Tug of Fate | When Stars Align Book one

Exploring

James

We don't know how long we stayed there, sitting in the dark cave huddling in the blankets we had. We were running out of candles too. We slept, and rationed our food. We have only a few cereal bars, as all the proper food and our camping gear was still outside by our tent, before Julian had gathered us ar-

Julian.. My heart skips a beat. I never thought that someone's absence could affect me this much, after my family. I thought I'd fulfilled my quota of missing others. I never thought I would mourn someone's death so much, let alone someone I'd just met the day before. Thunderstorms have been raging outside, our watches have stopped working and our cell phone batteries were dead. We didn't know what time it was, nor did we know what day it was. We slept. We cried. Ali was a mess. Was there something between them? Maybe that's why she is so distraught? But, no. I am distraught too. She is distraught because she saw him go down. Imagine what that would do to someone?

Ananya gets up and starts pacing back and forth, with her fingers interlocked behind her head, tears running down her face.

"I am just gonna explore the cave a bit," She says.

Everyone else is sleeping. So I get up as well, "Well, you aren't going alone. Which way?"

She shrugs her shoulders then points to the left passageway.

We head in that direction. As we head deeper, it gets darker. I grab onto Ananya's hands, pulling her backwards.

"What are you doing? I want to go forward and see.." She hisses.

"I remember that I have some matchsticks and candles. Let's get them, that'll make it easier." I tell her

"Oh, okay."

No quip. No rebuttal. Nothing. This isn't the Ananya that I met yesterday.

We reach inside the main chamber. Everyone is still asleep. I get to my bag, rummage through it and find what I was looking for. Just before we leave, I turn back around and take out a pen and paper from my bag. I scribble a note on it -

Gone exploring. We will come back soon. Ananya & James

I leave it under a piece of rock, next to Becca's head. This done, I turn back around and Ananya and I make our way back down the left path. We light our candles and continue onwards. We continued walking for about five minutes when we reached a fork in the road.

"Which one?" I ask Ananya

"Lets go left. If nothing then at least all lefts we take will take us back to the starting point." She responds shrugging her shoulder.

We continue down the left. After another few minutes, the ground starts sloping. We look around, not a stitch of light or air coming in, except for the light from our candles. I grasp her hand again, and she gently squeezes my fingers. We both know that nobody is ready to lose anyone else.

As we go deeper into the cave and the floor starts sloping, I notice something on the walls. I tug on Ananya's hands and point upwards. We both stop and hold our lit candles up. On the walls, four fifth of the way up, above our heads and continuing up to the ceiling of the cave, we see beautifully hand drawn paintings in the most vibrant and iridescent colours. It feels like a story. There are faces, battle scenes, sex scenes, food, cooking, people playing – so many things. We were both looking around and above us with our mouths hanging open, when I saw one of the paintings shift.

Whoa... what was that? I shake my head. "Did you see that?"

"What? What did you see? What happened? Why do you look white?" Ananya asked, bewildered, worry laced her tone.

"Nothing, nothing. Calm down. I think I saw the colours in the painting shift, or move."

She looks at me closely then looks at the painting I am pointing at. It's a beautiful painting depicting a huge group of people, dressed in beautiful flowing clothes, dancing. It's difficult to make out which body begins where and ends where.

"No..I don't see anything moving. Maybe it's the shadows? The candlelight does flicker, you know? And did you even manage to sleep? Because I did not and I swear It's like the animals on the far wall are dancing." She says with a laugh and I turn to look at the wall she pointed at. I don't see anything moving or dancing there though.

We make our way further. The paintings get more detailed and more complicated, the further along we walk. With colours getting more and more saturated. The dark grey of the cave wall is visible less and less behind the colours.

Who painted these? How have they been here? Maybe Julian had meant to bring us here and show them to us? The thought of Julian has me swallowing the lump in my throat again.

"Do you see that?" Ananya asks with awe in her voice.

I see what she is looking at and see the most beautiful, life-sized painting of a girl swirling. Her flowy dress, billowing around her. It is a turquoise blue shimmery colour dress. Half her face is covered by hair that's blowing in the wind. Around her are seven more people. Two girls, and five men. The men are dancing too, dressed in armour, with red flowing between the men. 

Wait. Is that blood? 

The two other girls are twirling too dressed in white.

Then I notice that the first girl's dress is not actually a dress. I can see the white dress peeking from underneath the swirl of the turquoise colour, but that turquoise itself looks like mist, energy, or like a gaseous substance. The men around her look at her with complete awe and reverence. It is Absolutely. Breath. Taking.

"Anyaaaaa! Jameesss!'' We were startled by Becca's voice. We turn around shocked.

"Over here. We are on our way back," Ananya responds. We catch one last glimpse of the painting, and I swear I could see the eyes of the turquoise girl glinting.

"The weather has cleared up, let's head out before more hail comes down. Come back," Becca shouts back.

Ananya and I make our way back. But I don't want to leave. And by the way Ananya's feet are dragging, I can tell she doesn't want to leave this place either. I put my arms around her shoulder and she looked at me with her big luminous eyes.

"We'll come back again with the others." I tuck a strand of her hair behind her ear and smile at her indulgently.

Her eyes fill with tears. "Promise?" she asks

Oh God. She could have been my sister...that is how much I care about her.

"I promise." I tug her closer and lay a gentle kiss on top of her head. She squeezes my waist and leans back, giving me a smile. We both look back at the painting. It is shimmering, almost like the turquoise girl is following us with her eyes.

"We will come back. We promise." Is Ananya's whisper to her as we walk around the bend and walk into the outer chamber where everyone is waiting for us.