“Do you ever use your brain before doing anything? Like a normal person?” Phimine was shaking my shoulders. Her own face was red and eyes puffy, and her brows were creased in worry.

I knew it was a rhetorical question, but I was itching to answer it. I had to control myself from blurting out an attempt at sounding clever. Besides, Raghav was watching from behind, a little wary, and i was probably going to embarrass myself.

Dusk had fallen, and the sand had started rapidly cooling. Small twinkling lights were starting to pop up on one side of the sky. The stars we had heard about. Huge balls of gases far away sending us some brightness and guidance in the dark night. It was satisfying to look at them, watching them whisper secretly amongst themselves, planning out the destiny of everyone in the universe. I was fascinated.

Phimine wrapped me in a tight hug, while Raghav watched awkwardly. “Dad went looking for you to the school, the museum, Urna’s house. Nobody knew where you were. Again,” she cried.

Guilt burst through me. Just because I had a bad day didn’t mean I should put my loved ones through so much torture. I immediately regretted my actions. The suffering i was causing broke my heart. Next time, I would tell them something and then leave. Leaving them without a word seemed selfish and ungrateful now, and I decided not to torment them so much with my silent absences.

Raghav was rubbing his bare arms with his hands. The temperature was rapidly dropping and even I could feel a slight chill in my bones. “It’s getting late,” said Raghav, “I should get going.”

I could tell that he was worried about getting home. His village members had long since disappeared while he had been helping me hunt for the hole to lead me home. We had searched in the sand for almost an hour, talking about some things. But our conversation was a little tension filled, their was an undercurrent of anxiety and unease.

After a long time of relentless shuffling through the sand, leaving behind an indiscernible pattern with our footsteps, the trapdoor flew open to reveal Phimine. She had popped out and rushed to me and cried all over me.

“I should too. Get home safe,” I called out, raising my hand.

He waved in return, then jogged away in the direction the others had gone. I felt something lift from the atmosphere, but just as immediately another new feeling of dread set in, burdening me with a dull pressure that made me feel like I couldn’t breathe. I tried getting the air into my lungs, to get myself to breathe freely, but it felt like they were contracted. What would dad say?

The fear that had blossomed in my chest was choking me, suffocating me. As we descended down the elevator, I could feel the pressure increasing with the layers of soil above us. My heart thudded in my ear with trepidation, and as I tried to take in deep breaths they came in short and ragged. A splitting headache took over my head, trying to consume my brain with its massive jaws. Oxygen couldn’t make its way to my head and everything was feeling a bit dull and painful. I tried to figure out what was happening, but my brain refused to respond.

I had never been so terrified of my father, not in my entire life. But yet, as the lift went deeper into the earth, I felt I was approaching my doom. My stomach had decided to stay behind on the surface, and my heart was threatening to burst out of my chest. I could already imagine my father standing in front of the doors when the doors opened, boiling with rage, shaking my paralysed body. The pain in my head was spiking as I saw the lift level get closer to the ceiling area. My lungs refused to take in any oxygen, and black spots started dancing in front of my eyes. I leaned forward and kept my hands on the wall so I could keep standing on my wobbly legs, and a strange chill ran down my spine. I gazed down at my trembling hands to see my veins throbbing out, and my vision was pulsating in front of me. What the hell was happening?

My body was completely out of my control as the lift doors opened. I stumbled out onto the platform and collapsed on the ground at my father’s feet, as the entire world went dark around me.

---

Something gushed into my mouth. A tasteless liquid, being forced into me as I felt it trickle into my oesophagus and windpipe. I sat up coughing, to see Limia standing over me and trying to get me to gulp down a few spoonfuls of water. I sputtered and retched before looking up at her.

She may have been shorter than me, but she had this whole aura around her that said intimidating. The dark, serious vibes she radiated made me stay away from her on a particularly clumsy day. Her ancient black eyes had many secrets buried inside them that she would take to her grave. She had a healthy frame, neither rotund nor slim, and she always wore a simple grey apron over her clothes. A grey glove covered her left hand. I had never seen her without it. The leather glove had hidden her hand from us since as long as I could remember, and I had often wondered what was behind it but my replies were always silencing glares.

One thing you had to admit was that her cooking was MARVELLOUS. She could whip up anything if you gave her the ingredients, time and liberty. And it always came out perfect. And after having stayed with us for such a long time, she had come to know our moods. She could always tell what would make us feel better in which situations, what would help in a celebration. By a slight upward curving of her thin pursed lips, I could always tell she was planning to make something new to surprise us. In fact, she was like one of the family, no longer a servant.

“Your father fell asleep after sitting beside you for two hours. It has been an exhausting day for him,” she explained, handing me a glass of water.

I sat up and gulped down the liquid I needed for survival. “What about Phimine?”

“She is also asleep in her room. She wanted me to wake her up when you regained consciousness, but I’ll let you decide it.”

“It’s alright, Limia. Let her get some sleep,” I replied, assessing my body. The suffocation was gone, thank goodness. The pressure on my chest had become difficult to handle. There was still a dull ache in my head, and I was fighting to keep my eyes open. My limbs felt week and useless, and the blanket that covered me was soaked in sweat.

“We found you with a high fever. Would you like some soup? Or would you rather have it later?” Limia asked me, already getting up.

I smiled up at her. “Sure. You can get it.”

As she left the room, I stole a glance at the clock. It was almost 3 am. And while my father and sister had both fallen asleep, she had watched over me, tried to feed me, taken care of me. I could think of her as a cook, a governess, or another mother. Her concern really touched my heart, and I wanted to tell the wonderful woman that I loved her.

There was a knock on my door. “You don’t need to knock, Limia,” I said, a little befuddled.

The door creaked open, and a small, dark form entered the room. My father walked over to my bed and sat down on the edge, not looking up a single time. He stared at his hands, fiddling with his fingers with his back hunched over as he sat in silence. Then he finally looked up to me with those black eyes of his. Those black, remorseful, frightened, furious, beautiful burning eyes. “Promise me, Melga,” he took my hand. “Promise me that you will never go up to the surface again.”