It is said that the universe always speaks to us through coincidences and serendipities, well if the universe was not busy expanding itself then I might acknowledge this saying by supposing that asteroids and comets may shift from their path to deliver us a word from the universe.

Recognizing Ayan I went into the state where I was contemplating whether to be happy by the fact that we found the lost guy or be suspicious about him because he’s Zed's friend. I was hoping for someone to vote on our confidence in Ayan and no one did, they were thinking the same I guess. It was Kelly who finally spoke up and when she did I wished for her to be more practical. “Universe is sending us the message. We will survive”, these were the exact words she spoke. Like what? Why would the vast universe be suddenly interested in sending me a secret message which I couldn’t even interpret?

These positive expressions are made to keep people away from dwelling on their issues and licking their wounds. They are made for people to keep moving forward and they should move forward but they should move forward completely by working out their problems and not ignoring them.

“Ignoring Kelly, I say we should go out to Merlin again and maybe Ayan knows more which could help us”, Zain whispered out, loud enough for me, Silver, and Kiet to hear. He ain’t got the guts like me to be straightforward to anyone ignoring their feelings, so he made sure that Kelly won’t hear him when she’s busy shaking her another arm in incredulity.

I think I missed out on something here, how do Kiet and Kelly know Ayan? I never remember showing them pictures of Ayan, leave a picture we never even talked about Ayan with them.

“I’m a survivor too and that recorder in Ulna was planted by me”, Ayan shouts to assure us. Ok, he planted it and he somehow listened to us which makes him more sus. 

I glance around to see Zain beaming out his vote of confidence. I settle on trusting Zain’s judgment, see I can be reasonable too.

Xavier decided to trust Ayan so he agreed in taking the help of Ayan to climb up to Merlin again or maybe his muscles got tired by defying gravity. “Remember that he’s Zed's friend”, I whisper remind Zain again and he gripped tightly onto his rifle and nodded assuring that it will be fine.

“Here we go then”, I say gathering the courage that I lost staying with these people.

Zain took the lead and I followed him, keeping up with his pace I made sure to match his steps. Ayan waited and waited to watch us approaching the ground of Merlin.

Sometimes when I am not sure about my decisions, I listen to my gut feeling, and this time I ain’t feeling. No sickness, no nervousness kicking in, or no urge to throw up, I think my guts are asking for food rather than a consequence.

This little walk on the edge to Merlin had me realize that I was a liar to make myself believe that I don’t care about my life because I fucking do. If I didn’t care about my life then I won’t be running around in these ruins or second-guessing about my confidence in others. I feel like a fucking idiot now thinking about giving into the fire to make my life a bonfire of dooms. This habit of mine, of thinking whatever or I don’t care is irrational. I do care for myself and that’s why I’m always honest with myself, that’s how I keep going. I can and will always lie to others about my candid emotions but I will never lie to myself because if I do then I’ll feel negligence, neglected by myself.

These surroundings do provide that peace that meditates my inner brain cells to speculate the deepest sentiments that I hold for myself. Confidence is key to self-love and being honest with yourself is key to self-care.

Carrying these words inside my head and forming them into reasonable sentences, I didn’t realize that I had to stop taking steps further if I didn’t want to get a hug from Merlin. It was Silver who pulled my arm to stop me from getting a thud smack crash.

“You fine?”, Zain asks pulling me back from the roots of Merlin by holding onto my shoulder.

“Just thinking”, I explain to him the reason for my spacing out. Spacing out is fun, it’s like I’ll just keep on moving on my way even though I’m not sure if it’s the right way but still I’ll keep going by ignoring everyone unintentionally and thinking almost nothing or everything.

Holding onto hanging roots, I started climbing up to Merlin again. She’s heading for something that she wishes she won’t regret like her previous decision. Only if my life would be a book and I could be the protagonist to use these Shakespeare lines!

“Here”, Xavier holds out his hand for me to help me climb up, if it was not for grouping is survival, I’d have ignored his help and proved that I’m self-reliant but I don’t want to be extra AF so I accepted his kind gesture.

On top of Merlin, again. Now begin my trust issues. I eyed Ayan and my guts are resting, not feeling the tingle of any threat, a sign of good vibes radiating from him.

It makes it hard to hate good people, like c’mon, I’m trying to repel you, let me at least suspect you harshly, for my satisfaction. Ayan is being good by helping Silver get on the porch. He’s unarmed and if a bottle of water counts as a deadly weapon then yup, he is armed. He can kill me by drowning me in the bottle. Stop being ridiculously skeptical, my subconscious snarled.

As I figured, he was being suspicious, he gave Silver the bottle of water to drink from it. Either he’s being generous or he’s trying to poison us. If Zed hadn’t broken my confidence in him then I wouldn’t be this much cautious. Now it’s hard to trust anyone else. My walls are rebuilt with cement and boulders.

“Silver no”, I snatched the bottle from her hand making her tongue go all dry again. I swear I heard a whine of disappointment that came from down the throat of Silver.

I placed the open bottle right in front of Ayan's face. “You drink first”, I demand.

He laughs a little and takes the bottle from my grip. Raising the bottle to his mouth, he took a sip from it and I focused on his throat, waiting for him to gulp down the water and he did. “All good?”, he asks opening his mouth for me to check that he really drank the water.

I hum and pass the bottle to Silver. “You can”, I approve of her questioning eyes. She smiled a smile of satisfaction and relief and hastily started gulping the water to soothe her dry throat. I feel my larynx getting dried up as I watched Silver getting contented with her thirst.

Ayan tapped on my shoulder and I knew it was him because his touch was foreign and dry. I turn around to find him holding out another bottle of water. He was gesturing for me to gulp it down and soothe my drying larynx. I raised my eyebrow at his generosity and he understood. He took a sip from the bottle for my satisfaction.

“Survival means always be skeptical”, I explain while he passes the bottle to my right hand.

“Survival means always trust your group”, he argues and I think of my argument to his optimistic response while gulping down the water. Nothing beats water in quenching thirst, not liquor too.

“You got to earn that trust first”, I keep it short as I'd no energy to enter in a debate after all the climbing. Ayan hummed and laughed a little.

For a city person who recently is adjusting to woods, he is doing well I guess. He looks fresh, and I guess he has water and maybe food too. He’s shaved too. I thought that he must be a sleepless, hairy, all beard, and bleeding guy but he ain’t. I always assume the worst and that was the image of him I created in my mind.

“We got questions”, Zain speaks up pointing at Ayan and Ayan already saw this coming towards him so he complied by nodding his head. “For you both too”, I say pointing at Kiet and Kelly and they didn’t see this coming towards them that’s why my active effort of raising skepticism on them caught them off-guard. Them knowing about Ayan do raise a suspicion.

If it’s group survival then the first rule is to not hide anything that might raise doubts later and they broke this obvious first rule. Looking back, we were not completely honest with them either. We didn’t get the chance or free time to talk through this all. Now is the time. It’s dummy time till we have to run again.

Ayan gestured us to follow him by shaking his head in more like nodding which was supposed to imply his direction ‘follow me.'

I guess that counting on him is worth it. We did see the footage of him doing the exact thing we were doing, running for his survival. I have got this weird tingle notifying me that he’s among us not among those killers. Always remember that there is one imposter among us, well, we found that imposter already, he will be eliminated soon.

Trusting on my instincts I was the first to follow Ayan when he took a step towards the entrance of Merlin. Entrusting their confidence in my instincts, others soon followed me. All we need is someone to make a judgment and take action, soon we will follow them because we don’t have time or endurance to make and be responsible for the choices. That someone is me and we are the others.

We got thousands of questions, each question differs from individuals and we are aware of the fact that once we get the answers, there won’t be turning back from what we know. Sometimes we do wish to unheard somethings we wish to never know because we can never turn back from the truth once it’s out, maybe Ayan knows more, maybe he doesn’t but right now, in these particular minutes of eternity, he’s the only one we are counting on to pull us under the light of truth.

I know I promised myself to not get indulge in solving the unknown mystery of Arbmtys but without solving the mystery I can’t plan onto the strategy of survival. I can’t go on without knowing if I’m killing humans or humanoids, I can’t go on without knowing if these humanoids are still alive or dead, I can’t go on without knowing what will happen to me if I somehow become a target of those killers and I can’t go on without knowing the main motto behind this all sadistic going’s around me. I know for a fact that I’m not sadistic. I do enjoy kids crying and brutal deaths in movies but not in real life, in real life it’s disgusting and sickening. I enjoy pain to a certain extent and that extent is through sarcasm and irony, I enjoy being straightforward because I know that I’ll cause some emotional damage and this is not intentional, I’m being logical and practical so no, I’m not sadistic.

Ayan guided us to the second floor of Merlin and he stood still in front of the Merlin wall. Turning back he checked if we all were present in the room and when he was satisfied he took a deep breath and pushed open the wall of Merlin. I swear this suddenly became historic fiction, these hideaways are the ones I saw in the fort of kings for their secret escape. I learned to expect the unexpected so I was not shocked but I sure was thrilled. I mean being in this kind of situation and coming across secret hideaways is surely thrilling.

“I was here when you all were talking about Sagittarius and all. I was contemplating whether to trust you all or not and soon I learned that you all are the same, survivors”, he explained. So that’s how he appeared out of thin air. 

Survivors, that’s the term we are known by. We lost our identity and now we all are mere survivors trying to make it through the end. What a turn of our lives! All we wanted was a little vacation and it gave us a new identity of survivors.

Shifting a little to my left I tried to get a better view of the hidden room. Ayan noticed my seriousness so he pushed open the door for everyone to witness the food bank. The food bank that’s about to go out of the supplement.

When I saw some tins, I was relieved that we do not have to go on hunting for food at the facility and risking our lives but then he pushed open the door, and reality hit us that there were only about five tins and four water bottles left. Hunting at the facility is still on the table.

I’m an understanding person, I do realize that those five tins are for Ayan and I won’t ask for any share like a hungry pup. Diverting my focus from those tins I landed my eyes on the air pod that was resting on the stand beside four bottles. I understand now, through air pod he eavesdropped on us in Ulna.

“May I?”, I ask for Ayan’s permission before invading his secret room. “Sure”, he granted his approval with a faint smile.

I look closely at him for a faint second and he does not look sinister. He gives out the vibe that I get from Xavier, unusual good people, the ones who will sacrifice their lives for others. When the shore is about to submerge, even the habitant birds leave it alone to drown. That’s the nature we ought to follow, when it gets hard, too hard, we out to be selfish in our own bubble. It’s a group survival, my subconscious reminds me. Ah this wind of changes in me!

Keeping my subconscious shut for time being, I went inside to find out that it was a small room which I guess Ayan uses to store his food supplements. The room ain’t any different than other rooms of treehouses, the only thing that makes it unique is its hidden self and unlike other entry doors, it has a pushing wall as its door. It is a natural room made of hard layers of Merlin's oldest and strongest tree. There is nothing else in this room except for tins, water bottles, and an air pod. Others came in to inspect in hopes to find something new but they were greeted with disappointment. If the cover doesn’t meet the expectations, we welcome disappointment with disappointment.

Out of all those thousand questions, I decided to go with the one that had me most bizarre. “Are you still working with Zed?”, I ask when I was satisfied with the disappointment this room bestowed upon me. Ayan got confused with my question and raised his eyebrows at me to ask his pardon. “Zed?”, I ask furthermore emphasizing the Proper noun.

“Who is Zed?”, Ayan asks with a tone of little stutter that showed his confusion. I study his confused expressions to learn if he was playing dumb and I realized that he was not being sinister. “He made that up, that story about Ayan being his friend”, I announce the conclusion my mind made up after studying Ayan.

I went further into the room to pick up a lying air pod but before I could get a hold onto them Ayan sprinted and tossed them aside. “I’ll tell you about this after I’ve got my confidence in you”, he informs being cautious. His being cautious is vice-versa. I hum in response and take a good look at the walls hoping to find patterns or anything but again this room disappointed me.

“So Zed?”, Ayan asks this phrase leaving it hanging in the air for us to comprehend that he wants to know what great deeds this Zed guy did. Xavier took the responsibility of filling Ayan in about how Zed deceived us all.

Till Xavier wraps up his storytelling it was a pause on asking questions to Ayan. I shifted my focus to Keit and Kelly. “So, how you know about Ayan?”, I threw the major question at them. “Through Zed”, Keit responds immediately with confidence. This can mean two things, either he’s being honest or he’s being fake confident to avoid suspicions. Keit got the confidence and his face shows certainty. My only chance to clear my doubts from Keit is through Kelly, she can’t hold onto fake confidence because she’s gullible. “Elaborate please, Kelly”, I ask directly her and she didn’t flinch or lost her composure. “We overheard him talking with Zain in the hallways. It was around the time of supper I guess and so Keit decided to follow Zed through while Zain went on another floor to advise people from skipping supper. Zed went into the security room and we waited outside, after he left we went in and took a look around and found the picture of Ayan. So we knew and ya, security room is where Kiet got the blueprints of the island from”, Kelly explained it in a manner that convinced me that she lived the part which she mentioned in form of explanation. “Anything else we should know?”, Zain asks from behind and Keit shook his head in refusal. He’s being honest, my guts are confining it’s everything in these two asking my brain to do the same. I hummed and overheard Xavier's storytelling which is about to reach its climax. “Anything we should know?”, Keit throws my question at me. “We got weapons, real weapons”, I confess. It’s up to him to take my answer as an admission or threat.

“You can listen to Xavier for other pieces we know about”, Zain advised the two and they were quick to raise their rabbit ears towards Xavier.

I decided to put my confidence in these two for time being. Silver is the most innocent one here, she’s trying to catch up on everything from both sides. She’s listening to Xavier like she’s hearing a bedtime story. Besides Zain, she’s the one who has no doubts from my side. I ain’t got no doubts for Xavier too…. Keit and Kelly too…. And after Ayan answers our questions then maybe him too….. I decided to leave my skepticism aside for some time. Maybe there is something peaceful about Heather that comforts individuals' dark judgment.

“You trust them?”, Zain whispers asking me for my judgment and I smile faintly raising a corner of my lip and chewing my inner lip. I nod as the answer to his question when Xavier announced that he finished his storytelling.

Ayan noticed Silver’s eyes moving back and fro from tin to the bottles. “You want one?”, he asks picking up a tin from the floor. Silver quickly glanced at me for consent. She waited, looking at me with stifled eagerness. “You will run out of supply soon”, I remind Ayan and he laughed it off like he had hidden supply underground. “We can always get it from the facility”, he informs handing the tin to Silver and I nod for her confirmation. The way he makes this sound so easy I wish breaking into the facility was this easy. Maybe he practiced this way before, that’s why he’s so sure.

“You eat it first”, Silver demands and I almost laughed at her defensive nature. She’s learning and I’m happy that she is. Ayan laughed a laugh of embarrassment and took a bite from the tin for Silver's satisfaction.

Silver got delighted with the food she got that she quit hearing anything further and focused on restoring her energy.

“My turn I guess”, Ayan announces understanding his role-play. To his this volunteering, everyone except for Silver gathered around him making him the center of interest.

“First of all, I do not know Zed and whatever he told you about me is true except for me being his friend. I’m a journalist from the Times of India. My crime branch team got a tip from outside about Arbmtys that’s why we decided to undertake this sting operation along with other nations. I volunteered and I’m the only one among the lost journalists and cops who survived”, I interrupted him in between when I heard about the cops.

“Let me guess, you were the third one, the unknown one to travel to Arbmtys along with two cops?”, I ask him and I do know that I’ll make a fool of myself because the element I’m putting forward for him is of 2007 and he traveled here weeks ago. “No, the third one is still unknown and two cops were the agents from the crime branch and narcotics branch. I know their names, I guess. Era Sachdev and Aarav Sachdev. This is the case of 2007”, Ayan enlightened me on the unknown case which I knew somewhere in my heart to be true after hearing Zain. So my parents really died here. The weird thing is that I’m supposed to feel something thing, pain, agony, anger, shock, but I felt nothing. They died, I felt the sentiments back in 2007, I’m not letting any feelings take over me and I do not intend on feeling the same emotions as before. I’m quiet and I think I'd like to be quiet for a good amount of time because I’m absorbing.

Ayan waited for a moment hoping for me to start a conversation but I was too absorbed to be responsive and unwillingly Zain took the lead, “Those cops were her parents”, he informed others. He’s following the group survival rules.

“They are humanoids now”, Ayan confessed being straightforward and this was the sentence that sent me back to 2007.

***