I ran through the forest in full speed, jumping over shrubs and bushes. A few thoughts came here and there wondering if she would be annoyed if I intruded on her self reflection time. The waterfall had now broken to seven separate streams, three of them on the right, floating away, while the the four on the left falling down slowly like a condensed cloud. I could already see her figure between the trees, crouching down in front of what was once the pool, where we used to dip our legs into. Boulders and soil had tumbled down from above filling up the pool and protruding out like an alien irregularity, a far cry from its once true appearance.
She stood up as soon as she sensed me coming. Guess I'll need to level up my cloaking skill again.
As I came up and stood beside her, I found her clothes, knees and hands already muddy. I couldn't help but regard her with respect, as I saw her fierce brown eyes, which were sprinkled with patches of green, the color of her Kundalini, filled with determination. And here I was thinking of scenarios where I needed to say things to make her feel better. What an idiot I was. It seems I had no idea who she was, I was just simply looking at her. From afar. Not seeing her true self. I wanted to know more, now. Much more.
"Why are you smiling?" she probably got offended. This face was new. Was this the one Saiyan keeps talking about? A face filled with a little bit of doubt and a lot of pride.
"No, I was thinking how you beat me to it. I wanted to start before you." I said, knowing she liked competitions. A person who's truly passionate will get disappointed at little things while competing with others. It's because they've given their best at it. I have been like that too. It's just that life hit me a little too hard recently, and I had to step back to prepare so I can again compete with them.
"Well, an early bird gets the worm. I hated seeing this place destroyed, for various... reasons." she got rid of her cold face in an instant. This time I saw a sad face that's been reminiscing of how this place was before.
"You might have started early, but I'll be the one to finish it all." I said and wrapped my whole body with Wood Flesh. I kept using Bonk again and again on the biggest boulder until it broke to pieces after dozens of hits. I kept breaking the bigger rocks to smaller ones which could be easily carried on our arms. Remembering that time when she had swiftly disappeared into the forest because of her speed I guessed that she might be investing in agility more. So the carrying part can be done by her efficiently. After the bigger ones were broken down, I released Wood Flesh and felt the wet mud around my feet that went up to my shin. I waded through the swamp like mud, reaching what was once the edge of the pool and found a muddy hand extended towards me. My heart started beating fast as she took my hand in hers and pulled me out.
"Thanks." I muttered, and glanced at her face to check what kind of an expression she was making.
It was a totally new one. She looked just like a statue devoid of any tension on her facial muscles. If holding hands with me makes you like that I won't do that again bruh.
"You seem to be staring at me an awfully lot today." she said with the same face. Okay, I got it. Please get rid of that.
"I'm just making sure you're not depressed or anything."
"How thoughtful of you." she said with a bit of sarcasm. She suddenly broke into a shy smile, "Sorry, I didn't mean it like that. I appreciate it."
"Yeah that's also another reason." I said pointing at her face. "I can see so many emotions going through your face today. It's fascinating. One moment you're distant, another you're cold, sometimes sad, sometimes regretful, and a bit grateful. The scenes today keep weighing a lot on your mind don't they?"
S: "Yeah, my emotions are all over the place today. So many seniors lost their precious lives protecting us and I'm getting angry over myself for some petty competition I invented in my mind."
D:"It's fine, I found it a lot more enjoyable to talk with you today. I won't say anything about it because it is just the way you do things. The fact is you participated in this imaginary competition of yours, and got some position. You go over through what you did during the competition, the rights and wrongs and then take a mental note to not repeat the same again. Isn't that what competitions are for? All of us are in one, with ourselves all the time. I would only wound and heal myself before, but in my competition today, I healed others instead. I believe it was a magnificent performance. So what was your competition today?" I asked at the end.
"How many times I could dodge an opponent's attack. Before the attacks were from humans, this time it were Asuras." she answered.
"How many times did you get hit before? And how many times did you get hit today?" I asked this time.
"I only got hit once today. Lost my arm. But a Generator healed me." she stopped, letting it sink in, "Thanks..."
"So you fought the rest of the time with only one hand? Until the sages regenerated it?" I somehow managed to ask. It's already been a while my heart had stopped working.
"Yes..." she said, "But I don't want to make excuses."
"Then tell me, how many could you dodge before, with one hand on your body? And how many did you dodge today?"
She started a hearty laugh at my last question.
"There should be a limit on how many times you're allowed to frame a question. You're just changing a few words of the same question!!" she said while laughing. "I was the best single handed Yoddha today. Out of all the days in my life that I've fought with a single hand, today was my best performance. How's it now?" she asked laughing.
I kept staring at her, all the while she laughed. Apsara didi didn't even come close.
"It's perfect now. Good job." I said regaining my composure. "Let's complete this and give it some of our own touches, what do you say?"
"Yeah, let's make it like a small swimming pool."she suggested.
"Wait, I think we have the materials already. Can you clear the mud? I'll bring in our tiles." I asked her and ran away. Just as she said swimming pool, the impact crater of Brahmastra came to my mind. It wasn't a nuclear weapon right? What if we get radiation? Let's go and check it out.
I saw from the distance that the glass like tiles were being loaded to the boys' dorms. Let's just sneak some out. I thought the tiles would be really heavy, being compressed rocks, but there were really light like tin foils. Well, works better for me. I took more than a thirty of them, stacking them into two towers of fifteen slabs, taking them out one by one. After storing them away in the eastern jungle, I carried one tower back to the south east.
She was already done with removing the mud and soil from the pool. I didn't ask how she did it. If she didn't reveal anything to her training partners why would she tell me?
"I removed all the moisture in the air around the pool with the Anahata(heart) chakra's air attribute. The mud turned into mud bricks.They broke easily after a light impact." She said with a smile.
I was a bit flustered considering what I was thinking just a few moments before.
"You can already solve eight standard physics problems then." I said whatever.
"You didn't mean it at all." she said, upset at my casual praise.
"Sorry I was thinking about something else. You used that dung cake drying technique that people in the villages use for making fuel right?" I replied properly this time, "I was intrigued by the artistic way the village women used to plaster dungs all over the walls in different patterns. I used to think they were just doing that to their neighbour's house out of spite. Good thing it was banned, it used to produce a lot of unnecessary smoke."
"It's intriguing if you think about who found out about this method for the first time." she wondered her lips catching a slowly rising smile, "You need to do a lot of 'experiments' with 'that' to get to a point where you can even use it as a fuel."
"Okay! Topic change!! We are going too deep" I said, thinking how she's genuinely trying to be funny. So cute.
We placed the tiles one by one, on the floor of the pool, using pieces of strong boulders which won't dissolve into the water easily, to fill up the empty spaces. I went back to fetch the rest of the tiles from the eastern jungle. I thought there would be quite a commotion back at the dorms. But either they didn't care, or they had too many of them.
"They are not radioactive right?" I asked placing the tiles down. I saw a dome of air pushing the waterfall out of its actual path to make sure it didn't fall on the pool while it was being renovated. Somi has taken care of even the smallest details that had skipped my mind. "No, the explosion is made of raw Kundalini, if it was radioactive we'd already be dead with radioactive soup swimming within the vessels of our body." she got rid of my worries. I used Wood Flesh to blunt the sharp edges of the tiles set on the edge. The material didn't seem to budge, after using up 90 percent of my Kundalini and making it as hard as I could, it somehow worked.
"Can I ask you something? You don't have to tell me if don't want to." she suddenly announced.
"Okay?"
"I have already seen that you have the root chakra, which should be red. Why do you also have green Kundalini like me?"
I didn't answer.
She waited two minutes and again went to work.
After all the tiles were finished setting properly, she looked at me.
"Let's do it. One. Two. Three." I counted as she released the air barrier. The waterfall reached the pool slowly and started accumulating there.
After we waited for more than thirty minutes, the pool was filled with clear transparent water. The excess water was sent out from the left side of the pool that joined a stream that moved north, towards the eastern jungle.
"Next year, it might get destroyed again." she said with a melancholic face.
"There will be people who will visit this place just like us among our juniors. Let's leave future of the pool to the younger ones. They'll take care of it, I believe." I tried to console her, looking back at the jungle imagining a group of youngsters coming out of it, laughing and joking to make memories in this place.
"Are you going back?" she asked suddenly, probably wondering why I was looking towards the dorms.
"We can sit for a while. Creator's privilege, the first foot bath!" I suggested.
Last time we sat 3 meters away from each other. This time it was not even a meter.
I did the usual, lying down with my legs in the water. "Need to take a bath."
"Yeah."
We sat there quietly for fifteen minutes without making another sound. It was so serene and ambient that my mind felt at peace and my body comfortable.
It was now two or three hours after midnight.
"I'll be leaving soon." I muttered softly. I needed a good sleep today. Today was already the sixth day. We'll go back to Alik Marta after two days and then again come back after 14 hours. That will be 14 days in Satya Marta. Now that I've got both the perspectives, I'll never be able to relax at Alik Marta, thinking whole days were passing by at the Ashrama while completing only half a movie.
"I wanted to ask two things of you." she said as I got up. Maybe she wanted to say these before I agreed to sit for a bit.
"Your friend Saiyan has been following me for the last few days. Please let him know that I don't appreciate it. My friend will get angry with me otherwise."
Damn good friend. I sent a imaginary salute to my fallen brother, while pressing F non stop in my mind's keyboard. Thank you for you service. But wait, there was something else in there.
S: "And if I could..."
Me: "Waittt!!!!" I stopped her as she got flustered, her ears red.
S: "If you don't want to it's fine. You don't have to shout!" she stammered a bit, her voice timid to angry within seconds.
"Wait." I raised my hands. "Calm down, both me and you. Calm down."
"We have been going over it a bit too fast." I said softly.
"Ah, I know it has only been a week, Sorry for making things awkward for you." she said.
I blinked at the mismatch in communication.
She blinked back.
"What are we talking about? she asked.
"Three , two , one ! I wanted to know more about your friend who's interested in my friend." I declared.
"I wanted your roll number. For Kalpa Yaal." she announced.
"Oh." I muttered, being the one flustered this time. She was surprisingly direct.
S: "It was the first time I had so much fun building something with someone my age. It's usually competing with others like I had always been instructed to. Even with Ariya, all I ever did was selfishly compete with her, but after coming here I keep coming across people who have been helping me with engaging in different activities. I had exchanged IDs before with my roommates who came to cheer me up after I lost my arm, so I thought it was fair to get yours too since I knew you. You were also the one who healed me, and also built this together with me." she stated her reasons.
"It will be an honor." I said, activating Kalpa's status for the first time. I was surprised at how many times I got distracted before opening it. It must be that Swadhisthana chakra's fault. My hormones are all over the place.
I suddenly remembered Saiyan telling not to open it in front of others. In the brief moment before I closed it I saw my level. That means she saw it too.
"You were a non combatant right? How did you get to level 7?"
"I have no idea. I should have at most level 5."
"Hmmm..." she hummed for quite a while.
Panna help!!!!
"Dhruva, my requirements per level is much higher than Kalpa's. I said we would meet again at level 10 , but it actually takes more time to reach than level 15 in Kalpa's, because we are sharing exp. Kalpa is already high levelled, she doesn't take any from you. While I have to cut some commision for my own growth. It is half half so that we can grow at the same rate."
Got it! Thanks!!
"Also, the same experience is not used for both the status, if you had only one of them, you'd have a much higher level than most, except than the top few probably. So yeah, Great Job. I'm currently going through some romance movies in your memory to understand how you managed to gain Somi's favour. So don't disturb me for a while okay? I've been overworked for the last few days, so give me some break."
Yeah, enjoy your break. I'll message you only if it's too urgent.
"I think we are diverging from the topic. Let me open the friend request window only. You already sent me one right?"
"Yeah." she mumbled still thinking. "Wait, if you actually did that with Aksharas, it will be an interesting ide..." she stopped, glancing at the friend requests I had received, "Isn't she that beautiful seventh grader who was healing consistently today? She's got a huge Kundalini pool. My friends are huge fans of her. She's cool."
"Ah yes. That one." I didn't correct her saying that she often hung out next to me for filling up on Kundalini. I just wanted this to end. Why is this happening one after another?
"Oh this sixth grader is also impressive. She's the only one in secondary section to have opened her third eye chakra. She has awesome reflexes and intuition. I have heard that it's almost impossible to hit her. I would like to spar with her one day. Will be quite exciting. You know some impressive people."
"To be honest, I don't know her. Might have healed her probably. Someone has leaked my roll number to the seniors."
Looking closely I recognised her as the girl who was being dragged by Apsara didi.
I accepted Somi's request first out of all of them and saw her eyes lit up as only her name popped up in my friends section.
"It's an honor too." she smiled, returning what I had said before.
Seeing me close all the windows she got confused. "You won't accept their requests? They sent them before me, no?"
"I'll accept them later. Let's talk about your friend now." It was already such a close call. I should have accepted their requests much earlier. But I would have missed her expression when she saw she was my first friend on the list.
"My friend Ariya is also one of the seven. She's a Dhanurdhar with insane accuracy. I have won only 4 out of our 10 matches in the shooting range." she started.
Okay, so there are people who have been using it. Am I technically not using any proper facilities provided by this Ashrama?
"Our families have been close since the ancient times actually. We trained together since childhood, went to the same school. We're practically like sisters. So I would be really upset if some misunderstanding happened between us because of your friend. She's already competing with another of the chosen for him so i just want to stay out of this."
This guy. He's been thinking about me while being on a sinking boat surrounded by crocodiles and tigers on water and land respectively.
"What is this competing thing? Aren't they just playing around?" I asked, my intuition giving me a very bad feeling, scratching at my stomach from inside.
"No, Kalpa asked us to choose partners to co-operate with in the future from now only." she dropped a bomb and got quiet for over a minute. Is Kalpa planted in that infamous state??? My heart was banging against my rib cage by now. It was such a weird feeling that I had never felt before making me really uncomfortable. It was a mixture of anxiousness and nausea. I tried my best to not show anything outside. Does that mean she also...?
Why did you stop??
"Among the seven?" I somehow said, a bitter feeling spreading inside me. "It's an odd number." I stated, bracing myself for the worst. Is this going to end before I could even do anything?
"Yeah, I'll become Kalpa's guardian instead. After 19, I'll have to stay by her side, in her domain, protecting her."
I felt something breaking inside me. It was way worse. In her domain? In that weird, dark and empty place??
"Why now? After all these years? What about the other six? Protecting her from what???" My voice grew a bit desperate. Her eyes grew bigger at the sudden change of my tone.
"They will be given the three Kalpa seeds that she gave birth to last year. That's why the people were chosen this year. Kalpa is dying, so she wants to leave behind legacies, the three seeds that will become three new world trees in three new dimensions made with the final vestiges of Kalpa's power... An exclusive space for humans, away from the conflict of Asuras and Devatas."
"What are you protecting her from? If she's dying already? Why do you even have to be there? Do you never get to come back after the protecting is done?" I felt a bit pathetic to be honest, having such an infodump right out of the blue and acting like this as a consequence. But the idea of her, alone in the dark reflective world with a towering presence over her all the time ticked me in a way I couldn't describe. Why does she need to live like that? And for how long?
"Kalpa asked the Saptarishis who can peer into the furthest reaches of time and space to perform a divination for her in return for seven of her fruits. They foretold that her path will be filled with obstacles, and she needed to make sure that she stayed alive until the three new worlds are born fully. I need to keep her alive throughout the process and after that, I will be freed. For when the ritual of growing the new world trees gets completed, depends on how long the other six chosen take to become experts in the ways of raising Kalpa's seeds. For starters, they'll need lots and lots of Kundalini and Prana energy. Which will come only from having higher levels. So they need to get stronger through any means possible at this moment."
My gut feeling kept saying that lots of things were missing from the explanation. How long does the seed take to grow into a fully developed tree? Will humanity from the Alik and Satya Martas relocate there? This looks like the story of Manu and Shatarupa. The Noah's ark version of our mythology. Manu was tasked to survive the great deluge, who built a boat, and saved the Saptarishis along with a couple of every animal on Earth. From Manu came the word Manava which simply meant 'us' or human beings.
"Who else knows of this?" I asked her.
"Only the seven of us. And now you too. I decided to trust my Anahata(heart chakra). It calms down whenever I come to the pool, helping me clear my mind and sort things out. But when it did the same after being healed by you, I got a bit confused. Anahata usually repels everything and everybody, but..."
"How did you awaken Anahata? I thought you need to catch feelings for that." I indirectly asked the dreaded question. One which Saiyan had warned me of long before, at the very beginning. She already had her chakra when she met me here.
She stayed silent.
Is this in retaliation to me not answering why I had green kundalini too?
'Should I just give up and move on? Things were already getting complicated.' A momentary thought crossed my mind leaving me disheveled for a second.
I was angry at myself. And at the strange workings of fate. If it was going to be like this why bother making me come across her. I felt like an idiot putting efforts till now. Proper research. Before you do anything. I had made the mental notes, yet failed to follow it.
I thought back at the ups and downs I experienced for the last few hours here. Thinking back on it, for the last week, what kind of interactions did we have between us? Wasn't I just leading myself on with my delusions? Thinking too much into little details and making my own conclusions that fit my perspective? It was probably not the objective truth, but a subjective one, born from my viewpoint only.
"Haaah...!!" I sighed loudly. "I don't know why you chose to follow this path. But then again, considering the stupid actions I have taken till now doesn't make sense either from an outside perspective. We are all still so much immature. I wish we only had enough experiences to be able to correctly make major decisions about our life at some later point...But not 'now'. When I don't even know what to do with my life. You all already knew about Satya Marta and the truth of this world. Maybe that's why you're taking these as granted, as they come to you. Is it of great honour to be chosen as Kalpa's Guardian? In your 'ancient' family?"
"Yes." she replied quietly.
"Is that honour so great that you will even sacrifice the rest of your life for that? In that lonely place?" I interrogated her.
"If that makes my parents happy. Yes. They are the top most priority of my life right now, considering how hard they have worked to give me enough chances, to be able to have a starting point close to that of the children from other ancient families. Being from a family who were cursed to serve the other families forever, the struggles and insults that my parents had to endure for me, I'll give up everything to provide them with enough good results so that they don't have to put their heads down in front of others. I want them to walk with their heads held high, with pride, over what their daughter have achieved, that others weren't able to. Kalpa is like the Mother Goddess to us families who have been taking care of her since the first Yugas. Being her direct guardian will surely release the curse and help my family rise to prominence. Atleast then, my parents and my little brother won't have to be ashamed of their bloodline. So that my brother can do what he wants in life, away from the taunts from others, and the pressure from my parents like I had to endure. All my life, everything I have been doing till now, was for paving a path for my family whom I love the most, more than anything in this world so that they can cast away the shadow of the past that had been haunting them forever." she was panting, short of breath, at the end of it all. So many things bottled up inside, all came flowing out. How long was she holding these things inside her?
Her competitiveness, her doubts about herself from the incessant insults, I had no idea how bad they were, but to affect someone like her in this way, I didn't even want to imagine, and her pride over what she had achieved by herself with peerless hardwork, everything now made sense. A curse of servitude. A broken family hoping to gain their lost power. The first child being sacrificed for the sake of their younger one. At the end of it all, an innocent life, burdened with enormous expectations, was somehow holding itself straight infront of me, threatening to break down at any moment.
She kept staring at me, waiting for my response, but my mouth refused to open.
What if the same happened to me? Imagine going through the same life like her. Will I not try my best so that my parents can live their lives happily? With pride and honour? Did I not decide to study hard for the sake of my parents being proud of me? She's also doing the same thing. It just looks extreme because of the extraordinary aspects of the True World. Someone living with full knowledge of this world's workings will be ready to sacrifice anything just for the sake of gaining her position.
We were only two people, bounded by their individual duties to their families. From two different worlds, one with knowledge, and the other without, still mine being a lot more flexible than hers. And I had the gall to stand here judging her decisions. I felt so sick of myself that I refused to stay there facing her anymore. But before I could do anything, she ran away, unable to hold back her emotions anymore. A thousand curses directed towards myself bubbled up to the tip of my tongue, waiting for the chance to come rushing out. Frustrated, I went back to my cave and lied down on its hard and unforgiving rocky surface, replaying in my mind everything I could have done and said differently. There was a lot to think about, but I refused to give it any more thought for now and shut my eyes trying to invite sleep to my body.