Avalanches, blizzards, and frostbites were the bitter sights we expected while on our hike to the summit of Mount Kanjega. The last thing any of us expected was the sight that sends shivers down the spine of even the most hard-hearted adventurers. The sight of blood… upon the snow.
“NITYAA!!!” screamed Ayushi upon it.
“What’s the matter?” I bustled out of my tent, the crackling snow immediately coated my uncovered lips. “Aayu, what’s wrong?” I asked. She was frozen. Even motions of her breaths seemed static. Unfortunately, it was not the cold that held her in place.
“What’s the matter? Ayushi what’s going on?” asked Yadav to the petrified girl. Slowly lifting up her trembling fingers, Ayushi pointed to the tent from which she ran out in a frenzy.
“Nitya… Blood…” her voice trembled. Our eyes joined. Ayushi’s frantic escape broke the opening of Nitya’s tent, which led to the sultry sunshine showing us the sight that lied inside. Painted snow, from fresh red to black blue in colour. Making a frozen puddle of red fragments, amidst which lied the blue-faced body of the person we all once called a friend.
“Nitya?” Yadav’s voice felt like a ghost. The axe in his hand fell to the snow in silence. It was just 8 AM in the morning, but the day had already felt an hour too long for all of us. Yadav ran into the tent screaming her name and tried to wake her from an eternal sleep. I joined in with him, to make sure of the fact that I knew upon sight.
“Yadav…” I called. “She’s gone.” My fingers on her neck refused to bulge in a familiar rhythm.
Karthik and Aman had come back from their descent to find the backpack we lost beside the vantage, in failure. It had everything we needed to start a fire. By the time we walked out with Nitya, Ayushi’s face had told them about the frigid reality. Nitya was no more. All that’s left of her was a blue cadaver with a frozen-over hole in her chest, where it seemed a knife had entered and bid her final goodbye. As she laid like a frozen lake with the blood upon the snow haunting our future nightmares, the eyes began to scour each other. Yadav’s to Aman’s. Aman’s to Ayushi’s. Ayushi’s to Karthik’s, and Karthik’s to mine. All of them, thinking the same thing. All of them accept the improbable. All of them with their hearts escalating. Telling not out loud that the killer… was among us.
Yadav immediately went for his axe. The tears in his eyes had either dried or frozen. Karthik took out his hunting knife in response. Aman pulled out the gun he promised not to bring. Ayushi stood there, baffled, as usual.
“What are you all doing?” her annoying voice asked. “Put it down. Aman, you promised not to bring that. Put it down! All of you!”
“Don’t you get it, Aayu?” Aman asked. The hole of his pistol pointed from face to face, even at me. I see a teardrop begin to form. “We are the only humans within kilometres. We are the only idiots who hiked up this mountain. We… are the only ones who had access to Nitya’s closed tent. We… Ayushi. Are the only people that could kill her.”
“Are you crazy, Aman?” she replied.
“Ayushi, don’t be dumb as usual,” Yadav added. His eyes slowly turned to me. “See… Even Yara gets it.” Ayushi turned to my wrists clasped around the cold grappling hook I found.
“Yara, tell me this is not true,” she pleaded. Deep down, even she must have known the truth. She was just too dumb to accept it. “Aayu. Look around you.” I said. The red of the eyes in each person began to tremble. Yadav’s grip tightened. Aman released the safety of his gun. Karthik, the most skilled of us all felt the calmest. She was shook at the sight.
“I don’t care who did it.” Aman said. His hand wasn’t trembling. “I’ll kill you… Right here. Right now!” he roared.
“How do we know you didn’t do it?” Yadav asked. His eyes were ice.
“Yadav, you bastard!” Aman stepped forward, his gun pointing straight. “Say that again, and you’ll eat the bullet.”
“How can we know, Aman?” Karthik said calmly. He was always calm. “You did…” Aman’s gun turned sideways. Karthik did not flinch. “… have your reasons to want her gone.” his eyes flicker to me.
“You son of a–”
“And so did Yadav… So did Ayushi, and me. And I bet Yara too.” His voice felt colder than a blizzard. “Nitya was not the nicest human being.”
“Karthi… don’t speak like that!” Ayushi shrieked. Her sobs were annoying my ears. “Don’t say bad things about her now.” I always wondered how Ayushi could be so dumb. She was the one who endured Nitya’s torture the most. She was treated like a human garbage-bag by the bitch. She, in everyone’s opinion, did not deserve to be treated like that. Maybe that was why, even though they all hated her voice, they still kept her around… out of pity.
I take a step away from her, the hook in my hand turns towards her.
“Yara… No… You don’t think I… No! NO!” her shrieks were blubbering. “I would never. I would never do that. I loved Nitya!” her eyes sobbed faster than the frost. She was right. Ayushi could never do something like this. She was too dumb.
But the other three… They’re capable of far worse.
“Who knows… maybe whoever killed her had a hand in Sanjay’s ‘suicide’ too…” Aman says. His eyes turn to Yadav. Yadav jumps. The axe and the gun fall sideways. Yadav’s fist, in rage, paints his blood upon the snow.
“YOU BASTARD!” he cries. “TAKE THAT BACK! TAKE THAT BACK!”
“Why would I?” Aman asks, spitting out the blood. “You were the only one with him when he jumped. Who’s to say you didn’t push him over? Who’s to say… that he wasn’t on drugs?”
“Aman! That’s enough. You crossed a line!” I yell. Yadav gets off him in silence. Aman comes by my side. “Sanjay was my brother too.” I said.
I saw Yadav’s blood red eyes piercing towards Aman. If Aman were to be killed now, there would only be one culprit to suspect.
The sun’s arch above our head continued. The cold peak of Mount Kanjega stared at our shattered souls up above. Hours passed in silence. Finally, the realization of Nitya’s death hit Yadav. His sobs persisted over Ayushi’s. The girl who liked to play saviour, immediately went to console.
“Shouldn’t we call someone?” Karthik asked. It was almost as if he couldn’t see the covered dead body. But that was how he was. The first real memory I have of him was when he single handedly killed a snake attempting to bite Sanjay. The cold look in his eyes that day never changed through a decade of friendships.
“I already did.” I said. “They can’t make it up today… A blizzard is coming. It’ll take at least till the morning for them to reach… Till then…”
“We have to guard the body,” Karthik replied. “And ourselves.” All eyes rise.
“It’s getting dark. We need fire… before the blizzard comes.” I say. The backpack was still down there, a few hundred meters of descent.
“It’d be stupid to split up now. Knowing what we know,” Karthik’s eyes went from face to face. “One of us did it.”
“But… without that bag… All of us… will die.” I added. My teeth’s clatter sawed my words into parts. “Don’t go alone. Return before dark.”
Reluctantly, Karthik and Yadav make haste. For some reason Ayushi decides to follow them too. “No… Aayu, you stay here,” Yadav says. His eyes fixated upon Aman.
“It’s alright Yadav,” I reply. “I trust him.” Aman’s trembling hand took shelter on my own. “I’ve known him best for years.”
The three of them went downhill, Yadav still cursing at Aman. Another hour passes before I decide to speak to my boyfriend of five years.
“You’re taking this quite hard.” I said. His eyes were still sore.
“Nitya is dead, Yara. Or are you too blind to see it?” he snaps.
“Nitya was a bitch. You don’t see me sobbing for her, do you?” I move closer to his back. “Or… is there something you’re not telling, Aman?”
Aman straightens his back. His face still turned away from me. “Hiding? Me? No… Nothing,” he replies. Aman turns back to give a smile. A smile I was used to by then. A smile that hid not a single emotion of regret, or of guilt. It almost baffled me… how a man can be so free of his own guilt. Then I realized, his smile was full of deceit from the moment I found out.
“Even now… You still can’t stop lying. Could you?”
“Yara… What are you-” he stopped.
“We found the bag!” Ayushi’s happy screams came up to camp. She had already forgotten about Nitya over the hour. Yadav and Karthik hadn’t. Without another word, they started the fire, and the warmth radiated through my crystallized skin.
“Is Aman with Nitya’s body?” Yadav asks coldly.
“I’ll go get him.” Aayushi ran towards Nitya’s tent where we let her rest for the time being. Five… four… three… two… one. “AMAN!” it came.
Yadav and Karthik ran to the tent to see. I stood by. The sight was familiar to me. It was the same sight Nitya brought. The same colour.
Their slow footsteps came back to the fire. Herded like sheep, they stared at me with a vile look in their eyes. “You…” Karthik trembled.
“So you are capable of fear?” I ask. Uncovering the knife painted fresh with Aman’s blood. The snow beneath my feet began her colouring.
“Why?” Yadav’s eyes searched frantically for his axe.
“You don’t know why? You… Yadav, of all people should know best,” I reply. “That Nitya is a lying maniacal whore. Isn’t that why… after ten long years of love, Sanjay found that his Nitya had been fucking your cock the entire time?” Yadav takes a step back. “And Aman… he helped cover it up so easily… Accusing Sanjay of being a druggie. Using his power and influence to save her, and you. In the end Nitya rewarded him too, didn’t she?” The grip on my knife tightened. “When she decided to fuck my boyfriend… two days after Sanjay, my brother died.”
“Yadav… What is all this?” Ayushi asked.
“You knew about all this. And stayed as you always did. Silent. Useless. A fool in a fool’s game,” I turn to Karthik.
“You’re going to kill us for that?” he asked in reply. “That’s crazy! Yara. We can work this out. Forget about them… We can! I promise!” his voice crackles.
“Yes, Yara… we can do whatever you want.” Yadav begged.
“Yet still, when Sanjay asked for the truth… you couldn’t give? You had to lie him into addiction… didn’t you?” I ask.
“Yara, how are you going to justify this? You’ll be hanged. The authorities will reach in the morning…”
“But all of you died in an avalanche, didn’t you?”
“What are you talking about?” Karthik’s wit returned. “They’re coming for us.”
“Who said they are?”
“You sai… You… You lying bitch!” his knife turned in on his hand, his body charged at me. BANG! It fell just as quickly. The smoke from Aman’s gun rose through the cold misty sky.
“YARA! PLEASE DON’T! I BEG YOU!” Yadav fell on my feet. His crying face was disgusting. “I’ll confess to whoever. For Sanjay. For everything! I’ll do it! Please don’t kill me!”
I stoop down to his face, lifting it up. “Tell that to Nitya… while you’re fucking her in hell.” BANG!
Ayushi hadn’t spoken a word in minutes. She had already died upon the sight of her friends. A warm puddle ran through the side of her leg. “Is… Is this… Is this why? You… asked us all to come here?” her petrified voice asked. Obviously, she knew none of the others like me.
“Aayu…” I hum and touch her wet cheeks. She was shivering. “You have no fault in all of this. You are a truly innocent human,” I added. Her full, black eyes stare with a glimmer of hope. “But… you’re too stupid to be left alive.” The knife exited her chest just as it did from Nitya.
Three days later, a lone survivor from the Kanjega avalanche came down the mountain trail. My body was carried over by the locals into the hospital. When I opened my eyes, the police stood over my face, and blabbered like they always do.
“Five of them… My five friends were with me… They… I don’t know if they… I don’t! Please find them!” For a second, even I was in doubt. Of why the tears from my eyes rolled down the cheek. When I knew better than any, that no matter how hard they try, they can never find it. The blood upon the snow.
