The Lost Family

By Shanaya Singh

Chapter 1 

Once upon a time, in the breezy Himalayas, lived a poor girl named Zana. She spent her cold mornings begging people on the road for money, and her nights were spent sleeping on the dirty narrow pathways with no blanket or proper clothes to cover her from the evil and chilly winter. For many days, she survived without food or a small portion of food. Unable to bear the hunger, thirst, and pain, she prayed to god- “Will some of your miracles save me? Can you help me live a good and dignified life?”

Chapter 2 

Christmas is coming which invites good visitors to the Himalayas . Some came to see their beloved family, and a few people came to see the white blanket of snow on the majestic mountains. One kind visitor Zack, had seen how Zana was looking into the trash like a dirty old street dog. He felt guilty for her so he gave her food,a cosy blanket, and some new clothes that could save her from the extreme winter in December and January.  When she got the supplies, she trembled down to her knees like she was fainting, but instead she joyfully bent down to her knees so she could touch the man’s feet. She thankfully said “ You are my hero! Thank you so much!!!”

Zack felt good that he had given the starving little girl a few supplies to survive the winter, but she also reminded him about his little sister. Zack was born on an unknown planet out of the solar system. The planet was called CRIYO. He dreadfully thought of how he was forced to be an assassin and had been forced to kill all the living things on earth. He remembered the last time he came to earth which was with his sister,he also remembered how his innocent little sister had been kidnapped by a bunch of assassins from earth, and the same greedy assassins had come to his planet with a bunch of oxygen tanks and had made CRIYO living hell, they left his sister homeless in the streets on earth to die, he was very sad and angry, so angry that he banged his head on the walls while crying. That’s how he ended up over here trying to fulfil his greediness and anger. He did not have any other family that he could take to destroy earth because they were dead themselves . So he ended up with 3 aliens from another planet serving him by being his assistant, the 3 aliens are “Rumi, Zuzu and lily He felt bad for Zana but he didn’t know that she was his sister. In order to successfully be done with his mission, will he kill Zana too? Or will he abort his mission just because of her?

Chapter 3

Zana was overjoyed! But she had no idea what was going to happen to her in the future. After a few weeks, she thought of selling the blanket and some of her food for money so she can buy a low quality mattress and a better blanket with it. Zana thought she could be rich as she realised that her blanket and her food was worth less money. She had gone to a nearby store which sells mattresses for more than Rs. 1000.kitchen utensils for more than ₹2000, blankets for more than ₹1000, and lots of other expensive stuff. 

Zana realised that the money which was given by the man was not enough So she started her journey of begging on the road again. Zack was in a taxi with Rumi, Zuzu and Lily.

 Whenever Zana saw Zack, it reminded her of her brother and it turns out she was from Criyo too. Zana got reminded of the horrific incident where she was kidnapped by an alien  and was left in a random street on earth, a completely different planet for her. She got separated from her family and her brother and became anxious and emotional thinking of her family. So she went for a nature walk enjoying the soothing sun in the noon time of the unpredictable Himalayas. 

Chapter 4

While taking a walk in the green mountains, she found a well trodden path which used to be used, it looked like a small road which used to be used in history. Curious, Zana decided to follow that place. She followed the small pathway which led to a mysterious cave, and there, she found a tiny letter, she opened it and read it, it said ‘ Step into the cave if you dare!!!’   Zana loved mysterious adventures, so she decided to explore the cave. She took a few soft steps which were barely audible and saw a painting made out of blood! She got scared and said ‘ This place is terribly terrifying! ’ She moved on and started feeling water droplets dripping from the creepy ceiling. The deeper she went the more foggy the ground became. Zana was extremely scared, so scared that she fainted onto the foggy uneven floor. After an hour or so, she regained consciousness, she was shaking, and could feel her heart thumping so hard that she thought it almost exploded! She thought about the blood painting again and again, it filled up her brain, and almost felt like this whole thing was a setup. It was like this was something planned to happen by a criminal or some other mysterious person or creature . She walked forward a few more steps, and saw a dead body's skeleton, it  did not look like someone or something from earth, it looked like someone from CRIYO! ( the planet Zana was from )   

Chapter 5

The mystery of the skeleton still remained, and now instead of the blood painting, the skeleton filled up her brain like crazy. She moved further into the dark cave and noticed footprints of something, this time her brain did not control her, her curiosity did. She followed the footprints and then noticed that it vanished into thin air . Then suddenly she saw some kind of robot in front of her. She went further and she tapped its shoulders and said ‘ Hi, do you live here? And if you do, is that blood painting in the entrance your style or did you just put it there to scare people?’ The robot spoke back in a language which was an ancient language from CRIYO. It gave her flashbacks from her childhood with her brother. She did not really understand what the robot was saying  but she remembered a few words that she learnt when she was a kid. She partially understood what the robot meant and what it was trying to say. After a few minutes she noticed something big and black right behind her, her hair on her arms and legs had stood up as if there was a concert and none of them were able to see anything, she immediately turned back with fear and noticed nothing, the robot started saying something else but Zana had ignored it and started to walk forward, the robot followed her and tried to stop her. She was too curious to stop so she kept going and going through the long Black cave.

Chapter 6

It got dark and the weather changed to a stormy 1, since she was not able to go out because of the storm so she surprisingly had convinced the robot to stay in the cave for today night while talking in the ancient language of CRIYO, she slept on the uncomfortable wet ground for the night, and woke up by the sound of thunder and noticed the storm was still going on, so she decided to explore the cave.

The cave was filled with minerals and semi-precious stones and many other geodes, by the time Zana was having her best time looking at the shimmering stones, but on the other hand, Jinu was having the worst time of his life, he was sleeping in his own bedroom on the extremely comfortable mattress and having a horrible nightmare, in the nightmare, Jinu was being chased by an old hungry monster who was ten times bigger than him! He took the name of god and repeated that in his mind. The monster had already gobbled up Jinu’s sister. He was extra scared, he did not want to die in a dream! A few moments later after being chased by a monster who wants to eat him, Jinu woke up with the thought that the dream was actually weird. But the moment he woke up Zana got bored and dozed off on the uneven ground and had the same dream as Jinu did but except her getting gobbled up into the monster’s acidic belly Jinu did and she was running for her life like Jinu was in his dream. She was woken up by the robot and the robot said something but this time in English, he said “ I made you drink a special ooze when you were sleeping. You can understand me better now because now I am speaking in English” Zana got mad but controlled her anger since it was just a robot, she said “ ok but can you tell me if the storm has stopped or is it still going?” The robot said “ it has stopped for now, and just asking you, do you want to be my friend? I do not have any except these geodes and rocks, they are not exactly friends but I talk to them even if they say nothing to me” Zana wondered if she should be his friend, she thought to say yes but then she could not trust it because it  made Zana drink a special ooze thingy god knows what it is made off, but then she felt bad for it because it did not have any friends. She decided to say yes to the robot. The Robot said “you should go know if you want to talk to me ever again then just come back here” Zana decently smiled and said of course I will come back to meet you but may ask you where you are from?” The Robot said “ a lot of people don’t know this place, planet infact, it is called CRIYO.” Zana was shocked, she opened her mouth to say something but didn't. If she said that she was from the exact place the robot  was from then maybe the robot might treat her differently. She told the robot that it stopped raining so she is going back to the dirty pathways where she lived her miserable life.

Chapter 7

She was going back to the road but she noticed the wet mud on the ground and accidentally stepped on it. She felt disgusted as the mud squiggled around her feet and made it very itchy. Zana quickly scanned the area for a lake or ocean or any source of water so she can wash her dirty feet, she found one very small lake and cleaned her foot in it, then she went to the narrow pathway and begged people on the road for a few hours and got a small chocolate to eat, she considered that as dinner and ate it. She drifted off in a few seconds because it was a long day. The next day, Zana went to the robot's place, she greeted it and said “ I never got to know your name.” The robot said that his name is #%Si123 and his creator is someone named Jinu. Zana’s jaws dropped like someone ripped them apart, the robot saw her and said “ what happened to your face?” Zana replied to the robot blurting out whatever was in her mind, including that Jinu was her sibling and she was from CRIYO too. Then she said “ Oh no, Oh no! #%Si123 you were never supposed to hear that!” And after saying that, she immediately sprinted across the road and sat near the corner and started quietly crying, she did not know that the robot was following her. The robot came to her and said “ why did you not tell me that you were from CRIYO too, why did you not tell me that you had a sibling? Well , anyway, can you tell me where Jinu is? I have a software update pending for almost 3 weeks .” I was hopeing that you might know where Jinu is” Zana said. She also said that it's pretty late and that she should go. The robot agreed  but before he left he said to meet him at 2 o’clock in the afternoon he had something important to show and say. Zana went to sleep and said that tomorrow’s a big day, in her mind. 

Chapter 8

Zana woke up to a fresh breeze from the fresh snow and then remembered that she had a meeting with #%Si123 at 2 o’clock, she got ready and then asked a random person about the time and they said that it was 10 o’clock a.m, she had a lot of time, so she decided to earn some money by begging. She begged for a few hours and fell asleep on the low quality mattress Jinu gave her. She had the same dream as she had yesterday, the dream in which Jinu was eaten by a big ancient monster from CRIYO. She thought the universe was trying to trick her because she was lying in this miserable life and meeting this robot who she doesn’t know that much in a filthy cave, and now getting scrambled up in this business where apparently her brother is alive. ( She thought Jinu, her brother, was dead.) She woke   up at the correct time because it was 2 o’clock in the afternoon, Zana thought she was late so she ran as fast as she could to the dark cave where the robot lived, and surprisingly the robot was waiting for Zana at the entrance and said “  You are on time, follow me to my lab”  Zana was curious about the lab so she followed #%Si123 like she was hypnotized, she also wondered what the lab was about, was it a secret? Is it hidden and if so why? What was made in the lab?  

Chapter 9

The robot and Zana both arrived at the lab. Zana’s first reaction was  a disgusted one because it was all filled with cop-webs and dust, only some areas were neat & clean.

The robot showed Zana a gadget  which he invented a long time bag, he was not even sure if it even worked right now, the robot said “ This is a gadget which is used for finding people, I thought we can use this to track down Jinu to his exact location. Zana asked about how it is used, the robot explained to her that we need someone from his|her family’s blood so it can detect the person, Zana also asked #%Si123 about if she was going to give blood or if she needed to do something else, she also said that she barely remembered how her brother looked. The robot replied to her by saying “ I have a clean syringe here and with that I will take out almost 5 drops of blood from your body by injecting the injection into your arm, then I am going to put it in this tiny little space in the gadget and after that I am going start the gadget which I call the personFinder and then we are going to look for Jinu. Zana agreed to the process, a few moments later the robot got a cart with an injection which was so sharp  that it hurt Zana just by looking  at it, a cotton ball and a bandaid which looked a little old. #%Si123 strapped Zana to a rusty chair and injected her, while that was happening Zana was taking the name of god in her head the whole time, she was also crying. Before she knew it, it was done, #%Si123 started filling up the small compartment where the blood should go, the robot randomly said that the blood is basically fuel for the machine, after a few seconds the gadget started, it growled like it was an old wolf but it wasn’t. They went out of the cave and started walking here and there to detect any humans from the family. They kept  doing this until the gadget led them to a big mansion.

Chapter 10

The robot rang the doorbell and guessed who opened the door, it was Jinu! Jinu asked them about who they were. The robot said “ Hey buddy! Long time no see! Don’t you remember me? I was and still am the first robot you built in CRIYO.” Jinu’s eyes sparkled as if he was about to cry, Zana just went in for a tight hug Jinu pushed Zana away and said “ who are you??? And why did you just hug me like that?” Zana replied with a smile, “ I was assuming you forgot me, remember thoughts walks on the sunny beaches? Do you remember your sister? Zana?” Jinu’s eyes glimmered again, but this time he actually cried! Jinu said “ Is that really you in there Zana? Are you my long lost sister who I was assuming dead?”  Zana proudly said “ I am Zana , your long lost sister.”  The robot, Zana and Jinu all came in for a hug. 

Jinu was wondering and asked the same “How did you find me?” The robot said “We got a little help from my old discoveries I made.” Jinu laughed and said that From now on Zana and #%Si123 can live in this house forever.

They started to get along quite nicely. They lived like they were true friends and family.

The End

By Shanaya Singh