Hiraeth |✔

Insulator

A fresh day unfolded like a new leaf in a book; ready to be scribbled and wipe out the epics of the day. During the early phase in the morning, Scarlett felt warmth drain into her body, when outside, the damp wind chiselled through the air, carving the elements in nature into frozen ice chunks.
It was like almost breaking the law of nature: feeling warm when she was supposed to shudder with cold. It was a kind of warmth you feel when two human membranes undergo friction. When Scarlett opened her eyelids wide, they stayed wide on recognizing Zen. Her head was resting on his head and his long, eloquent hands wrapped around her tiny body. Scarlett stirred up, her every feature evidently alarmed.

"I thought you were dead or probably in jail for shooting the man who dragged me out."

"I am the definition for self-control."

Scarlett felt marred emotions. Each conquering the last one. Yesterday night's spectacles and the surprise of the dusk were all baffled.

"God listens to our prayers Zen! Are you not hurt? Don't leave me again. If you do I shall follow you to the death! How did you come here!"

"Scarlett, you came here, I didn't. I saw that you were sleeping as if you were on a hammock tied to the Palm trees in Bali. I mean, when I consider the things that happened last night, nobody dared to even close their eyes"

"Hush Zen! How polar we are! Sleep lifts me from the turbulence I am obliged to move in. I sleep too much and you never do. That's the underlying bond in our alliance"

And when Scarlett navigated her head around, she found iron bars implanted ahead of her. She perceived the cubical confinement she was displaced to, during the night.

"Where are we Zen!? Where are others?" Her cracked voice split the tension around her.
She slowly moved her hands on his chest to feel an 'L' shaped bump against her skin. Her pounding heart skipped a beat. Zen gave her an assuring smile.

"They are in the next cellars. In between the havoc, a few of them ran into this building and you happen to come to my cellar! Didn't you see me? Luckily, the guards didn't change our cellars!"

"I saw nothing but dust and mud, smoking as if they were on fire. I barely remember anything except for her fragile hands that shifted under the cement block!"

The previous night was turmoil. The earth manoeuvred with skill. The vicious melody of the roaring sound of the plate movements shattered the already fractured walls of the cellar Scarlett was in. The timely action of the shabby guard could save three of the innocent souls while a slice of that huge roof descended upon the girl with the sword-like nose. It flattened her for life! The dust particles moved around the body in harmony with the earthquake. Scarlett witness a part of her being crushed by the cement block.
People unconsciously become a part of Scarlett and when they are hurt it was almost like hurting her! She reckons that she isn't made up of skin and bones, rather comprised of people around her!

"Do you know what they might do with us, we cant certainly escape these iron bars," She moved closer to him; hugging on his side. She slowly passed the electricity of anxiety into him. He didn't flinch for he surely was an insulator.

"Scar, have you ever spared a thought about your saddling heart? Zen inquired her tracing the carved lines on her wrist.

She didn't reply. "Only if I had one," she believed.

"A human might think of it when it stops beating and by the time you do, you will be cremated layers below the earth or placed pompously on a pyre to which mortals will torch and the blaze will consume you as a whole. That's how I feel presently- lost and dead. By the time I have realised the significance of everything I had- my family, the water and the food I devoured or even the soft bed I laid on, practically everything I had a few days before- they are snatched away. We are mutually inert towards each other; me and my sophisticated privileges! After all, space is termed empty when no tangible matter exists there, it is empty even if air subsists there!
Naturally, the more hours you were away from me, the more valuable you have become to me, Scar!"

"You just spoke on behalf of mankind."

Scarlett wanted to finally ask him the question that haunted her for the day she met him.
"How were you kidnapped?"

Zen had his left eyebrow raised, it produced an expression of 'I already saw that coming'.

"Hm..I would usually go to this salon called Rey. I mean it has been a year since I started to. On a random day, I was off to the salon. The hairdresser was, like always, skilful in his craft. The cashier, in particular, I hated. He was a different one, not the usual lad. I passed down a furnished aisle in the building. All I remember is a feeling of numbness that tackled my nerves down. The leather seats started looking like a long sombre carpet. I saw objects lose their rich colour. Everything went black; practically, I got a glimpse into outer space. The floor hauled me down. When I regained my senses I, along with those big guards, were in a white capsule, gliding in the air."

"Oh! Wow! Everything went so smoothly!"
Her face was turning into opal-purple. The blood seemed to stop stirring through her facial nerves.

If only Zen knew how he was precisely kidnapped- all the while the hairdresser styled his hair into perfection, was involved in another act of malice. The needle containing the knockout drug squeezed enough amount of it into Zen's roughneck. The man pulled the needle back carefully while trimming his beard like mowing the lawn grass.

Scarlett tried to unwind from Zen. She slowly reclined her body, placing her hands to her side gently but in return, a hollow sound echoed. A sound that is different when you hit your hand against cement more like the sound that comes when steel touches steel!

They together spun their head, their sceptical eyes met at a startling point. Scarlett knocked in a pace; first on the suspicious platform and then on the cement. They gently discerned the varying frequency produced, her hands dabbed all around. The hollow shrill transitioned into a not so audible tap. It bordered a huge square, outside those borders it was all concrete.

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