The Dawn Of Finality

The cavern’s jagged wall twisted into a narrow passageway, covered in sapphiric veins that ran through its walls and ceilings. Anu was the first to creep in through the tiny crevice as he crouched slightly, passing through the passage and into the first cave out of the three within this system. The other two were located at a lower level, separated by narrow passages similar to this.

“Watch your head,” he warned. His fingers scaled the inner walls, feeling the asymmetrical surface morphing into a polished surface the closer he got to the centre. It also emanated a buzzing sound and heat, a far cry from the glacial weather outside.

“Thank you, but I’ll manage,” Ayano replied sharply. That was the first exchange they had had in hours.

“Suit yourself.”

Anu moved towards the lamp-illuminated section of the cavern. Under its silverish hue were ochre paintings of rudimentary aestheticism brushed across the lime-tinged walls. There were three of them. Each depicting lives of the people who had once used this as a home. In the first was a stick figure, five of them, holding what looked like a staff and a bow, trying to slay a round-looking animal. The next two had similar depictions, except the shape of the animal kept evolving. By the last one, it was a ball of dark matter with tendrils all over it.

“Dr. Schneider believes it to be some kind of Squid hunting,” Ayano dusted her pink windbreaker and moved to his side. “Dr. Asakura believed it to be some kind of ritual.”

“Both can be right and wrong,” Anu mused, his gaze strained at the pictographic symbols below them. “But as long as we don’t decipher this script, we aren’t going anywhere.”

“Assumptions can only take you so far.”

“The entirety of the Indus Valley is crowned upon a mound of assumptions, and to be fair, most of it sounds even,” he brought out his hand lens, putting it over the first symbol. “But the fact that all of it can be debunked the moment someone figures out the script is a reality that can’t be sundered. Thus, if we can stop that uncertainty from arriving at this discovery, I am more than happy to work. Even when it means going against the Institute.”

“Assumptions make up most of our work; even with a perfect decipherment, most of it is left to the historian’s perception.” Ayano pointed out as she too brought out her journal and began documenting the symbols. “After all, you never lived in that era to understand the workings of that period.”

“We can still try.”

“But with arrogance, that can get murky.”

“You think I am arrogant.”

“No,” she replied, her tone sarcastic. “I know you are.”

“If being good is arrogant, I don’t mind.”

“No one ever denied your hard work.”

“Then where is this ‘arrogance’ originating from?”

Ayano took a pause. Her hand tightly held the ink-stained page of her journal. Anu gazed at her; her shoulders quivered as she cast her gaze over the floor.

“Your fragile ego,” she muttered.

Anu stiffened.

“Ego?”

“Yes.”

“Huh? What are you even on about, Inoue?”

“Even now!” The journal flew across the cavern swiftly, landing over the edge with an echoing thud. “Throughout the entire trip, you have done nothing but be egoistic. My research! My work! My decipherment! Would it hurt for you to look around and accept that there are others keeping up with you!”

“I always do! Don’t I?!” The dam was broken. Finally, after months of skirting around the problem, the two people, close or not, clashed. “Wherever there is credit due, I give it.”

“Oh, really?” she scoffed. “Then what about the guide who is standing outside?”

“Huh, what about him?”

“Oh my gods! What about him? He is the reason we are here safe and sound, goddammit!” Her magenta eyes reflected her rage as her petite hands balled into a fist around his collar. “Can’t you, for once, leave the isolation of your own self-centeredness and look around! There are people who are working hard so you can flourish.”

“I never asked them to.” He averted his gaze. His defences were up; he no longer wanted to continue with this confrontation.

“There you go again.” She was stomping the ground. “Sure, you didn’t ask, but did you say no either? Anu, for fuck’s sake, take responsibility for your actions. Just because your life’s been laden with misery doesn’t give you the right to make others miserable.”

“Misery?” Anu whispered, his eyes flashing angrily, his entire demeanour darkening immediately, as his heart thumped louder by the second. “Miserable life...what would you even know-”

“You are right, I don’t!” She pushed him back, despite the difference in strength. Anu felt powerless. “And do you know why? Because you won’t say a thing, Anu! Not even a word. Do you expect me to dream about your worries, your past, your wounds? Even then, I tried. Every day, back when we were dating and even now. Heck, even at this moment, I am here by your side, and not at home with my family. Do you know why? Because I do care about you, Anu. My world, despite its own isolation, has you in it, and I care. And it hurts me to see you this way.”

“Is that why you followed me here?” he glared at her accusingly. Despite his chest constricting and his mind begging him to stop, the chains that cradled around his heart and past grinded at each other, screeching a torrent of fury. “Do you even care about this research?!”

“What is wrong with you, Anu!”

“It’s Doctor for you-”

“No, it is not!” she yelled back. “No, it is not...not now, when I am here. Why won’t you listen to any of us? Why won’t you leave him behind, Anu? Why can’t you come back to present-”

All the colour drained from Anu’s face. Him? His mind raced with shards of possibilities. ‘Did she know?’ he thought, but how can she? He never talked about his father. Even in their brief sixteen months of being engaged to one another, he never brought it up. He would always brush past any conversation pertaining to his parenting or childhood and quickly change topics to hint that she leave it alone. But then how? Or rather, who told her?

The phone call from two days ago flashed through his mind. A fresh torrent of anger bubbled in his veins as the realisation dawned on him.

“She called you?” Anu very quietly muttered.

Ayano’s form tensed, her grip faltered. “And what if she did?” she replied.

He felt his body tremble underneath the layers, the cold, if any, swirled into a torrent of ember seething beneath his skin. His teeth grinded as his frows burrowed.

“What did she say?” his words came out in a hiss.

“Why don’t you ask her yourself?” she snapped back, each word striking like a whip. “Oh! Wait?” Ayano let out a dry laugh. “How could you? The great Dr. Sisodiya is so busy with his research that he can’t even call the only person who loves him unconditionally in the world.”

“You don’t have any right to speak about my inter-personal relationships, Ayano!” he thundered as he took her wrist.

“Ironic, the last time you distorted my life with your presence, I didn’t give you any permission either.”

“That was…” his jaw tensed up. He didn't want her to bring up their past, not here, not now. This confrontation wasn’t what he desired.

“Anu, look,” she replied with constraint. “I am not this. I don’t want to shout at you, I don’t want to distort your absolutist reality, at least not when the fragility of your own past is breaking. But you have to let us help you. You need to ask for help from me, your mother, and those who are professionals in this. You are better than this.”

“How much did she say…” he scurried past her words. Anu wanted to know how much of his life had been violated.

“Enough for me to piece everything together.”

Anu pressed his lips together, his hand balled into a fist. He could hear the glacial gale from the other end, as the shimmering light flickered. He wanted to speak, maybe an apology or a display of acceptance. But for what?

“Anu.” Ayano's knit gloves gently cupped his cheek. Her magenta eyes, despite the anger, held onto the care and love. “Please don’t do this to yourself. I am someone who might one day move on from you,” she spoke ever so gently, her words laboured, each syllable sharp. “It’s hard, but I will. But her, your mother...you are all that she has left. Don’t do this to her. Not for her sake but yours…”

There was a brooding silence; her fingers remained over his freezing face, while Anu, in a war of his own, bit his tongue. His heart raced, his breath erratic as he felt the jitters yet again. The past he had been running from, those murky tendrils of his childhood, seemed to have caught up.

What is he to do? What is he to say?

“I-” The light flickered again, harsher than the last. A sense of vertigo plagued his senses as he tried to balance himself, a slow roar thundered over the ceiling, and the floor shook. The cavern veins popped as the walls caved in. Anu quickly pushed Ayano away, saving her from falling rocks, his eyes strained upon the exit.

“Earthquake,” Ayano barely managed.

Anu nodded. He threw away their backpack and gave Ayano a final shove into the passage. His muscles tensed, and his vision dimmed. His ears started ringing, a plea for help.

“Anu?!” Ayano’s tone was shrill, almost a hysterical shriek. Though Anu gave her a confused look.

“I will be back soon…” he said, or he thought he did. The sound of his own voice failed to register, even for him. He tried to move, his muscles tensed up again as his arm held onto the jagged wall, and he then tried to push his leg. The signal was sent, yet he remained there.

Tilting his head down, reality finally set in. Beyond his torso remained a rotund boulder, painted in fresh sparks of blood-his blood. In a survival attempt, he willed his arm to push it, but the mist around his peripheral was already setting in. Another cry, words of regret and a final declaration of love sailed from the other side.

It was Ayano. He wanted to believe it was her. In these final moments of existence, he at least wanted someone to remember him.

He was a scum, the worst of all. Even in the end, all he could think of was his own convenience and work. For him, his worth was research and research his worth. A symbiotic relationship, maybe even parasitic.

The struggle lasted a minute longer, and then there was calm. Anu's arm fell with a thud, his head thrashed over the wall as he fell. Next to him lay Ayano’s journal, its pages pristine with the precise calligraphy of the Shinyobun symbol. Its beauty, immaculate, as every curve, despite the overlay, is composited into an aesthetic pictogram. It was ethereal, divine, unlike anything in this world.

It truly was otherworldly.

Anu let out a sharp exhale, his mind racing, faced with his imminent end. The urge to live was creeping ever so slightly, as the torrent of guilt clutched his heart in its tendrils.

“Sorry,” he croaked in a ragged voice. “I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry.”

An apology to her, an apology to his mother, an apology to his younger self, an apology to everything. Despite not knowing the rationale, his chest tightened. Was it the foreboding of eternal sleep? Or the chains of his own making? He couldn’t differentiate. But the inherent need to apologise echoed.

A veil of obsidian shrouded his vision, and his lids grew heavy. There was a haze, as an outline of a magenta-blue angular wing flapped over the shadow. It danced over the tattered page of Ayano's journal before landing on Anu’s finger, which held onto the symbol.

It was the Shinyobun butterfly, the reason for the discovery of this site. And poetically, the last sight Anu was granted in this world.

And then Anutapura Sisodiya drifted off to an eternal sleep.