The Frozen Desert by Moein Mansoori Fard (free e books to read online TXT) 📕

It was just because of his resistance. Our pills weren’t effective at all. We can count it as physical resistance of a person, and it may be an exception.

Think a little. The one who could show the maximum resistance just resisted two minutes and he also died after the convulsion. He couldn’t stand up to it even for a second. But this one could stay alive after taking the pill and convulsion.

Karisan becomes quiet and calms down like a volcano after its eruption. After a while, looks at the dead man and says:

Maybe his body was resistant to the disease more than the rest, this is why he could tolerate this much. But there was no difference altogether.

Then he sits on his chair and puts his head between his hands on the table.

We should try it on someone else to be assured of the result. It seems unlikely to me that someone else can tolerate this much. I’ve never met such a patient. My opinion still is this.

Take and bury him. Zairas, you come with me.

Rakovan confirms Karisan’s words by shaking his head and stares at the black man. Karisan goes out of the room while his hand is on his brow. I follow him.

What was his malady?

Doesn’t matter. He’s dead now. Did you know Wildi?

Not too much, we were just fellow travelers.

Do you know anything about him?

He wanted to join the rescue teams. How then?

I was about to see someone. I guess he was Wildi. Have you seen something strange in him?

He talked about an appointment too.

I was waiting for him to bring me some news.

When I reached him, he was captured. After that they beat him, they attacked him with the knife and then threw him into the well.

Karisan ponders and struggles with himself. We continue walking in silence. Karisan’s opinion is really efficient. Coming out of that atmosphere and being in the outdoor, fades the death of the black man away. It is like coming out of the marshy air.

We stop near the well which I checked last night. I bend over and look inside the well. The day light couldn’t infiltrate into it yet; like someone who looks at the surface of the sea from bottom and can see the light beams which their radiations become high and low by the waves and just can light the small part of the sea, so the depth of the sea lives in darkness.

I say:

It was exactly here.

Then I point at the blood around the well:

They stabbed him there. You can see his blood.

Karisan transposes the gravels carefully along the track of the blood as if he looks for something.

What are you looking for?

Maybe something helps us.

All of his outfits were in his knapsack.

I’m not looking for a certain thing. You informed me late. The footprints are disappeared.

No one was here except us.

He comes back to me.

I should go down. Do you have a rope?

Karisan coughs and says:

You should find him anyhow.

I’ll do my best.

He push the gravels and the soil aside with his foot and then a rope appears from under the ground. One end of the rope is tied to a spike which is nailed into the ground. He throws the other end of the rope into the well. I take the rope and go down into the well slowly and carefully with the help of its inner wall, which collapses with each contact of my feet. I have no fear to the border of darkness and light, but when I reach the darkness, I feel the weakness of my body.

Karisan bends over the mouth of the well and calms me with his face. I feel a cold air in the bottom of the well. I put my feet on the ground and release the rope. Then I lean on the wall of the well and wait for my eyes adaption to the darkness.

No one is inside the well!!! I grabble everywhere but no one is here! It is impossible. I myself saw that he was thrown into the well. Maybe there is another well around the shelter. But before I enter the well I saw the blood stains on the sands. It is impossible. Maybe there is a tunnel or subway inside the well through which Wildi has reached under the shelter.

I grabble from top of the wall so that if there is a hole I could find it. I go on grabbling until I feel the edge of a hole on the wall near the bottom of the well, with my fingers. I dip my hand into the hole. Its size is enough to creep into it. Suddenly I face with a mass of soil. I check the hole but it seems it has collapsed. Maybe this is not a tunnel and it is just appeared because of that collapse.

The other reason that confirms the wrongness of my assumption is the 45 degree direction between the tunnel and the shelter, which rejects my assumption thoroughly. The origin of the wind flow is in the other place.

The height of the wall now is changing. This is the sign of gravels rush. The well will fill within unknown time. I can’t believe. Everything is strange. It is impossible that Wildi could survive, let alone he went out of here without help. Maybe this hole collapsed newly.

Karisan, I can’t see Wildi here.

Are you sure this is the same well.

Yea, I’m sure. There is a hole, do you know anything about it?

Not at all. Yatilan with some people dug here to supply water for the farm. Maybe Yatilan knows something. He wasn’t able to come out of the well alone. Maybe some other people helped him to come out of the well.

If they did that, why ever didn’t they bring him to the shelter?

I survey inside the well for the last time, then climb the rope. Karisan looks at the sky thoughtfully:

This is a suspicious case. Wildi’s body isn’t in the well. They left you alive and yet you’re not on a bed in the clinic with a knife in your leg.

I don’t know. This is ambiguous also for me.

Is there anything that you haven’t told me?

I shake my head:

No! I told you everything.

By the way, is there any blood stain inside the well?

There was too dark and I couldn’t see. The gravels which collapsed into the well newly, destroyed everything.

Karisan ponders.

If anything is stolen so there wasn’t any case of rubbery as well. So forget this.

I’m sure about what I saw.

Don’t trust even in your eyes! Sometimes the illusion is clearer than the reality.

I touch the sore on my face involuntary. It is coarse and painful. Maybe the events of last night were illusions, but the sore on my face is not an illusion. Karisan taps on my shoulder a few times and shakes his head:

Have you made your decision?

I bring my eyebrows close together to make an interrogative gesture.

Are you still determined to find Mansidan?

I can’t do anything else.

The corner of his lips goes up:

Come with me.

Chapter 9

The mission

I can’t believe. There is no sign of Wildi, this is impossible. I myself saw all of the events last night. Maybe there is a way inside the well which I couldn’t see it. But Wildi wasn’t able to move himself even by an inch because of his condition.

Karisan doesn’t notice to my confusion at all. He takes steps calm and determined. We back to the shelter without talking and we go to his room. He glimpses at the black man who is still on the bed. Karisan closes his eyes for a while, then enters his private room. He lies on the bed and offers me Nina’s bed. So I sit on the bed. After a short time he takes his hand off his brow and says:

I want you to accept a responsibility, prior to do anything. This helps you find Mansidan.

I encourage him to continue by shaking my head.

I leave here today. More likely, Rakovan and Yatilan would stay here. Your destiny also depends on the decision you make.

I’ve never thought about something else except for finding Mansidan.

There is no direct way in which you reach him.

It is hard for me to accept it. Raya’s face is continuously in front of my eyes.

It is the only thing that I can do, I’m afraid.

I lower my head and look at my fingers which are inserted into each other.

I can’t go back without Mansidan.

So you had better do your best.

How the responsibility which you talked about would help me to find Mansidan?

He shrugs and says:

It may give you some clues. You’ll meet the people who probably have seen Mansidan.

Am I alone having this responsibility?

It better to say mission rather than responsibility. You’re about to meet some people.

He stares into my eyes and after a while says:

You should be the savior.

Then he lifts one of his eyebrows and waits.

I don’t think if I could do it.

You can’t be wandering in the deserts with no aim like this.

I thought it might be everything but to be the savior.

You can reach the “Hope” shelter with the saviors. When you reached there, look for someone called Jara. He can help you.

What should I do in rescue team?

Don’t worry about that. When you reach there, you would know.

Should I leave here today?

If it is your decision, yes.

I close my eyes. The promise that I gave to Raya echoes through my head. I’ve promised Raya that I find Mansidan. I take a deep breath and say:

Okay. I agree.

Karisan smiles:

You made the best decision.

I shake my head in reply.

Of course, you’re not alone in this way, someone will company you. You should reach the group called “Thunderbolt 1”.

Then he takes his wireless off the bed and says:

Vorarin, please come here.

A voice replies from the other side:

I’ll come right now.

You can trust him completely. It’s enough you know that he has my full trust. He knows his job well.

I shake my head to confirm his words. Then I ask:

Is he a savior too?

He wants to be.

What if I want to go to this mission alone?

Group means to be together.

Then he winks and takes the wireless set. All of a sudden we hear knocking at the door. Karisan puts the wireless in its place and waits. After a while Vorarin appears in front of the door. He is a rather short and small. He has wrapped his head with a kerchief like the house cleaners. He has sunk into the mass of clothes he wore.

Zairas, this is Vorarin.

Then with his hands invites Vorarin to sit near him on the bed. His face is dirty and his clothes is shredded.

I forced to do something I was averse to. In this mission, you need the glassy clothes more than anything else. There were four sets of glassy clothes in the store which I had reserved them for a rainy day. Now they serve you more. An extra clothes also remains for you.

He shifts his look between us:

Any question?

I shake my head in sign of negative. He lies on the bed:

You two, go upstairs and receive the outfits you need from Yatilan.

I distract my attention away from the wind flow which runs and stops once in a while, and I say:

Now?

The sooner the better.

What about the nomads?

Try not to think of them.

A tempest trembles my heart spontaneously, but I feel calm with Karisan. He says:

I should see you before you leave the shelter. There are some letters which you must take and reach them to the shelter. You must be careful not to lose them. You should pull your wits entirely together, you need them.

I assure him, then I stop as a permission to go. Vorarin goes out ahead of me and waits for me out of the room.

Suddenly I remember the promise I gave Nina. We planned to play a game. I go out. Maybe I could find her and apologize her. I see her. She rises