His Safe Haven

Destruction continued. The world forgot of the children who perished. Their laughter and smiles never left the mind of their only living brother, and Ekadashi forever remained in his grieving heart.

The love shared by the two greatly differed to the one shared by The Djinn and his dear Ahimsa. Their love bred in evil and toxicity, whereas the children shared one of purity and friendship, void of romantic love. However, it was this innocence that the world was not ready for and so was destroyed without a blink.

He didn’t sleep that night, nor the next, nor the one after that. In fact, Bodhi never truly slept again. His eyes never found peace and he was never able to do so until his lungs let out their final breath of light. However, he did find happiness and for that he remained grateful.

The children were buried, by none other than their sole surviving brother. He trudged through the mud and rubble in the pouring rain, which was sent by the heavens, but the heavens were not able to save the lost lives, nor could they cleanse the pain and suffering that had occurred here. He knew this, he knew they could have been saved, but saved they weren’t and for a reason Bodhi never knew. For hours on end, he scrambled for each and every child and he did so alone for the people of the town had, by this time, fled for they had heard news of soldiers returning. Each and every body was so scorched that their faces were no longer recognisable and Ekadashi was put to rest alongside her fellow orphans. Bodhi never fathomed he’d be orphaned twice: from his parents and now from his family at the only home he’d ever know. When the work was done he noticed a faint glimpse of radiance appearing over the horizon. Dawn had arrived.

The sun bounced off the broken coloured shards from the ruined temples nearby creating dancing rainbows, Bodhi’s first sign of hope. The mornings were always quiet, it allowed the damaged city to heal and the wounded to be mended before the next wave of attack. He rooted through the city looking for survivors and providing aid at the bustling camp which operated on the outskirts. There Bodhi observed immense suffering: children drowning in their own blood, agonising screams and wails of pain from those who had lost loved ones and grief in every pair of eyes. He worked tirelessly through the day, in denial of what he had witnessed just hours before, and was fed rations which he hungrily devoured.

When time had come for him to depart, Bodhi remembered the cove and the bright light from last night. Grasping tightly on the two golden chains and pocket watch, he made his way to his safe haven: the cove. Scaling over the fallen buildings and climbing over the fresh rubble made his journey much longer and for a reason. Destiny was preparing him for the worst. The cove was on death’s door. Crawling under the boulder that separated this magical land to the mortal one was when Bodhi’s suspicions were confirmed. He saw the destruction which appeared to echo the loss faced at the orphanage. The rocks appeared scorched, deformed and burnt, despite this being near impossible; litter and things that were once loved smothered the shoreline, lifelessly floating on the murky brown waters; a stench of death, one Bodhi was all too familiar with, coated the air; and the most agonising of all was the cove’s light which had all but disappeared, all that was left was a faint pulse, mimicking a dying heartbeat.

Bodhi met the once silky soft sand with a sharp throbbing pain and the purity of the cove reawoke. But it felt nothing like what Ekadashi and Bodhi had ever experienced. The cove had an ambience that almost resembled one of suffering and grief, as if it was trying to comfort Bodhi by sharing his pain. He empathised with this and was grateful. That night, he rested under the protection of the cove, the skies were quiet and clear, for the first time in a long time, and that night Bodhi fell into a trance. The cove had something to tell him.

She arrived in waves of dreams, in different forms, telling him stories, each with their own moral. The first told of the story of an orphan, like Bodhi, who had lost all and chose to journey off into the sunset, with the hope of living a life of happiness but instead faces more loss and destruction. And in this, he loses his most prized possession, a yellow hat which was worn by a teacher who this boy grew to love. He never loved like this again, but by the end he did find faith.

The second was mythical and more sinister. There were many dark figures. These figures could grant wishes and were innately evil, but had the power to blossom in purity, and so when surrounded with innocence they learned to become pure in heart, which they did, in the human mortal world of all places. Bodhi found this tale rather long as it had many facets; there were many characters and each one had their own life to unveil. After each one was told, they all had one lesson to impart onto the world and that was yin and yang.

The voice of the wanderer that Bodhi heard shared many stories such as these but the last story intrigued him the most. This one was the story of soulmates and was divided into seven parts. Each one dedicated to a single soulmate. In delicate streams of memories and flashbacks were all the lives that had been lived and all the lives that failed to live, but instead spent what felt like eternity writhing in pain and suffering. One thing Bodhi knew for sure and that was they had all met the other at some point in their existence, but the ethereal voice failed to reveal what became of them. That was the last kahani.

In a sudden jerk, reality swarmed in as he breathed in the salty lifeless air and felt it burn his throat and lungs. With tear filled eyes he looked around to find the cove had died. The light was gone, she had spent the last of it with Bodhi. The heavens took back what they had loaned to help humanity guide the pure and innocent on their journey to find peace and happiness. This is what Bodhi intended to do, but peace, he never found.