Viriya, after blabbering in Hindi, didn't catch on to what Bhavakari said. She was blaming herself in her mind, asking why she had to open her mouth and why she needed to talk at all then.
When Makriva put his hand on her shoulder, she snapped back. Makriva was saying something about talking tomorrow and about the tokens of Maam Khanti.
Mother, looking at them for a while, which seemed like longer than it was, said,
"Sure,
give me those tokens.
And is there any idea of the bangle?
Where that might be?"
Makriva didn't say anything. Viriya thought of saying something, but stopped herself.
Bhavakari saying, "Ok", came closer to Viriya. After holding her hand, she said, "Come sit on this chair."
Viriya looked at Makriva hearing that. He nodded slightly looking at Viriya.
Viriya went and sat on the chair next to the desk. Mother, coming forward, leaned down to the floor and held her hand. After murmuring something, she closed her eyes. She stayed there like that for a while. She murmured similar things cuple of times. When she opened her eyes, she said, "Yes, go to sleep. We can talk tomorrow."
Makriva asked, coming forward, "Did you find it?"
"No, something was blocking it," Bhavakari said, a little worried.
Makriva kept standing there at beginning, but slowly went and sat beside Viriya.
"Anyway, both of you go to sleep. We will talk tomorrow," Bhavakari instructed them.
They both sat there for a while, then Makriva stood up and said, "Sleepy sloth, freshen up a little before sleeping."
Viriya followed Makriva without any question. When they were out of the room, she asked in a whisper,"What ma was doing then?"
Makriva didn't say anything at first. When they reached the bathroom, passing the room Ownad came out from, he said, "Do you remember the coin divination? At Upavana?"
"Yes, where I confirmed—"
Cutting Viriya off, Makriva said, "Yes, Ma did the same thing with better accuracy."
Viriya didn't say anything to that. She just stood there.
Makriva said, "You go freshen up first, then I will."
Viriya went into the bathroom. When she was leaving after taking a bath and freshening up, she was remembering the first day here. She, thinking herself as, she was a male, forgot how to pee. She almost wet herself that day, but somehow managed. She still didn't know if she was doing it right or not. But it was working none the less.
After that, Makriva took Viriya to her room as he went to freshen up. Viriya was back to her own but unknown room.
The withered plants from before weren't inside her room; she thought to ask about them later. The bed and bookshelf were on opposite sides of the room, and in between there was a stained glass window. Next to the bookshelf there was a desk and chair with an unlit light similar to the lamp posts. And next to the bed was a closet. Viriya went and opened the closet. She saw some similar clothes she had ripped on the accident day to bandage herself. Also different clothes. Seeing them she just thought, yes, all me, all mine.
Then she went to the bed and tried to sleep. She hadn't eaten anything at night; she was hungry. She got up from the bed, almost tripping over the gown she was wearing, similar to Bhavakari's. And went outside.
Makriva was coming towards the room. Viriya asked, seeing him, "Why not tell memory Problem to Ma and Di?"
With a paused sigh, Makriva said, "I think Maam explained it better in her token than what I would have said."
She said that to start the conversation at least. She trusted Makriva's judgment enough to not ask about it.
"Hm ok," Viriya said looking at weary Makriva.
Makriva was already looking exhausted from all the journey. Viriya didn't want to bother him too much. But it was eating at her for a while, so she asked,"And yes not mother name Bhavakari? What Thenra?"
After Makriva explained what that is, she asked,"Hm ok,
...
Then I Thenra too?"
Makriva said, laughing, "You? Thenra? Never."
She asked the question the main reason she came outside "There I can eat something? Not eat dinner."
Makriva, slightly pointing to the direction, said, "Sure, go to the room on the left, there is the kitchen. On the top shelves some snacks are there. Eat those."
As he finished, he started walking away and said, "And bai, I am going to sleep."
Viriya went towards the kitchen. Hearing her, Bhavakari went there. Seeing Viriya, Bhavakari opened a cabinet, and looking there, went ahead and handed a container from the cabinet to Viriya, saying while staying composed, "Don't stay awake for too long, it's already pretty late."
Viriya took the container to her room to eat. It was like a fried or baked savory cookie. After eating, she didn't put the container back in the kitchen anymore and went to sleep pretty quickly.
It was pretty close to morning when everyone at the house slept. The house, the neighbourhood was quiet. In some houses lights were visible from the window.
Viriya was sleeping on her hard wooden bed. And it had a fabric cover on it. At the stained window two curtains were hanging.
The curtain further than Viriya started to move in an unnatural way, like it was alive. The movement was subtle enough that if not looking at it, it would look almost like a normal thing. Slowly it started peeling itself into an illusory curtain. The illusory curtain got separated from the window curtain. And both of the actual curtains stayed at the window. The illusory curtain flew slowly towards Viriya and covered her whole body and the top of the bed. The curtain was partly transparent with some lines vibrating all over it.
Slowly each vibrating line started to disappear one by one rapidly. In the area of the bed covered by the curtain, some small plants started to grow, made out of wood, fabric, dirt, a mixture of them, and some normal plants.
From the tickling of something growing nearby, Viriya opened her eyes. But she didn't. Her eyes were still closed, but she was awake; she was lucid, in her dream? But in real life she couldn't move at all as the curtain was wrapping around her even more. She could move in the dream, but the feeling of not being able to move was still there.
The state was somewhat familiar. It was somewhat similar to the nightmare she had, but it was fundamentally different. She could move in the dream but not actually.
Everything was foggy there; her own hand was hidden from her.
She slowly brought her hands in front of her eyes. When she saw her hand, it was different — shorter fingers, different hand, different palm. It wasn't unfamiliar to her. The hand was her previous hands. The hands were Anish's, or the memory of Anish's. He also had a bangle on his wrist. Two spiraled parts stuck together. One was golden coloured, one was silver coloured. Not too much detail; it might even seem like it was two random scraps of metal shaped into a bangle.
Is this the bangle Makriva and others were talking about?
He had a metallic two-part wristband, but it was nothing like it. Seeing his hands, the old hands, he was concerned. Thinking if he really transmigrated instead of just it being memory distortion.
He calmed himself down thinking it could be just from his memory. After all, a dream is just a manifestation of memories. But he wasn't sure after all what happened with him.
He stood up from the not-visible floor and got struck with something solid. When he brought his face closer, it turned out to be a chair, an old medieval-style chair. After thinking for a little while, he sat on the chair. As soon as he sat down, the fog around him started to fade slowly into him, like a missing part of him was getting internalized. He could finally see himself. He was sitting at the end of a long table. The fog slowly faded down as it went inside of him.
The end of the table was quite different from the side he was sitting at. It was more futuristic, but not what he remembered from movies or what he imagined. It had an ancient feeling even though it was the future. Machines, some robotic statues, a floating chair at the end of the table.
In the chair, someone was sitting. Seeing that, Anish stood up to go towards the figure sitting there. As he stood up, the fog started to come out from Anish again. He still went forward. There was a figure sitting, sleeping on the floating chair. Before the figure could completely fade away, he went closer. It was a known figure to him by now. It was a figure he had seen in the mirror for the past few days.
It was him, or her.
It was Viriya.
Before everything could really fade away, it looked like Viriya was moving slightly.
He walked backwards until he reached the chair again. But before he could sit down, he remembered a voice. A familiar scared voice; it echoed, "Viriya, why did you kill him?"
Then he heard Viriya saying, "He tried to kill me. Come help***"
He remembered the voice he first woke up to here, at the seashore. The scared voice and a confident voice.
The confident voice rang in his mind, "Good job, good job Jarikat. Be less***."
An image flashed of a man, of pretty short height and long messy hair, standing in front of him, looking blank and terrified.
Again the same confident voice rang, "*** his borrowed hand. Now it will***".
Some images flashed in his mind rapidly, almost overlapping with each other — a tall skinny man opening her blindfold, her blocking his hand, walking alone in the night, bickering with Makriva, traveling through a train. Bhavakari, Pannavo, Kratshi, and many others. The less familiar and unknown words of Thamily, the numbers, all became very familiar to him.
This happened for a while until he couldn't distinguish what was really new information and what was just there. When it stopped, he didn't realize he was lying down on the floor. He slowly stood up and again tried to sit on his chair.
Before he could sit again, some vivid images scattered in his mind. It was a grand place; there were many people from different regions. And what seemed like a line of some different language, like an incantation. He didn't understand the meaning, but he memorized it.
He slowly got up and sat on his chair. He sat there without doing anything, holding his own head.
After a while he looked at Viriya. Her eyes were open, but she wasn't really moving. After looking down again with a sigh, he thought, Did her memory leak into me? Or was it just my old memories? Is Viriya a different person?
Anish was spiralling a little.
He kept looking at Viriya at the opposite end, sometimes at his own hands, body, at last he thought,
Even if he is Anish or not, he can't really do anything.
So he chooses to believe again that he is Viriya.
Being Viriya or Anish, both are painful in their own way.
Now being Viriya is a little easier than being Anish.
Anish sat there like that for a while. Once he slowly tried to approach the half-sleeping Viriya, but fog from inside him, enveloped him and he returned to his seat. Because before sitting, he had the memory rush through him, he thought he would get that again with maybe some more information. But he didn't.
After calming himself down, he decided to organize whatever he remembered.
Viriya, her mother Bhavakari, father Pannavo, and late-twenties elder brother Makriva live together.
Now he could understand instinctively that 43 is late twenties in his counting system. After some calculation he came to the conclusion that the number system here is octal and shifted one digit.
And I am just 19, okay. Not that old, hmm.
Viriya is an assistant of a professor at Nalakaynda University. And that's most likely the glasses-wearing man he saw in the memory of her.
Thinking that, he remembered that in the memory distortion he was an assistant of a historian, so he tried to say something to himself, but not able to say anything, he thought,
Well, at least still something is in common — we are basically the same person. No, I am Viriya, that's why I was an assistant before.
Then, remembering the half-cut lines, he remembered the voices again from when he woke up from pain.
So Jarikat didn't try to kill me? So he is the real sufferer here, hmm.
It wasn't like he was discussing Jarikat; he couldn't do anything in the dream at that moment without having more information. Viriya was teased as his girlfriend — did I see him before?
He tried to remember what he had seen in the memory but couldn't decide who the actual Jarikat was.
He sat there remembering all the faces. Looking at the place she was in, he remembered the grand palace and the many people there, and the line. In her mind, she repeated that. Nothing happened. She sat there not doing anything.
She thought if he should sleep there, but seeing Viriya half asleep and that it was a dream, she decided not to do it.
She was still lucid in the dream, but outside of it, in her room, she was still sleeping on her bed. The disappearing illusory curtain on Viriya completely disappeared, and the plants around her withered instantly, like those were only alive because of the curtain. The wooden ones stayed as they were, because of their hard structure.
It was almost dawn. Viriya kept sleeping there, along with others in their house.
___
In a small, dirty room situated in Nalakaynda, Jarikat was sleeping. The sound of people bickering was coming from outside.
On the table beside Jarikat, a wooden box wrapped with cloth was sitting in silence. It started to rattle, more like the thing inside it was rattling.
Jarikat, who had made himself sleep through the outside sounds, woke up hearing that rattling. He was about to get up from the bed when his long hair got stuck at the bedside, as much of his hair was covering his face like he hadn't washed or fixed it for a few days. He almost ripped off those hairs while trying to go towards the box. He didn't need to do that; he went towards the box and watched it moving and the rattling sound coming from it.
He looked at the box in silence in the room; the sounds of people outside didn't register to him. Looking at it for a while, he uttered with a slight smile, which was replaced with dread in that same moment, "The bangle." His breathing got heavier,"Viriya. She's Alive."
Saying that, he took the box and ran outside through the rotten smells around him in the twilight of the dawn.
He came back to the room, put the box in a ripped, overly used bag, and left the room without looking back.
He ran as fast as he could, barefoot, passing by other people, leaving the door of his room open.