‘Well, you are asking questions because you have free will.’ The winged cat said looking for an element of surprise on Manav’s face. Indeed, he was surprised because that was exactly what he was thinking. The angel smirked with pride and continued, ‘You cannot hide it as long as I can read your mind. You see, your free will makes you question things. While I am angel, I do not possess free will for I serve the Almighty without questioning His plans.’
‘You cannot be serious about this.’
‘Well, I am. Look out!’ The guardian angel sprouted as it looked towards the road ahead. Manav instantly looked forward and sighted an old woman limping across the road. He steered the Scorpio to the right and the Indian MUV narrowly missed the careless old woman, who started cursing at the driver after it passed.
‘That was close.’ Manav sighed with relief.
‘At the time of creation, the Almighty gave us a chance at immortality. Those who chose immortality were bound to serve until eternity. However, those who wished for free will are granted a mortal life. Although your soul is immortal but every time your body perishes, it forgets all its deeds and is conceived in a new body.’
‘So, the souls that wished for free will end up with a series of mortal bodies?’ The filmmaker asked.
‘An endless series of mortal bodies…’
‘That is not fair!’
‘Well, consider a son of Adam or Adimanav as you would say in here…’
‘Wait? Adam and Adimanav are the same?’
‘Adimanav or the first man, according to Vedic tradition is Manu. In Africa, Adimanav becomes Adimu, and in another part of the world he becomes Adam. Got it?’
‘I guess…’
‘So, if Adam had got free will with an immortal body, then the power is too much for a man. Man will end up destroying his whole universe and nothing will ever quench his thirst. Law cannot be applied on such a being, for the basis of law is fear of annihilation that is death for a mortal. Look at your kind, already killing each other in the name of religion or killing other creatures in the name of development. You are a mischievous lot.’
‘I agree on that. How come I do not remember being given this choice?’ Manav inquired.
‘Manav, do you remember what was the thing that you saw when you were born into this body?’
‘No, I do not.’
‘Do you remember the time, when you drowned in a bath tub?’ The angel asked something that Manav had only heard his mother saying but never remembered if the incident had actually happened to him when he was 2 years old.
Manav was surprised again, but then he realized that Kun-Ha had been guarding his soul for ages.
‘Don’t be surprised. Get used to it. I know everything.’ Kun-Ha chuckled.
‘Well, I do not remember it. I have heard about it from my mother when I was six or seven.’ Manav confessed.
‘See, you do not even remember when you had heard this story from your mother… six.. seven… or maybe eight.’ Kun-Ha stated the correct age.
‘It was too long ago. Almost thirty years have passed since then.’ The filmmaker tried to justify his inaccuracy at remembering the events from his past.
‘Exactly! You cannot remember what happened to you thirty years ago, then how do you expect to remember an incident that happened hundreds of thousand years ago?’
‘Hmph! I simply cannot argue with you.’ Manav gave up.
‘Your questions will be answered dear, just trust me and keep going.’
‘I do not have any choice, do I?’
‘We are almost there; I can feel the aura of the Vimana vaguely. It is getting stronger. It is coming from the West, make the turn and follow my path. To the left…’
Manav stopped his Scorpio and looked towards the left. He was confused as the road went straight and there was no left turn to be seen in sight. He presented the fact to his angel, ‘There is no left! What do you want me to do… take the vehicle off the road?’
‘Do the needful.’
Manav nodded his head in exasperation, started the vehicle and took it off the tarred road. The Scorpio dashed into the rocky ground as it cruised towards West, surging a whirlwind of sand along the path.
The angel patiently sniffed for the Aura that it had been tracking.
24
Few hours later
El-Salam Hospital, Giza
The casualty ward of the hospital was a dry commotion of white and green that smelled of antiseptic and tincture iodine. Captain Hernandez sat outside the room on a chair that was painted by rust and waited for the Arab doctor who had just entered the room to check his patient. Usually, the captain upon arrival at the dock would straight way go to his apartment in Alexandria and close down for the next two days, before setting back to Spain. However, this time Hernandez did not even care to unpack his luggage. He carried the mystery woman that he found in the sea to a hospital that was 3 hours from his apartment, and of course, illegally. There was something peculiar about this woman, he thought all the time while he was steering the Reina de Agua, and now he was here yet the feeling kept resorting. He forced his mind to think of something else, but he could not help it for long.
Who is this woman? Seems like I have known for ages. He sent an inquiry deep into his memory lanes.
Few minutes later, the doctor came outside and invited Hernandez to his room.
‘How is the patient related to you Mister…’ The doctor looked at the form kept on his table and read, ‘Captain Hernandez?’
‘Err… She is my friend. Was with me on the vessel,’ Hernandez started to sweat. He gulped his saliva and continued explaining without being asked, ‘She… She fell down into the water… She drow… drowned.’
‘Your friend has had a puncture wound that has resulted in heavy blood loss. She needs blood immediately. How did that happen?’ The doctor asked suspiciously.
‘She must have hit something while falling down.’
‘What is her blood group?’
‘I… I … do not know doctor.’
‘Captain, I expect you to be honest with me. I cannot help you if you hide things.’
‘Err… Well, I believe I should not hide anything from you.’
The Doctor pushed his glasses up and locked his view on the captain and said, ‘that would be wiser, Captain Hernandez.’
‘Moments after we crossed into the Mediterranean from the Alboran sea, one of my crew members found this woman struggling to keep herself from drowning in the Mediterranean Sea. By the time, we brought her on board; she had already lost her consciousness. The on-board medical officer gave her some injections, basics I believe. He had asked me to get her to a hospital first thing as soon as we reached Alexandria.’ Hernandez paused to breathe, and then continued, ‘Unfortunately, I came to know that there are some issues there.’
‘So, you brought her here?’
‘Yes.’
The doctor picked up the receiver of the console and dialed his junior, ‘Run a blood determination on the patient I just checked in the casualty. Need the results urgently. As soon as you have the result, get a match for her. Do not wait for me. Thank you.’ He said and placed the received back on the console. He looked at Hernandez and sprouted, ‘You owe a lot to me now.’
Captain Hernandez walked over to the doctor and pressed a few hundred pound notes into his hand.
‘I hope you had indeed found her in the sea and not her husband who has beaten his wife. Lot of men like that come here, you know. The doctor has to keep quiet, and it’s not free.’ The doctor remarked in a threatening manner.
‘Here, have this one thousand as well.’ Hernandez gave him another set of notes.
‘That should lock my conscience for the time being.’ said the doctor.
Greedy bastard, Hernandez thought.
‘It is funny; how far a man can go for a woman he does not even know.’
‘Look, I have already given you enough to carry on the good work that you have been doing all thes
e years. Now, I do expect you to take care of the patient for me.’
‘Calm down captain, this is not your deck. I am in charge here. In any case, you will have to keep her here for the next 48 hours. What amuses me is that the woman is somehow still alive despite losing all that blood and clogging in so much water in her lungs. It is indeed a miracle, although she’s in a comatose.’
‘How long do you think she’ll be in coma?’
‘Let me get her blood report first. As soon as we know her blood group, we will look for a suitable donor.’
‘Do you think she can survive for that long?’
‘She did so far.’
27
Room No 49
El Salam Hospital, Giza
Hernandez sat near the window looking at the woman on the hospital bed. The patient, as the doctor called her, was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. Amber rays of the setting sun peeked inside the room through the crack in the wooden window and outshined the light of the incandescent lamp on the ceiling. The captain got off his chair and walked towards the unconscious woman. As soon as he stood next to her, he kneeled down. The tip of his nose almost touching the woman’s faint white skin, his breath overpowered hers and he wanted to kiss her almost whitish lips.
Somebody knocked on the room’s door. Hernandez got up and walked towards the door to answer it. There was some more knocking, this time of an impatient nature. He unbolted the door, and found the Doctor who was taking care of the woman along with a couple of nurses at the door. His wrinkled face sang a melancholic song of great anxiety lined with excitement. He rushed in and walked towards the patient to read her pulse.
‘Is everything alright Doctor Ahmedi?’ a worried Hernandez asked.
‘What is your blood group, Captain Hernandez?’
‘AB positive. It is AB positive.’
The doctor looked at one of the nurses who was now standing next to Hernandez and instructed her, ‘I guess, we will need a donor urgently, see if there are any reserves in the Bakhtiar blood bank.’ Then he turned to Hernandez as the nurse left the room, and revealed, ‘Your friend here has a rare blood group… O negative. And this one here is absolutely one of a kind,’ he placed the patient’s hand back on the bed and noted down her pulse in his record book. He looked at the tense face of the man who had brought her here and gestured him to take a seat. He continued, ‘During the test, we found a very strange behavioral pattern among the blood cells. The moment they were exposed to air, they started mutating into a hybrid. Although the process is slow, but that is how I believe, she has been keeping alive despite of all the blood loss. Now, this is theoretically impossible and I have never seen such kind of phenomenon in my career.’
‘Well, doesn’t the body produce blood on its own?’ Hernandez questioned with all the limited knowledge about the human body that he possessed.
‘Yes, that is how it works usually. You see, the body has a feedback mechanism that tells it when to produce new blood cells. When the oxygen levels are low, then the kidney secretes a hormone called erythropoietin, which stimulates the stem cells in the bone marrow to produce more blood cells. However, in this woman’s case, the blood cell was reproducing itself outside the body, on the petridish, which is simply impossible.’ The doctor looked at the woman and then sighed, ‘but we cannot bank on that, or on her stem cells. She still needs a good bottle and half of blood.’
‘Aren’t you having any stock?’
‘This is a small hospital, Captain. We usually get blood from the government blood bank. We will perform the transfusion as soon as we get a positive update from there. Please fill up this form and sign it for us.’ Dr. Ahmedi said handing over a piece of grey paper, ‘You had left the blood group and name fields empty earlier. I guess you can fill up one of them now.’
Captain Hernandez received the form and started writing down the missing information before signing it.
‘See if you can find a donor. A donor will always be handy.’ Dr. Ahmedi suggested.
‘Definitely.’ Captain Hernandez handed back the form and pulled out his cellphone. He noticed that there was no signal inside the room, ‘Ah… damn, no network!’
‘Try going outside the hospital building. The signals are blocked so that it does not interfere with medical equipment. That was the last law passed by our falling government, we still follow it.’
Hernandez walked out of the room and then the hospital to make an important call. He needed to find a donor with the rarest blood group, a universal donor.
26
Chendi, Maharashtra
Manav switched off the Scorpio and the mechanical roar of the vehicle was immediately replaced by the silent song of the deserted location.
‘Are you sure this is the place?’ Manav tried to reconfirm.
‘Cent per cent!’ The angel confirmed confidently.
‘I do not see a thing that could have possibly given you all that aura to sniff.’ He said as he stepped out from the front door of the Scorpio. He looked around, there was absolutely nothing but overgrowth of moss over ruins that were scattered here and there.
‘Follow me, Manav.’ The angel commanded as it descended towards the ground. Its wing faded into its body and Kun-Ha started walking on its paws like a normal cat. Manav caught up with the angel’s pace. Kun-Ha spoke as it gently walked, ‘You know, among all creatures of the Almighty, cats have an exceptionally higher receptory mechanism. They can see equally well in the dark and broad light, hear minutest of sounds, by instinct land on all fours without breaking a limb, and when you cannot see them they can even ward off evil spirits or welcome the good ones. That is why cats tend to possess a divine ego, because the Almighty gave them a little too much in everything including cuteness. He did so in order to keep a close check on his most mischievous creation- Man!’
‘So, cats are spies of god?’ Manav asked.
‘Come on, Manav. Didn’t you weep when you lost your first pet cat?’
‘I was hardly nine then. I was emotionally attached to that thing.’
‘You still are. Isn’t that why you wrote a whole book on that cat reincarnating as the protagonist’s guardian angel. Am I not like that cat from that book of yours?’
‘It was just a story.’
‘A story that you wrote few years ago.’
‘Fine! I admit, but she was not an ordinary cat.’ Manav conceded.
‘Of course! No cat is ordinary. Cats are divine.’ Kun-Ha declared proudly.
‘I suppose, had you had the form of a dog, you would have praised dogs.’
‘Oh come on! Dogs are dumb.’
‘Many will disagree.’
‘Do you?’ Kun-Ha shot back.
‘No! But why do you call them dumb?’
‘Because they surrender their free will to humans. They don’t even make it to His purgatory.’
‘For those who believe in that, it is cruel. People love dogs because of their loyalty.’
A brief moment of silence followed. Kun-Ha slid itself under a rock and Manav could hear the creature’s paws rustling through what seemed like a badger’s burrow. A golden glow appeared beneath and it slowly displaced the rock, exposing a bright explosion of light on Manav’s face. It was some kind of an opening into a nether world.
‘Step inside,’ Kun-Ha said from below, ‘Don’t worry, I am here.’
Manav carefully stepped inside the hole and as soon as he was completely inside, the rock slid back to its original position and covered the opening. The glow subsided and it was dark again.
‘Maybe you would like to use that flashlight again.’ Kun-Ha suggested, ‘I can see here, but you will need that artificial source of light for illumination.’
Manav pulled out his Lumia and switched on its flashlight.
‘How hard was it for you to choose this handset over that Samsung?’ The angel asked.
‘You know everything, then why bother asking?’ Manav remarked.
‘All in order to please your
daddy dear.’ The guardian angel toyed with its ward.
‘There is something on the backside of your left hind limb. I think its stain or something.’ Manav observed.
‘Oh, that’s a birthmark dear. Every creature has one. You have a black mole on your chest, don’t you?’
Manav hummed in agreement.
‘I call it… my beauty spot.’ The angel said playfully.
‘Is there a divine explanation behind that too?’
‘I would rather ask you to observe this beautiful underground passage. You will find lot of interesting things if you would care to shine some light on these walls.’
Manav followed Kun-Ha’s suggestion and flashed the cellphone’s led light over the eastern wall. He noticed engravings on the mushy surface that were not anything like the ones he had seen in Indian temples. Most of the engravings were symbols representing different elements of nature.’
‘Intriguing, aren’t they?’ Kun-Ha asked Manav.
‘Indeed!’ The filmmaker said as he scrubbed off the overgrown moss from the surface of the wall, ‘what are these… some form of a primitive writing system?’
‘Ancient they are… primitive not all! These, my dear, are highly advanced instructional methodology implemented by the Anunnakis over twenty thousand years ago.’
‘An.. Anu… what?’
‘Anunnaki, those who from the heavens came…’
‘I do not get it.’
‘Did civilization even exist back then?’ Manav inquired in a confused state of mind.
‘This is an ancient temple built by Parasuraama that succumbed to ruins some four thousand years ago when the Anunnakis were doomed in the forbidden portal by an early human civilization.’ Kun-Ha replied.
‘Where are we getting to?’
‘Let’s just say that you are dealing with an ancient extra-terrestrial science that is beyond the scope of human understanding. These instructions have been written in a system that no human mind can ever decode in a million years. Even if it does then also it will reveal only a metaphorical mythology, not the scientific instruction.’
A Game of Gods: The End is Only the Beginning (The Anunnaki Chronicles Book 1) Page 7