I told her not to cry. Sometimes, life is all about letting go. I could have shown her how helpless I was, but she was crying. Tears were weak then, and so was I.
Trembling, trembling more, I handed her the gun. I knew she would move her hands away, so before giving it to her, I made sure I was holding her fingers. Maybe that was the last time I had the chance to touch her. So for me it was a moment eternal. She was so cold... I rubbed her fingers with mine. And she, she kept staring at me, crying, begging not to.
That was the moment I found my life, the moment when the temperature was below freezing point, when I was lying in a frost covered ground. I was trapped, and much alike me was she, although, she wasn't injured.
I gave her my jacket, and told her to wear it. It was storming and I didn't want her to catch a cold. She was still crying. I would had wiped her cheeks, but my arms lacked the energy. By then the cold had taken over my sense of touch. But it couldn't stop me from feeling her skin. Even then was she looking stunning. Her eyes speaking, her thoughts. I was loving everything about her, even those single strands of hair on her face.
I was smiling finally. She had the gun, and she was holding it.
"Look at me" I said.
"Please... don't..." Still on tears she sobbed.
I could only give her a smile, for I was much more shattered inside than she was.
She held my broken body then, to her heart. It was the last hug, maybe. My legs were totally useless by then, I couldn't move my lower body and I knew that maybe within a few more minutes, my arms would reach the same fate. She held me by one hand. The other holding the gun. I smiled one last time before pressing her finger which laid on the trigger of the gun. I knew she wouldn't realize before the noise. So she would not rebel.
The sound of bullet moving though my abdomen was not really something scary, and pain... nothing. She was looking blindly into my eyes. And I was smiling wanting to drown, into those eyes. She was quite. Only a narrow stream of tear and nothing else, not even a movement. I dragged my arms, somehow with all my strength and rubbed her tears for the last time, closing my eyes. I wanted to see her again, forever in my heart... but she was fading; gone. I was gone.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Life never begins that way. It never begins like that. It ends. But, by all the strangeness, this life, had this beginning.
My body laid covered in snow, in that dark of that night, over her lap as she cried and cried, screamed against the decision I took, helplessly stared at my blood while hugging my cold body tight, but above all, she fell in love, in love bought by death.
But death isn't sweet? Is it? As to the common beliefs, I too knew death's all harsh. I had spent this entire life thinking, fearing death, and yet at that moment, death tasted sweet.
She would not be moving an inch, not opening her eyes, not letting go. And then as the snow would fall with all its fierceness, she would be sitting alone and quite lost in some pain, I gave her. And then, she would suddenly realize, that I may be alive, that she might get some help, and it all will be the same, with me, with her.
So in the frantic environment she would be running, screaming for help, finally realizing that on that mountain we were once lost. There was no possibility of help, at least not there, where she was standing.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"So are y'all ready for the camp, baby?" Rody was shouting sitting at the back of the bus with all the girls. It was turning hard on controlling him, and I really felt like shifting the seat to the absolute front, after all the bus still hadn't moved from the college gate. Students were coming and taking there desired places. Consequently some of the seats must be spared in the front, at least for then.
I would not say, I really felt anything special, but still, when she entered and took the seat beside me, I decided not to shift. She, was, a foreigner on her scholarships for years, more like me, and unlike anyone else, we were the only foreigners there. So being friends was quite natural. We knew each other, for days, and years. And out friendship was quite a deep one, at least for me.
And there, that the bus started.
"So... ready with all the equipment?" I started the conversation, knowing she never would.
"I don't know, I really have no experience with trekking" She smiled broad. And on the reactionary part, stood my smile.
The bus then moved on it's course bumping at times. And we talked and talked and talked, discussed what an idiot Rody was. Talked of anime, food, sketches. Took photos, exchanged them. Laughed. Swear on Rody. Laughed. Looked at each other. Loved. Yet there was something missing, I never could find in her eyes, something I would be realizing at the end of my time.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
She was getting torn apart with the dilemma of leaving my body alone in that harshness, but to search of help she must walk, must reach the bottom of the mountain. The lands of the humans, where she can find an experienced mountaineer. She still wanted to save me. Craved to see one smile on my face, like once I did.
We lost our sticks and compasses during the avalanche, navigation was much more hard for her, yet remembering the route I taught her, she moved. Strange, as it hardly mattered for her once, the route. And then, it was all she was living for.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"What should I say, maybe you should put your hair to the left and..."
"And?" She replied as I stopped with the camera.
"Smile..."
She was looking beautiful. More than anyone I had ever seen, more than anything I will ever see. She suddenly snatched the camera from my hand and quickly went towards the child, who stood with his father looking at the new visitors to their little village.
I laughed looking at her trying her best to make the child laugh.
"WHAT?" She cried.
"Nothing... nothing, carry on!"
We would be talking walk while they all ate their lunch. Looked at mountains, at different people, their styles. Sometimes she would be imitating them, sometimes I.
When tired enough, we would be talking to each other about our lives prior to our meeting. And during night as we all sat by the fire near the river, I would be staring at her, every time she waved her head with the song. She never looked though, never would she ever. But then, things always change, and sometimes, lives too.
On the next we were ready with the trekking gears and on the way towards the mountain. The route was simple, to move on the rain shadowed side of the mountain which was relatively much less steep towards the peak.
The road was calm and green with some places having snow. We moved with humongous enthusiasm. They all moved for themselves, and I, I was moving for her, just to stay right beside.
I had made up my mind, that once we reach the peak, I shall be telling her the truth, which quite confusingly never fitted in my mind. When did I fell in love? Yet, she must know, that of late, I am breathing a bit more than I should, smiling a bit more, laugh a bit more. So was it set. This trekking would had been the very best one. Could had been maybe.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The avalanche could never had stopped me from loving her. It only was a reason, I wanted to see her once more. To be with her was all I wanted. And lying on that coldness as I saw the world turn upside down, I saw my life.
We laid on that, never touched, white snow. Hands in hands. Staring at each other, as if, the whole world contracted into just, us. I could feel her breath. Her eyes, her eyes were cold with fear quite opposite to mine, warmed with love.
So many dreams flew, so many. I couldn't count. I saw our lives, saw them together, saw her smiles, situations, of every type, saw her love, her anger, her sadness. And I loved everything.
We kept on looking at each other. Both of us couldn't actually believe how quickly it all changed, that once we were there on the peak as I tried to tell her somethings, and then we were there alone meters below at a freezing night.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
On that course, towards the peak, we talked about what was near the mountain. The places, and the different routes. I told her about the beautiful flower valley that lies on the other side of the mountain and saw her smile in excitement as she told me, she wanted to see the flowers.
I made a promise, to her, that I will show her the flowers and a promise to myself that I will tell her that I loved her, there.
We reached the peak at the evening and spend the night in our tents. The peak was quite flat, and had enough space to hold all other fifteen tents except ours. We had made the tents away from those fifteens. Near each other, looking into our eyes searching for answers, of somethings that both of us could never get.
That was night as we sat together and counted starts and I made my promise again that the next day we shall see the flower valley.
It was morning, as everyone was busy packing, we slowly slipped and went towards the other side of the mountain, the northern edge of the peak. She took her camera and we slowly with great caution went a bit down the slopes which were much more steeper than the route we came in.
I, thinking the ground was safe, stood looking down meters below at the beautiful valley during sunrise.
"Isn't that beautiful?" She would say while taking her best shots.
"Yes, it is" I would reply staring at her.
And then something happened, as the layers of snow, we stood on fell, right when I started to dream of life.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
We laid there for minutes, never counted. And then I saw her crying, as tears slowly trickled down the sides. She was scared and I knew, that now was the time, I must tell her.
So I stood and held her up. Told her as she cried on fear. Told her the route that we must follow to get to the nearest village. And thus we started walking. For the first time in forever, she held my hand. And I found how cold she was, that how alone we were. And yet, yet we were so much complete.
I didn't talked neither did she, it was that time, we could understand each other's thoughts. As if, we were one.
No sticks, no compass, camera lost, phones not getting signals, we were alone, with only one gun for safety with wild animals, which somehow wasn't present at all.
I sometimes would be looking at her, when she would turn and look at me. Time didn't mattered then, it had stopped as we walked.
Morning changed to noon, and noon to afternoon. We neither ate, nor talked, but just moved on our pace. She wasn't moving even an inch away from me and we stuck together like one soul. As the evening would dawn over we would know that storm is about to come.
The last blow, although, came when the storm started and we lost sight of everything nearby. And the last step was the one when I fell few meters down on that rock trying to save her from reaching the same fate.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
No help, no village, in that storm the valley suddenly had vanished. She was roaming around helplessly, sobbing as her dreams broke one by one. The storm would not speak nice, it never does, and so she was no exception. But she was no ordinary human at least not for me.
She sat there sobbing meters away from me. Crying. Looking at me from that distance.
As she cried so did I, as the dreams shattered, that we lost the last hope too, that maybe we could have been one. She never spoke, or showed, but like every other trekking we did together, she took the gun. The last sound heard, and we laid together, hands in hands, on that snow.
She didn't cried, neither did I, rather enjoyed the drowning, in death forever sweet, for so many times.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The crew left without any acknowledgement of our presence. Many a crew had left the way this one did, as if we never came. But we would be coming every time, with the single hope... that maybe... this time... we would speak the truth.
-------------------------------------In love forever after---------------------------------------