A Lot Like Moon & Stars | ✓

04 | alnitak

iv.

ALNITAK » the kaleidoscope

It begins to snow.

The spiralling snowflakes fall down from the skies tenderly on our skin. It doesn't affect us much as the snow kissing our skin is very soft and light.

A small smile graces Tara's lips as she seems weirdly happy about the weather. Her smile warms my ice-cold heart for a fraction of second, shooting warm fuzzy feelings right through my head to the edge of my toes.

Aa we continue to walk in the uncanny silence, I can feel my hair getting entirely soaked. Tara seems infinite times more affected than me as she begins to falter in her walk. She pushes herself hard to take another step later, but misbalances resulting into a possible mishap but I stop it by looping by arms around her waist.

"Are you okay?" I ask, while she freezes in my arms - a sense of security feeling through our bodies until she begins to shiver. It's not plausible because it's not even that cold; that's what I feel.

"I c-cannot... I c-cannot walk an-anymore, Virat. Y-you should leave b-before the cold b-bites you." Tara stutters, the words coming out of her mouth like a broken rhapsody. It confuses me because she wasn't exactly shivering which should make her work like a broken record.

Tara tries to come out of my hold but my grip on her only tightens at her actions. Her lips transforms into a darker shade of purple by now and the sight of it creates knots in my stomach; it scares me to death to see her that weak and fragile.

I wrap my arms around her to keep her warm. "I'm not going to leave you in this condition." I defy, and try to remove the small pieces of ice off her face. Tara's eyes begin to close momentarily. I cannot help but find my eyes watering at the sight as I tell her softly, "Please try to keep your eyes open, Tara. I saved your life that day not to let you die again."

"Just go b-before it's too l-late Virat. Death is my inescapable oblivion." Her lips quiver fearfully while her entire body starts to shiver in an uncontrollable manner. She is half empty, half breathing, half surviving. The air in my trachea gets clogged painfully as she says that, the air tightening and sifting in my throat.

How can death be an escapable oblivion?

Until you're given death sentence by... someone.

Shaking my head, I press her face against my left shoulder, and try to remove the jacket I am wearing using my right hand. Switching her position to my right shoulder, I manage to take down my jacket. I quickly wrap it against Tara's body to keep her warm.

"It's not late, Tara. And no, death is definitely not your inescapable oblivion. So don't be so fucking dramatic because I am not letting you die. That's a promise, Tara." I murmur softly against her ear as I wrap my jacket around her. But from the inside I was scared. It was almost like fear had clasped its fingers across my body and dug its way deepest into my skin and grabbed me by my bones.

"I-I am going to die, V-Virat. T-this is the during, and this is only the end."

It's somehow like a mantra to Tara. A prayer she keeps on repeating that it's almost deafening. Those words sting the back of my eyes now. How simple can it be for someone to say "I am going to die." and fucking not care about the people who would be the collateral damage in that process of the death.

Neither Papa thought. Nor Shaurya.

I sigh, "The moment you think you're going to die is the moment you would die because it dies out, your heart dies out along with the spirit of living." It comes out as a mumble tingling against her ear as I pick her up in bridal style. I begin to walk on the desolated road once again after she passes out. Huddling both of us through the road, I find a glimpse of light radiating from a heat lamp kept outside a house.