When Xavier announced that we found a hideout with a stupid victorious smile plastered on his face, I didn’t assume that it would be something like a little hole under the tree. 

Now looking at our hideout, I wonder if that long, frightening walk of almost 2 hours was worth it. I was against the idea of following that woman because she informed us that there were at least sixteen people including them in this hideout and they all are foodless. From the long time of almost three days that I’ve spent with Xavier, I can bet on all my liquor that he will share our food with those nine others. This sharing of his will help us clear out our food storage in a day so I was against the idea and still, I ended up staring at this hole.

Surviving in a group means democracy. Xavier and Zain voted for us to follow this woman and I’d no other option but to follow. I even thought of going solo but Zain announced that he will tag along with me and Xavier had all the food. If I would have gone solo, I would have survived on my liquor but Zain couldn’t so I had to follow.

“So, are we supposed to dig it?”, I ask the woman whose name I forgot or maybe I never paid enough attention to her introduction. I heard till the part where she clarified that the sleeping man was her husband.

I also heard her saying through her unstoppable tears that her husband went to fetch water for their kid and he was supposed to return after a maximum of five hours but he didn’t so she followed the trail of the waterfall.

I conclude that the man is a brave I’ll protect my family kind of man and woman is stupid I’ll leave my kid alone and walk in death with my husband type of woman.

“No, it’s wide enough”, the woman argues to Zain hitting the rocks with his feet.

The woman bent down and tapped on the tree thrice. “They will move out the rocks”, she informs.

Soon the rocks beneath the trees started moving aside. If I'd have chanted the spell Wingardium Leviosa then it would have been cool. Wait, Wingardium Leviosa made objects fly. Never mind, still, I would have been a wizard briefly. I’m a woman which makes me a witch, not a wizard. Nah, I’ll be a wizard, no gender discrimination.

“Follow me”, she asks.

She started crawling inside the hole which expanded due to my spell. Xavier helped the sleeping man crawl inside the hole and there were other cotton-clothed humans beneath us in the hole, under the tree that helped the sleeping man crawl easily.

Xavier is too good to be true. He did carry the sleeping man for this long walk of almost two hours to our hideout. I can tag him as a good person but that will make him stupid. He needs to think of his survival before others.

“Guys, we might run out of food if we were to share”, I whisper remind them.

“We can’t leave them to die”, Xavier whisper teaches me a lesson on humanity.

“Make sure that your own mask is on first before helping others”, I whisper remind him of the safety announcement from the plane.

Xavier sighed a huge and loud sigh and without arguing to my practical answer, he crouched down and started crawling.

Before Zain could argue and take Xavier’s side on this matter, I hold out my hand in front of his face and he swallowed his words. I’ve starved before and I don’t want to do that again.

I crouched and glanced at the silhouette of Xavier, decent people vanish prematurely during survival.

The lights hitting inside of the timber served as lighter background for me to catch a glimpse of the shadows of some people gathering around, enjoying the return of the vanished man or maybe deceiving the man so that their expectations of quenching their thirst is fulfilled. Only if he had water!

Zain rested his hand on my shoulder to give me a push in crawling ahead in the wooden tunnel. I nod and started slinking making sure to not disturb their reunion. The bottom of the tunnel was little wet which made my jeans wet enough for my knees to feel the disgust.

Little hope of light started disappearing as I kept on going in shallow, shallow because I’m not sure if this water holds gold or I’m just washing my hands to get them dirty. If I’m to adapt according to my surroundings, then I need to get over my trust issues but I can’t bring myself to swim with others because I'm afraid that I’ll drown myself in trying to help them.

At the end of the timber tunnel, I found cringe happiness from the people I’ve never seen. The image I'd in my mind of the survivors was of the people sitting in their corners, holding their falling heads in their palms and losing hopes every passing second. I thought that they would not even care to give us a proper glance and treat us as a passerby but the whole scenery beneath the ground was the complete opposite. They were happy, they were optimistic because Xavier had opened his bag of survival protein wide and was distributing food like he’s got the food storage of year. They were optimistic because if they weren’t then they would give up and be living dead. They were optimistic because even under this dark ground they are getting some ray of light.

Ignoring the philanthropy of Xavier, I went over to his food bank and picked up two cans of beans. These cans will keep me going for two days. If Xavier wants to sink, he can sink alone, I’m not his karma to follow him in his afterlife. He’s happy to find half of his group back, let him be happy.

Ignoring the blessings Xavier was getting, I continued my way to the other side of the underground timber tunnel cave. If I was told that this underground cave is large enough for seventy people, I would have tagged that person as an unreasonable optimistic but now when I look at this cave, it is vast enough.

When I was on my way to another side of the cave, I noticed that I forgot about Zain so I glanced back just to check his healthy presence and he was helping Xavier in handing out the food. Both are stupid!

Taking out the flashlight from my bag I was on my way to explore deeper into the cave when a little girl stopped me by pulling my bag. “It’s scary there”, she warns. I blinked twice and adjusted my lip into a thin line. “Then no one would follow me there. I like being alone”, I say and removed her hand from my bag.

When I started taking slow steps forward into the darkness, I heard those little footsteps of the little girl following me behind. “Why are you following me?”, I ask her without glancing back. “Because you are so cool”, she answers. I almost laughed at her answer but I held back.

I didn’t utter a word and kept on walking, the girl followed me behind. When it started getting thick dark, the girl got scared and I think that she started second-guessing her decision. She should be regretting following me here, no kid follows a stranger. She snuggled in close to me and slowly she tugged onto my arm.

Ignoring her, I focused on our way ahead. It’s dark and I could hear water drops falling from the hanging roots. I looked up and saw dangling roots on my new ceiling. I wonder if I should plant trees on my terrace so that I could wake up to this beautiful scenery every morning. It’s scary that makes it beautiful. In the dark it’s scary and in the light it’s beautiful.

“I'm scared and hungry”, she whispers through her stuttered tone.

I look down to take a proper look at her scared face and I saw her clear. She reminds me of myself. I can bet that my facial muscles relaxed for a while and I felt sympathy for her. I took her hand in mine and guided her to the Tyndall effect I saw earlier.

It started getting bright as we continued to the Tyndall effect. When we reached that particular corner, I found out that it’s the light coming from outside. This was supposed to be the entrance of the cave and it’s covered by rocks. I wonder if I can find skeletons if I continue exploring.

“It’s the end”, the girl says.

I look at her again, she’s thin, doe-eyed, and has pouty lips. She must be around 9 from what I remember. I sighed and cursed myself for my further actions. I took out two cans from my bag and handed them to her. “Eat”, I say this simple word and she smiled brightly. Here I lose, I did something for free.

“Thank you”, she gleamed and hugged my arm, I didn’t give in and opened the can for her.

I planned on not going back to starving and seems like I’m going back there soon. While she ate her beans in silence, I took out the beer tin and popped it open.

“I'm Silver”, she introduced herself.

“Zean”, I keep it brief.

Now I remember her clearly, the night at the pool she said that I’m cool. The night at the pool feels distant now. I did fill my stomach enough that night to store the fat and I burned it all. It was yesterday and it feels like it’s been a week since then. Why do some moments feel like déjà vu and some so distant?

I almost forgot about Riyan. We need him because he has the burner so he’s the key to our home, the most important person right now but according to my surveillance eyes, he’s not here. I hope that he’s alive and even if he’s dead, I wish he held onto the burner tightly so that no one could have opened his fist.

Even though I think that I do not care if he’s dead, deep inside I wished that he’s alive. He wanted to commit suicide not die by a bullet.

“How are you so good at hitting the targets?”, Silver asks to start the conversation.

“My friend taught me”, I answer keeping it brief. To end the already dying conversation I start sipping on my drink.

A.J. taught me shooting. I remember asking him to teach me shooting because I was fascinated by how cool he looked when he hit his target.

It was the day when A.J got older by a year and we were at a resort because we wanted to get drunk. He turned 15 and I was 12 and being the underage kids that we were, we got an addiction to liquor. I’d no one to force me to leave this addiction, A.J had, and still, he loved his beer like his wife. Even though I was drunk, I still remember it clearly that I asked him to show me how good he is at shooting so he picked up the fork and aimed at the bullseye, and hit the target. That was the only time in my life that I got attracted to him, my brother, eww but he looked so cool so it ain’t my fault. 

Then onwards, it was me and him every night at Kureshi's practicing the aim and testing Kureshi's patience. When I mastered breaking bottles at Kureshi by actually aiming, I moved on to the next level of actual shooting with guns. For guns, he had me take lessons on guns so that I could know what I’m dealing with and then I finally held the actual gun in my hand at his farmhouse and practiced shooting.

It was easy for A.J to get a licensed gun because his father was the one who made weapons. Alliance and Troops Comfort (ATC), the private company which made and still makes weapons, A.J's father is the chairman of the company. A.J wanted to become a professional shooter that’s why he took lessons and everything. He was waiting to turn 18 so that he could apply for NRAI, he could’ve applied when he turned 16 but he wanted to wait till he turned 18 and he never turned 18. Sad life!

I can imagine Kureshi telling people stories of a girl named Zean walking into death even after she got a warning from the Almighty Kureshi. Two lost spirits of a brother and a sister died at a very young age. I did trespass A.J in terms of age. I ain’t dying till I turn 70 and see the divine Niagara Falls in person.

This Silver girl did remind me of myself and I did not want her trading things for food as I did, that’s why I heard the voice from the deepest part of my heart that I ought to give her my food and enjoy the starving phase till it lasts.

“My mom got lost on this island while we were running yesterday”, Silver started ranting out her sad story to light up the already dead conversation. “We were running in this forest and dad fell. I turned back and saw those bad people running towards us. Mom asked me to run and I did. She promised to come to find me afterward so I ran. I found Kelly and I ran along with her. Did you see my mom outside when you were coming here? She looks like me but she’s tall”, I assume that her mom is dead and she left this little girl alone in this world. She’s tagged, an orphan. If her mom wanted to save her then she could’ve run along with her, there was no need to surrender herself for her kid, the kid needs her mom more than her life.

“Your mom is dea-”, before I could complete my honest answer, Zain and Xavier appeared out of the thick darkness and interrupted, “She must be hiding somewhere. We too lost our friend Riyan and he’s too hiding somewhere. They could be hiding together like us”, Zain fake comforted the girl. Silver smiled and held onto false hopes.

“Why give her the false hopes?”, I say because I felt the ache that Silver must be feeling after finding the truth.

Xavier glared at me and placed two cans of beans in my hand. “I noticed that you decided to starve too”, he mocks at my principle and I let him.

“Who else agreed to starve for these two cans?”, I ask stuffing the cans in my bag. “Two men. They are on a fast”, Xavier answers.

So, they didn’t eat yesterday and today they are on a fast. They might die at the end of the day if they won’t eat anything. Why am I worrying? It’s good that we would have two extra cans.

“Kelly noticed something weird. She said that she saw wires and sparkling in the head of those killers”, Xavier informs.

Wires? Are they robots? They ought to be robots which makes sense because they lacked survival instincts. Aren’t robots supposed to be made for protection, personal bodyguard, then why did they fail the security test when they heard gunshots?

“They bleed red blood too”, Xavier added to his information.

If they bleed, they ain’t robots. They resemble humans and they behave like humans, humanoids?

Curiosity killed the cat, a good thing I’m not the cat. I stood up and started my way to Kelly. I do not know what I'll do with the information I’m going to get from Kelly, maybe make sure that they are not humans so that next time I can use bullets instead of tranquilizers. That’s human nature, they won’t think twice before killing anything that ain’t humans, some don’t think twice before killing their own species too.

I made my way out of the thick darkness and when the light hit my eye, the first human I saw was the Thai guy to whom I pointed the toy pistol. He noticed my presence and made a sour face. When he was satisfied scanning me, he rolled his eyes and walked away. I was the one who stood patiently dealing with his rudeness and gave him a chance to roll his eyes at me, he ain’t being rude to me of his own will. I could shoot him in real with a real gun now if I want to but I won’t because I’m adapting to my surroundings.

“Kelly”, I call out for her when her figure fills my eye. She turns around and a hint of recognition fills her brown eyes. I’m thankful that she recognizes me because I didn’t sign up for formalities.

Walking up to her, I hit her directly with the main question, “So those wires and blood from the killers?”, she was not expecting this question, I can say from her expressions. She must be expecting something like, ‘Are you fine?’, are you fine ain’t my thing to ask, she’s fine I can see so why would I want her confirmation.

“Umm, I may have stabbed one of them with the knife I was holding onto for my safety and I stabbed him on his head because I was so scared and my eyes were closed, he fell dead on me and I saw those wires on his head. There were something like sparkles and I guess it was because of system failure, I really don’t know if I’m making sense but I saw this. He was bleeding too. I got so scared so I ran away”, she explains her part of the story with a little guilt, guilt? Maybe I read her wrong but I do sense her guilt from her voice.

“There ain’t wrong in killing someone for your defense and the one you killed was a humanoid not human”, I say hoping that she would not hesitate in killing someone for her defense again.

Emotions hold us back in survival. We can go with the strategy of group work but we can’t risk our lives for someone else, I ain’t doing that.

“I don’t know. If they were humanoids then how can you explain the bleeding?”, she asks hoping to get a satisfactory answer from me so that she can console her uselessly guilty mind and move on.

From everything I’ve heard, humanoids fill the blank perfectly. Them bleeding red blood is the only mystery. I didn’t have any satisfactory answer to her question.

“It’s a theory. Whatever helps you move on from your guilt. Saving your ass ain’t something worth of guilt”, I mean this thing that I said.

Being selfish ain’t worth guilt. If I’m being selfish in my own bubble without shaking others’ bubble then it’s fine, I ain’t deceiving others for my own benefit so it’s fine.

“I may have killed someone”, she says in a horrifying tone. She couldn’t believe that she was capable of killing someone. “If you haven’t then he would’ve, without hesitating”, I say and walk away from her. Now it’s her decision to think for herself.

I’ve got a conclusion, Ayan is alive and he’s hiding in the greens. Riyan is alive and hopefully, he called someone for help. We can use bullets instead of tranquilizers and to kill them at one shot we need to master the headshot. My parents are I don’t know. We are running out of food and home is so far away.

“Facility has food”, I announce to whoever listening to me.

“That’s walking into death”, the Thai guy argued. I swear that till now I thought that he could only speak Thai and not English.

“Without food and water it’s sleeping to death”, I argue back.

I ain’t going to play the role of leader, convincing the majority in my favor. If they agree on being cowardly to die starving without trying to fight for their way to survival then it’s fine by me. I ain’t sleeping to death.

“We can go for at least a week”, an American guy argued.

“Without food. Without water we can go for two days at max”, Zain argues back as he appears out from the other side of the cave.

I knew that there would be some reasonable people trying to fight instead of giving up or hoping for someone to help.

From the scan that I just took of the faces of the people in this cave, I can say that me, Zain Xavier, Kelly, an American girl, a Russian guy, and even the little Silver are the ones who agree on breaking into the facility. The majority of the others are happy dying of thirst.

The only fear I’ve now is that Xavier will distribute the food that we surely will bring out from the facility to these cowards.

“I ain’t sharing my portion of food this time”, I announce to get some judging looks.

This time, to my surprise, Xavier didn’t throw his judging looks at me. Maybe he finally understood the importance of selfishness.

“So, what’s the plan?”, Xavier asks.

“I’ve got the map”, the Thai guy announces to everyone’s surprise. He’s adapting to his surroundings too or maybe he calculated the possibilities of him not getting any food after I announced that I won’t share my portion.

In crucial times we ought to befriend our enemies too, these are the strangers which make it way worse.

****