Rudra was now in a place worse than death, where the passing of a single moment felt like an entire century. This island was a hell; its barren soil and the infinite sea were enough to break the spirit of any human being.

  Several hours had passed. Rudra sat on a mound of dirt without moving, like a statue carved from stone. His body was here, but his mind was elsewhere. In the silence of this desolate island, he remembered the old, crumbling walls of his home.

  He remembered that house... which was nothing more than a skeleton of four walls. When the first rains of the monsoon arrived, water would leak from the roof, falling into vessels with a rhythmic tapp-tapp. That house could neither stop the rain nor the scorching heat of the afternoon. In the summers, when the sun spat fire, the roof of that house would begin to simmer like a furnace.

  Yet, even in that hellish poverty, Rudra never felt the heat or the cold. He remembered how his Father would wipe his sweat with his torn shirt but would never let the breeze from their old table fan diminish for Rudra. He remembered his Mother, who would burn near the stove in the sweltering heat herself, yet always tried to provide coolness to Rudra with the hem of her saree.

  They had no money, but they had built a wall of maternal love and hard work around their son—a wall that neither the rain could pierce nor the sun could breach. Sitting on this barren island today, he realized that the sting of death was nothing compared to the hardships his parents had happily endured to protect him.

  A tear fell from his eye and was absorbed into the parched earth of this wasteland.

  A curtain of memories began to unfold before Rudra's eyes. He remembered how his Father would pour blood and sweat into the cement factory day and night. The toxic dust and heavy machinery of the factory would exhaust his body, but never his spirit. He often returned home late at night, a white layer of cement settled upon his clothes, but there was always a gift for Rudra in his hands. Sometimes new clothes, sometimes a colorful toy, or sometimes new books. He would hide his exhaustion in his bag just so the smile on Rudra's face would remain.

  Not just his Father—his Mother, too, had mortgaged her life for Rudra's future. Rudra remembered the days when he was so small that his Mother would take him along to the neighboring houses where she worked. She would clean and scrub in people's homes, becoming exhausted to the core, but whenever she looked at Rudra, all her weariness would transform into a motherly smile.

  Time passed and Rudra grew up a little. The days of wandering around holding his Mother's saree were over. Rudra had started going to school. Today, he felt how great a burden must have been lifted from his Mother's heart back then. He never had to worry about fees or schoolbooks because his Father had always paid the price of his education by sacrificing his own hunger and his own needs.

  Rudra took a cold breath. Sitting on this barren island, he realized how fortunate he was; though they had little money, their love was no less than a palace.

  Rudra was perhaps not very sharp with schoolbooks or mental studies, but he was the happiest among his friends on the field. The company of his friends was his true peace. As usual, after finishing her work, his Mother would come to pick him up from school.

  One day, while returning home, Rudra saw his friends racing by on shimmering bicycles. A spark of desire rose in his innocent heart. He held his Mother's hand and asked with great hope, "Ma, all my friends have cycles..."

  His Mother looked at the glow on his face and smiled, saying, "Really? So, does my son want one too?"

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  "Yes!" Rudra began to jump with joy. He felt as if his Mother possessed a magic wand that would fulfill his wish in the very next moment.

  Mother lovingly picked him up in her arms and, stroking his hair, said, "son, when you grow a little older, we will get you a big cycle. For now, just focus on your studies, okay?"

  Those words from his Mother echoed in Rudra's ears like a punishment. In his innocence, he didn't understand what "growing older" meant; he only felt that he had been denied. In anger and sorrow, he insisted on getting down from his Mother's arms and, upon reaching home, covered his face on the bed and began to cry. Mother stood there watching, thinking that a child's stubbornness lasts only a few days and then everything would be fine.

  But little did they know that the time for "everything to be fine" was about to end forever that day.

  Suddenly, someone knocked loudly and violently on the old door of the house. That thumping was so terrifying and loud that Rudra's crying stopped in an instant. Mother fearfully and hurried to open the door, and Rudra too ran and hid behind her saree.

  The police were standing in front of them. Outside, the blue and red lights of an ambulance were screaming in the dark alley. A police officer asked with a grave face:

  "Is your name Siddhi Aditya?"

  Rudra did not understand why the police had come to their house, but in that silence, he could clearly hear his own heartbeat.

  "Then you must know Siddharth Aditya? Why?" The policeman asked in his heavy voice, his eyes fixed on Siddhi's face.

  Siddhi's heartbeat quickened, but she composed herself. "Yes, he is my husband. But... but why are you asking all this? What has happened?" There was an unknown fear in her question that was slowly spreading through her entire body.

  The officer said nothing. He simply gave a silent signal to the other soldier standing behind him.

  In the next moment, the rear door of the ambulance opened with a terrifying creak. A stretcher was pulled out, upon which lay a body wrapped in a white sheet. There were marks of dirt and dust on the sheet, but the face was still covered.

  "Who... who is this?" Siddhi asked, her voice trembling. Her fear was beginning to turn into a certainty, but her mind was not ready to accept it.

  Without saying a word, the policeman slowly removed the sheet from the face of the corpse.

  As soon as Siddhi saw that face, the ground slipped from beneath her feet. Those same eyes, those same features... it was Siddharth. Her throat opened to cry, but no sound came out. She became as if turned to stone. Rudra, who was standing there holding her saree, still could not understand. He peeked through the door and thought innocently, "Is Papa sleeping? But why is he on that thing?"

  But when they both went closer to the corpse, Siddhi's mind began to play games with her. Grief and shock had numbed her senses. She looked at the corpse and asked with a strange hope, "Who... who is this?"

  She felt that if she denied it, perhaps this truth would become a lie. Perhaps Siddharth would return from the factory right now.

  The policeman took off his cap and took a deep breath. "Ma'am, we found this body in the back section of the 'Tenj Cement Factory.' A terrible accident has occurred there."

  Hearing the name of the Tenj Cement Factory, Siddhi's remaining courage also shattered. Yet her mind was still screaming that this could not be her husband. That face was so filled with dirt and wounds that her fear was preventing her from seeing the truth.

  The officer signaled his colleagues to put the body back into the ambulance. "It seems we will have to do a little more investigation. The identification is not yet completely clear. If you want to ask anything or find out more information, you can come to the Police Station."

  Without any clear answer, the door of the ambulance closed and those blue lights disappeared into the darkness. Siddhi stood there at the door, paralyzed—it was neither proven that it was Siddharth, nor was there any relief found that he was alive.

  Rudra stood there, holding his Mother's hand.

  The piercing afternoon sun tore through the curtain of Rudra's memories. The flashback was over, and reality was crashing against his body like hot iron. The heat of the island had turned his throat into a desert. Thirst was so intense that his lips began to dry and crack.

  Rudra fixed his tired eyes on the blue surface of the sea. The lesson he had read in schoolbooks echoed in his mind—"Sea water is not fit for drinking." But at this moment, his logic had lost to his agony. He just wanted coolness, even if it were death.

  He moved toward the water with stumbling steps and sat on his knees. Without thinking for a second, he submerged his entire face into that salty water. As the first gulp of water went down his throat, he realized the books were right. It wasn't water; it was boiling salt. But Rudra did not stop. He kept drinking until the water entered his nose.

  "Cough... cough...!"

  Rudra jerked his head out. He began to have difficulty breathing. He started coughing loudly, and with every cough, thick, red blood fell from his mouth onto the soil. He felt as if someone had filled the inside of his throat with a handful of broken glass.

  But the real hell started inside him. The fierce heat of the sun and the salt of the sea combined to start a chemical reaction. The water he had drunk went into his lungs and stomach and began to turn into salt crystals. His lungs were filling with salt instead of air. He was agonizing, rolling in the dirt, but no human could stay alive in this condition.

  Rudra's final effort also failed. His body stiffened, his breath hitched forever, and on the barren soil of that small island, Rudra died again.

  Darkness spread everywhere. It was neither hell nor heaven, just an infinite silence. Then, tearing through that silence, a heavy, mysterious voice echoed:

  "YOU FAILED!"