Everything was dark and silent other than the sound of increased breathing of Viriya, which was filling the room.
The male voice asked once more, "Viriya?"
The voice had some concern mixed with the almost flat tone. The sound was familiar, but she couldn't pinpoint who it was. There weren't too many people whom Viriya talked to at that place.
The voice continued, "Please give that back when they ask about it. They will let you go. Please."
At the end of the voice, Viriya could hear a crack hidden in it.
The voice was familiar. She couldn't forget it even if she wanted to. A voice during a distress moment stuck with people even if they want or not. The voice was one of the man of the seashore, she woke up in. It was the same scared voice, Jarikat. She most likely wouldn't have caught on so quickly if the similar scared crack wasn't there.
It was not just him alone, were the killers there as well? Or someone else?
Jarikat and those killers were at Ramarana. And they even reached Nanadayaka. Were they even at Nanadayaka? The weather there was much colder, which she hadn't paid attention to until she thought about it.
Recognising the voice, Viriya grunted almost involuntarily. The grunt made her dry throat act up, and she coughed, which came out muffled with her face covered.
She tried to sit up, but because of being tied, it was harder. Jarikat's footsteps came closer. He held both of Viriya's arms and helped her sit up against the wall.
She was pretty sure that if she wanted, she could break off the restrictions, if not the leg ones on their own, at least the hand restrictions. The restrictions felt like cuffs connected with chain, without looking at those, it couldn't be confirmed. But not knowing where she was or who else was there, she didn't do anything for then.
The hands were in front of her, it wasn't as easy, but easier to move in it. The hands were reletively free other than the cuffs.
Thinking what happened right before the black out, she slowly drifted towards the dream state. She had a complicated feeling about that. She was happy to be back at the old time, also the same thing made her little melancholy.
Jerking those thoughts off she remembered the sea shore, the time of kidnapping, if she could remember something important.
She and Shereka were going towards home. Shereka pushed Viriya down in mid way through, after that the black out. Inbetween that, when she fell down, she felt the world around her, in a weird way.
Remembering how she fell down, her elbow hit the ground first. Hoping to replicate that, she acted to fell over, and hit her left elbow on the ground.
The last time it happened accidentally, so she hadn't understood properly what happened then. At that restricted position, she felt a slight faint vibration form from her elbow and spread all around. Not exactly spread around, it was more like pulsing vibrations spreading around and coming back continuously for a bit, forming an image in her head.
She was on a high floor of a tall building. she only felt around three floors including the floor Viriya was in. In some of the rooms, she observed some people and objects, but she couldn't really understand which was what. It was her second time using that ability, she wasn't really familiar with it.
In the room she was in, other than herself, she felt a figure sitting on something at the front right side of her, and another figure, almost coiled, was lying at the leftmost corner.
Viriya thought, Shereka? They got her too? To bury the witness? Hoping Shereka was okay, she started to think about what she could do.
Jarikat was in that room, if she started tapping on the floor again and again, it might look suspicious. So she intentionally grunted and acted like she was trying to sit up, but fell on her left elbow again.
This time she concentrated on the floor right beneath them. Two people were there, and some boxes maybe, but all objects felt almost the same with that technique. In the room she was in, the figure in the corner felt different, smaller than the last time she had felt Shereka during the ambush on them.
Jarikat went ahead and helped Viriya sit up again.
Viriya needed Jarikat out of that room if she wanted to look more into the place. She started grunting and moving like she was trying to break off the restrictions.
"Don't — don't exhaust yourself, your strength won't be enough to break these." Jarikat said in that forcefully pressed soft voice.
Hearing that, she stopped her movements and faced the direction the voice was coming from. She wasn't really confident anymore about whether she could break off the restrictions. But did they know about the left hand anomaly? Or did they just know about her overall strength? If it was the latter, then great, if not that might be a problem. But Shereka had some tricks up her sleeve; maybe she could do something.
After a short pause, Jarikat continued, "They didn't take any risks after you killed that person at the seashore."
Viriya didn't give any response at first, then she started to shake her head like a mad person.
Jarikat came closer and brought down the mouth cover, and said, "Talk slowly."
"Wra. Water please." Viriya replied in a broken rough voice. Some of it was acting, and some of the broken voice was genuinely broken, from not talking and not drinking water for a while.
He covered Viriya's mouth again with the same fabric. His footsteps faded outside the room with a light door shut.
Viriya was alone in the room, not alone, she was with Shereka. While Jarikat was in the room, she had been on guard. Being, nearly alone, she dragged herself towards Shereka. She slowly tapped on her legs, which it seemed like, for a little while. After not getting any response she dragged herself back at her original position.
Sitting alone she dived at her lucid state and everything that had happened there for a moment. Shaking that off, she knocked on the floor three more times with gaps in between.
There was an empty box on which Jarikat had been sitting. And at the corner, Shereka was curled up. Viriya wasn't really sure anymore if that was Shereka or not, because of the smaller figure.
The floor beneath them actually had three people, not two. Two of them were moving, which was why Viriya had thought there were only two. The third person was still, too still. Viriya wasn't sure, but that person was most likely the one who had ambushed them. At the middle of the room, short of pedestal was standing. The floor under that seemed to have, even more boxes on stairs with no people.
After using the ability few many times, she felt exhausted. Maybe it wouldn't have drained her so quickly if she hadn't been hungry and thirsty all that time. She lay down from the exhaustion.
Jarikat came in not long after. Removing the face cover, he helped Viriya drink the water, which was maybe the most refreshing water she had ever drunk. It was cold and metallic and it had an earthy smell that she only remembered from Ramarana.
After drinking, she asked, "How much time has passed?"
"A more than half a day." Jarikat replied in an even softer voice.
She asked again before he could cover her mouth, "What did you all do with Shereka? At least she's okay, right?"
"Shereka was with you? They didn't bring her here. Ah — I don't know." Covering Viriya's face again, Jarikat left the room in a hurry.
If that wasn't Shereka, who was that? Someone else they captured? What happened to Shereka? Is she okay? Viriya was a bit panicked, but with a loud sigh, she tried to calm herself.
Her main goal would be to somehow get Jarikat to take the eye cover off and confirm who it was in that corner.
___
Later, Jarikat did come over, but he didn't talk much anymore. No amount of grunting or movement made him budge. Once, he did open Viriya's face cover to feed her some kind of paste. It was oily and smooth, with a faint artificial nutty smell. It made her remember the trenet leaves they used on food, but much worse. There was no taste to it, it was worse than the grain mix of Ramarana.
While eating it, Viriya's gag reflex wasn't letting her swallow, but she managed somehow.
During that, she asked about Shereka. He stayed mostly silent, only whispering, "She is alive."
After getting no real response out of him, she didn't bother him much afterwards. Maybe he was in the room in the later hours, maybe not.
A different man came in to talk with Jarikat. They talked in low voices outside the door.
It was almost like they were intentionally delaying their conversation with Viriya, to break her confidence or make her desperate.
While staying alone, not talking to anyone, completely submerged in her own mind, the person in the corner just stayed curled up.
The lucid state during her time unconscious was different that time. Before, she had mostly just stayed there, exploring the area while covered in fog. But in that moment of desperation while unconscious, Viriya-Anish reached his moment of the accident in that lucid floating state. He was sure that both Anish and Viriya were real, but witnessing the situation again was reassuring, for sure.
He went to the accident spot through the convergence point behind his throne, which led him to the body of Anish.
He remembered the convergence point behind Anish. There should be one leading back towards Viriya's body, behind Viriya's throne. If the theory were to be true, it would be a great alternative. But he didn't want to spend more time in that space though if it was a path in between, he couldn't really do anything about it.
While thinking about what to do, Anish-Viriya heard a subtle scream from the left side of the room. It was the curled up person in the left corner. The person started to blabber something incomprehensible. When he calmed down a little, Jarikat talked to him. He wanted water from Jarikat. The water was already inside the room, so he got it almost immediately.
The man said, "At least feed me something. What do you think will happen if you don't? I will die." In a almost child like tone.
Viriya heard footsteps going out of the room. When the door shut behind Jarikat, the man said, "What did you do to end up here?"