I had been so stupid that I wanted to bang my head on the walls. So extremely dumb and moronic. I might as well have walked right into a wide gaping hole. Of stupidity. When we reached up to the upper celing level by the hooked escalator and jumped onto the platform, both Raghav and I were confused what to do. I rushed to the elevator to take us to the surface, but it had been shut down. We were stuck, and my stupid, unthinking brain had brought us at a dead end. The people around would spot us and attack the innocent human behind me. And I would be unable to protect him. I didn’t know what to do as I dropped my head into my hands.

“Melga!” a shout reached my ears, piercing my ears. “Get away from the filthy maggot!” I looked up to see my father standing on a Path a bit of a distance away. He was looking at me disdainfully, and as if he was planning to kill Raghav to protect me. A chill ran down my spine, and my brain froze. My head felt numb and useless, and I didn’t know what to do as my father started making his way towards us. Shuddering, I turned to face Raghav, who looked as shaken as me. I turned my gaze downwards, from where a few policemen were glaring up at me and Raghav, and a few other doing something with their radio devices and the lift. The lift!

I rushed back to the main lift that could take us back onto the surface. It was working again. The only problem was it was not in our favour. It was going down.

I dashed towards Raghav, excitement and adrenaline bursting through my veins, as I grabbed his arm and tugged him towards a path on my left. “Hey!” he protested. “What are you doing!”

I kept dragging him through a maze of paths. People looked out at both of us running in front of their houses with apprehension and fear, their eyebrows touching their hairlines, but I kept on running. Breaths came in short bursts and my legs protested. My head was screaming at me to stop lest I fall of into oblivion, but I kept on running. We passed at least ten Paths, my legs were starting to ache, but the adrenaline pumped me, and the fear of getting caught, and I kept on pushing forward. “The South lift!” I yelled back to Raghav.

“What?” he looked at me with his brow furrowed. “Someone is right behind us!”

I looked back and cursed. In my rush to get to the south lift I had passed closer to my house and my dad was right on our tail. I risked a glance towards the rapidly receding east lift. The doors dinged open, and three policemen rushed out. Our eyes met, and those three black pairs showed no mercy.

But I had something up my sleeve. If the west lift was working, then so were the others. All lifts were connected to one common mechanism, and worked in certain synchrony. If only I could get to the south lift in time…

“Melga!” came a shrill voice from behind me. I noticed the fright in it as I turned around. My father had grabbed hold of Raghav’s t-shirt. His knuckles clenched together as he held tight and his eyes were unflinching, along with his hate. He wasn’t planning on releasing it. The policemen were still a few paths behind, and they had figured out what I was planning to do. But if they got to the south lift on the ground level before me then it was game over.

I stopped dead and faced my father. That unrelenting look in his eyes seriously scared me, and I tried not to let him see me tremble. I had to be strong, and I had to help Raghav.

“Dad,” I spoke in a soft voice as I put a hand on his fist that clenched Raghav’s t-shirt. Raghav stared at me in a terrified wide-eyed expression, anxiety filled in.

“Why are you doing this, Melga?” my dad asked me in an equally low voice. I detected emotion in his voice. It cut through to my heart like a knife, and I couldn’t ignore it.

“He’s innocent, dad. He’s just a boy,” I pleaded.

“This is not safe for you,” he begged back with his eyes.

“But I can’t let them kill him.” We gazed into each others eyes for a long time. I could hear the policemen getting closer, but I didn’t break the gaze. Finally he looked down. “Leave the human, dad. I promise I’ll be back as soon as I get him to safety.”

I could see his fingers slowly unclenching. Released from the claws of the bird. “Oh, I just don’t want you to care so much, Melga. Not for a human,” I heard him say as we started running away again. I had to brush a tear away from my eye which I didn’t know had appeared there, and tugged Raghav towards the south lift. We arrived, breathless and panting, our lungs and calves on fire, as I pressed the button. The lift moved. For a split second, I looked downwards. The policemen were still a distance away from the lift, their cars racing through the streets. They had lost their chance and the south lift was making its way up to us.

“Look,” Raghav’s hand was quivering as he pointed directly downwards, at something I hadn’t noticed before. Directly below us, a policeman emerged from the platform of the ground level south lift. He had a radio communicator in his hand and an empty car parked next to him. My worst fears popped into my head. There were policemen on the lift.

I turned back in a frenzy, only to see that the other policemen were only a few Paths away. That gave us twenty seconds, thirty at max. The lift wasn’t too slow either, and if they beat us to the south lift they could beat us to the other lifts too. All ways to the surface were blacked and policemen emerged from both sides. We were trapped.

---

I felt a hand on my back and suddenly jumped. A disembodied hand was floating out from a door. It grabbed my shoulder and pulled me inside. With all my will power I managed no to cry out, but I grabbed Raghav and pulled him along with me.

The hand with the iron grip pulled me in through a small, unnoticeable door beside the lift. I gazed around in the utter darkness, but it was hard to see. A face emerged before me, as a small flame flickered into existence. In its deep orange glow, I saw an old, wrinkly face. The dwarf faced me with a seriousness in his expression that managed to seep in through my skin and make me feel very solemn and grim. A long white beard flowed down from his small dark face, and his eyes went deep into his unfathomable soul. I could feel Raghav’s hand trembling in mine, but I held on with a grip. Yet mine wasn’t half as strong as the grip with which the old man gripped my shoulder.

“You must leave. Now!” the man said, his voice heavy as it fell over me like a blanket. I couldn’t not listen to him. It was hypnotising and mesmerising. I finally looked away to what he was showing me. A staircase, climbing upwards and upwards into the darkness. I couldn’t see beyond a curve, but I knew where it would finally lead. The surface it called out to me.

The old man jerked me back towards himself. “You have been brave, little girl. Don’t let this boy fall into the clutches of those men outside. You must save him. But I warn you that it will be difficult to come back here after you help him escape. You will forever be a traitor.”

His words weighed on me like heavy chains that bind your hands. I was filled with doubt and indecision. What was I to do?

I guess the voices of the policemen emerging from the lift outside made my decision for me. I felt it was my duty to get Raghav back home. Since he had come down there in search of me, I assumed it as my responsibility to help him escape. And the fear of the policemen combined with the wrath and hate of my father was enough to send me dashing through the staircase. Raghav was close behind me, breathing heavily as we climbed the first flight and took a turn. We kept on climbing and climbing, step by step, until the only sounds were our panting and our footsteps. I don’t know how much we climbed, minutes or hours or day. Something in my feet kept me going, my fingers interlocked with Raghav’s in the darkness in which it was impossible to see each others faces. We went upwards and upwards, the only string to life and hope was each other as we held on, and finally there came a door. And beyond it, the sun.