A night without end

The underground stream

Pratham sat quietly on the wet forest ground. Far away her mother was weeping, he could feel that in his bone.The dungeon was quiet not that it ever spoken to him much but finally it was eerily quiet. As if all traces of it has been wiped out. Yet the story was not done. It would not be done till they were reborn together in a time frame to unite together. He wondered if the lost nomadic tribe would know that the spring of eternal life has been breached. They never called the spring by any name , the spring that softly flowed. It was because they never knew. But in the last few minutes till the opening of the second door,,, his and his sister's minds aand souls have got joined just like when they were children. She felt deeply aand he also felt them as an echo. Prathama went to give freedom to those who had been cruelly taken before her. But he would be the one to ensure that this family would not continue anymore. The land, the palace or what remained of it would perish into forgetfulness with time. The curse on the girls that ran through the core off the village folks was also as matter of folklore and that iss where it should stay. No one from the villages came into the forest. It was time everyone spread out to different lands. Move away. From the curse , move away.

"What happened ?!" He suddenly heard his father's frantic voice and footsteps. He did not ask how he knew something had happened. He looked at him and said, " We lost Prathama today. She breached the dungeon and flooded it with the spring water. "

His father stood silent. There was no sound for a long time. Then there was a silent weeping. Tears that fell down his cheeks and rolled aand mixed with spring water that had risen like a tsunami from the well and flooded the forest. Pratham wondered how was he still standing and not thrown away with all force against the irregular rocks. But he realised, he had been pushed aside by the force of the water, hitting the rock. Yet he was unhurt, beyond the usual Nick's and cuts. He knew not to ask questions. The same water has wiped out his sister by its force.

His father said, "We will close the well. No more inquisitive children will climb down the well and have accidents . We will break and flatten thee ground.."

Pratham kept quiet . He believed there was nothing left to flatten aas the water had destroyed the well as It had risen with full force through the depths of its imprisonment . Somewhere a bird called. He realised it was not evening , but morning. Time flies faster when no-one was holding on to it. He wondered if the water had also flooded in the villages below. His father was looking astonished as a steady flow of water started emerging from the c***k left on the plain ground just beside where the well used to stand and now there was the rubbles. The water gargled andr then flowed through the rocky floor of the forest. But it turned not towards the village orthe palace. But towards the desert .. and disappeared underneath a rock to not emerge again in their sight. Both of them knew the water had found its channel back to oasis. The wanderers can now go home if they followed the sound of the water that flowed underneath the feet. Did they still take horses or camels? But the question seemed strange in the face of the deep grief that left Pratham unable to cry and his father unable to stop.

Pratham knew Prathama felt no fear when she opened the door, that second dreaded door that just would not open. May be the souls did not want her to ....

But she opened aided at the end by the same unknown forces that stopped her. He had hoped for a painless goodbye but she felt in one moment the pain that all felt through many etternities but then the spring water wiped all tears and pain and blood from her shielding her with its cold , fresh cover. There had been a smile at the end. A smile of victory, fearless victory of a fallen warrior who knew she would not rise again but none would need to die again in the dungeon. Then there was deep darkness. And the water spiralled into and out of the well with the force that could have cause the earth to break anyday but had not.

"Prathama do you know that by opening the second door , you saved the villages.. The fissures of pressure of the underground water could have burst forth on the hapless souls. You saved more than you will ever know."

His father said still with tears rolling down his eyes," I had a relative who believed that I should have never married. If the family does not exist , the curse stops. The villagers cursed by Princess's mother.. will wipe out slowly but if I had never married, it would have ended with me. With me and not with my daughter, my beautiful talented girl.." His tears flowed still.

Pratham stood quietly. May be the grief was our penance .. he thought. His penance and his parents penance. But where was his mother ?

That day claimed another victim. Pratham's mother never stopped looking for Prathama. "She is alive. She asked me to stop digging as I would have flooded everyone.. I heard that in my mind or.. ears ..but I stopped. She would live . She just flushed the water through the dungeon to stop the sounds from disturbing her. That's right Pratham? " She would constantly ask.

Then one day she was herself convinced that her daughter was not in the vicinity. She told someone in the house that she was following the mountain stream and then she disappeared. Never to be seen in the grounds again. Pratham's father waited and searched and then after a month said, " It is now a family of two men. What shall we do."

Pratham knew what was to be done . He distributed everything that was there in the house as tangibles to anyone who wanted them and then he gathered all what could be sold for money, managed a transport and left the place for good. But he did not go alone. He went with his father. They went to many countries and grew old together . Each convinced that they would never marry and have a child . They aligned to their convictions. But when in a far away city, a little pink bundle was found abandoned on the shores of an ocean , a incoming wave could have taken the baby in, both the father -son duo fell in love and adopted the baby. She was named Prana meaning life as she was their life, daughter to Pratham and grand daughter to Pratham's father , they wanted to tell her the takes of their once glorious land, show the remnants of the palace, say the cautionary tales but instead they rared her up with love and light and no shadow of the past fell on her bright pink face.