,
the cryptids grew tired.
The council applauds.
A rare occurrence.
Children.
Even wanderers must occasionally sleep.
And so we dispersed.
Not with ceremony.
Not with declarations.
Simply with the quiet understanding that tomorrow would bring another story.
Thus concludes Chapter Five.
Gunman.
Beard Man.
And the Roommate Whose Name Was Lost To History.
Proof that sometimes a family lasts decades.
And sometimes it lasts a single night.
Both are real.
Both matter.
And both leave footprints long after the road has moved on.
