"So, how are your wounds?" Dhawan could barely listen to him while his complete focus was on the cloudy night sky. The clouds scattered the moonlight causing a beautiful view which attracted him.

"Dhawan?" Dunkirk's voice finally brought his attention away from the sky when it became louder.

"Uh, yeah?" Dhawan immediately turned his head towards him.

"Oh, sorry for the loud voice, I was asking about your wounds", Dunkirk said, and then turned his gaze towards the sky too, to see what Dhawan found in it.

They were both sitting under the night sky of a lone beach in Goa. It wasn't the time of having fun in beaches, but Dhawan liked lone places, and that beach was one of such places at the moment.

"Yeah, my wounds are good now," Dhawan said, looking at the bandaged wounds he got in  the undersea tower. "It has been a month since I got them. They are slowly recovering."

"I won't call it slowly recovering!" Dunkirk chuckled. "It has been just a month since those events and you have already recovered so much. Even your fractured knee is okay now! How do you get recovered so fast?"

Dhawan raised his shoulders and eye-brows.

There was silence for a few seconds.

"So, what are you going to do now?" Dhawan asked.

"Ahh, nothing much," Dunkirk said, still trying to find what Dhawan saw in the sky, "I would just go back to my country with my new adopted daughter, Krystene. And then I would ask Duke to apply for a promotion, and then I would work on a case on those holes in the agency stated by Joshua Lamb. You?"

Dhawan knew that Dunkirk was not completely honest on this. None of the agents ever are!

"I am thinking to retire", Dhawan said.

"What?" Dunkirk crossed his eye-brows and turned towards Dhawan with a shocked expression. "But why?"

"I just," Dhawan said, still looking at the sky and wondering something, "I just want to. A life is not big enough to live all the dreams of yours. But why not just spend it living at least some of those dreams? And I am a family man now! I've got a son, a brother, and my son is dating your daughter at the moment. So... I think I should ensure that his date doesn't get ruined."

Dunkirk laughed.

"By the way," Dhawan said, "thank you for adopting that girl. She needed a family, like I, Crunchy and Brute did."

Dunkirk sighed. "I always wanted to have a daughter. I had lost this chance a few years ago. But now, when I have one, I am worried. I am worried if I would not be able to take care of a child. Because this is what I have no experience of."

"You will, I know," Dhawan said, keeping a hand on his shoulder. "Well, if you ask about me. Then I am not at all worried on this point. I can take care of Brute. And even Crunchy is with me!" Then he petted Crunchy who was sitting beside him. "He would try his best to be a good uncle. And even Brute is mature enough to do most of his stuffs alone. At least I don't have to be a father who has to change the diapers of his kid."

"By the way, what about Crunchy? Isn't he gonna date anyone? Any girlfriend?" Dunkirk asked.

"He is a gay," Dhawan said, and turned his eyes towards the sky again, "and he was dating a male cat a few months ago."

"Oh," Dunkirk said and turned his eyes towards the sky too, still trying to figure out what Dhawan was seeing. "By the way, can I ask you something?"

"Yeah, sure", Dhawan said with his gaze still stuck at the sky.

"What are you looking at?" Dunkirk finally asked.

Dhawan sighed and replied after a second. "Something which I have never seen before."

Dunkirk crossed his eye-brows. "Clouds?"

"No!" Dhawan snorted. "Not the clouds. It is the beauty. I never got to see that in my spying career. Actually I got many chances, but I was never able to. Were you?"

"Uh..." Dunkirk replied, "actually I see this every night. But I never see anything new or special in that."

"But I do", Dhawan smiled, thinking that he had started living. Now he could understand that living is what we do for no reason. We do this only for us. And what a life is if you don't live it? At least for some time, living is necessary. After all, it is not bad to spend some time for ourselves. For leisure.

"So... when are you going to retire?" Dunkirk asked.

"Just a few missions more, some one or two," Dhawan told him, "then I would leave."

"Okay," Dunkirk said, checking his wrist-watch, "I gotta go now. I have to board a plane for America with Krystene tomorrow morning. So, see you later."

"Yeah, but you would have to come back. For Brute's date to continue", Dhawan smiled and bid him a goodbye, after which Dunkirk left.

Crunchy cuddled with Dhawan.

"Okay, Crunchy. So now let's start living."

It did not take much time for the news to spread that Joshua Lamb was dead now. His corpse was found, rotting in the tower. It was said that he commited suicide. But many had other predictions because of his half split head.

The news channels and newspapers got a trending headline - 'Joshua Lamb, The Killer Of Eight Scholars, Found Dead In An Undersea Tower'.

It did not take much time for everyone to realise that the deaths of the eight scholars were planned in a pattern. No one ever got to know why Joshua Lamb appointed an assassin, Stephenson Mal, to kill the scholars, and then he killed the assassin too. This had become the favourite topic for all the debate shows in news channels.

Some people said that he did this because he had a big hatred towards the Hinduism, whereas many others said that he was being mentally and physically abused by his father, which resulted him to go mad. Many stated that Joshua Lamb had an ill mental condition since always. Others said that he was a serial killer who killed them all just for fun. A few said that he did this to get his father's and all the other scholars' property. Many others said that he killed them all to become the most popular Sanskrit scholar alive.

Money, threatening, fame, revenge, and many other reasons were given by the people. But none of the reasons had any link to the cursed shell.

Joshua Lamb was buried at the right of his mother's grave, and his father's grave was dug at the left of hers. On Isabella Lamb's grave, there was written - ISABELLA LAMB, A BELOVED WIFE AND MOTHER. On Todd Lamb's grave, there was written - TODD LAMB, A BELOVED HUSBAND. And on Josh's grave, there was written - JOSHUA LAMB, A SON WHO WAS LOVED DEARLY BY HIS FATHER AND MOTHER.

True indeed, I don't think that Mr Todd Lamb had ever loved anyone as much as he loved his son. The only thing was that Josh never saw that. Josh was right in many ways, but in most of the ways, he was wrong. If there is a Hell and a Heaven, I don't think that Josh ever got any place in the Heaven. I would dare say that Josh would be very much praised in the Hell. As he was already told, his sinful soul had to be released for the Hell.

An old man with a wrinkled face and dusty skin with scratches all over it was walking at the coast of Marina Beach, Tamil Nadu. The sun was setting at the moment. The man was wearing a lungi only, that too was in a very bad condition. He had white hair forested all over his chest, but he had almost no hair on his head. Looking at his bad condition, anyone would predict that he was just a beggar walking at the shore of the beach, which he was.

He used to sleep anywhere on the beach. He used to eat any edible item on the beach. His daily routine was to sit a little away from the shore, begging for food and money. Although being a beggar, begging wasn't a thing he ever wanted to do. He just used to do this because he was never able to get any better job. He never even got anything to sell.

Walking along the shore, his eyes fell on something coming up from the foamy water. He walked closer to it with giving more and more attention to it with each metre he covered towards it. He finally picked it up and smiled as he got a conch-shell before other conch-shell sellers on the beach could see it. He had to hide it from them in order to sell it himself and earn at least a little money which would last at least for one meal. He closely looked all around the shell. The shell was beautiful. But it did not take much time for him to realise that the shell was broken and then pasted many times. Whatever was used to paste it was really strong. As a result, the shell was still in one piece! Although, it wasn't has hard as other conch-shells, it would at least attract a few people who would come to buy it. The beggar could now see some words scratched on it. But he could not read them, as he was not literate.

To check if the shell was still working, he took it near his mouth and blew it. But it did not cause any sound. Why? The beggar soon got to know the reason. There was a little hole which was probably created while joining it again. He covered that hole with his palm and blew the shell again. This time, the shell caused a sound. A very soothing sound. The beggar smiled and was pleased. He blew it again and again for pleasure. He kept blowing the cursed shell, without having any effect on the Gods.