Sootputra: The Unsung Hero

On Death Bed

Why am I still alive.?

I thought that it had ended...the pain,....the suffering,......

...The Burden

The coughing blood is warm, too warm.

All this time my principles, my ideals, my vows, my........life...

Was it just a waste, a small part of this epic or did my existence even mattered at all?

How will they even remember me?

Or should I have changed my path when they said I can?

A smile imbued with guilt and relief stretched on the warriors face.

hehehe....coughs but not even blood comes out this time. It's still a little past dusk. His throat feels parched, dry as a drought in the land, he calls for someone but his voice doesn't disturb the cold hung air. 

The body feels heavy, the feeling in his hand still lingers. He can still move the palm, the fingers but his left arm is in front of his eyes, detached, lifeless on the ground still bleeding. The phantom limb is real, it pains too as if a detya(ghost/demon) is playing a trick on him.

why!?

WHY!!!!!?........

WHY AM I STILL HERE!!!!?

sobs, cries and tears who were always an unwelcomed guests his whole life, even they have forsaken him today. There is not enough in his body to give him but still, he is somehow here.

Have I not suffered enough?..........Have I not Endured enough?

Have I not given enough?   Tries to say softly, harshly. Anyway, anything? but no one heard his voice or rather there was no voice to be heard.

I can't even speak, can't even cry,    can't even .......... Die!

Please, someone, help me,  I can't bear it anymore

He feels miserable, helpless like a dying pig in a sewer of blood.

I just want it all to end

.

.

"It can't end like this Adhirathi"

 A voice, It definitely was a voice he heard it, he knows it.

It's you, isn't it Keshav?

A voice so tender, so enigmatic, there can't be any other voice like that. Whenever he speaks it feels like many people are in sync talking to him. Like what he says is right, there can't be any other truth.

It's definitely him. 

There was no answer, all he heard was the gushing of a cool breeze against his ear, so cold was the night that even his loose skin shrivelled but or was it due to the excess blood loss?

He can't see what's happening but he definitely can see a light behind him, getting brighter, coming closer.  

There was a pull in its heavy comfortable presence. It's coming closer, such a warmth feeling as if the coldness in the air was afraid of it, it hides away when it reaches him.

"You still radiate like the Sun, you know..."

He looks up, black curly hair land on a night sky shoulder, his skin was like a sky without any moon, soothing aura, unlike the comfortable warmth that had suddenly enveloped both of them emanated from him, light blue eyes that looked directly below at the fallen broken man with a smile as subtle as it always been.