#6 Last

We were not once so few,

But death has stolen our company

As sunshine steals the dew...

- Emily Jane Bronte

I threw myself into the water. Swimming below the surface, I ignored the pain pulsing through my tired body as I made my way to the cave. When I felt my hand strike a rock I pulled myself out of the water. Panting, I lay beside the water for some time.

For a few blissful moments my mind was empty. No thoughts at all, nothing but the screaming silence that filled me up.

Alas, good things don’t last. I had learnt that over the course of my life. A vivid memory of playing in the rain pierced my mind and brought me back to the present.

They are so close I thought. To my surprise I did not feel any fear.

“They are so close” I shouted out, trying to feel fear. I couldn’t. I had been so afraid for so long that I couldn’t feel fear. All I felt was quiet resignation.

I had spotted them while I had been foraging for food in the forest on the other side of the waterfall. Luckily the wind was carrying my scent away from them otherwise they would have probably caught me by now.

They would pick up my trail soon enough. It was impossible to hide from them.

“I stand between mankind and utopia.” I shouted out, my voice drowned out by the incessant roar of the waterfall. I was losing my sanity but I didn’t care. I would be dead soon enough.

*******

I stared at the water crashing into the sides of the cave. With the setting sun lighting it, I could imagine it to be a stained glass painting, made beautiful by a riot of colors. The monotonous symphony of the water lightened my heart. I could feel the almost continuous sprays of water cooling me. I could smell the sweet smell of damp soil.

I sat there for what seemed like forever before I was disturbed from my musings by the appearance of a person, if you could call him that, shortly followed by two others like him.

Their beauty would have taken my breath away if I didn’t know the truth about their appearance.

Their leader, a young girl not much older than me, came and stood so close to me that I couldn’t see anything except her. I stared at her. Her wet, raven hair sparkled in the diffused sunlight, framing her angelic face. The paleness of her cheeks accentuated the redness of her lips. I had heard about them and the way they looked but I had never actually seen one of them.

She was beautiful enough to make me vomit. She bent down and touched my arm. Her skin felt silky soft against my arm. I recollected a story I had heard back when there were hundreds of us. It was rumored that they had manufactured a compound that looked and felt like skin. The only difference was that it was indestructible.

“You are bleeding” she said, her eyes displaying her concern. Her mellifluous voice was music to my ears. “Your pulse is 120. You need to calm down. I promise that we will not harm you.”

I looked at her in horror. The genuine concern in her voice made me doubt what I thought about them for a second, but being told my pulse made me dismiss my doubts.

I shrank away from her. She just looked at me. “You know that we are here to make you human?” She questioned. I tried to smile but my face was frozen. When I did not reply, she continued.

“You should be glad we aren’t going to kill you. You are a danger to the world. Therefore, we cannot leave you like this.”

Her honey sweet voice did what her appearance couldn’t. I threw up the remnants of my last meal.

She gestured to her two men. “Carry him. He needs medical attention soon otherwise he will not survive the purification.”

The two men made their way towards me. I saw their perfectly sculpted bodies and knew that it would be futile to resist.

“Wait” I said finally, “Answer one question and then I’ll come with you.”

She smiled at me, looking so perfect. Perfectly inhuman.

“What do you see?” I asked her pointing towards the waterfall behind her.

She turned around and answered almost instantaneously. “The sunlight piercing through the water provides it with a variety of colors. I can see alizarin, celadon,.......”

I just stared at her as she listed out all the colors that she could see. Her senses were incomparably better than mine. Her eyes could distinguish between hundreds of similar shades, colors no human eye could ever hope to discern, but she couldn’t appreciate them.

Thoughts raced through my head one after the other, vying for my attention. They are so overwhelmed by information that they cannot appreciate anything. And now they are going to make me one of them. I knew what I had to do.

“All right” I told her “I’ll come with you.” She nodded at her men and we started to make our way towards the entrance of the cave. We were almost there when I suddenly wheeled away and threw myself at the rocks below.

I felt my body smash into one of them. I used every bit of will power I possessed to stay conscious. I couldn’t move. I savored the taste of blood in my mouth and the pain wracking through my body. I noticed my vision starting to fail. I am going to die now.

I could feel somebody picking me up. “Quickly. He doesn’t have much time. If we get him to the camp maybe the doctors will be able to save him.”

Determined to die and yet too weak to ensure that I wouldn’t survive, I did the only thing I thought would help, I held my breath. I am going to die. I’m going to die a...

#5 Trapped

I couldn’t stop myself from looking at it. The photo was unbelievably beautiful. The moon perfectly framed by dark clouds. All black and white, and yet somehow iridescent.

I had heard rumors about the allure of his photographs but I hadn’t really understood how utterly impossible it would be to take my gaze away from one of them once he had enticed me to look.

I would have happily spent the rest of my life looking at it and I probably would have if he hadn’t cupped my chin and gently turned me away from it.

For a few seconds I stared blankly at him, every detail of the photograph imprinted on my eyes.

His voice finally broke the spell I was under.

“Would you care for a drink?” he asked politely.

I ignored his offer. I only had one question.

“Why do you do this?” I asked him, barely managing to maintain my composure.

The faint smile that his face had worn ever since I had met him widened. “Don’t you think you’re a little too direct?”

“Are you going to answer me?”

“Are you really expecting an answer from me?”

I glared at him for a moment before I walked away, leaving behind the sliver of my soul that was trapped in the photograph.

Rumor had it that there was nothing special about them; the beauty of his photos was all down to the strands of soul that were trapped in them stolen from unwary admirers.

Thinking about it later, I could almost imagine the bright moon to be bits of hundreds of souls trying to escape from their dark prison.

Note: The above picture is the property of Chetan Bapat.

#4: Faster

“Start the fourth engine” I ordered my engineer. I glanced up from the controls in front of me and looked outside.

We were rapidly approaching a planet. Within a sudden burst, the ship started to move at a rapidly increasing speed. It seemed like a collision was inevitable, when there was a sudden blinding flash of light.

When I could see again we were flying through a cluster of staggeringly beautiful stars which unlike the ones in our universe were of every color from the brightest scarlet to the deepest blue.   

“Spector was right” my navigator said slowly “we’ve broken out of the four dimensions....we’re outside the universe...”

“We are going to be famous!” my normally calm engineer said sounding hysterical. “Should I shut the fourth engine?”

“Yes” I replied smiling, despite my best efforts.

He shut the engine, and with another blinding flash we were pulled back into our own universe.

#3: Really

“Are you sure?” He asked, struggling to conceal the emotion in his voice.

“Yes.” She replied, calm and certain, like she always was.

He reached out hesitantly and held her hands. “There’s no going back...It will never be the same.”

She just nodded.

“Ever.” He continued. “Are you sure you want to end it like this? After all this time?”

“It’s for the best.” She said, her voice gentle, as if she was trying to lighten the blow.

“Fine.” He looked like he was going to burst into tears at any moment.

He directed a single glance full of despair at her and then he turned around.....and kicked the castle till it was just another pile of sand.

“Don’t be sad.” She said, patting him on the back. “We’ll build a better one tomorrow.”

#2 Hope

I woke up in the darkness. My body was covered with sweat. Quietly, I made my way outside. I rinsed my face with some ice cold water from the stream, and then I sat down by the flowing water like I had so many times before, waiting for the sun to rise.

18 years had passed since they had left. 18 years of waiting and hoping. For a few years I had hoped that they would return. But as I gradually adapted to life on earth, I started hoping that they wouldn’t.

As I sat there in the pre-dawn stillness, I dwelt on my life here, especially the last few years. I found my primitive life idyllic in a way I could never have imagined. I found joy in the simplest and most mundane activities.

Civilization had advanced tremendously since our days on earth but after spending all these years here, watching my children grow up, I realized that there was something special about earth. It was home in a way no other planet could ever be. Nothing could be compared to living in the welcoming arms of nature.

Why did we leave? I asked myself like I had so many times before. And even if we did why didn’t we come back? Why haven’t they returned? I wondered, thinking about the crew members who had decided to go back and announce the rediscovery of earth.

Maybe something happened to the ship I thought hopefully. Immediately I felt guilty. The sun pushed its head above the horizon at that moment. Almost immediately earth seemed to waken as dozens of birds broke into song to announce the beginning of another day.

#1: Punishment

FASTER. The word crashed inside my head. I ran faster. TO YOUR LEFT. I swerved, turning left. The area was desolate. I was surrounded by tall, uninhabited buildings. Stark grey exteriors, with patches of grey sky between them.

Out of the corner of my eye I could see the others. Like me, they were all trying to get somewhere.

ON THE GROUND. NOW. I flung myself on the sidewalk. My body protested as I crashed into the concrete. A bullet flew through the air above me.

I scrambled to my feet. STRAIGHT AHEAD. I started running again, ignoring the blood streaming down my face. Suddenly I saw a wall of fire in front of me. I would have stopped but I knew I couldn’t. I ran into it. For a long moment, I felt the fire burning my flesh.

I woke up in my cell. Involuntarily, I checked my body for bruises I knew I wouldn’t find. They could have hurt me physically, but that would have been inhuman. So they tortured me mentally. Exhausted after my exertions I tried to sleep. Hopefully, I would manage to get a few hours of respite before my next punishment.