The mist lingered over the river like a phantom’s veil, soundless, voiceless, and soulless, but slowly slid away, hinting that it was still in the world between night and day. Beyond the haze, the mountains rose in jagged rows, their snow-crowned peaks piercing the bruised sky like the teeth of some ancient god. Pine forests clung to their lower slopes. Rivers stitched silver lines through the green.
Hunza rested among those towering dove-white apexes like a secret hidden in the folds of the Himalayas. The valley looked less built by human hands and more borrowed from heaven itself.
Wooden houses perched along cliffsides where smoke drifted lazily from stone chimneys. Prayer flags fluttered between rooftops, snapping softly in the cold wind descending from the glaciers. Goat bells echoed through narrow paths. Somewhere in the distance, women laughed while washing clothes by the riverbank.
The people of Hunza carried warmth that the mountains lacked. They laughed easily, argued loudly, and forgave quickly. They practised a higher degree of pluralism, welcoming strangers with tea before questions. Elders swore by Hunza water, a mineral-rich local alcohol. According to them, a long life in Hunza required three things: stubborn lungs, mountain air, and enough Hunza water to confuse death itself.
I was there.
I heard the river crashing against stone. I smelled cedar smoke drifting through the village. I felt frostbiting winds brush against my fingers.
Yet nothing acknowledged my presence.
The world moved through me as though I were no more than a ghost. It reminded me of the holograms back home, except this illusion had evolved into something crueller. The wrapper was gone now. The sweet sat bare in the palm, glistening, fragrant, almost warm enough to melt on the tongue, yet forbidden. A feast for every sense yet out of reach to ache for.
Then the smell reached me.
The unmistakable whiff of chargrilled lamb.
Rich. Smoky. Seasoned heavily enough to bully every other scent aside. The aroma wafted to my nose and bewitched me into a small, obscure pub in the village. It was not very long since the Ginani festival of 1983 AD. Traces of the festival still lingered everywhere. Faded ribbons fluttered from wooden poles. Empty clay cups rested along windowsills.
Inside the pub, heat and laughter wrestled the mountain cold.
Oil lamps swung lazily from soot-darkened beams. Smoke from skewers drifted beneath the ceiling in ghostly ribbons. Animal hides covered the timber walls from floor to ceiling. Wolf pelts hung beside crooked rifles blackened by age and smoke. Mounted heads stared down with frozen glass eyes: ibex with spiral horns, bears with half-bared fangs, foxes forever caught mid-snarl. Beneath each trophy, names had been carved into little wooden plaques by proud, drunken hands over decades.
JAMIL - 2 SNOW LEOPARDS (Since 1888); BASHIR - 2 IBEX (Since 1890); KAREEM - BLACK BEAR OF SHIMSHAL (Since 1921); HAMID THE ONE-EYED - SNOW LEOPARD CUB (Since 1948); KARIM - VERY ANGRY GOAT (Since 1975); HAFINA JAN - ONE LYNX (Since 1978);
And then there was Rashul’s section. An entire wall belonged to him.
RASHUL KHAN - 97 WOLVES, 5 BEARS. 9 FOXES (Since 1952);
The wall taxidermized bear heads and fox hides, but no wolves’ heads. Only their fangs.
Ninety-seven wolf fangs had been hammered individually into the dark timber wall in the shape of a crescent moon. Age had yellowed them unevenly. Only a single sentence burned into the wood with a hot iron:
THE WOLVES OF WINTER STILL OWE ME THEIR BLOOD.
It did not feel like a trophy wall. It felt like vengeance nailed into timber. Wall of preserved anger and revenge.
Then someone shouted, “Eighty winters, Rashul miaan! An’ still uglier as hell!”
The table burst into laughter.
An old man snorted into his beard and said, “Ugly keeps wolves away. Pretty gets ya’ eaten.”
The old man sat beneath the firelight like a weathered idol abandoned by time. He was tall but lean as a dried branch. Deep lines cut through his weather-beaten face. Each wrinkle seemed less like age and more like scars left behind by memory. His beard flowed silver down his neck, though streaks of black still lingered in his hair, remnants of a younger self stubbornly refusing surrender.
“Aye!” a drunk snickered from beside the fire and continued, “maybe, that’s why the beasts chose your wife an’ son instead.”
Silence spread across the benches like spilt oil. Even the fire seemed to shrink inside the hearth. Rashul’s fingers tightened around his rifle.
Someone from behind the counter shouted, “Enough! Leave the ol’ man be.”
Then an older man patted Rashul’s shoulder and said, “Forgive him, he ain’t know no better.”
Rashul murmured, “Fifty years!”
The words fell heavy.
The older man replied, “Time ain’t heal no trauma brother, but flesh.”
The tension loosened a little after that, though not completely. Someone tossed another log into the fire. Sparks spiralled upward like frightened fireflies.
Then I heard Capt. Ramayaa’s voice again. Not through the air. Inside my head.
“The old man wearing the feathered cap is Rashul Khan. The wolf hunter. Wheat farmer on weekdays. Hunter at weekends. Follow him.”
I glanced upward instinctively. “Where are you?”
“Just follow him.”
“But why?”
“You’ll know.”
I frowned and looked back toward Rashul. He sat beneath the wolf-tooth crescent on the wall, surrounded by trophies and dead eyes staring from timber walls.
“He seemed too proud of his kills. His animal cruelties.”
“Yes,” Capt. Ramayaa replied calmly. “Proud, he is. Cruel, he is not.”
Capt. Ramayaa continued, “You see that eagle feather? Years ago, Rashul mistook an eagle circling his livestock for a predator and shot it from the sky. Later, he climbed the cliffs to recover the carcass and found starving chicks waiting in the nest above. Tiny things. Blind. Crying into the wind for a mother that would never return.”
For the first time since entering the pub, Rashul’s face looked smaller to me somehow.
“Rashul buried the eagle beneath a cedar tree with his own hands,” Capt. Ramayaa said softly, “Since then, he has worn one feather from the bird in his cap. Not as pride. As punishment.”
I crossed my arms. “That proves nothing. The eagle’s still dead.”
For a moment, only the crackling fire answered me.
Then Capt. Ramayaa spoke again, “Sometimes guilt is the wound that keeps a man human. Trust me. Follow him.”
After taking the last sip of Hunza water from his cup, Rashul exhaled sharply and whistled for Shera. The Siberian husky came trotting across the tavern floor immediately, copper-white fur flashing beneath lanternlight, tongue hanging proudly from his mouth like he personally owned the village.
“Ya’ walk in here like ya’ pay taxes,” Rashul muttered.
Shera barked once.
“Fair enough.”
Though it was his birthday, Rashul followed the same ritual he followed every Saturday.
Before sunset, he visited the butcher.
The meat shop stood near the edge of the marketplace where flies buzzed lazily beneath hanging carcasses. Smoke drifted from iron hooks above the doorway.
“Adab Rashul miaan!” Butcher called out with a hand gesture, “Heard, it’s your happy b’day t’day!”
“Tasleem. Eightieth it is!” Rashul’s eyes wandered absentmindedly across the shop. “Feels like y’day I was buyin’ meat from your grandfather for ma’ Ami.”
“And now ya’ buy from me,” The butcher grinned. “Looks like Hunza water has the reverse effect on ya’! Turned ya’ ta’ eighty in one day.”
They had an odd sort of spluttering laugh. Gradually, the smile faded away from his face, and Rashul replied, clearing his throat, “Need a goat.”
“For celebration?”
“For bait.”
The butcher paused awkwardly. Outside, children shouted somewhere near the market square while prayer flags snapped in the rising wind.
“Well… We was fixin’ to go fishin’, but instead, we was doin’ some huntin’,” the butcher offered carefully. “If ya’ want, ya’ can take the deer meat. Save ya’ from draggin’ a stubborn goat through the mountains.
Rashul shook his head.
“Wolves ain’t no dogs. Proud beasts. They eat wot they kill. Need somethin’ alive.” Mimicking the heart beating with his fist, he continued, “Somethin’ with a heart still beatin’.”
“If that’s the case, I’ve an ol’ one for ya’ in the back.”
“How ol’? Can it walk?”
“Ol’ enough ta’ insult your bones. But it’ll survive the mountains.”
“That’ll do. How much, son?”
“Nothin’. Birthday gift.”
Rashul looked at him for a moment before smiling faintly.
“May God grant ya’ all, son!”
Butcher wished him back, “Evenin’!”
The goat protested its fate from the very first step. Its crooked horns jerked violently while its hooves scraped stubbornly against the dirt road, refusing to move another inch whenever Rashul loosened his grip on the rope. The husky trotted circles around them, tongue dangling happily, occasionally sprinting ahead to harass squirrels before darting back the instant Rashul shouted his name. Every now and then, the dog glanced at the goat with the smug satisfaction of a creature pleased not to be dinner.
The village slowly faded behind them. Evening settled over Hunza like blue silk being drawn across the sky. Shadows stretched longer through the valleys while cold air descended from the snow-caps in slow, invisible rivers. Rashul took the long-rutted road through the mountain to see the spring where he met his wife for the first time. He had not visited it in months. Maybe longer.
The path narrowed as it climbed. Loose stones rolled beneath Rashul’s boots while the goat continued its holy war against cooperation.
“Move, ya’ hairy sack o’ bad manners,” Rashul grunted, yanking the rope.
The goat answered by trying to headbutt his knee.
Shera barked once, which suspiciously sounded like laughter.
Then the sound reached them before the water itself. A low rushing murmur.
As he got closer, the gurgling sound of water grew louder, then turned to a plummeting sound. Tranquil from a distance but deafening up close. Sleek robes of water cascaded down a series of dark rocky outcrops, giving the effect of many waterfalls rather than just one. Runoff water tingled the rock as it seeped away, distilled as pure and clear as an angel’s tears. The setting sun’s glare from behind that mountain added jewels to that ornamental scene. The road running beside that gurgling wonder was wet and slippery. For Shera, it was merely a place for a good drink. Unlike the dog, Rashul gazed at it with a feeling of awe as if the cascades of water conjured cascades of equally powerful emotions in his mind, quite astounded him.
The memory arrived quietly.
His chest tightened.
He could still hear her voice. Her laughter. Her eyes. Her smell. The way she used to splash water at him whenever he tried too hard to impress her.
“Ya’ flirt like a man wrestlin’ bees,” she once told him.
A smile almost reached his face.
Almost.
And his eyes almost got wet in the spring water, if not in tears.
Unlike him, the waterfall thundered on without caring.
That was the cruelty of nature.
It remembered nothing.
Not love. Not grief. Not graves.
Then the wind shifted.
Far to the northwest, a wind shrine towered, steely and delicate as a needle that shivered his old skin and brought him back to reality. Rashul rubbed his arms.
Rashul blinked away the memory and murmured, “Enough wanderin’, old fool.”
The warmth drained quickly from the evening. He tugged the goat onward toward the abandoned watchtower near the forest edge.
The structure looked older than Rashul. Three stories tall, crooked with age, and patched together with timber darkened by decades of snowstorms, it leaned slightly toward the valley as though exhausted from standing so long. Vines crawled across its lower supports. Half the railing had rotted away years ago.
Shera circled beneath the tower while Rashul tied the goat beside an iron lamppost hammered into the frozen earth. The goat immediately started chewing the rope.
“Ya’ know, change of plans,” Rashul sighed, pausing to catch his breath, “If wolves don’t eat ya’, I just might.”
He lit the lantern beside the goat. Warm orange light flickered across the clearing, pushing the darkness back only a few nervous feet.
Then came the climb.
Rashul grasped the pulley handles with both hands and began hauling himself upward.
The old mechanism groaned miserably.
So did Rashul.
Halfway up, his shoulder cracked loudly.
“Still alive,” he wheezed proudly.
At the top platform, he lit another oil lamp and set it beside the wall. Shadows stretched long across the rotting wooden floorboards. Below, Shera circled twice before settling into the barricade beneath the tower. The goat continued chewing the rope.
Rashul loaded his rifle slowly. Metal clicked. Powder settled. Routine steadied the hands that age had begun to steal from him. Then he tore off a piece of bread with his teeth and sat beside the lantern. And waited.
The sun vanished in the mountains’ laps, and darkness spilt into the valley. Familiar trees and the rocks of the daytime traded their colours and friendly spirits for the ominous, malicious demons of the darkness. Soon, the diamond dust covered the black velvet of the night sky, and a lustrous argent disc peeped through the mountain peaks and glared back at itself from the river’s surface. As the night deepened, random lights of fireflies blinked more frequently, and owls haunted and hunted through moon-splashed trees. One would definitely be spooked by their swivelling heads and lamp-round eyes. However, the old man’s face was as vacant as a new canvas sheet. He was comfortable in that spooky discomfort. Except for the whispers of the cold breeze, it was all quiet before Rashul started blowing air into his harmonica. Eventually, the atmosphere became rhythmic.
Not polished. Not practised. But fulfilling.
The tune wandered into the darkness, carrying loneliness upon its back. Notes rose and fell like a tired bird searching for a home it no longer recognised.
The cold breeze whispered through the pines.
The lantern crackled softly.
The harmonica breathed.
Little by little, sleep crept over him. A while later, the whisperings of the cold breeze bewitched the old man into the land of dreams.
Then Shera barked.
His barking ripped through the night like a blade through cloth.
Rashul jerked awake so violently that the harmonica slid from his chest and clattered across the wooden floorboards of the tower. For one crooked heartbeat, he did not know where he was. Dream and memory still clung to him like cobwebs. His dead wife had been laughing beside the spring again. His son had been small enough to ride his shoulders.
Then the cold found him.
The old hunter sucked in a sharp breath and grabbed his rifle.
“Eh? Wot now?”
For one disoriented heartbeat, he thought wolves had already taken the bait. He peered over the edge of the tower platform.
The goat still stood beside the lamppost.
Alive.
Its yellow eyes blinked stupidly while it chewed the rope with the unwavering dedication of a philosopher solving life’s deepest mystery.
No wolves. No movement.
Yet Shera continued barking furiously.
Not toward the forest.
Upward.
“Wot in God’s…”
Rashul frowned and followed the dog’s gaze. At first, it looked like an unusually bright star.
Then it moved.
A pale white point burned high above the mountains, brighter than moonlight on fresh snow, growing larger with every breath. The mountains flashed silver beneath it. What had looked no bigger than a grain of salt now resembled a lantern flame suspended among the stars. Its glow sharpened unnaturally as it grew in size. Clouds peeled apart around its descent like frightened ghosts.
The thing was falling.
Straight toward him.
Rashul’s weathered face drained pale beneath his beard. His blood thinned.
“Ya’ Allah! Jesus Christ! Jai Hanuman!”
The old hunter lunged for the pulley lift without another thought. His bones protested immediately, but terror lent strength where youth no longer lived. The old wood groaned as he yanked the rope downward with frantic strength. The tower trembled violently. Above him, the burning star swelled larger still, blazing blue-white now, furious enough to blind.
Then it crashed through the tower with a soundless violence more terrifying than thunder.
No roar. No explosion. Only pressure.
Wood splintered like dry twigs. The upper floor vanished in splinters and flame. Burning debris rained downward while the entire structure groaned with the agony of collapse. The pulley rope snapped violently.
Rashul fell.
Hard.
Pain burst through his arm the instant he hit the ground. Breath fled his lungs. For a moment, stars danced before his eyes, brighter than the one that had just fallen from the sky. He lay twisted in dirt and frost for several seconds, ears ringing inside a silence too enormous to understand.
Above him, flames devoured the tower.
Shera howled frantically from inside the barricade.
Rashul coughed smoke from his lungs and forced himself upright using the rifle as support. Blood crawled down the side of his face from a gash near his temple. His shoulder burned. His left arm throbbed with wet, nauseating pain. Still, he limped toward the dog.
“Hold on, buddy…”
The barricade latch had bent from the collapse. Rashul cursed under his breath while yanking at it one-handed. Beyond the trees, an eerie glow pulsed.
The fallen star.
Shera whined desperately.
“Stop squirming!”
With one final wrench, the latch snapped loose.
Shera burst free instantly. And sprinted straight toward the impact site.
“SHERA!”
Rashul shouted again, “SHERA! SHERA! COME BACK, ya’ thick-headed fur rug!”
The husky ignored him completely.
The goat shrieked and jerked against the stake as sparks rained through the trees.
For years, he had tied creatures exactly like this beneath these woods. Goats. Sheep. Deers. Living invitations to death. Tonight, the old hunter suddenly looked tired of it. Not tired in the body. Tired in the soul.
Another shower of sparks rained from the burning tower. Rashul staggered toward it, one arm hanging useless at his side. The rope had tangled tight around the animal’s neck, choking it half-mad with terror.
“Easy… easy now…” he hissed through clenched teeth.
The old goat kicked wildly. Rashul winced as pain shot through his broken hand, but he forced his fingers to work the knot loose. The rope finally slipped free. For a heartbeat, the animal simply stood there trembling, steam curling from its nostrils into the freezing air. Then it bolted into the dark forest without looking back.
Rashul watched it vanish between the trees and muttered, “Run while ya’ still can.”
Only then did Shera bark again.
Rashul staggered after the dog, nearly slipping on loose earth. Agony stabbed through his injured arm with every step, but fear carried him onward faster than reason ever could. He could never have left Shera. How could he! It was his only family. His only friend. A wave of pain masked by adrenaline suddenly washed over him. He limped after Shera as fast as he could, despite the excruciating pain and the trail of blood he left behind.
Oddly enough, there had been no explosion. No earth-shaking shockwave. Not even a sound. Only silence.
Even quieter than ever before.
The forest ahead glowed faintly orange between the trees. Burning branches crackled softly around a massive crater gouged into the earth. Smoke curled upward into the moonlight.
Then the temperature dropped.
Instantly.
The summer night turned viciously cold; colder than the coldest night of winter on the spur of the moment. A chilly wind blew, and the ferocious flames of the fire died out everywhere. Frost crept across stones. Grass stiffened white. Rashul’s breath fogged before him in trembling clouds.
He stopped.
His eyes darted to the horizon and found a man engulfed in fire at the centre of a crater.
Standing.
Not screaming.
Blue and orange flames coiled around his body like living creatures obeying silent commands. The fire twisted beautifully around him, almost lovingly, yet fierce enough to melt stone.
Shera circled the crater barking furiously, fur standing sharp along his spine.
No man could survive that. No saint either. Yet the burning figure stood calm as snowfall.
Rashul’s instincts overpowered his terror, and he rushed forward.
“Ya’ fool! Move!” he shouted hoarsely at the stranger.
No response.
Grimacing through pain, Rashul tore off his coat and began beating at the flames desperately. The fire swallowed the fabric immediately. Heat exploded across his hands.
“Aghhh!”
He stumbled backwards, beating wildly at the flames climbing his arm. The smell of burnt wool and singed flesh hit him at the same time. Shera whined sharply.
Then the figure turned.
And then Rashul truly looked at the figure. Horror tightened around his spine. His eyes froze over like the surface of a winter puddle. The thing before him was no man.
There was no flesh beneath the flames. No face. No skin.
The shape resembled a man only because the flames had chosen mercy enough to imitate one. Inside that blazing body, gases churned and shimmered like storms trapped beneath glass. And buried within that living inferno floated two silver eyes, bright enough to shame lightning. They did not glow. They watched.
Ancient. Calm. Unblinking.
Rashul’s breath snagged in his throat.
For the first time in fifty years of hunting wolves beneath these mountains, the old hunter understood what prey must feel moments before death found it.
Then a thin strand of fire drifted lazily toward Shera.
Rashul’s fear sharpened instantly into something protective. With trembling hands, he raised the rifle.
“Leave him alone.”
Shera abruptly stopped barking and slowly lowered himself onto his belly. Then the figure tilted its head slightly, and Shera barked again. Except there was no sound.
Rashul saw no jaw movement. No strain in the animal’s throat.
He heard the bark again, but not through his ears.
Inside his skull.
Fear struck him so hard his knees weakened. Trembling hands, owl eyes and ashen face made his terror transparent. He backed away too quickly, tripped over a stone, and accidentally pulled the trigger.
The muzzle flashed.
The bullet curved.
It bent around the burning figure like river water splitting around a rock.
Every story about devils, djinn, and mountain spirits returned to Rashul at once.
The fiery being extended a hand-shaped mass toward him.
Warmth spread through Rashul’s body. Pain vanished. Cuts sealed shut, leaving no scar. His heartbeat slowed peacefully. Even the terror inside him softened, as though invisible hands had untied knots buried deep within his chest. His panic dissolved as a strange peace settled over him.
Rashul asked in utter surprise, “How did ya’ do that? Who are ya’?”
Every scrap of common sense inside him screamed, “Run.”
“Run now. Run while my legs still work. Run before this thing decides my bones serve better in witchcraft.”
But curiosity had sunk hooks into him. And curiosity whispered far more dangerously than fear ever could.
“Stay.”
The old hunter decided to stay a little longer until it was no longer safe.
Then the fire began to change. The flames folded inward, spiralling tighter. Burning gases condensed slowly into a definite form.
A fresh-faced man emerged from the inferno. Tall. Pale-skinned.
Long white hair drifted weightlessly around his shoulders. His silver eyes glowed softly against the darkness while a black suit wrapped tightly around his lean frame, a dark cape hanging from broad shoulders.
He hovered inches above the ground as though gravity merely suggested itself around him instead of commanding. And the air around him bent strangely, too. Reality itself looked uncertain near him. Things looked funny, swivelling in the immediate background as though looking through the fire.
Rashul’s face washed blank with confusion, like his brain cogs could not turn fast enough to take in the information from his wide eyes.
The silver-eyed young man spoke.
Yet his lips never moved.
The words simply appeared inside Rashul’s mind.
The first few words Rashul heard were – “Light, let there be!”
Rashul nearly collapsed.
The silver-eyed stranger tilted his head slightly, studying him with calm curiosity.
“Yaram Simona-Su, I do call myself. The intelligent life-form of this planet, I do assume you are. What do you call yourself, my child?”
Rashul’s jaw trembled violently.
His thoughts crashed into one another like frightened animals, except for one constant thought– “Dead! I’m dead! Definitely dead. Dead on my birthday!”
Again, the silver-eyed man spoke without opening his mouth, “Not going to annihilate you, my child. Consider yourself safe in my presence.”
Rashul, who had already turned pale, said in a shaky voice, “W-w-who is ya’? W-wot is ya’? … ya’ ain’t gonna eat me, is ya’!”
Again, the silver-eyed man spoke similarly, “E-eat is, what?”
Rashul mimed chewing with exaggerated motions. In the meantime, he thought he might be teaching his predator how to prey.
The silver-eyed young man responded, “Energy from others, I do not consume, my child. Own, I do make. So, possess no fear from me.”
Trying desperately to behave like a sane human, Rashul stood up, rubbed, cleaned his palm against his pants, and extended a shaking hand towards whatever being was before him, “Umm… I’m Rashul K-K-Khan, the wolf hunter.”
Being clueless about a handshake, Yaram replied tight-lipped, “Your limb, why do you offer it? Mine, I do make.”
“Limb!” asked Rashul, “Oh! Ya’ mean ma’ hand. No! No. Ya’ needs to shake it. It’s a way to greet someone. Umm… It’s a kind gesture.”
“A ceremonial limb collision?”
“Close enough.”
Without opening his mouth, Yaram asked, “Shake it! How violent must it be?”
“Just… Shake it twice.”
Yaram nodded, looking at Rashul’s hand, and he vibrated like tin foil on the hit of a hammer. Every bone in his skeleton cracked at once. Every tooth in his mouth clicked together.
“By the grace of Hunza-water!” Rashul groaned. “If that’s a handshake, I’d hate ta’ see a hug!”
Then Yaram asked, “Welcomed, am I now?”
“Welcome! Yeah, ya’ is more than just welcome.”
In the meantime, Rashul briefly wondered about some of his nicest handshakes, including his handshakes with his wife. It was like touching a ball of fur.
Yaram said, “SIMONA’S GLARE! A handshake is that! But, never could we do that with me. To shake my limb, your marshallou is too small, my child.”
“Whatever! But why is ya’ callin’ me, child! Can’t ya’ see I ain’t no kid.” Rashul replied, anger creeping into his voice, “And why ya’ talk like this? Ain’t ya’ got no English learnin’? And how is ya’ speankin’ without even openin’ your mouth?”
“It is not what it seems; what cannot seem, that it is.” Yaram replied in a quiet, relaxed manner, “This young, I may always look. But, wiser than you, I am. Even a fraction of a fraction of mine is not what you experience in your entire lifetime. Differently move time moves for me, my child.”
Then a distant pressure-cooker whistle echoed through the forest corridor as Yaram glided from Rashul to Shera, while continuing, “Speak, I do not do. But, letting you read my core waves, I do. Quicker that way, it is.”
Yaram crouched beside the dog without touching the ground and asked, “Who this is, the life-form with the fifth flapping furry limb?”
Wiping the sweat from his forehead in those shivering moments, Rashul replied, “That’s Shera, my loyal pet. It’s a Siberian husky. An’ that flappin’ thin’ isn’t a LIMB. It’s called a tail.”
“A loyal servant, you meant?”
“A pet.”
“Difference difficult to detect! A pet is what!” Yaram asked.
Rashul replied, “A pet is an animal we keep for companionship, protection and entertainment.”
“Ah! A slave, it is.” Yaram said, “Nevertheless, thinks all the same about you, this slave of yours. Who is a whose slave, I wonder?”
Rashul narrowed his eyes slowly.
Only now did a colder realisation creep into him.
“How can someone read thoughts! That to even dogs’! Do they even have thoughts!” Caressing his eyebrows, Rashul continued analysing, “And if he really can, he must be a devil. Because only a devil does such inhuman deeds other than God. What else crawled through minds like that? I would be a fool to deal with a devil on my own. I’d better run home and warn others.”
“It’s nice meetin’ ya’, sky demon. But the night is gettin’ darker and strangely colder. I need to reach ma’… family. See ya’.” Rashul said and whistled for Shera.
He had already taken a few steps when the fire caught mid-air before him. Before Rashul’s face could change its expression, the blue flames of fire soon transformed into words and sentences that Rashul recited like a child. Though the language was known, the script was different. The words:
Why misstate your thoughts, you do, my child? What a devil or a god is, I do know not. But none of them, I am. And hurting you is the least of all things I would do to you, my child.
(Why misstate your thoughts, you do, my child? What a devil or a god is, I do know not. But none of them, I am. And hurting you is the least of all things I would do to you, my child.)
Rashul’s doubt about Yaram’s mind-reading had gone, but his fear had grown stronger. His mind was all blank, and so was his mouth. The chilly wind blowing from the north made everything spookier than it already was.
“Owuuuuuuuuu!”
Hearing that howl, Shera came running, looking for a place between its master’s legs, tail tucked hard between his hind legs, ears flattened so low they nearly vanished into his fur.
Branches rustled in the darkness.
One shadow emerged.
Then another.
Then many.
Before he could reload his gun, a dozen wolves emerged from the darkness between the trees. Lean grey bodies circled through moonlight. Ears standing straight and gleaming pale gold eyes focused on Rashul. They must have followed his blood trail.
The old hunter’s pulse stumbled.
For years, he had tracked them through snow and forest. Tonight, the mountains had turned the hunt around.
Rashul swung the rifle wildly from side to side like a man trying to hold back the sea with a stick.
“BACK!” he barked. “GET BACK, ya’ devils!”
And whispered miserably. “Gonna sure die on ma’ birthday.”
Far above, clouds drifted across the moon, and darkness rolled slowly over the valley like ink poured into water. The wolves danced around him and paced closer.
Silent. Patient. Not one growled. That frightened him more than teeth ever could.
Then Yaram swiftly glided before Rashul and spread his arms.
The wolves halted.
All at once.
And then came close to him as if he were calling for them.
One by one, they sat near him, looking deep into his eyes.
Silence settled across the crater except for the restless wind. The forest became deathly still. Yaram turned toward Rashul, who was busy reloading his old rifle.
Yaram said in his own style, “A family to go back to, I know you do not have. I can see how painful it has been for you for all these times.”
“Ya’ know nothin’,” Rashul rasped weakly.
“Exhaustion, sorrow, remorse, penance, deep dissatisfaction, is all I see in you.”
Rashul’s expression hardened immediately, and he said, “They killed ma’ family.”
The words came fast. Sharp. Reflexive. A sentence polished smooth by fifty winters of practice.
The wolves remained seated quietly like listeners around a fire, except for one. It stepped closer. Grey fur. Torn ear. Pale scar over its snout.
Rashul knew that scar. His finger tightened around the trigger. Memory rose suddenly, violently.
Yaram began, “Revenge does not bring peace; you must understand, my child. To feed their starving young ones, they killed your family, and to feed your emptiness, you hunted theirs for half a century. You buried pain beneath blood and named it justice. Isn’t it?”
Rashul’s jaw clenched.
“They took everythin’ from me.”
Yaram asked, “And after the first wolf died, what returned to you?”
Rashul opened his mouth. Nothing came out. Yaram stepped closer, his feet never touching the earth.
“After the tenth?”
The wind moved through the trees with a low, hollow moan.
“After the twentieth?”
Suddenly, the rifle felt heavy as a coffin plank as the moon peeked back from behind the clouds.
“After ninety-seven?”
The number struck him like thunder inside a cave.
Ninety-seven.
For years, that number had lived inside him like a trophy carved into stone. Proof that he had fought back. Proof that he had not been weak. Proof that somewhere beyond the blood and snow, justice existed. But now…
Now the number sounded monstrous.
Ninety-seven mothers. Ninety-seven fathers. Ninety-seven beating hearts buried beneath mountain frost. And suddenly the memories came rushing back. A wolf collapsed into the snow while cubs cried from the trees. Blood steaming beneath moonlight. Yellow eyes were glazing over. Bodies dragged through storms while he convinced himself that revenge and healing were the same thing.
Yet every time he returned home afterwards…
The silence still waited for him.
His wife never came back, wiping flour from her hands. His son never came running through the fields again. The little wooden toy horse beside the fireplace never moved again.
Nothing changed. Nothing. It had only kept him busy enough to avoid noticing.
Rashul lowered his rifle inch by inch and said, “You talk like a priest, but arrive like the end o’ the world.”
Yaram’s voice lowered further, “You were not hunting wolves.”
Rashul looked up slowly.
“You were hunting one moment. One night. One memory. Again, and again and again. Futile, it is.”
Rashul listened to it and realised nature never carries revenge. Storms destroyed forests, yet spring still returned. Wolves killed deer, yet the mountains did not hate wolves for it. Snow buried valleys every winter without malice.
Only man sharpened grief into a weapon and called it purpose.
Yaram continued, “Above all, suffer from compunction, you too do. In the cycle of reprisal and retaliation, you did entrap yourself. Break it. Break the cycle and be free, my child, and embrace ataraxic.”
For years, Rashul had kept himself alive the same way men keep dying fires alive in winter, by feeding them whatever would burn quickest. Grief. Rage. Memory. Blame. In the loneliness, it had always seemed easier for him to sharpen agony into hatred than admit how badly it hurt. He chose to hide the pain. He chose the harsher road because it felt simpler. Denial hardened into a habit. Habit hardened into identity. And slowly, over fifty years, revenge stopped being a purpose and became a prison. He had spent so long pointing his rifle outward that he never noticed the wound had always been facing inward. The internal pain lingered for eternity.
The poor man never knew of the other door. However, tonight, Yaram’s words opened the other door for him. His words arrived softly, like warm water finding cracks in frozen earth.
Clouds scattered across the sky like frightened sheep, uncovering the moon in sudden brilliance. Silver light spilt over the clearing, washing the wolves, the snow, and the old hunter alike in a pale glow that softened every shadow. The wolves no longer looked like demons born from darkness. They looked tired. Hungry. Alive.
A tear slipped down the weathered valley of his cheek and disappeared into his beard. Then another followed. His eyes shimmered with droplets of sorrow beneath the moonlight, reflecting decades of loneliness too stubborn to die.
Yaram stood quietly before him, silver eyes glowing like drowned moons beneath deep water. Around them, the valley had gone still.
Yaram continued again, “A great healer, time is, only it heals when you allow it to. Surmount the mountains you are carrying; you are only supposed to. Be healed, my child. About time, it is. --- be healed.”
After a long silence, Rashul finally lifted his head, wiped his tears and asked calmly, “How did ya’… How did ya’ know all this?”
“Misstate, your mouth may do, but your core waves can never betray.”
Rashul was ready to set down a burden so old he had forgotten his spine was bent beneath it. He slowly lowered himself onto the frozen rock beside the wolves. Just an hour ago, the mountains seemed like gigantic gravestones surrounding him from every side. Now they no longer felt as oppressive as before. But patient and enduring.
Stopped blaming. Stopped running from grief by giving it teeth and fur.
He simply sat there beneath the naked moon and listened while the mountains carried his silence away.
The wolves watched him silently. Waiting. Judging. Forgiving.
Yaram said, “Owe each other a long-awaited apology, you do, my children.”
A grey wolf with a scar approached Rashul carefully. Slowly. The wolf lowered its head beside him. Warm breath touched his wrinkled hand. Then it licked his knuckles.
For one terrible heartbeat, every habit inside him screamed to raise the rifle.
Instead…
His fingers opened. The rifle slipped from his hands and disappeared into the grass with a muffled thud. He let out a shaking breath and rested his forehead gently against the scarred wolf’s head. He caressed its fur and rubbed its ears. The wolf snuggled its head against his leg, gazed into his eyes, and howled.
Soon, the others joined in.
Not like hunters. Not like monsters. Like mourners answering another mourner at last.
The last one to join howling was Shera.
The last drop of tear found its way to the ground, and Rashul stood up with a smile. The wolves bowed to him and went on their gallivanting.
Looking at Yaram, Rashul asked in a soft voice, “Who is ya’? Is ya’ an angel?”
Yaram looked up.
The clouds had fully broken now. Countless stars shimmered across the heavens like holes pierced through creation itself.
“Simona,” he said, placing a hand upon his chest. “One among many, I am.”
Rashul frowned, “Ya’ keep sayin’ that word.”
“To your kind, stars they are called.”
Rashul blinked. Then blinked again.
His mouth slowly fell open, “Stars! Ya’ means… No, Ya’ ain’t no star!… Ya’ ain’t dead yet to be one.”
“Ya’ ain’t no ghost,” as the sentence ended, Rashul’s eyes widened, and he whispered, “is ya’?”
“No, not dead to be a ghost, I am…”
“B—but—they say, ya’ become a star only after ya’ die. Like ma’ wife and son had become,” said Rashul, pointing at two stars, “See, they is waitin’ for me there.”
“End of life is death. End of everything, it is. And who they are, I do know not. However wrong, they are. Not all, but some can become stars when still alive, they are, but not dead. Good to none being dead, one is. Serve none death does, but life… serve one life does, only one who truly respects by living, not surviving. And we, Simona, have the concept of no death in our lives. Transform into another, we simply do.”
Rashul scratched his beard slowly.
“YA’ KNOWS NOTHIN’,” as Rashul spoke, his eyes narrowed, “Just because ya’ knows many tricks doesn’t mean I’d believe whatever ya’ say.”
“Not here to prove anything to anyone, I am. And it matters not, for beyond your understanding, some truths are. However, you wish to understand, and if you truly do, I can show you.”
“Show me, wot?”
Before Rashul could finish his sentence, Yaram drove his fingers into his own chest.
The night split open with light.
A blaze erupted from within him so suddenly that Rashul stumbled backwards, shielding his face with both palms. The darkness that had haunted the forest all night fled at once. Frost upon the rocks glittered like shattered mirrors.
It was brighter than fire. Brighter than daylight. Yet the radiance carried no violence.
And at the centre of it all stood Yaram, chest torn open like a doorway into creation itself.
Rashul squinted through streaming eyes.
Inside Yaram’s body, a miniature blue sun burned.
Not metaphorically. Not some trick of flame.
An actual star pulsed within his chest, suspended where a human heart should have been. Deep sapphire currents swirled across its surface. Solar arcs curled and twisted in silence. Tiny eruptions blossomed like flowers made of lightning, then folded back in on themselves. Yaram closed his chest, and darkness caught every corner again.
The old hunter had seen avalanches swallow villages. He had watched lightning split ancient trees in half. He had stared into the yellow eyes of starving wolves on winter nights.
But nothing, not once in eighty years beneath heaven, had prepared him for this.
The light reflected across his wet eyes as he whispered hoarsely, “Ya’… swallowed the sun…”
“Ah! It definitely burnt your throat; that’s why ya’ can’t speak. Ah! Now I understand.”
“Swallow it, I did not do. Engulf it; I did as it did me once. Not different, but one, we are. A part of me it is, as that red-fluid pumping muscle of yours? Did you swallow that, if ask, I may?”
“Ya’ mean heart? Ma’ heart!” Rashul said in a confused manner, “No, how could I swallow my own heart?”
“No, indeed, you cannot. Likewise, swallow a part of me I can never do.”
Rashul hardly believed what he heard and saw. But he was no longer afraid of him. After a few moments of silence, Rashul asked, “Then, why-is-ya’-here? Is ya’ here to take our sun? And why, among all, ya’ chose me to witness ya’?”
“My master, I seek.”
“Is that your dog’s name? Where did ya’ lose him?”
“No! Not a dog, he is.”
“Oh! He ain’t your king! Is he?”
“Far beyond kings.”
“Emperor!”
Yaram said, “You intend to help me if you truly give me your limb and look deep into my eyes.”
“I don’t understand. How’d that help! What’d ya’ lose then?”
“Hope,” he answered.
“But ya’ said that ya’ don’t need my limb. Ya’ can make yours. I ain’t wanna be no cripple,” said Rashul in a nervous voice.
Yaram said, “Taking it, I shall not do. I only need it for a while.”
“Last time nearly shook ma’ soul loose.”
“May I?”
Reluctantly, Rashul offered his hand.
Yaram’s palms hovered around it without touching.
Heat built instantly.
Then agony.
Flames erupted around Rashul’s arm.
He tried to pull his hand back, but they were stuck midair. Glued to the air between Yaram’s hands. He screamed. Begged to release him.
“LOOK AT ME,” Yaram commanded.
Rashul obeyed involuntarily.
Silver eyes filled his vision.
Pain vanished.
Everything vanished.
For one impossible instant, Rashul felt oceans of stars moving through endless darkness. He felt worlds breathing. Suns singing. Time unfolding like rivers of fire.
Then reality snapped back.
Yaram released him abruptly, said, “How could this be possible!”
Rashul looked down.
His hand had burned to the bone.
“Oh ya’ son of a…!”
Rashul’s scream distracted Yaram from his thoughts, and he said, “Come here, my child. Allow me to heal your wound.”
Rashul said, “Wound! Did ya’ say wound! For that, I need to have flesh.”
Then he raised his hand and yelled, “Do ya’ see any flesh?”
Yaram waved his hand, and Rashul got his hand back well in shape within the blink of an eye. Rashul did not look surprised, as he had witnessed enough since the evening. He ensured the health of his hands, then put them in his pockets and said, “Next time, tell me before cookin’ me.”
Dawn slowly bled across the mountains.
As the sun unrolled its red carpet before peeking from the horizon, everything was again lost in a blur. I could no longer hear, see, or smell anything. I rose in the air in that dissolved surrounding. I felt like I was being dragged again from that place. Then, in the next moment, I fell and, with a crash, I landed on the red sofa. The blurred shapes around me slowly came into focus, and among them was Capt. Ramayaa, dozing in his wheelchair at my feet. Circles of wet marks on his bathrobe clearly stood for his drooling habit. Nevertheless, my throat and lips were dying for a sip of water.
My throat felt scraped raw, and I coughed.
The old captain jolted awake so violently that his spectacles nearly flew off and said, “Ah! Back among the living, are we?”
“What was that?” I demanded immediately, breathing hard. “Who were those people? That thing… that Yaram… what was I even seeing?”
The captain blinked several times, still waking up. Then he reached calmly for a steel jug and poured water into a glass.
“Drink first,” he said. “Your lips look like abandoned raisins.”
I snatched the glass and emptied it in seconds.
“Well?” I pressed, “Was that some old recording? A simulation? Where did you get it?”
“Calm down, girl! You will blow your little head with all these questions.”
“Don’t waste my time, old man.”
“This was the beginning.”
“Beginning of what?”
“Beginning of a series of events that affect the entire cosmos privily,” said Capt. Ramayaa in a bit of a serious tone.
Though I had a lot to ask, I kept quiet. I showed him my respect by following the momentary silence.
He said, “Did you see the person in the cape? I once met him. Such a charming and wise person he is.”
I asked, “The meteor guy! He thinks he is a star.”
“That is because he is.”
I groaned and rubbed my forehead, “No. Absolutely not. I refuse to entertain this level of madness before breakfast.”
“You still doubt!”
“You showed me glowing aliens talking philosophy to wolves in the Himalayas. Yes, I doubt.”
“That was no film, Asmita,” he replied. “You witnessed history directly. Real events. Real people. Preserved impressions of the past. I am simply bringing them to you, live.”
“If the past becomes live, then it’s not past. It is the PRESENT,” with an apparent state of mind, I stated.
“Not necessarily.”
“Oh, good. Here comes the lecture.”
Capt. Ramayaa rolled his wheelchair closer until he sat at the edge of the sofa like a professor about to torment a classroom.
He began, “Light travels at a very high speed. An unattainable speed indeed. But finite. Right?”
I said, “I guess!”
“It carries information from whatever emits or reflects it.”
“I know that too.”
“And because distances in the cosmos are enormous, observation itself becomes time travel. The farther away you look, the farther backwards you see. To be precise, it takes 1 Nanosecond to travel one foot, 3.3 nanoseconds for one metre, 3.3 microseconds for one kilometre, 499 seconds to travel from the sun to the earth…”
I sighed dramatically, “Yes! Yes. Stars are old photographs. Basic astronomy.”
“But what if those photographs could be revisited?”
“Oaky!”
Ramayaa leaned closer, eyes glinting strangely beneath the bunker lights.
“The universe records itself continuously,” he said. “We don’t really see the present. We see the past. We live in the past. We live in the moments of the past, where change speeds up so much that we begin to see the present only when it is really disappearing. But the past can repeat itself repeatedly without changing happenstances, only if you know how. You can see it, feel it and even live in it; however, you can’t alter it, can’t interact with it”
I stopped him by asking, “And you, among all, discovered how to do that?”
“Me? Hardly. Humanity is still banging stones together compared to them.”
“But you invented the TIME MACHINE?”
He took a deep breath and replied, “Time machine! Do you think I am talking about science fiction here? This is as real as you and I are. They have been out there since the beginning of time. They know more than we do. Their knowledge of the cosmos is raw, dynamic and complex. Not linear like ours. We hardly know two percent of it, to be precise.”
“Who are they? Who are you talking about?”
“The stars.”
I stared at him. He remained completely serious.
“Yes, I’m talking about STARS. They are not what we think of them. They are livelier than we are. Yes, they are not just hot gaseous spheres. They are alive. And what you’re wearing on your head now is one of the gifts I got from them… They’ve strange networks all around this universe, just like our ancestors used to have satellite networks. These devices capture light impressions from everything and project them to the receivers, like the one you are wearing. It’s a simple thing, yet ground-breaking.”
“You have totally lost it after years of isolation. You need serious help. I wish I could contact the commander.”
He tapped the metallic band resting against my forehead.
“This device is built from stellar technology. A gift. It receives preserved light impressions through networks older than civilisation itself.”
“You expect me to believe stars built surveillance systems.”
“Your ancestors placed satellites around planets. Why should cosmic beings not do greater things?”
Annoyingly, the old man sounded convincing when he stopped talking like a drunken prophet.
Capt. Ramayaa studied my face carefully and asked, “You don’t believe me! Of course, not your fault. Our belief system has so solidified that information like this can make it very hard to penetrate that thick shell of our skulls. I had gone through a similar situation as well. Let me help you… Do you remember your birth?”
“How could I? How can anyone remember that?”
“Well, I can show you if you wish to see.”
“Show me! How?”
He poured me a glass of his dry fruit shake and said, “Here, take a glass of Ramayaa’s Rum and lie down.”
“Please! Please stop calling it that and find a better name.”
After a glass of that drink, I lay back on the sofa. At the same time, the captain adjusted the headband carefully over my temples. His movements had become unusually gentle.
Almost respectful.
From his pocket, he removed a tiny vial filled with crimson liquid that glowed faintly beneath the bunker lights.
I asked, “What is that?”
“A key.”
“That answer explained nothing.”
“It explained enough.”
He let one crimson drop fall onto the headband. The device hummed, and as soon as I pressed the button, the world vanished.
Cold air rushed against my skin.
Bright white light stabbed through the darkness.
Shapes slowly emerged from the fog.
Metal walls.
Medical monitors.
Sterile white curtains.
I stood inside a med-bay aboard the Himalaya, the ship.
My mother lay upon the delivery table.
She looked painfully thin beneath the swollen curve of her stomach. Sweat drenched her hair. Her face twisted with effort as she struggled to breathe through another wave of agony.
Her stomach tightened, and she screamed as if her guts were being ripped out.
There is nothing more isolating than acute pain. The pain that locks us in more effectively than any prison.
My father gripped her hand tightly beside the bed, panic buried beneath forced calm. He kept brushing damp strands of hair from her forehead while whispering things I could not hear.
Doctors moved quickly around them.
Machines beeped sharply.
Then another contraction hit.
My mother screamed.
The sound cut through me like broken glass.
“Push!” one of the doctors shouted.
“Again! Push!”
She cried out and squeezed my father’s hand so hard his knuckles whitened.
And then—
A baby’s cry pierced the room.
Small.
Bald.
Fragile.
But alive.
The doctor lifted a tiny blood-covered infant into the air.
Me.
I stared numbly at the wrinkled pink creature screaming at existence with furious outrage.
“That thing is me?” I whispered.
The baby looked nothing like the person I knew, except for the eyes.
My mother smiled weakly. Relief softened her face. I was drinking at that moment, and the baby was born out of pure love.
Then her eyes rolled shut.
At first, nobody panicked. Then the monitors began screaming in unison.
Doctors rushed forward immediately.
“Cardiac instability!”
“Her pulse is spiking!”
“She’s not breathing!”
My father froze. Fear hollowed his face instantly.
The medical team fought desperately around the bed. Orders flew across the room. Machines beeped faster and faster.
Then suddenly—
Flatline.
Everything stopped.
And with that, I once again lost my opportunity to experience love in its purest, most selfless form.
My father stared blankly. One doctor lowered his head slowly. Another looked away. The silence afterwards felt monstrous. My father collapsed beside the bed, still holding her hand, shattered so completely he no longer seemed human. Just empty.
I stumbled toward her instinctively.
“No…”
I reached for my mother. My hands passed through her. I tried again desperately.
Nothing.
She could not feel me. Could not see me. Could not hold me even once. A terrible weight settled inside my chest. She died bringing me into a world that was never meant to sustain human life. A child born among steel walls instead of skies. My father bent over her hand and wept soundlessly.
I stood there trembling.
A realisation dawned on me that she died because we did not have the safety of a planet.
Then slowly, without realising, I whispered, “I failed you in life… but I will not fail you in death.”
The room blurred immediately afterwards. The med-bay dissolved into pale light.
I felt the familiar dragging sensation seize me again. And suddenly I was back in the bunker.
A tear rolled down my cheek.
Captain Ramayaa sat quietly beside me. For once, he said nothing immediately. He simply took my trembling hand gently into his own.
“Death,” he murmured after a long silence, “may not be the end people imagine. Perhaps life itself is merely the fog before clearer roads.”
I stared at the floor silently.
The old captain squeezed my hand softly.
“None of us leaves this world alive,” he continued with a tired smile. “But before I go, I intend to leave footprints large enough for future generations to follow. Perhaps yours may walk beside mine.”
I could not answer.
My thoughts were still kneeling beside that hospital bed.
After a while, I whispered,
“I need rest.”
Ramayaa nodded.
“You can take the bed if you wish.”
But exhaustion had already swallowed me whole.
Darkness folded over my mind like cold ocean water. My eyelids grew impossibly heavy. Somewhere nearby, I felt the captain place a pillow beneath my head.
Then everything disappeared into dreamless sleep.
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