By Dhruv Makhija
With the fortitude of resilience I had borne out the pain of the vile agony of my distempering nightmares, I woke up from another one. “How long has it been?” I asked him. Perseus had been a constant in my journey since I got struck with this rather arcane illness. The permanent pain in my arms was always overwhelming. His was a face you had never seen before, and yet, when it came to your life, you could trust him blindly. The sparkle in his eyes, the veins on his wrinkled hands, all spoke of courage and camaraderie.
“A quadrant. It has been the fifth in a row." His hoarse voice relaxed my ear drums as I looked into my convulsing arms, visions of my Dad leaving replaying in my mind. I tried suppressing my memories but in vain, all in vain.
“Let’s get moving” Perseus’ whisper drenched in a tone of unsurity reached my ears. Unsurity. That was the third member in our party of two. What time was it? Where were we? Where were we headed to? Both of us being unlearnt in the art of uncertainty, were accompanied by a resounding answer that resonated inside both our hearts, “I’m unsure of it.” And our third member agreed to it. What better time to look at the coppice in front of us and wonder, “Did we cross this once before?” Walking through this maze of greenery seemed to amplify our mixed emotions and add to them that treacherous drop of fatigue that made me want to give up. But I could not. I could not because I could not bear to look into my Mom’s eyes which were always trying to hide the crystal teardrops . I could not bear to see her act strong just for me when in reality she was breaking down on the inside, questioning the very moment she let my Dad go to this hellhole that I was now in. I had to continue, I had to find my Dad, I needed to do it for my Mom and for myself.
The fabled city of “Diablo”- a city that was a myth for me a few months ago- the stuff of stories was now a reality. My Dad was investigating a case, the only lead of which had been the six letters my Dad was obsessing over for the three months before he left- “Diablo”. Six months after he left I was finally able to reach here- father and son finally reunited in this place which was not anything like Earth- that was the fairytale ending I had hoped. Unfortunately, so far me and Perseus-a friend without whom I would have surely lost hope had only faced confusion and an aching pain in our calves, walking through this upside down world. A world within the United States but nothing like Earth, unheard of and secluded from the outside world. It was almost something inconceivable that the stories would be true.
I could look down upon the hilltops,a path that was waiting to be explored but in no way did I have enough curiosity at this juncture to explore things just for the sake of it. Looking down at the peaks which were covered by the blanket of smoke made me feel nauseous,not able to distinguish between reality and the nightmares which had been so after me ever since my Dad left.So I moved along,hoping,praying,that this was the trail that was meant to take us to our journey's end.
I held in the sigh I had been clawing at my neck for so long to release, suppressing it, i looked up, at the vortex of innumerable clouds that had formed the shape of an eye, a rather monstrous looking one, I thought to myself. Is this place really accursed? I would shovel dirt
over that one thought. At least most of my reasoning now stopped trying to battle my vision. I could finally take in the fact that the castle was floating and a hill was beneath the forest we were walking on. I could finally fathom that the trees were made of ash, and the acorns at the feet of the shrubs were a little more than just fruit. I could finally be sure that the vortex of silver clouds overbearing the intensity of monstrosity the place engulfed, did in fact form a watchful eye.
"GONG",the sharp sound of the bell tower's bell which was visible to me from a mile away in the middle of the forest, rising above the trees,made me alarmed and I felt as if it was some kind of battle cry which was announced by my fate for everything was so quickly going downhill.
“Where are we?” I asked Perseus. “HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO KNOW!?” We hesitated. And before taking the next step, we somehow find it alluring to approach the sound that was so clearly something that could even scare and keep death at bay. We moved onwards, slowly steadily but most importantly cautiously.
A horde of people- the first we had seen in this place- was visible to us below the bell tower. Their eyes however had a distinct colour, a colour that spoke of something inhumane. “I don't think they want to be disturbed. Let's get moving, find your Dad and get out of here.” “What if they know anything?” “You are out of your mind, Tre, you…” A crimson flash of red followed and both of us were in complete shock as we witnessed a sacrificial ritual. A man amongst the horde just cut his own head off. We both were scrambling through the forest. Running, mindlessly, endlessly. At some point I lost track of Perseus. I felt naked, I felt alone, I felt unsafe for the first time in a place that should've had the label “unsafe”. Fatigue had gotten to me, so I laid down. Losing control over my urge to stay awake for the 25th hour, I doze off.
When my eyes opened again I wish I had become blind or had better never woken up again after that horrific change of events. In mere moments my world was turned upside down and my brain was split in half by the sheer confusion and fear it was filled with. This was a dark cave-like place that was as desolate as a graveyard which it might be, for I wondered whether this was the afterlife.Then something happened which made me realise that this was definitely real. The inside of my palm was bloodied, the crimson drops splashed on the floor.
Conceiving the realisation that I was in fact alone in this hell, something suddenly hit my foot and I stumbled over. I realised that something was scattered all across the floors of this dungeon of sorts.Innumerable skeletons and rotting skulls that is the sight in this cave and now there was not a drop of fear present within me for this had been the most normal I had seen that day and my mind was preoccupied with something else. Few minutes ago, death to me seemed like an easy escape but now I won't let anything come between me and my goal.
I get up, the piece of my torn shirt wrapped around my bleeding palm. Walking across what seemed like an endless abyss, I was mentally devastated and physically crushed, but still I carried on. Glancing at the skulls and skeletons could only make me imagine what if I was
the only one who was there? The sheer thought of death now made me shiver, perhaps it was the first time I had been so close to it in my short life span of 17 years.
I could only think of the family of the people lying down.How did they cope up with this? Knowing that the greed of wealth granted the curse of death to their loved ones?Did that tarnish their image in the minds of their admirers? How would my Mom react knowing of my disappearance? Was it not my own decision to abandon her?
I had been walking for a while now, my thoughts, being completely numbed out of my feeble brain, had started to sink in as beliefs. Fatigue and hunger had taken control of the vehicle I had been the master of.
I try to breathe. “The air is heavy, something is wrong. Something is very wrong.” I think, wheezing for air which had, in a blitz turned denser than a grain of sand. My consciousness was blurring, I had to crawl out of this cave, otherwise I would be buried in it.
The exit seemed as distant as the hope of seeing my Dad's face again. I stumbled across this graveyard,half alive,then was it?Could it be?
I thought I saw the exit for a fleeting moment but to no avail as my eyes were now blinded by the golden light. The light was almost like it pierced my eyes but I carried on waiting,hoping for the fact that I was finally heading somewhere, or was I?
With intensified blood gushing out through the crevice of the cave’s rear, I found myself falling off of the cliff’s ledge. In that moment, closing my eyes, I wished for acceptance. Yeah, acceptance. The word now seemed to linger over my mind as the tentative notes of the fife back in my hometown. I see Dad’s hand reaching out to me, and I try to hold onto it. Try to convince myself that he needs me now more than ever.
I wake up and find myself soaked to the knee. I had fallen in a muddy ditch, I presumed, and around me a lightning-struck tree, with red-eyed corvi glaring at me from the branches. Not me, it was the remains of the half eaten corpse that was beside me, floating, very lifeless and chewed up now. In a murder of cawks and cries they hurried upon the body now. Scavenging has always been a holy concept to me. “The remains of the dead”, the only instance where the dead were able to provide for the living. Funnily enough, it granted me solace. Maybe after death, I’d prove to be useful too.
I get up, and stoically wipe off the flesh from my jacket. The path that led to the honorary castle made of the “cosmic gold” as the book said, was slowly receding in length. And with the castle closing in, so was my superfluous destiny. Murders of ravens flocked the dried willows, burnt with the ecstasy of gratification. Darker, denser, the foliage got, till there was left nothing but a great wall that I had to overcome. Wasn’t this much like the defences in my hearts wherein I kept locked the love, the memories of my Dad? Strangely, I seemed to phase through the walls of the castle
Horrifyingly, the “cosmic gold” on the walls of the castle converted itself into honey dew droplets which now arranged themselves in letters.For the forever mourning, is Diablo.
In a split second there occurred something that managed to startle me even after all these ups and downs that I had never envisioned myself having.The honey dew droplets were now
starting to separate into two masses of flesh.When I set sight upon Perseus's face for the first time in a long while,it made me dumbfounded with sort of a shock mixed with that dim light of happiness as for some reason my feelings and senses were dumbing down each and every second I stayed in this accursed place.Seeing Perseus made me completely forget about the other product of the rearrangement of those honey droplets.Standing there was the guide who had led me to this place,the guide who was the only one who had replied to my SOS messages in late exam preparation nights and my cries of help when I met the first setback of this journey called life.There was my father standing a few feet in front of me.When I saw the knife that Dad held up to my best friend’s neck I was stunned. My eyes still fixated on the knife, now I heard the calm voice of my Father, “THIS IS A PLACE I SHOULD NEVER HAVE COME TO. TRE YOU SAVED ME. YOU BROUGHT THIS REPLACEMENT. THIS HELL REQUIRES A SACRIFICE FOR SOMEONE TO LEAVE. THANK YOU SON.”
“DAD! THIS IS NOT YOU! WE WILL FIGURE OUT A WAY!! NO!!”
“THERE IS NO WAY!!”
“WHY DO I HAVE TO BE THE LAMB!”
All three of us spoke, shouted, our voices intertwined with desperation, as I noticed my Dad’s eyes- they were slowly starting to look a lot like those “people” we saw earlier.
“ME AND YOU, SON. WE WILL LIVE HAPPILY EVER AFTER. COME ON, NOW TRE.”
“TRE, REMEMBER THE TIME YOU DATED SUSAN RIGHT AFTER SHE DUMPED ME. YOU OWE ME ONE.”
My emotions, like a liquid that was about to break the bottle it was confined in, were becoming unbearable. I thought if one life is all it would take for two of us to get out of this hell. I ran, snatching the knife my Dad held and slashed my own neck to two simultaneous screams of “NO!!!!!”
A flash of light appeared once again, I opened my eyes. I was back, back to the spot where I was before I entered the mythical city “Diablo”. Dad and Perseus were lying next to me. I had done it. I had broken the curse of the cursed city. I had finally done so with the quality that proved to be the weapon that killed the curse and the shield that saved our lives- “Love”.
By Dhruv Makhija
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