Deafening murmurs of twigs and dried leaves, the dull buzzing noise of different insects were the only sources of sound along with the noise of gentle wind running across the trees as the two girls continued to explore the deeper route of the forest. Sometimes one or two distant birds chirping in distant places were also heard. Even though the pair of friends had started their thrilling adventure with overflowing enthusiasm, both of them was certain that they weren't much of thrilled at present. 

It had probably been more than half an hour that they'd been exploring through the unknown twists and turns in this dense forest, it felt like the layer of wild trees were intensifying in number and length. Sana didn't remember the jungle being this deep when her and Mina had visited it eight years ago.   'Probably more trees have grown in the past years.'   she told herself as a matter of fact.  And the other fact that, despite it surely being around ten in the morning, the continuously dimmed lighting of their surroundings didn't fail to make them feel otherwise. 

"Sana, babe, I don't think we can find that old mansion again. I think we've caught a different route, it's not possible to find something in this deep forest!" Mina murmured, her voice unceremoniously low as she spoke from Sana's behind.

Sana wanted to agree with Mina right away, but there was something...something at the back of her mind that was urging her to keep going, despite having no clue of where they were actually going.  "It's only been what, ten minutes? Are you already tired? Or are you scared?" Sana countered, knowing pretty well that it hadn't been only ten minutes, she was just playing with her words to appear nonchalant. 

"Yah! I am not scared!" Mina protested immediately. "I'm just feeling that we might be going in circles. It all looks the same!" 

"We don't even know most of the trees here. So of course, it all would look the same?" Sana offered. Getting an eye roll from her friend in reply.

  After that they continued their search for the rundown mansion for another twenty to thirty minutes. Still there was no sign of it.

"Oh God! We should've at least brought some water with us. I'm getting so thirsty!" Mina whined as she stopped while huffing, exhausted after a long walk. 

Sana felt guilty to have make her friend tired, also, she herself wasn't any better than Mina. She was sweating under her clothes due to the exhaustion. "I think you're right. We wouldn't be able to find that place. Let's head back before grandma starts worrying." Sana suggested against her own will and Mina agreed within a second. 

While they were heading backwards, or at least they thought they were heading backwards, Sana could feel that the forest wasn't as deep as it had felt when they were looking for the mansion. 'Maybe because we're reaching the outter side of the forest.' She thought inwardly, trying to think of positive possibilities.  

Out of nowhere, something which looked like a wild rabbit ran past Sana, making her stumble as she had to take a sudden halt in her steps in order to save the rabbit, otherwise she would've stepped on the innocent animal. But that resulted in Sana to loose her balance and she fell sideways in between two huge trees. She hissed in pain as she was sure she had scrapped her knees and palms due to the fall.

" babe, are you okay?" Mina called from behind.

Sana managed to get herself up on her feet even before Mina could reach her and help. She brushed away the dry soils from the knee of her pants, while something from a little distance caught her eyes. "I'm okay. Mina, come here, I think we've find it!" She excitedly called Mina and started passing the trees in front of which she had fallen just a while ago. 

"Really? Omg finally! But why didn't we see it when we were heading in earlier?" Mina asked while she followed Sana.

"I don't know, we wouldn't have found it even now if I hadn't fall and looked at this direction. Finding something in this dense jungle is like a miracle!" Sana mumbled, though her whole concentration was on the enormous place standing tall in it's ancient glory not so far from her.

They walked past the numerous thick and thin branches to finally reach in front of the tall rusty metal gates of the said monster's mansion. Sana's heart pounded strongly as she peeked past the gate to get a glimpse of the actual establishment of the mansion. Even though she had seen this enormous abode back in eight years ago, she couldn't remember much of it's outer structure or visuals. Despite this fact, there's an uncanny familiarity subtly flashing through her heart, which she couldn't decipher at this moment.

"Shall we go in?" Mina quipped, her lost excitement was back after finding the place they were looking for the past hour. 

Sana's train of blurry thoughts broke at Mina's voice, "Huh? Okay, let's go..." She mumbled. She tentatively stepped closer to the gate, her hands reaching to hold the metal bars, pushing them with all her strength as they'd become really sturdy because of not being used in years. When the one side of the gate was spreaded enough for their bodies to pass, Sana stopped pushing it, huffing as it took a lion's share of her leftover stamina.  

Since Sana had opened the gate, so she was the first one to step on the ground of mansion's the inner boundary. Her eyes were glued to the outline of the fortress, the similar feeling of vast familiarity gnawing at the back of her mind, yet she wasn't able to interpret the meaning behind that feeling. It bridged her to feel something more than just chumminess, she felt the need to walk closer to the main building of the mansion, the urge to explore inside, the utter eagerness and intuition that she needed to be inside was making her restless. 

Taking a huge breath to calm down her nerves, Sana started stepping forward, her destination was the inner area of the ancient looking mansion. Though she had to stop as she heard her friend shrieking from somewhere behind. The trance was erased from her mind and she immediately whipped behind to check on her friend. Sana gaped at the scene in shock, her mind contemplating whether it was just a mere coincidence or not because at that moment, Mina was again chased by a medium sized snake. In fact, it had cornered her by the corner of the gates. If Sana tried to recall carefully, she could tell the snake from eight years ago had similar sort of dirty greenish skin with black stripes all over it. 

"Sana! Help! It's coming towards me!" Mina again screamed out of dread, making Sana snap out of her stupor.

Sana looked around to find something that she could use as a weapon against the snake. They weren't the little girls anymore, they were big enough to take down a snake, right? "Hold on, Mina! I'll get some sticks!" Sana hollered.

"Are you crazy? What if it bites any of us? What if it's poisonous?" Mina yelled at Sana while trembling in fear. 

Sana wanted to tell her friend to run away from that corner beside the gate, but she knew Mina couldn't do it, the poor girl was glued to her spot since she had always been scared of snakes the most. Without wasting any time, Sana rushed backwards, pulling onto the branches that were swirled around the metal bars of the gate. With much struggle she did manage to collect some strong looking branches, but she wasn't sure whether it would be enough to tackle that snake. "Mina, listen to me carefully. I'm gonna throw these at the snake and distract it, and you will run towards me. Okay?" Sana yelled, and Mina nodded unsurely. "Babe, you can do it. Be brave. Please. I know you can do it!" Sana lastly added words of encouragement before throwing the branches with as much strength as she could muster at that moment.  

Mina screeched when the snake jerked, but thankfully she was fast enough to dodge over the viper and reach near Sana. "Oh god! Oh god!" She kept chanting while wailing, "I thought I was gonna die today! Please let's get out of here!" Mina cried even more while tugging Sana out of the gates. 

Sana unknowingly wanted to protest, but seeing that Mina was having a bad breakdown, she zipped and both of them started making their way out of the bushes.

                                       _______

Sana had been feeling even more restless throughout the whole