THE CONCLUSION

[PART 2]

❝I am time, the destroyer of all; I have come to consume the world.❞

- Lord Krishna, Bhagavad Gita.

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I could feel something was terribly wrong.

I had been on the beach way too many times now to know how long the sun usually took to set. But today, it seemed to be stuck to the sky, not wanting to let go at all. Adamant, stubborn to meet its moon even if it would change the way how everything works and turn the whole universe upside down.

I could no longer feel the air around me, as if the wind had stopped. The waves before me stood frozen, waiting to crash into each other once near the shore but they never did. It was as if all forms of life kept implying that time had stopped. A weird premonition that the present tense no longer existed — because what was even the past or future? And where did this moment lie on the graph of time and events; if it even did?

Everything was at a standstill in this moment, including my own life. Including time that seemed to have magically come to a pause. The sky was still a shade of crimson and I was almost surprised at how I was still breathing in spite of the lack of air. After waiting patiently for a few heartbeats, I could hear a voice call out to me from a distance yet so close as if it was right next to me. The affection and power the voice held had me shook; I had never witnessed such a moment before yet it all felt like a deja vu. "Diego?" The voice called out to me.

Who was this and how did he know my name?

But the second my mouth opened, I started talking to this person as if I knew who he was. As if he was the one responsible for everything that was right and wrong in this universe. He was the one responsible for the sun shining each morning, for the waves returning to the shore, for all the order in spite of the chaos.

Possibly also the one who let me go back in time and destined for Lyra and I to never end up together. The last scenario boiled my blood until rage was all I could feel anymore. "Why did you take my Lyra away from me again? How dare you?" I randomly accused, yelling at no one in particular as I broke down into tears. "Why did you do this to me? This isn't fair."

I wondered how to possibly explain this abstract person of the empty space in my heart, in my life, after Lyra was gone. But words just weren't enough. They would have to go through this to understand what I had lost — stepping into my shoes and diving into my headspace.

"Child." The abstract voice spoke again out of nowhere. "What if I tell you she didn't really leave? What if I told you Lyra is sitting right next to you right now?"

Hearing that, a smile spread on my face and my head immediately jerked towards my left but all I could see was the sand and the unending landscape. A surge of anger throbbed through my veins when I assumed the voice was simply mocking me now. "She isn't here." I gritted my teeth and seethed.

Another laughter mocked my loss, as if pouring alcohol right into my open wound. "I can see her, Diego. Just because you can't see her doesn't mean she isn't here."

"Stop with these stupid mind games already." I replied, angrily, rolling my eyes and crossing my arms at the sun.

Why was it not setting?

Once it would, I would immediately make my wish and create a time loop to be with Lyra again. But it felt like someone or something had sensed my plan and just so I couldn't make a wish, it didn't let the sun set at all. What was this madness? A sense of drowsy grey took over me and I barely fought the urge to fall asleep right then and there. My head was overflowing with emotions yet I felt numb at the same time. Like I was everywhere and nowhere at all. As if I was with Lyra and without her, all at once.

❝I will see you again, oh

This is not where it ends.❞

The voice stayed silent, as if it had chosen to walk away from me too.

My fingers started trembling, overpowered by someone other than me. My emotions were no longer in my control and I found myself hastily collecting sand to build a mountain of my own and hide into it forever. What was I even doing? Nothing made sense anymore.

Giving in to the frustrating confusion, I screamed out loud. "Why?!" And just like that, I began sobbing out of nowhere. "Why did you take Lyra away from me? Why can I not see her just once? Just once more?" I pointed an accusing finger at the sun, not knowing who else to talk to. "First mom and now Lyra too! Who the hell do you think you are to take everyone I love away from my life?"

"Diego, let me tell you something." The voice demandingly pleaded. "See, the thing that gives meaning to this life is nothing but death. The fact that it is finite, the fact that it is supposed to end one day is what makes this life worthwhile. Not knowing whether you will open your eyes tomorrow, not knowing whether the promises you make will last for all tomorrows to come. Because birth and death is a perpetual cycle. The true joy of life lies in the unknown, don't you think?"

"Yes bu- but not when you end up losing someone in the process. That shit hurts. And it hurts like hell." I broke down into tears and admitted it out loud, probably for the first time ever. Moments later, I found myself asking the mysterious voice a question that probably no one knew the answer to. "Why do people have to die? Why can't- why can't they live forever? Did you take Lyra away because I didn't pray enough?"

"No, child. That's not it." The voice reassured me. "Just like we change clothes every morning after we freshen up, sometimes the body gets tired of all the material attachments and chooses to sacrifice itself — which is why people die. They have to, it's all a play of time, after all."

"Then why did you say Lyra is still here? She's dead, right? Or is she-" The last possibility gave me hope but I was afraid to voice it out, afraid that I would jinx it if it was true.

"Because the soul is indestructible, child. The soul never takes birth in the first place so it can never die at any point of time. Nor does it come into being again when the body is created. The soul is birthless, eternal, imperishable, timeless even. Never destroyed though the body is destructible. "

"Does that mean-" I couldn't mistake the smile forming on my face.

"Yes. You may no longer be able to see or even feel Lyra around you today — simply because you're human and you cannot see a soul until it abodes itself in a body. Lyra could be right next to you but you might still not be able to figure out." After a pause, the voice continued. "Energy never gets created nor destroyed, Diego. It just gets transformed from one form into another. Similarly, when a soul gives up on a body, it doesn't simply cease to exist. It will be present here on the Earth, possibly even around you, but merely changes form. Just like it's supposed to. That's the rule of nature, after all."

"Wait." I took a moment to process. "So that means... Lyra will always be with me, in some way or the other?" It was more of a statement than a question and as soon as those words left my lips, the burden on my heart got lifted. And I felt lighter, as if I was a bird who could just flap my wings and fly high into the sky.

❝The thought of it makes me smile

You are my tomorrow.❞

"Yes." The voice smiled or maybe I imagined it. "And talking about your second chance-" the voice had turned serious now. "-You were never given a second chance to save Lyra. If you remember clearly, what you had wished for was a chance to confess your love for Lyra, live with her for a little while more but never to save her." But before I could mull over making a new wish this time, the voice shattered my last shard of hope. "If that was what you'd have wished for, it would have never come true anyway. Because life and death are fixed; you have no control over it. But if you can change something, it is only what lies between those two ends. That's the life you actually live."

It had all started making sense now. I lived through it, all over again, for the messy middles. For the rare moments of beauty in the middle of all chaos. Never to save Lyra from death, but for all those memories of our togetherness that I would have never had otherwise.

"You wanted a confession, you wanted an explanation and you got both of them. I let you spend the moments you craved for with Lyra. But all along, you never noticed how things changed this time around only for you and no one else. Both of you were always alone when you got all the answers to your questions. Both of you were by yourself when you heard and saw all that you hadn't the first time. All the changes just affected you and Lyra. No one else."

He was right! Whenever Lyra and I talked about life or shared sweet talks, no one ever watched us. A slideshow of the altered moments started running through my mind.

I gave Lyra the notebook when we were alone, she used to write in the notebook when everyone was off to sleep, she confessed being anorexic when we were alone in the washroom, we kissed when we were the only bodies present in my house, she kissed me outside Connor's home when no could watch us and she confessed her love for me from the terrace and no one else heard her.

To them, it was all the same as before.

To them, Lyra jumped to death, though to me she accidentally fell due to the alcohol. I suddenly felt stupefied and my mind failed me when I wanted to frame words together that conveyed appreciation and thankfulness. Tears welled up in my eyes and I could only sit there, awe-stricken at the marvel that was just rolled out in front of me.

Everything made perfect sense now. The X Axis and Y Axis were always destined to meet just at the origin for a reason. And just by wanting to be together to align till infinity, fighting their fates, they risked making the entire graph paper and all other plotted lines incomprehensible. Because if the X and Y axis became one, the entire graph would lose its meaning.

If Lyra made it alive this time, we would end up shaking whatever kept this universe in balance. And if anyone else would have seen us live the moments in this alternate reality, their lives would have become meaningless too. Because whether we like it or not, mathematics and life probably worked by the same rules. Everything was perfectly defined beforehand.

"You went back in time, never to save her. You went back in time to reinvent the love of your life that you had unfairly lost way too soon. Since you wished with a pure heart, death agreed to meet love, but you were supposed to know that Lyra had to die. You were to go three months into the past to come back to this very moment with lots of pleasant memories, explanations and even answers — but never Lyra." Lyra's smiling face flashed before my eyes and I couldn't help but feel the pain surge through my nerves once again.

She was truly gone. Forever.

She was no more. And she was never coming back again.

Yet somehow, she would always be with me. Forever.

My eyes suddenly fell on the book that was still clutched in my hand. I went back in time to get an explanation for her death; like I had gone back in time to know what Lyra was going through and what she felt for me. Her last words rang in my mind again. She had forgiven me. She had asked me to wait for her. She promised me she'd come back one day and we'll live happily ever after.

❝Sometimes I feel my heart is breaking

But I stay strong and I hold on 'cause I know I will see you again.❞

"But there's one thing you need to be careful of. This book, don't let anyone know about it. It is your secret. This is what Lyra wanted to say to you but never could. It's sort of like her last wish. You're not supposed to let anyone know about it. This secret should go with you to your grave. Tell it to no one, come what may. Do you understand?"

I nodded, dumbstruck.

I could piece it all together now. Why it was so important to rewind to the past and live those 3 months with Lyra again. The mission was never to save Lyra. It was to save myself, which was equally important. Lyra was already dead but I was left alive. And if I had to live on, I couldn't have done so without an explanation.

I felt so helpless, so transfixed in that moment that I gasped when the air came back to me and the sun finally started jumping into the dark sea. My tears dried into a smile and I finally opened my eyes, wanting to witness the beauty of the world before me. Alive, moving, breathing. The wind had started blowing again and my watch's seconds' hand ticked, making me aware of the passing time. Everything was back to normal.

❝I will carry you with me, oh

'Till I see you again.❞

Now that I know, I realise why I still get to live after all this. Because I am the only one who is left with all their secrets which nobody knows. No longer would I wish to die and no matter how much time it took, I would never stop waiting for Lyra to come back. She is my love, my past and all my tomorrows.

After all, each breath I take has her name written on it.

*

All of a sudden, the beeping sound on the ECG machine became louder and the patient's – Diego's – body became restless. He started tossing and turning sideways, grunting and kicking the covers off.

"We need to stop!" Vivaan cried out in fear. "It's been way too long, Doctor Martin. I swear if we do this any more, he might go into a coma or possibly, even die. I know I'm just an intern but I've read it in the books, Sir." He hesitantly wiped the line of sweat trickling down his forehead. "The consequences of a prolonged Narco test are pretty scary. I'm not going to let this taint my entire medical career. I am not going to let him die over this."

On any other day, Doctor Martin would have reminded this intern of his limits for yelling at his senior who had spent the majority of his life interrogating victims in a Narco test. But today was a different day. Doctor Martin was too absorbed to respond to the disrespectful intern.

He simply nodded as they shifted the patient to another ward, believing he would be conscious in a few hours. While they were crossing the distance between the room and the canteen, the junior doctor — Carsen — greeted the two of them. "How was the test?" He asked the intern, who looked pale enough to have seen a vampire.

"It was one heck of it!" He settled on the chair and aimlessly browsed through the menu to order something. Carsen shot him a questioning look since the medical student had been in the hospital for too long to need to look at the menu to have a guess on what'd satisfy his stomach. Little did he know Vivaan was just trying to mask his overwhelmed emotions behind the pages of the huge menu.

"Here is the blood report anyway. Not that you need it. I'm sure you must've cracked it by now." He handed a sealed envelope to Doctor Martin who was quietly sipping on his cup of tea, knowing he hadn't cracked the case. And neither was he any close to it. Both of them were too shocked to communicate, hence, they drowned themselves in the simplest of things — be it drinking tea or reading a menu over and over again.

Confusion clouding his thoughts, Vivaan badly wanted to grab hold of the blood reports and tear them open to see if it held something that could solve the clutter in his head. No matter how bad, he didn't think a piece of paper would matter anymore after all that he'd heard.

A hopeless romantic side of him wanted to believe this was the end of Diego's story. A hauntingly beautiful tale of incomplete love and forbidden romance; where a man fought through time and death to go back to his dead crush. Vivaan knew of a love like this all too well. A love that knew no bounds, no limits. A love that would cross the line to find its own happy ending. His. But he knew there was much more to Diego's story than what he had narrated in the past three hours.

Even if he tried to convince himself that Diego had possibly just imagined all of this, his logic told him the very next second that it was impossible for this patient to do so while answering. Because he had been given enough doses of sodium pentothal, which is known to put a pause on imagination, so that victims can't lie during a Narco test.

Once the rush had died down and he was left by himself, a wave of guilt and fear rushed through his veins. He partially regretted his decision of completing his medical internship practice in a foreign hospital — all the way in Sanguis Rosa — at the very instance. He had a strong feeling that though he was alright right now, he was going to be stuck in a big mess; he could feel it coming.

Realising that these two people were not going to open their mouths any time soon, the local doctor took his leave. That's when Doctor Martin tore the envelope open and Vivaan scooted closer to read the reports with him. Out of all possible scenarios he had imagined to find in the report, none of it matched what the reports actually held.

In fact, it was ten times worse than what he could have imagined.

  _________

  [Song Lyrics Credits: "See You Again" by Carrie Underwood.]

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Random Question -  Head or Heart?

(Edit: Tough choice, huh? This is also the series' title now so yaay to that xD)

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Author's Note - Hey, what did you think? The story is not over yet. And this is not the scientific reason, bleh. You will see it in the epilogue i.e. the next 2 chapters.

Haha, sometimes, I terribly laugh at how nobody ever notices the little hints I am planting for the sequel + the spin-off in this book xD

Update: It has been over 7 years since I've posted this story here (and admittedly, it has stayed in my drafts, unpublished, for a long time) but many hints and easter eggs have not be found yet so in case you wish to, grab your magnifying glasses and join in the hunt! Let's go before the sequel throws light on all (or most) of it :P

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