"Can you please stop? Why do you never listen to us?"
"But mom, what's wrong with my abroad studies! It's not like I'm going to do dru*gs or something!"
"No, you can't. Unless you get married, you can't get out of the country."
"You guys are unbelievable!" saying this the girl slammed the door and got out of the house. She directly went to the library. Because there she found the peace she never found anywhere else.
Her name is Anasia, her friends call her "Anastasia" in a joking way. She's not the most beautiful lady you've ever seen but she's okay type. Most importantly she's happy with herself. She's completed Master's this year and all she knows only study. So she wants to go to abroad for PhD. But her family is not allowing. Too much typical Asian family, with backdated beliefs. According to them, women can't leave their country for any purpose if they are not married. Seriously! First, they always set this mindset since the childhood that makes us stay away from strangers and now all of a sudden you are telling the same person to marry a stranger! Bro! Logic is not logicing anymore!
Anyways, that's for the rest. Everytime they are having any arguments relating anything she always goes to library. Library always cools her down. Books and knowledge always attracts her like a moth towards the fire. Today was nothing different. As usual she sat at her regular seat after writing her name on visitors' list. It's been only one hour since the library has been opened. It'll take more time for other readers to arrive. Usually even she doesn't come this early, due to her argument with her mother she came early. The librarian knows her since a long time. She's an amazing lady at her late forties. Seeing Anasia this much early, she came towards her and gave her usual sweet smile.
"Ana dear, you are this much early today!"
Anasia hid her actual reason.
"Nothing, mam. Mom and dad are not at home. They went to granny's house so I thought of coming early today."
"Ooh, okay okay, good good. Can you keep the keys please dear. The guard is outside so noone unwanted will come inside. I have to fetch my tiffin bag."
"Sure, mam. No worries."
"Okay dear"
Anasia has always been a gentle girl since childhood and her bonding with the librarian was quite good. They knew each other since ten years so it was never a problem with trust issues. However, just 15 minutes after the librarian left the library, sudden rain started. It was pouring down cats and dogs. And thunderstorms. She was actually scared. The library was actually on a riverside area so thunderstorms were stronger here than anywhere in the city. Anasia felt a little bit scared. So she went outside to check on the security guard. She found him sitting inside the building. Generally he sits at a shade at the entrance. Due to downpour, he came inside. Anasia walked towards him.
"Uncle, how long will this rain stay?"
"No idea, dear."
"Did librarian mam said anything?"
"Yes, she called me. She informed that if you wanna go to home you can leave the keys on her desk."
"Oh okay"
She came inside and checked on Google. It's showing the rain shower is not gonna stop at least before three hours. So she went back to study.
Suddenly something came to her mind. There are some locked cupboards in the library which are never opened for anyone. So, she took the keys and went to the cupboards of the secret chamber. She's familiar with the entire building. This building was donated by a King about 400 years ago. The entire family of that king suddenly died on a single night. No-one knew the reason behind it. A lot of people says that they were cursed, some says someone killed them overnight and some says they killed themselves. But no-one ever could show any solid proof to claim their standpoint. So it still remained as a mystery. After their death, all the books in the palace were brought here, in this library. But not a single exclusive item were brought due to the security problem and in fear of robbery. Because there's a huge chance that robbers would ruin the entire building after their deed. And people who loves knowledge can always admire this place. Even though in this era, people are more addicted to online knowledge, there are still some bookworms who actually loves the feel of physical books. Some years ago, when Anasia was helping the library staffs with the Shelf-listing, she discovered a secret chamber. There were at least 9 cupboards, locked and unavailable. Then she came to know about the source of these books. These are actually Royal books. Later she discovered amongst these cupboards there is a key to the secret basement where are many more books. But it's actually heard information, nothing solidly proved. So she became a little bit curious. As no-one is coming soon, she can surely discover something knew. So she tiptoed towards the secret room and unlocked it with one of the keys from the bunch. Then she tried to unlock the cupboards but unluckily none of the keys worked. She went back to the Librarian's office and found the locker. She opened it easily because she had it's key. There were bunch of documents and some keys and so many things. Obviously they may be valuable. But all she needed were the keys. She took them, again locked the locker and went to the cupboards. There were not a single dust in those cupboards which confirms one thing "They are well taken care of". She read the names. They were written in Sanskrit. Thankfully she knew how to read Sanskrit. She read the names. First cupboard were entirely related to Politics and Diplomacy which didn't arise her interest, so she closed it. Second cupboard were full of Music and poetry of that time. It also made her unsatisfied. Then she opened the third cupboard and it was about the history of the Royal family who donated this library. Now this is what attracted her attention. First thing came to her mind is whether she can find the reason of their extinction or not. As you think, so you do. She opened the cupboard. There were also many books. Some books are like biography of the Kings of the bloodline. She opened one. It was of Sher Shah Suri. She found out it was actually the diary of the rulers which were written by themselves. She found this fact quite amazing. In this way, no-one can alter the things the actual ruler did. Then she started finding the last king's one, reason is obvious. "Daud Khan Karrani", she obviously knew the name. She opened it and started reading. Gradually she realised that this ruler was never interested in ruling, he was more of an adventurous and scholarly person. He often went out to discover new things, in fact he discovered a lot of new medicinal herbs due to his adventures which helped the medics back then. He mentioned that all his adventures and knowledge collections are recorded in different books and he stored all of them in his own Almirah and named it after him "Daud jñāna". Anasia looked around but didn't find anything named Daud jñāna. She realised it's not here. She again read it, realised he's not big fan of diary writing because he stored all his knowledge in his books stored in the Daud jñāna. So she skipped to the last page. And it attracted her attention. Because the page is not complete. He asked sorry for something. So she started reading from the starting but the writing was continuing from previous page so she turned back.
The page started when he mentioned to go to a island far from here. It was totally water path. After a long time he reached the place. But the entire place was filled with weird animals and big crocodiles. Human being was very rare there. Some black native citizens were permanent residents there. When they found him on the boat, they mentioned not to cross the direct east from there. Because the water there was always very secretive. No-one has ever been came back alive who went directly towards the sea in the east from there. But the owner of the diary found it very curious. Why would it happen? Maybe there is a secret passage via which people go to another place and that's why they never came back at all. Even though he agreed with the natives on surface but he was curious. So one week later when almost all the male figures went for work, he decided to leave. In this one week he was observing the weather and environment around the area and gathered knowledge. According to the locals, the east sea was always surrounded with heavy rain, thunderstorms, windstorm, rainstorms and a lot of things. But the climate was never travel friendly, yet a lot of former travellers tried to go through there but some invisible energy sucked them into water. A lot of people even believed that there is actually a water God living there. When people disturbed him, he got angry and that's why he made them disappear. Daud didn't believe any of these. There must be some reason. Maybe some deep suction hole where everything goes to the centre of earth. So when everyone was saying him to travel some other time he gave an excuse of clear weather. As the women had no idea what was the actual route of sea, they didn't say anything else. After going some kilometres away from the shore they moved their ship towards east. His actual route was not decided anyways and he actually started going to east from his own home via seawater. After a long time he stopped. He's going to the further east. So when he came near the described water area, he actually felt something weird. The water was way too calm to be true. If the legends and myths about the water was actually true, it would never be calm. But the sudden silence actually made him wary of the surroundings. He continued his voyage. The most creepy thing was the neverending silence. Without the sound of the paddles his men were working on, there was not a single more sound. At least after 3 hours of paddling and burning a lot of coal, there was sudden windstorm with heavy rain. Within a single minute the clear sky was covered with black clouds and it was roaring. Everyone was already enough scared. If it was not an order from the king himself, they would never follow him. Most terrifying thing was the windstorm created three different whirlpool around the boat and they were coming from three different sides. Everything happened within minutes even before they could understand a single little thing. All the whirlpools attacked at the same time and their entire boat drowned. He didn't know when he woke up but he was lying under a tree which actually didn't look like any tree. It looked something like underwater garbage. He looked around but found not a single person who were with him. And suddenly that roar. It felt like even sky was trembling. It sounded like a beast, a trapped beast. And the ground underneath him was shaking too, just like an earthquake. What was that sound from!