She Stays for the Night: A Forest Department Officer's Unexpected Guest She stayed for the Night (Long story, if you want the "good part", scroll down to about the middle. But it may be a little difficult to understand some things, so it's better the reader reads end to end. Thanks for your patience. ) It was getting cold. The sun had begun to set, causing the pleasant winter afternoon to turn into a chilly evening. Paras shivered in his four layered armour, wondering what the ideal thickness of winterwear should be in a cold region like This link (this.He) is not approved. Submit this link for approval had tried his usual woolens and tshirt combo earlier in the day, and had promptly fled inside to cover himself in two more layers. Layers which made him feel like an overstuffed Santa Claus, but were proving increasingly inadequate in the cold wind which hit him straight in the face. He had no choice now. Having recently joined the Forest Department and completed their mandatory training course, he found himself packed off to a corner of human civilization. Not a corner actually, considering it was hardly two hours drive from the nearest tourist attraction, and the proximity had allowed a number of seedy hotels to crop up. But they were in the town, from which his quarters were a good four miles away : four miles of narrow and deserted forest road, which he had to traverse every time he wanted some supplies (including liquor and the occassional weed) from the town. Today his supplies were exceptionally heavy, given that there was a weekend coming up, and he'd decided to treat himself to some whisky. As he lugged a large bottle of whisky and two beers, he almost wished he hadn't chosen that day. But as he'd told himself plenty of times during that rather boring walk, he had no choice now. If it had been afternoon, he could have allowed his tired limbs some respite. Now it was almost four thirty and the sun was almost gone. Not that he was afraid of animals per se - that was an occupational hazard for him. Rather he feared humans, be they tribal dacoits who were known to sometimes waylay merrymakers and partake of everything from weed to the women, or the tourists themselves, who were usually high, and best avoided. Flexing his shoulder muscles, he straightened himself, determined to get over with this unpleasant journey as fast as possible. But such was not to be. …and then things took a turn
