As long as you are breathing

Search for Zahid

“What happened to you guys?!” Kalil exclaimed expecting an ambush from another group of enemies.

“We partied way too hard and now we are all tired,” said Khalid.

Kalil facepalmed and said, “To hell with that. Come with us. We have to find Zahid.”

“But it’s almost night,” replied Walid.

“And we also got ourselves the city finally. Now we can make a fort out of it and nobody could stop us,” said Sajid.

“What?! You guys are going to betray your master like that?” exclaimed Kalil, “What happened to the intense master-disciple bond you had just yesterday?”

“Sir, I don’t think you understand the rules of the game,” answered Khalid.

“We are all going to die anyway. Only one of us gets to survive,” continued Walid.

“And the point of creating a team is the mutual agreement that we will be among the last warriors to die,” added Sajid.

Being reminded of the nature of the game made Kalil upset.

“We will rest now and will go on a search tomorrow,” said Kalil in a choked-up voice, “Whether or not you guys come with us is your choice.”

“I will come with you,” said Khestri intending to make Kalil feel better. But Kalil walked towards the building ignoring her.

“Good idea, we will take shelter inside a building for the night. It’s safer that way,” said Khalid.

“Nice idea,” added Walid.

“Roger that,” continued Sajid.

They all chose a room to sleep in. There’s no shortage of buildings in the city, much fewer rooms. All of the buildings and the room had the same structures. They had bedrooms like that of earth. The aliens must have counted the cities as a part of our planetary biomes.

The light shined bright the next day. Kalil flexed his body determined to face the next day. Khestri walked beside as Kalil led them out of the city towards the direction they assume Zahid to flee.

“Sir! Wait for us,” said Khalid.

“I thought you guys were going to build a fort here,” said Kalil.

“Well, just the three of us making a fort doesn’t sound like a powerful survival strategy than the five of us in an adventure,” said Walid.

“You guys can stay though. We will join you here to see what fort you made after we find and bring back Zahid,” replied Kalil.

“Yeah, I don’t think you guys can survive where your number is just two. Let's ensure each other’s survival as we did today,” answered Sajid intending to make things sweeter.

But Kalil and Khestri’s face only went grimmer.

“Two is a small number to survive, huh?” murmured Khestri.

“I wonder how much the chance of survival is for a guy who fled out of a city bleeding,” continued Kalil.

“Whoa whoa, calm down their boss,” said Khalid, “Zahid is a master Karate fighter. A warrior like him can survive anything.”

“Phew,” Khestri let out a breath. She seemed to be in relief. Kalil doesn’t seem as worried anymore but he doesn’t look healthy either.

“Survival of Zahid is high being alone while I and Khestri need a team with us to survive,” muttered Kalil angrily.

The trios gulped together.

“Let’s just continue our journey, Kalil,” said Khestri giving tiny pushes.

They all started their journey to find Zahid. As soon as they stepped outside the city, they found a bamboo forest.

“Lucky!” exclaimed Khalid.

“He found a bamboo forest,” added Walid.

“No way can the vultures chase him in midst of these jammed bamboos,” continued Sajid.

Kalil picked up a black feather from the ground and analyzed it.

“A Vulture’s feather,” Kalil smirked, “That son of a gun is still alive.”

“And we found his blood,” said Khalid.

Everyone rushed towards him and found a bloody trace.

“Let’s follow,” Khestri suggested.

They all followed the blood accompanied by a feather. It was hard to move with all these bamboos tightly packed. They couldn’t but silently admire Zahid for crossing this.

“Look,” Walid pointed at a vulture stuck between bamboos. It was too tired to move anymore. Must have tried to escape the whole night. One can’t see a trace of effort in escaping despite the discomfort expressed by its eyes.

Kalil set it free.

“Was that a good idea?” asked Sajid.

“The vulture is just acting on its instinct. It’s neither our friend nor our enemy. Neither killing nor saving it would make much difference,” said Kalil.

“So, saving is the better way!” continued Khestri.

“Sir, I get all that but the vulture could have satisfied our hunger,” said Khalid.

“Oh,” Kalil answered realizing how shallow his survival instincts are, “Sorry for that. Let’s just hope we will find something soon.”

The splashing sound of the water fills their ears as they end up before a river. Tracing the blood led them there. It was mid-noon already.

“Damn! Master came this far?” exclaimed Khalid.

“As expected of him,” added Walid.

“Knowing him, he probably wouldn’t miss a chance like this to get rid of the blood,” continued Sajid.

Then three of them stared

back at Kalil, “What now?”

“We use this chance to feast,” he answered, “Fishing time.”

The smell of fried fish satisfied their nose as they increased their hunger through their eyes, staring at the fishes they caught with patient effort and discipline. Being unfed from a day suddenly made fried fish their favorite food. If they had something else at the moment, that would have been their favorite food today.

“So, let’s analyze. Say you came here and bathed your blood out. Now what would you do?” asked Kalil as they were feasting on their food after the wait.

“Umm… Eat?” answered Khalid.

“I would probably be tired and fall asleep,” answered Walid, “Need rest first you know.”

“I think I would come back to the city since the vultures won’t chase me if I am not bleeding,” answered Sajid.

“That’s your assumption. Huh?” Kalil contemplated, “They all sound like fair assumptions when talking the talk. But can we think this clearly while walking the walk?”

“You have a good point,” replied Khestri, “He would probably still have the panic from the chase. Who knows? Maybe he wasn’t even thinking of bathing. Maybe he was just crossing the river and the blood was cleared out by that. He probably never even guessed that the vulture was following his cause of the blood.”

“Even if he guessed that, he probably would feel too nervous to try taking chances. Maybe that’s why he didn’t come back,” Kalil continued, “But then the question is which direction would he go?”

“I guess we will have to get to the other side of the river to find that out,” replied Khestri.

Kalil nodded and then ordered the three twins, “Let’s go.”

They swam across the river and started searching for any clues to figure out where Zahid must have been. Unfortunately, the bank was too rocky for Zahid to leave any footprint.

“Sir, we have a cave here,” said Walid.

Everyone gathered there. Inside the cave, they found burnt ashes from wood. Somebody must have been here for a night and used the woods for fire.

“Boss, do you think it was Zahid?” asked Sajid.

“It probably was. But we can’t say anything for certain right now,” said Kalil, “But it’s the best assumption we got. Now we need to figure out which direction Zahid would go in the morning.”

“Let’s scavenge around the cave entrance,” suggested Khestri.

And so they did. They couldn’t find any clue.

“Where would you go if you were chased by a group of vultures all the way to a certain bamboo forest and then cross a river to later stay in a cave at night? Where would you go the night after that?” asked Kalil.

“That’s a really hard question, to be honest,” answered Khalid.

“Maybe we can all try getting chased by vultures and the rest of the process too and see what we come up with?” asked Walid.

“Umm… I don’t think I like the whole part but I would like to enjoy the ‘sleeping here’ part,” said Sajid.

Realizing that their answers would be useless, Kalil closed his eyes to imagine himself with Zahid.

“Which direction do you wanna go?” Kalil asked Zahid in his imagination where he was with him escaping the vulture.

“The best way is always forward,” said Zahid.

But something was off about it.

“Why does he sound like a female?” he thought.

“Umm… Kalil? Open your eyes. I think I have a guess,” answered Zahid in that female voice.

“What the hell happened to you Zahid?” asked Kalil, “Why do you have a female voice?”

“Zahid?” he asked, “I am Khestri.”

Kalil then opened his eyes and to his disappointment, he was talking with Khestri all along.

“Are you okay?” asked Khestri.

“I just think I am tired,” answered Kalil hiding the embarrassing imagination he was in.

“Mhmm… I get it. We have all been restless since yesterday. Let’s get some rest,” she suggested.

So, they all took an afternoon nap before heading straight forward respect to the entrance of the cave. But Sajid’s steps became slower and slower as they walked. After a certain point, it was too noticeable that he was lagging behind.

“What happened Sajid?” asked Khestri.

“Well, nothing much. I am just wondering if we are taking foolish decisions,” he answered.

“What do you mean?” asked Kalil in all seriousness.

“Well, aren’t we putting more effort into finding where Zahid is instead of how to survive?” he asked.

Kalil wanted to answer that. But Sajid continued, “The aim of this game is not to find Zahid you know? The aim is to be the last man standing. And while I know that forming a team helps with that, isn’t trying to reunite the team is decreasing our chances of survival this time?”

Silence became apparent for a second.

“I am sorry, man. I want Zahid back too,” said Sajid, “But I think we are just losing our chances. We don’t even know if Zahid actually crossed the river or died before that. That was a lot of blood to lose. Death isn’t too abnormal for that. We don’t even know if the person in that cave was him. It could anybody. And now we are just moving in a direction purely based on our instinct. We have no idea Zahid went in this direction even if he was in the cave. Meanwhile, we had the city right in our hands ready to be turned into a fort. I just feel like we are losing the game”