I have a few reasons for sticking to Trivandrum at the moment. This is where I was when the phenomenon happened. This is where we have been living for the past year. She is a victim of the phenomenon. She is gone. I need to find her. I need to figure out what has happened to her and bring her back into my life. It is my number one priority. Everything else can wait. I can try bringing back the rest of humanity after I have brought her back.

Secondly, without any modes of communication beyond the range offered by my walkie-talkie, I remain in dark as to what has happened to the rest of the world. They too might have succumbed to the incident. In that case, everyone is gone which includes my parents, friends, and everyone I knew.

Or the other possibility is things are going smoothly out there. They have no idea of such a thing. Maybe it is a localized phenomenon that is being played out in a veil of sorts. For them, all must good. An illusion must have been created for them.

This is highly unlikely. For such a thing to happen it requires one to fool the entire world into believing all is well in the state capital of Kerala. What about the people that must be travelling in and out of the city? They are dynamic entities. They are always difficult to control.

This kindles a small hope in me that things are all right out there. I don't know how I can rationalize it. It doesn’t have logic at all. I know this but I tend to ignore it as I don't have a clear-cut way to gauge it. I don't have the means to gather information on it and come to a conclusion. In this case, ignorance is bliss. I am not willing to believe in anything else until I am given solid proof of it.

If I want I can go ahead and get the proof for myself. I can decide to drive down all the way to my hometown. I will be covering a lot of ground in that 160 km long drive. It will provide me with enough evidence along the way for me to conclude what has transpired. I know this and I have decided to not address it. Sometimes, that little hope does provide a bit of comfort. I need it in these tumultuous times. I need it. If this is what keeps me sane and drives me ahead then let it remain. I will use it as much as I can, until the point where it becomes impossible to ignore. Then I will address it and accept whatever is the truth with both hands.

Looking back at my decision to come back home and spend the night back in my home, it does seem like a foolish one. I should have instead spent it somewhere on the road. I should have been on the lookout for any kind of movement from any other survivor. No one is going to come searching for me here. If someone is out there looking for others, they will always stick to well-known places. Or at least the main road.

Shit! I think I made a bad decision.

Well, I can't undo it now. I can learn from it though. Tonight I will be somewhere in the city in my car. I can probably sleep inside it. It will keep me safe from stray dogs. Maybe I can go for some rounds during the night. There is time to think about this and execute it. I will decide what to do when night falls.

I don't feel hungry at the moment. It is just the start of the day. I haven't had much from yesterday night. I didn’t feel hungry at all. I guess there was an excess of adrenaline and other hormones running through my system. They effectively blocked out any pleas of hunger from my body. I will be eating something before I leave. I also need to pack something for the road. A packet of biscuits will do.

Oh! Wait! I need to consider some food and water. It was one of the points in the last message I broadcasted yesterday evening. There are biscuit packets and some savories. I do have some dry fruits lying around - cashews, almonds, and kismis. I think there might be a packet of banana chips stashed away somewhere in one of the air-tight containers. I love them. But more than that, she loves them.

In my childhood days whenever my grandmother made these banana chips at home, she would serve them in our lunch as an accompaniment. Traditionally banana chips are served in the Onam sadhya or at any other sadhya taking place for a wedding or any other function. It is a part of the meal. Other than that I have only seen my grandmother serve them to us. She introduced my mother to this. Soon whenever my mother used to make these chips for us, she would include them in our lunch. Sometimes she even packs up a bit for me to take to school.

Her love for banana chips has brought this back into my life. She likes to have them with her meals. She even dips them in the spicy mango pickle before consuming it. I tried it in my childhood. It is good. The extra spiciness does give it a tang. But I love it the way it is and so I don't do that. I just eat the few she gives to me. Otherwise, I like my banana chips plain and normal. I am also not a big fan of a version in which they sprinkle red chili powder on top of it. It is tasty but not my thing.

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This should be enough food. I mean I don’t think any survivor would have gone hungry in a day. There are enough avenues to get something to eat. I can take a few slices of the remaining bread and the chocolate spread. I will have to take more water though. It is much more important than food. I will take two bottles. If more is needed I can get it from some shop.

The only shops that should be open must be at the Thampanoor bus stand. The one that used to be open has almost burned down. After I went out and subdued it, I lost the mood to go looking for some snacks to grab a bite. Also, I was not that hungry back then. Hunger was nowhere to be seen. I should have paid a little bit more attention to the surroundings. The shops inside the bus terminal are mostly closed. So are the shops on the first platform of the railway station. I don't know if some of the other shops on the other platforms remain open. It is highly unlikely. They do not function round the clock. They don't get many customers in those wee hours.

I am being optimistic and hoping to come across someone strong and iron-willed. I want to lean on him and let him guide me through the process of survival and getting back my life. It is me leaving out things for someone else. It is me being a sissy, a person who can’t take control of his own life and wants someone to show how to go about it and follow him. It is me not being a leader when the time calls. It is me escaping from what I should be doing. I am trying to be an escape artist. To escape and hope the other person figures it all out and calls for me when things are good.

I have run away from things that seem difficult to handle. It is my coping mechanism. She saw me through easily. She has said to my face that I do run away from my problems instead of facing them. I knew this but I was in denial for a very long time. When she told this me, my temper rose. But she was telling the truth. The truth was bitter and painful but there was no denying it. I had to own up and face things.

Instead of being angry at her, I accepted what she said. I confessed I do run away. I try to avoid confrontations. I want to remain in a safe space. I want to make sure things go smoothly without causing many hiccups. It is how I have tailored my entire life.

I haven’t taken any kind of risks. I haven't tried to take something that seemed challenging or required my full focus and dedication. I have always tried to find the easier path out of it.

Luckily my job wasn’t as such. There I did own up. I had to. I did my work to its full potential and ensured everything went smoothly and harmoniously. I think it was my inherent nature to see to it that things remain smooth which helped me navigate through the various ups and downs in my career. Since I always wanted to create an atmosphere in which my colleagues and I were comfortable, I hardly picked any fights with anyone. I treated everyone with the respect they deserved and ensured everyone's wants and needs were taken care of to a good extent. This enabled me to take things ahead without many problems. Over the years it brought a change in the mentality of the people. They were happy with me and how I took things forward. This translated to them putting in their best efforts, thus getting a good amount of work done on a daily basis. Targets were met and sometimes exceeded. It was a win-win for everyone involved.

But in life, I haven't been able to implement this to that extent. Here I have always taken flight instead of fighting. I think I am not a fighter. I am someone who remains in the shadows, gets the job done, and wants to lead a life of peace. The peace part is very true. I really don't like getting into trouble for trivial matters. I feel trivial matters need to be dissolved as soon as they are created. They should not be given space to grow. They should be nipped out at the beginning itself. Since I am someone who doesn’t want to address them and weed them out, I run away from them.

This one day of being alone in this city has taught me a lot of things. One of them is I need to start owning up to the things I have to. I need to confront them straight ahead and take them for what they are, address them and resolve them. Some things do not get solved by flight. They remain there, collecting dust, only for them to come back to life in some other situation, which can cause even more harm.

I need to teach myself to take a moment and analyze the situation before I take the primal decision of fight or flight. When one needs to take a stand and fight, one should do that. Where one needs to fly away into the distance, one should do that. In both cases, one should always reflect and see if it was the best decision. We are humans and we are bound to make mistakes. We need to come back to them and analyze them. What has happened has happened. It cannot be changed. But one can learn from it.

The funny thing is I know all this and I have decided multiple times on previous occasions on being more dynamic. I sleep on it for a while and before I know it I am the old me. I have somehow managed to scrap out of the odd situations without many problems and see them through. Not in the current position though. I will have to man up if I have to survive this ordeal and triumph over it.

Maybe that is why I am not hoping to come across someone I can count on. Someone who can direct me to what has to be done next to survive. He will be a catalyst in transforming me. He will build in me the confidence to face my ordeals and deal with them one at a time. He will be the mentor that makes me believe in myself and prepares me for the challenges ahead.

What if I never come across anyone? What if I am the lone survivor, the cursed survivor? What then?

Then the only person left to fall upon is me. Shouldn’t I be doing that? Shouldn't I be owning up to what I have to and facing it head-on?