The Ruins
The intricate artistry of nature always has a surprise up its sleeves
Elisium. Year 5L 14/15
"You don't look from this side of the world" the farmer asked Andrews "As far as I know, there aren't many villages around here. I know of only two, my village and the one on other side of the river. Where do you come from? I am pretty sure you are one of those wealthy spoiled brats from the towns upstream, who have too much of a wealth and all they want to do is drink and dance. They don't even respect these days of adversity"
Unsure about what to say, Andrews decided to go with the flow. He acquired a sheepish look and said in a hesitant tone "yes sir, you are right. I got a little drunk, fell into the river and washed up here."
"Thank your stars that I was passing by from here, or else you wouldn't have found a living soul nearby and would have got lost into the Unending forests. Come with me, I will take you to my village and then you can find your way back home."
Andrews decided to go with the farmer to his village. The farmer was a quite a chatterbox and during their journey Andrews was able to extract a lot of information from him about this planet. He talked a lot about the Ruins, presumably the largest city in this world. Andrews kept asking questions about the Ruins, and by the time they reached the farmer's village, Andrews had gathered decent enough information about the Ruins to declare the Ruins as his supposed hometown. As per his story he and his friends had gone to his farms on the riverbanks, away from the Ruins, to celebrate his birthday, where he accidently fell into the river and ended up downstream, a long distance away from his town.
It didn't take long for Andrew's genius mind to conclude that Elisium and Aden were pretty much alike. The landscapes, the climate, the rivers, the food, the animals, the trees, everything looked pretty similar. Even the number of days in a months and the duration of the years were the same. The cycles and loops existed here just like it did in his world. But there was one big difference which he had noticed right from the moment he arrived in this world. Everything here was darker and gloomier. From the color of the soil, to the tint of the flowers and leaves, to the shades of people's clothes, to the taste of their food, everything looked dull and dreary. It seemed as if this whole world lived under a giant shadow. He had heard a few wayward theories about the cosmic shadows affecting the Dance of two Sisters. But he needed to have a closer look at this world to reach any proper conclusions.
Andrews stayed a few days in the farmer's village, called Droster, to collect relevant information about this world, its towns and villages and its roads and landscapes. What he learned was just about enough to help him on his journey to explore this world, just like the way he had explored his own world.
A week after the days of adversity Andrews left the village and embarked on a new adventure. A journey to explore an alien world. He traveled to various villages and settlements, saw different places, met countless people and went to the far corners of this world, till he knew more about Elisium than anyone from Elisium itself.
After more than two years since Andrews had landed in Elisium, he finally arrived at the Ruins. From what he had learned about the Ruins so far, he knew that it was once the capital and the beating heart of Elisium, just like Aurae in Aden, but some horrible events at the turn of the loop had left it in ruins. It was a flourishing city, developing at a fast pace, when the Catastrophe, brought upon by insatiable greed of some selfish people, brought it to a grinding halt.
Apart from its visibly gloomy atmosphere there was another major difference between Aden and Elisium. After exploring different parts of this world Andrews found out that Elisium was extremely underdeveloped. It wouldn't have been an overstatement to say that Elisium was one whole loop behind Aden in terms of infrastructure, technology, living standards and over all development.
From the stories Andrews had heard from various people, he came to know that after the catastrophic events at the turn of the loop, Elisium had undergone a steady decline. In absence of righteous and just rulers to guide them and take them forward, what was once a flourishing civilization disintegrated into many small fragments. In a politically unstable environment, everyone's only goal was survival. Soon everybody here was just going through the motions, just doing what one should do in order to survive. Eventually the society became stagnant. There was more deterioration than development. Where on one hand, in the last fourteen cycles, under the rule of Solomon kings, Aden had completely transformed into a highly developed society, on the other hand, Elisium was still in the same condition, if not worst, where it was fourteen cycles ago.
Upon entering the Ruins, Andrews noticed that it was exactly what the name suggested, an ensemble of many ruins. Ruins of what once had been magnificent monuments and spectacular palaces were now surrounded by small houses, narrow alleys and crowded markets.
As per the history, a few years after the capital was destroyed at the turn of loop, people gradually returned back to its ruins, and gradually the settlement grew in size. This site was the reminiscent of Elisium's splendid history, but was also a testament of its inert present. Just like every other place in this world, the Ruins was also an underdeveloped, but a stable settlement. People woke up in the morning, went through their daily chores and returned back to their homes at night to repeat the same schedule the next day. Andrews felt that people here almost sleep walked through their routines. There was no inclination to do something different, or an aspiration to achieve some goal, or a desire to see something new. There was no sense of purpose in their lives. This whole world was in a deep slumber. It was waiting for someone to shake it up and awaken its people.
When Andrews had come to the Ruins, he had thought that he had learned everything about Elisium and the Ruins during his travels. But he didn't know that the intricate artistry of nature always has a surprise up its sleeves.
In his first hour inside the Ruins, Andrews got a tremendous shock. He had just entered a tavern inside a busy market to have some food. It was there, where in a world full of strangers, he met someone very familiar. He met himself.
In a corner of the packed tavern when he sat down with his plate of food, he was stunned to see the person sitting on the opposite chair. Andrews found himself staring at himself.
"Well, I don't drink but still my mind is playing tricks on me," exclaimed the person sitting opposite Andrews.
"Well, me too" replied Andrews still reeling in shock "Holy God, this is something quite astonishing,"
"I am Matthews, and I assume you are not from here or else we would have met earlier."
"I am Andrews, and I am from Droster, a small village far from here. I have wandered around this whole world and seen many things but you have given me the shock of my life," said Andrews, still visibly astounded and trying to make sure that he wasn't dreaming.
"I too wanted to wander the world, but this world looks pretty hopeless, so I kind of cancelled my plan. Now tell me, what did you find interesting in our gloomy world?"
Andrews settled down in his chair and he and Matthews got immersed in a long conversation. Very quickly they both grew fond of each other. They felt as if they were long lost brothers. Not only they had identical faces, but their interests, their habits, their hobbies almost everything about them was similar.
After hours of non-stop chatting Matthews announced, "You must come to my house and meet my parents. I must ask them if I had a twin brother which they lost somewhere," Matthews added with a chuckle.
Andrews was a little reluctant about this idea, but he decided to give in when Matthews kept on insisting.
If meeting Matthews had baffled Andrews, seeing his parents completely dumbfounded him. His mind was completely blown away when he saw that Matthews' parents were the precise duplicates of his own parents. From their identical faces, to their height, health and even the greying hairs. How was this even possible? This must surely be some weird dream.
Matthews parents were equally confounded on seeing Andrews. They couldn't believe their eyes when they saw an exact replica of their son, sitting in front of them.
This meeting provided Andrews a completely new field for research. In the next few days Andrews roamed the streets of the Ruins and saw hundreds of men, women and children, who were the lookalikes of people in Aurae. People whom Andrews knew in Aurae, like his friends, his colleagues, his neighbors, were all present in the alleys of the Ruins as well.
Bewildered by all this, Andrews' mind started to race in a new direction. He took out all his notes, charts and maps which he had made during his exploratory trip of Elisium and began carefully examining them. After a detailed study of everything he had learned so far about the two worlds the picture started to get clearer and Andrews reached a stunning conclusion. Elisium wasn't similar to Aden, it was its exact replica. Almost like a mirror image. Everything that existed in Aden existed in this world as well. From rocks, to minerals, to animals, to trees, to mountains, to rivers, to roads, everything that was in Aden, was also present in Elisium, and that too at the same location and almost in the same form, shape and size.
But the most staggering aspect of all this was that the human beings were also the same. He had met hundreds of people in Elisium who were copies of people of his world and he was sure all the others must be replicas of someone from Aden as well. It was quite unbelievable that people in Elisium were born on the same days as their copies in Aden. They grew up in same manner, had same physical features, and even had same habits. What was more astonishing that a person in one world would end up marrying the copy of the same girl which their counterparts had married in the other world. Then they would go on to have kids which would be born on the same day as their duplicates in the other world and the cycle would go on and on, for generations after generations. With this chain of events, identical lineages were maintained in both Aden and Elisium and that resulted in existence of identical humans in both the worlds.
This was one of the biggest marvels of nature. An act of destiny.
Andrews thought this was his biggest discovery.
But in reality, he was yet to make his biggest Discovery.
A discovery which was going to have a tremendous impact on the fortunes of the two worlds.
A discovery which would threaten to break this Cycle of nature, this Wheel of Loops, forever.