Hades - II

As he walked , I saw him with mounting terror in my eyes... How could he be here? If he was walking , then he was alive .. but no living person ever came here in all this time (days, or was it ages since Id been here?), but then I was alive wasnt I ? No I could not be sure of anything now , not even whether i was alive or not .. The only thing that mattered to me was that HE was there and he was walking towards the river as if in a trance , I could not do anything to stop him ... but I had to stop him. I HAD to stop him , if he was lost , I was lost , everything was lost. He was the only person I loved, i needed him , i was me , because of him, and today he was walking towards the river , he was already knee deep in the blood-water , i tried to scream but my gagged mouth produced no sound , i tried to hobble up on my legs , but they had long gone to sleep sitting in the same crampy position, my tied legs and hands refused to listen to me .. it was hopeless, yet , i could not just see him walking and do nothing about it .

Just then, I felt a hand feeling up my back , terrified as I was , could not bring myself to turn and see who it was who was touching me , the grotesque hand probably felt that it was caressing me , but to me it was the touch that defiled my flesh and made it creep and crawl with fear.soon , my hands were untied , thankful though i was , could not turn back and say so to the hand, i did not want to look at an awful disembodied hand ... just then i saw HIM walking , he was chest deep in the blood -river already , i had to stop him , bring him back , it did not matter if I died, i wanted him out of there and I would do anything to get him back from there, i summoned up all my strength and untied my legs and threw the ag out of my mouth , I ran , every second seeming like ages.I could not run straight , i kept stumbling into the mass of human rot everywhere , the current of the water was just too much , but i could not stop, he was already shoulder deep , i cried out to him , for a second i felt that he heard me , he called out for help even "Arpana , take me away , i'll die else" tears blinded me , i ran, this time not bothering about any obstacles in between , scraping my hands and legs against the devilishly long fingernails of the corpses, but i ran as fast as i could ... little did i know that "as fast as i can" would be the slowest by the time i reached him ...

I reached him , he was already drowing in the water , i pulled him out by his air , i breathed the air through my mouth into his mouth , he only emited a trickle of the blood and gore he had swallowed and the mucus in his lungs , i held him , i called out to him , asked him to wake up, open his eyes and see me .... he never heard me , it was as though i wasnt there for him at all ..
he stuck his toungue out , an effort to breathe, and the minute he opened his lips, his soul escaped his body ... i caught the soul, tried to thrust it back through his mouth , where it belonged, i begged the soul to enter the bosy , i held the body in one hand and the soul in the other, there was nothing i could do , it was as though all the corpses and all the rot was chanting his last words to me "Arpana , help me"
"Arpana Help me" "Arpana help me, help me help me help me help me help me " it was like an incantation, for how long it went i know not , for i sat there lifeless, it was all over, he was dead and i was left to live , how could i live without him? what was life without him? i held his body , i wanted atleast his body to be near me , but the body was nothing without the soul , it did not have the twinkle in his eyes, it did not have the smile on its lips, it did not call out to me , it did not feel anything, and it began to disintegrate , it began to rot and look like one of those horrible carcasses i had been livin with for so long here in Hades ... I cried out , but only a muffled cry came out of my mouth , i sat there , tearless, hopeless and lifeless, tears flowed only later , only when the fact that he was dead pierced the numbness that had engulfed my body ... i wanted to cry, but then , i could not , for did I always not seek his shoulder to cry on? he wasnt there , he wasnt there , he is no more , he is brought dead, arpana help me , i love you, my dad , a orpse, arpana help me , he is no more, he wont be there any more .....
My mom woke me up in the morning, asked me to inform the relatives that my father had passed away.
My dad died in my arms in the night, asking me to help him and i could do nothing to save him ... he was dead and i could only stare at his corpse and watch it rot until someone cremated it.
I sleep everyday and will myself to wake up in the past when i was not fatherless, i wake up in the morning and find myself to be the father of my brother and my mother.