The Library of the Lost Souls (C1: The Lost Souls)

Driving along the switchbacks of the serpentine roads winding through the Tomei Hills, Sushant gripped the steering wheel tighter with every passing bend. Agitated and exhausted, he finally snapped at Triveni in a passive-aggressive tone.

“I assumed you knew where we were going.”

“Oh honey, we did,” Triveni shot back, her voice frayed at the edges. “Before your brilliant assumption that these roads would be a shortcut.”

“At this rate, we’re going to miss the New Year’s party,” Sushant muttered. “Hell of a way to end the twentieth century.”

At the brink of physical and emotional exhaustion, Sushant slammed the brakes and stepped out, hoping to find a milestone or signpost along the deserted road. To his disappointment, there was nothing. Not a marker, not a flicker of civilization, other than the concrete pavement of the slithering road.

Triveni climbed out after him, lit a cigarette, and drew in a long drag that seemed to momentarily dissolve the fatigue clinging to her bones. Sushant joined her in silence. She handed him the cigarette, and he took a slow puff, exhaling into the cold mountain air as though trying to breathe out the weight of the evening itself.

“What are we going to do about this?” Triveni asked quietly.

“There has to be another car passing through eventually,” Sushant replied. “We can ask for directions. Maybe even follow them.”

Triveni looked away into the darkness of the hills.

“I didn’t mean the directions,” she said. “I meant our marriage.”

The words hit him like a sudden low-pitched boom in the silence of the hill. He was shaken, though not surprised. He had sensed the ultimatum coming for months; he just hadn’t expected it tonight.

“So that’s it?” he muttered bitterly. “You’re giving up already.”

Triveni said nothing.

Silence seeped between them, merging with the vast stillness of the hills. Somewhere deep within the jungle, unseen creatures called into the night—distant hoots, shrill chirps, low growls, and mournful howls echoing through the dark like restless souls wandering the mountains.

The haunting symphony of howls and growls drifted uniformly through the jungle, echoing across every bend of the endless serpentine road along which Sushant and Triveni had been travelling. Far ahead, beyond another blind switchback swallowed by mist and darkness, another soul wandered the forsaken hills for reasons known only to himself.

Ishmael had been trekking for hours. The road had long since lost any sign of life, yet he continued upward with the stubborn persistence of someone trying to outrun his own thoughts. Eventually, exhaustion forced him to stop. He lowered himself onto the narrow edge of the road where the mountain fell away into a sheer black abyss below. Letting his legs dangle over the cliffside, he sat there in silence, staring into the void beneath him.

His fingers gripped the crumbling edge tightly.

He seemed to be contemplating something.

Every so often, he would lean forward ever so slightly, his body tilting toward the emptiness below, and each time his grip on the edge tightened instinctively, as though some primal part of him still clung desperately to life.

But in the end, he could not bring himself to do it.

With trembling fingers, Ishmael removed his spectacles, hoping perhaps that tears would come if he let himself appear vulnerable enough. He waited there in the cold night air, eyes stinging against the wind.

But he could not cry either.

As he put his spectacles back on and forced himself upright, ready for the next attempt, a shrill shouting voice gripped his attention:

“Excuse me, mister.”

Arundhati pulled her motorcycle to the side of the deserted road and kicked down the stand with a metallic clang that echoed faintly into the valley below. The bike itself looked monstrous beneath her, an enormous touring machine almost twice her size, its engine ticking softly as it cooled in the winter air.

She removed her gloves, brushed a few loose strands of hair from her face, and strode toward the figure sitting at the cliff’s edge.

“Excuse me,” she called out casually, her voice cutting through the wind. “I am completely lost, and you seem pretty comfortable out here, so I’m assuming you’re a local. You gotta know how to get to the nearest town.”

Ishmael barely reacted at first.

He remained seated at the edge, rigid and trembling, as though his soul had already taken the plunge his body could not. After a long pause, he answered in a shaky voice that seemed to fracture against the cold.

“The nearest town—Captain Tomei—is downhill,” he murmured. “There’s nothing further up the mountain. No civilization. Just the ruins of Castle Elarion from the colonial era.”

He swallowed hard before continuing.

“But the castle’s closed at night. And during winters like this…”

He glanced into the darkness ahead.

“It’s completely abandoned for the off-season. You won’t find anyone there.”

Arundhati nodded briskly.

“Got it. Thanks.”

She turned back toward her bike with her usual restless energy, already fishing her keys from her pocket. But halfway there, she slowed.

Something about him lingered uneasily in her mind.

The tremor in his voice.

The unnatural stillness in his body.

The way his hands clutched the edge of the cliff as though letting go required only the smallest lapse in courage.

Her expression shifted.

She turned back toward him, the playful edge in her voice softening for the first time that night.

“Hey,” she called gently. “Do you want a ride back?”

The freezing wind swept through the hills between them.

“It’s almost midnight,” she added. “And this winter feels dead enough already.”

Silence prevailed for what felt like an eternity.

At last, Ishmael pulled himself away from the cliff’s edge. His movements were stiff, almost mechanical, as though some part of him still remained seated there above the abyss. In a cracked voice, barely louder than a murmur, he uttered,

“Sure…”

The wind swallowed the word almost immediately beneath the sudden blare of a car horn behind them.

Sushant leaned out of the driver-side window and called out impatiently,

“Hey! Can you point us toward Captain Tomei?”

Ishmael froze again. The question seemed simple enough, yet he stood there unable to answer, his thoughts still stranded somewhere far darker than the road itself.

Arundhati glanced briefly at him before turning toward the car.

“Sure,” she replied instead. “Follow us. We’re headed to Captain Tomei too.”

Inside the car, Triveni quietly exhaled in relief.

Arundhati swung herself back onto her towering motorcycle, kicked up the stand, and gestured for Ishmael to climb on. He hesitated for an uncomfortable amount of time before finally taking the seat behind her.

Watching them, Sushant muttered under his breath to Triveni,

“Do you think they were discussing a divorce too?”

Triveni, drained beyond irritation, stared blankly ahead through the windshield. She neither replied nor seemed interested in continuing the conversation.

The engines roared back to life.

With Arundhati leading the way downhill, both vehicles continued along the lone serpentine road curling through the Tomei Hills. The route required little guidance; there was only one road, and the mountain offered nowhere else to go.

The jungle around them had grown unnaturally still.

Then…

The ground trembled violently beneath them.

The shaking came without warning, rippling through the mountainside with terrifying force. Loose stones skittered across the asphalt while deep groans echoed from somewhere within the hills themselves.

And then, just as suddenly, it stopped.

The silence that followed felt worse.

They drove on cautiously for another few hundred meters before their headlights illuminated the road ahead…

…or rather, where the road had once been.

A massive landslide had collapsed across the mountainside, burying the entire path beneath mud, shattered rock, and uprooted trees. The descent into Captain Tomei was completely blocked.

Arundhati slowly turned her head toward Ishmael.

He said nothing.

After a long pause, he climbed off the motorcycle.

Sushant and Triveni stepped out of the car as well, staring at the destruction ahead.

“Are landslides common this time of year?” Sushant asked uncertainly.

No one answered.

Only the cold wind whispered through the trees.

After a moment, Arundhati shrugged awkwardly.

“Oh! I’m not from around here.”

Gradually, everyone’s attention shifted toward Ishmael.

The pressure of their silence forced him back into himself, as though he were being pulled unwillingly from some distant place.

For a long while, he simply stared at the buried road.

Then, finally, he spoke.

This time his voice emerged steady, clearly enunciated, as though he had at last rediscovered it.

“No,” he said quietly. “It isn’t.”

“Join us in the car, you two. It’s freezing out here,” Sushant offered Arundhati and Ishmael.

Ishmael responded,

“There is no point in getting stranded out here. The road is completely blocked off.

Fortunately, shoveling campaigns are common around these hills after landslides, and after an earthquake severe enough to trigger one. If the tremors were felt in the nearby towns, alarms would likely set off the campaign as early as tomorrow, if we are fortunate.”

He paused briefly before continuing.

“For tonight, and perhaps for a few more days if we are unfortunate, we need shelter. The staff quarters near the ruins of Castle Elarion remain empty during this time of year. They should still have some inventory of food and other basic supplies.”

“That is under the assumption the earthquake was even sensed in the nearby towns,” Triveni added quietly.

“True, but a landslide of this size…” Ishmael began.

Arundhati cut him off.

“Also, someone ought to come up this road eventually, right?”

Ishmael shook his head faintly.

“Not likely. Though perhaps if we are fortunate enough. Generally, nobody travels these roads during this season.” He glanced at the buried path before adding, “I am still baffled as to how you people managed to get lost up here.”

After a pause, he continued,

“If help does not arrive within a few days, we can think about climbing across the rubble ourselves. But only as a last resort. We have no idea how unstable the debris is. One wrong step could be fatal.”

Everyone nodded in uneasy agreement.

For a while, only the wind spoke.

Then Sushant suddenly broke the silence, almost as though talking itself would somehow make the situation less real.

“We were supposed to attend a New Year’s party at a friend’s mountain house in Captain Tomei. We started from Karchi before sunset. Thought we’d make it before midnight.”

Ishmael frowned.

“And you chose this route?”

“We thought it was a shortcut,” Sushant admitted.

A faint, humorless smile crossed Ishmael’s face.

“That is how most people get lost in the Tomei Hills.”

He looked out toward the endless darkness of the mountain roads.

“These hills are much larger than they appear on maps. The roads loop around each other, split without warning, disappear into forests, and reconnect miles away. Even locals avoid travelling too deep into them during winter.”

Arundhati nodded in agreement.

“I ended up here the same way,” she said casually. “Took a wrong turn somewhere after dusk and just kept riding, hoping the road would eventually lead somewhere inhabited.”

“And did it?” Sushant asked.

Arundhati glanced briefly toward the buried road ahead.

“Apparently not.”

Soon, they reluctantly agreed and began driving uphill toward Castle Elarion.