“A Final Shot”

Good shot Jim!'  You're such a great photographer.

"You should join in photography journalism."

I suggested to him which I have suggested a thousand times.

And Jim also replied the same that he has replied a thousand times,

"I love the forest, and love to discover the mystery of the forests".

Jim is a sublime photographer. He has taken many awards in photography. That's why I suggest him to join photography journalism.

But in reality, I don't know why I force him to do that, I also love wildlife photography, we both are good friends and always love work together.

We took many awards and our pair is known all over the country. Many articles are been written about our work in different journals, one of Jim's photos has been nominated for the cover of National Geographic magazine. Many universities call us for giving lectures to students about forest life and wildlife photography. So in these circumstances, I think Jim is a right, why he should leave this job? 

But on the other hand, I still force him always, and a wonderful thing is that he never gets irritated on me, and still gives me the same reply with the same smile.

Today we both came here in the woods, for taking pictures. We have been five hours to come here yet we didn't get any super shot. We made a lot of effort yet couldn't get our final shot that we discover always.

“I think we'll have to go deep in the forest for a final shot. I said as a sitting on the grass, took off my camera that I hanged at my neck”.

Jim who still focused on a cam and have taken a position towards the object that he wanted to shoot, didn't speak for a while, when he took a shot, then spoke,

“Yeah, agree, but one thing you understand, I listened about this forest is very dangerous so be careful.

"Alright, let's go".

We were strolling in the woods; we took many snaps but didn't get our perfect snap.

                               

“By the way Jim, 'I listened; there are many phantoms in this forest”. I said mischievously

“Yeah, but don't worry they absolutely will run to see you”.

 I made an awful face, and stated, "M thinking leave your kinship and make any ghost as my companion".

"Okay, you can get it".

Then I shouted "anyone who wanna be my friend? anyone else..."

I was shouting continuously, and he was giggling.

We take a lot of shots, and then we choose a few pictures which we like. We were finding our final impeccable shot.

Then suddenly a few men appeared from somewhere, don't know whether they dripped from trees or the sky? They held guns in their hands. They were looking very weird and dirty. They had long mustaches.

They ordered us to raised hands and asked: “who’re you and what are you doing here”?

 We told them who we were and what we were doing here.

After that, they took us to their boss in their camp. The boss was also looked the same. He asked the same questions to us. Then he ordered his companion, "take to go them",  and they prisoned us in jail.

The jail was dark and cool, made by woods. There was another man already in jail.

“Who are you and why they prisoned you”? We asked curiously. 

 He told us a shocking story. He said I'm a tourist and one day I was visiting this forest with my friends, then I lost my friends and strolling to find them, suddenly these kidnappers appeared from somewhere, kidnapped me and prisoned me here. These are very dangerous criminals. They kidnap many children, keep them in this forest for a while, and then smuggled them. A lot of kids still being prisoned in another jail.

We were shocked, we had stuck. 

“But why they didn't let you go, did you not tell them that you are just a tourist, and wouldn't inform the police"? 
I wanted to discover.

“I told them a lot of time and requests them a lot, but they think if they let me go, then I'll inform the police about them. And though I have looked at this place so they wouldn't let me go in any condition. Now you also have known this place so they wouldn't leave you too."

“How long have you been here”?

"I think, a month ago I came here".

"But why didn't they kill you?"

"I don't know, I think they wanna smuggle me some other area".

There was a complete dark. We couldn't see even our faces.

"So what can we do now? What should we do? This time I asked Jim."

"I think they would never let us go back, they'll kill us or smuggle.

So we should try to escape". Jim replied".

In the next couple of days, we kept making a plan for escaping. We noticed everything and every movement. Only two men come every day to us.

When they give us food, and when they take us outside for half an hour.

And that is the time when we could escape. Both men leave us in open ground and they sit at a big stone in a corner, playing cards. On the next corner we could see a little there was another jail, this must be for the children whose kidnapped. It was its backside so we could just guess.

We noticed there was a small hill in the opposite direction.

“If we cross it, we can run”. Jim gestured with a hand

“We don't know the way another side of the hill. The third man whose name was Saad said.

“But it could be the way for escaping and I think it is a single way. So we have to take a chance”.

We decided to escape at night.

The night came, a man entered the jail, he came to give us dinner. We were waiting already for him. When he kneeled to put the dinner we jumped on him, we tied his mouth with our shirts and beat him until he got faint.

We snatched his gun, left him there and got out slowly, slowly one by one. We knew where another man would be stood. We reached to him and caught him; we knocked him unconscious and hide his body in the corner.

We already had noticed there were just a few men on our supervision, perhaps they believed we can't escape because of a deep forest and we don't know the way, too.

After that, we went to another room.

It was also a wooden room; we just wanted to find something related to us. We found there our cameras and other luggage. We picked our cameras and a few little necessary things.

Then we moved towards the hill that we wanted to cross. We looked at the opposite side where the children's jail was. We wanted to make free them but we knew if we tried to do that it would be a suicide. We couldn't run them with us. We were moving slowly and slowly. The night has gone dark deep and dull. Our eyes had been able to see in the dark. The frightening sounds of animals were coming all around the woods. Cicada was whispering near somewhere. Owls also were talking with each other. Jackals were announcing their existence. Bates was trying completely to make us fear.

We were moving slowly when we reached near the hill, we listened to the sound of men, we quickly laid and shrouded in the bushes.

Two men talking with each other, we didn't know about them.

“What they are doing here”? I asked Jim.

“I called them; they come to pick us and will leave us in our bedrooms”.

Saad chuckled, and said, "they were doing duties here. But what would do we now"?

“I think we should wait here for a while and noticed their movements”. Jim replied.

We waited for a while and then noticed they both walked and go till the last corner after every ten minutes. And return in five minutes, so we have five minutes to run.

Next, when they walked, we got up and ran up to the hill. We were climbing the hill, sudden Saad slipped and crawling down. I grasped him in my hand tightly and pulled him up.

“Thank you, my friend”. He praised me.

But a little problem occurred; the two men below got doubted. They shouted,

 “Who’s there? who's…?

They spread lights with their torch. Luckily there was a big stone, we shrouded behind it. One of them went back to see us in jail.

 It was so frightening moments, we had to leave before that man coming.

 We were crawling up to the hill, wanted to reach another side of the hill quickly.

We knew we couldn't hide for a long, soon that man will inform all their companions and they will spread all around and finally, we will catch. So we had less time to run.

Now we reached the top of the hill, without wasting a second we began to go down. We were doing as quickly as we could.

 Finally, we reached down.

We did not know the way, so we began to run in one direction.

We got much scared, death was chasing us, and on the other hand, death was in front of us, in the shape of many dangerous animals.

We were running in the dark. Then we listened to voices behind us, they had reached near to us.

Sudden a gunfire echoed in the woods. We stopped, "I think they got to know our direction, we should hide somewhere".

Saad said with over-breathing.

We found a cave near, we shrouded for a while in it. Cave was so wet, bad smelly, dark, and frightening.

"We can't stay here for a long; we should run as far as we could in the dark. Because in the light we can easily be caught". I expressed the danger.

We stayed for a few minutes and moved slowly.

A little light appeared, it was dawn. We were listening to the chasing voices behind us. We noticed we have reached, where we started, where we decided to go in the deep.

It was encouraging, we ran fastly to feel our destination near. We saw a few men running towards us from before us, he reached us, they were a few policemen. We got happy to see them, shouted to see them. We succeeded, finally, we got succeeded. We have done, we have done the impossible thing. We defeated our death.

The policemen told us, we were informed about your kidnapping so we were searching for you.

Then policemen informed their other army. And decide to get a rade on the kidnapper's area. They took us with them; we guided them about the way. After a little battle, some criminals killed and others arrested. We broke jail and free all the children. We took a picture, 
that was our final shot, our super shot.

Jim picked up his face from the newspaper and stated, 

“all the newspapers published our photos, now what do you think about journalism"? 

I laughed aloud.

Far away the sun was peeking into our balcony on the sea; I took a position, focused it, set a target, and clicked.

"Great shot"

Jim shouted.