After Annihilation: Would you want to survive?

by Gauri Mittal

  Our journey continued, the dusty sky lining my vision. I was reclined on one of the bags, eyes getting drowsy, body slightly chilly. Kirtani and I had exchanged one sentence, so far. Too afraid to talk to Vishwaroopum, who was in charge of the supplies, she had asked me to pass her a bottle of water from the bag. We ate out of tins and drank water out of the bottles, sparsely and till we were just satiated.

  I nodded off and dreamt we were at the farmhouse again, rescuing a family, but this time it was not Kirtani’s family; it was my own parents who followed Pranav out of the safe house in the ground. I woke up with a jerk as the truck stopped. After half an hour, another two people piled in the back of the truck. They were men, gruff and in their twenties. The two new entries sat unnecessarily close to me. I did not make eye contact with them, a feeling of insecurity and fear tightening itself around me. I sat quietly, alert to their every move out of the corner of my eye.

  Before our ride started again, Vishwaroopum and Pranav exchanged places. The former went to the front of the truck with Roshan and the latter came to the back. Before climbing up, Pranav scanned the people in the back and saw me huddled at the very edge of the opening. He looked at Kirtani and her family, and a look of disapproval crossed his face. He then looked at the two boys with a glare. The two, half his size, shrank back. He climbed up and went straight back, ignoring me and the two trying to greet him.

  “Mr Admin, me and Sid just wanted to thank…”

  But Pranav paid no attention. I debated getting up and sitting next to him in the back, away from the two friends, but decided I was safest near the only exit. Though he was the leader and I felt safe with him, I did not, in reality, know anything about him and consequently figured it would be foolish to trust even him. To my surprise, Pranav lifted one of the bags from the back and instead of settling there, came to where I sat.

  “Move,” he ordered the raggedy young duo in a rough, demanding voice. One of the boys flinched, and the other leapt out of the place. Pranav put down the bag and settled between me and the boys.

  While looking ahead at the family, Pranav spoke in a low tone. “I told you to stick by my side.”

  I took a moment to appreciate he was speaking to me. “How was I supposed to…” I mumbled, but he cut me off.

  “We have around three hundred more people we haven’t yet met, to pick up. Food and water supply are limited and will soon start to dwindle. We need to ensure safety not only from nuclear contamination but also from each other.”

  His words heightened my anxiety, but his close presence gave me a feeling that I had something to hold on to.

  “Aarav, do you think my parents will be alive?” I looked at Pranav, not realizing I had called him by the wrong name.

  He looked at me, confused, his eyebrows knit together in the middle. “Who?”

  “Pranav…”

  “Who’s Aarav?” he asked.

  “He is my friend. He has studied a lot about survival in conditions such as these. He knows a lot, and I’m sure he will be alive. I want to go to Varshi to find him. None of us ever considered the threat of war would come true. Neither the government nor the media ever gave the impression it would. But he always said that war was imminent. He tried many times to teach us survival techniques. If only I had listened to him then, I would have taught my parents too, and they would’ve been well prepared and alive today.” My eyes started leaking tears again. “They will be, though, Mr… Admin. Right?” I asked, addressing him properly.

  He did not reply.

  Pranav was looking at me as I continued to stare at him for a look of assurance, one which might give me a fraction of hope of my parents’ survival. Just a tiny bit I could hang on to. The ever-present guarded look had lessened from his eyes, and he seemed to be assessing me.

  “I don’t know,” he said, his voice less sharp than usual. The glimmer of softness in his voice worked like a balm for my terribly wounded heart, and I cracked a small smile gratefully at him. He blinked and swallowed, then looked away without response.

  *

  We were heading north-east. Away from the fallout, against the wind that carried with it nuclear dust. The blue canvas was up, hiding the hazy sky from view. Infinity looked out of reach. Soon we would stop and pick up another starving survivor.

  At the end of the third day, the truck was filled with twenty others. Fifteen males and five females. Three men had terrible burns over their face and arms. They lay in a corner, more dead than alive. Of the females, two were children, very young to a teenager. Their mother and father were with them, middle-aged and concerned. The mother held her older daughter close, a girl of around fifteen, reassuring her and giving her courage. Some words reached my ears over the constant racket of the truck.

  “See how God takes care, my love,” she was saying. “Inside the car in the basement, we were surviving on biscuits and rice puffs, counting our days. Now we are on our way to safety.”

  “Where are we going, Mother?” the girl asked.

  The lady looked over at her husband, whose anxious, stressed-out face looked back into hers without an answer. He looked over at his daughter and managed a small smile. “Somewhere safe.”

  Pranav still sat beside me, having barely spoken anything unless necessary. He seemed to be saving his energy. Whenever I tried to speak to him, he would either reply in a monosyllable or not reply at all. He sat watching everyone around him, hawk-like, protecting the supply bags and assessing the men, women, and children.

  We were given one potassium iodide tablet every day to reduce radiation absorption. The kids were unable to take them whole, and their parents had to crush it for them to swallow.

  I wanted to talk to someone, but Pranav’s warning about limited supplies and the danger of the animalistic nature of humans when they were pushed to extremes made me keep to myself.

  We stopped at several places, picking up more people. At one stop, two other trucks much larger in size than ours joined us, half full of people.

  The constant motion of the truck would intermittently lull me into a fitful sleep, marked sometimes by nightmarish scenarios and at other times wish-fulfilling ones. Running after my parents as they drove off into a mushroom cloud of the nuclear explosion, not unlike one I had seen in a movie, to my mother tenderly caressing me and my father reassuring me of my strength.

  The good dreams came when my stomach was relatively full, but they too brought desolation in the form of intense longing for the world in the dream. I saw Peaches playing in the forest and me desperately calling her inside the cave, but she didn’t listen and went on eating things from the forest floor. Another time I saw Aarav.

  “I told you. I told you all that it would happen. You didn’t listen to me.” He was shaking me by the shoulders. “Now you’re dead like all the others! All our family and friends. We will all die just because you, Madhavi, didn’t care to believe me.” He was shouting in my face and trying to rouse my dead body. I found it strange that even though dead, I was still aware. I was jolted from the dream by Pranav calling out my name.

  “Take it.” He was thrusting a can of beans under my nose. “Eat it.”

  “Thanks,” I said. “Uh… I was wondering…”

  He was looking into his own can of food, seemingly not hearing.

  “Mr Admin…” I tried again.

  “Call me Pranav.”

  “Pranav… I saw a name and address in your list that I believe belongs to my friend Aarav. I recall he had mentioned registering with an online survivors’s group like yours, though I had forgotten the name.”

  Pranav looked at me, surprise evident on his face. “When did you see the list?” he asked.

  “You were nodding off, and it was in your hand. So, I just took a look. The ones we have picked up were all marked with red, but in between names there were gaps.”

  “You weren’t supposed to look at it,” he said curtly. “It is none of your business.”

  Annoyed but careful not to sho
w it, I said, “Where exactly are we heading?”

  He thought for a while, then spoke carefully. “You will find out.”

  I said, “It seems to me that we are not picking up all survivors. We seem to be moving in a constant direction and leaving some of the ones in your list.”

  He said, sighing. “We are trying to give a chance to as many of the registered members of Double A as possible, but it’s just not possible to get all of them. We need to get out of this polluted environment and back inside the city as soon as possible.” He said.

  “Which city?” I asked, hanging on to his every word.

  “The safe city,” he whispered. “Shunya. It’s three hundred kilometres north-east from Varshi. It has been in preparation these past years.”

  “Shunya?” I asked, confused.

  “Yes, that’s the name,” he said, lowering his voice. “See, it’s a secret. Don’t speak of it to anyone else.”

  “I won’t, but just to know, why is it a secret, and why doesn’t the public know of it?”

  “Why do you think? The government won’t allow it. Their explanation was that if news of its construction got out, the news would spread that the threat of nuclear war was indeed imminent and the public would lose faith in the government, which might lead to civil war and Iddis collapsing from within. But the real unsaid reason was that it was supposed to be a secret safe house for the high officials of the government and the billionaires who helped fund it. But two attacks, and of this scale.” He shook his head. “No one predicted it, or they did, but they underestimated the impact or overestimated their own powers. No one knows if even the prime minister got to safety.”

  “What about you? How do you know about it?” I asked.

  “I… uh, well, I contributed to building the city,” he answered.

  “Oh,” I said. “But the government must be helping people now, right? Will they go to Rajgar?”

  “I hope so. The army must have started looking for survivors. I do believe military rule must have been established in Shunya, if the prime minister has not made it alive. I wanted to let people know, but I couldn’t do it openly, so I made the internet forum After Annihilation to inform people and help them to get to the safe city, but we had to keep changing domains, and then the attack happened much earlier than we had expected. It wasn’t that popular yet.”

  I was watching Pranav, imagining the scale of what he had managed to execute. Had he done it alone? “Will they let us enter, though? The safe house?” I asked, feeling increasingly fearful.

  “It’s a small city, not a fortress. Only those who know where the entrances are can get in. And I do.”

  My feelings of anxiety were getting worse with every word that Pranav uttered. “I don’t want to hear anymore, please.”

  He looked at me, and I closed my eyes, breathing deeply with my head resting on the painted iron wall of the truck.

  “I just want to go home,” I said, my voice full of anguish.

  “There’s no home left,” he said through gritted teeth.

  I opened my eyes and looked at him. “How can you be so cruel?” I exclaimed. “Can’t you say even two words of comfort? Be a little gentle in your speech? I’m hanging on by a thread here.”

  Pranav had not expected such a retort, and he did not know what to say. Opening and shutting his mouth several times, he looked at me and then away. The truck was rocking, being driven very fast over empty roads, two others full of almost three hundred survivors followed at a short distance. My nose was red from silent tears I had been trying hard to stop.

  After five minutes, Pranav spoke to me. “Sorry… I didn’t mean to upset you. I just… it is my habit to speak plainly. Especially now that we are in this situation, I need to be authoritative so that all hell doesn’t break loose.”

  I sniffed. “It already has, though. You said there is no home left.”

  Pranav sighed and spoke gently for the first time. I could see it was an effort for him to speak with softness. He brought his hand close to mine, keeping it on the side, but then he hesitated and withdrew. “But we are alive and together. That in itself is a huge miracle. So, all is not lost. We will create a new world. One that will be less selfish than the one that led to this calamity. We have that chance.”

  I was looking out of the cargo compartment of the truck onto the road. I spoke what I felt. “I am so alone. If even Aarav isn’t alive, I will die of loneliness.”

  I sensed Pranav bring his hand close to mine again, and this time without hesitation, he placed it over mine. It was a reassuring gesture and one I sorely needed. I turned to look at him.

  “You won’t be alone,” he said. “I’ll… I’ll stick by your side.”

  I said nothing and turned my head back towards the road, knowing it was rude. I had felt more than a simple gesture of offering comfort in Pranav’s tone, and I was not in a position to encourage or reciprocate anything of the nature I sensed from him.

  We travelled along for many miles, eating food I had already grown bored of and was always a little cold. Since the day he had exchanged his seat with Vishwaroopum, he never changed it and stayed by my side. It did make me feel safe, but at the same time, I started thinking I owed him for the feeling of companionship and safety he was giving me.

  As I’d told him, I had seen the list Pranav carried around, and I knew we were ditching people. Since the time I had seen red marks across some names, I felt restless about the issue. What if I had been one of the names that had been crossed out? What if he soon crossed out Aarav’s name? I could not predict Pranav’s reaction to my advice, but I could keep mum no longer.

  Night had fallen, and everyone in the truck was asleep. Pranav was sitting and looking out the back of the truck at the hazy black sky, seemingly at the stars, trying to ascertain whether they still existed. I was looking in front at the side wall.

  Slowly I turned to him and spoke in a whisper. “What are you looking at?”

  “I am trying to judge by the level of smog the conditions of the area. It seems the air is getting better as we move towards the north-east. He chose the location wisely.”

  “Who did?” I asked.

  “No one,” Pranav said.

  “Pranav,” I started unsurely. He looked at me questioningly, the tone of my voice possibly alerting him to the uncomfortable conversation ahead.

  “The people who have been crossed out on your list, they aren’t dead, right?”

  “I don’t know,” he answered in his usual straight tone.

  “Don’t you think we should pick them all up regardless of whether we have supplies? They will be waiting to be rescued…”

  “Why don’t you leave decisions like that to the admin, Madhavi,” he said.

  I took out my cell phone and looked at the dead screen. I did not a say word to Pranav for the rest of the night and the following day.

  Around six in the evening of the next day, he tried to start a conversation.

  “Listen, Madhavi I just wanted to say, I didn’t mean it in a rude way.”

  I did not turn my head to look at him and kept my eyes closed.

  “I know you’re not asleep,” he said. “Do you really want to cut your connection to the only person you talk to?”

  That made me look, but still I said nothing. I saw him crack a smile for the first time in ten days. “All I want to say is I am trying my best here to get everyone to the safe city healthy and alive.”

  “What about the ones crossed out on your list?” I asked.

  “Is this because of the guy from Varshi? I crossed out all three people from Varshi, not just him.”

  I looked at him, my mouth open in shock. “When? Aarav’s name wasn’t cut the time I saw the list!”

  “Well, it had to be done.”

  “You know what, Pranav, when we reach the border of Varshi, please let me know. I will get out and find Aarav myself.”

  “That’s ridiculous. You’ll die.”

  “This horrib
le state isn’t any better than death, anyway. I would rather die with the hope of meeting him than live in knowing this.”

  Pranav looked in front of him, his head slightly bent, thinking. We said nothing for around half an hour. I had closed my eyes. I might be able to sneak in a few boxes of tin and water in my raincoat. I would somehow find an abandoned vehicle and first get to the apartment Aarav had rented and search for him there, then I would go to the office. It was probably a suicide mission.

  Before I could think more, Pranav spoke up. “We’ll go to Varshi, okay? We won’t leave behind your… friend.”

  “I don’t want you to leave anyone behind, not just my friend. I have already abandoned my parents, my dog. I can’t bear the thought of anyone else being abandoned.”

  “That’s just ridiculous,” he said. “We are going to take the route that’s going to cause the least increase in miles. The longer we stay out, the more we are exposed to radiation. It was already stated in the terms of the registration of Double A that the members might or might not be picked up depending on the situation after attack.”

  “Thank you… for agreeing to pick up Aarav,” I said.

  “It won’t be for free.”

  I looked at him, uncertain what he meant.

  “You owe me a favour for the extra miles,” he said.

  “Fine,” I said. “As long as it’s within reason.”

  Vishwaroopum and Roshan had been driving the truck in shifts. It was late afternoon. We had stopped for the usual break to do our business. It was the only time I got to bond with the three women in the group, one being the teenager Yashika, her mother and Kirtani. During these times, these women realized the importance of the company of their own gender and talked to me. I got quite close to Yashika, and her mother, Riddhima Prakashan. They came across as good people. Scared like the rest of us, but still somewhat willing to embrace others.

  The two drivers were outside near the truck, eating and stretching. I was making my way to the back when Roshan hurried up to me.

  “Listen, Madhavi, how about I trade places with Pranav and sit with you in the back? It’s been quite boring for me in front, especially with Vishwaroopum hardly ever saying anything and only grunting. You must be bored too, with admin and his stuck-up attitude.”