I woke up sweating profusely.

The first rays of sun enlightened the eastern horizon.  Mount Vesuvius, silhouetted by the rising sun, as majestic as ever, towered over the city of Pompeii.

Today was a new day, a new start, though it didn’t feel like it. Every baggage, every consequence from yesterday was forwarded to this day and I have to live with it. I still remember her face when I poured my heart out and when her father publicly humiliated me in the town square. It wasn’t embarrassment or anger, it was……pity.

Suddenly a knock at my door snapped me out of my self-loathing. I opened it up, and found a lady standing there. Her face was covered by a long piece of clothing so it was impossible to determine her age or who she was. The only thing visible were her eyes. Blue Brilliant eyes, the kind that makes you feel like a grain of sand in the dessert of insignificance.

Only one woman I knew had that kind of eyes.

“Ilsa?” I asked.

She rushed in without answering. I closed the door behind me and turned to face her. She undid the clothe to reveal her face. Her serene spotless face, glowing like the morning sun, filled my room with hope. She has this aura that can’t be seen but it makes her presence inevitably felt by the people around her. Now her whole energy was concentrated on me, which was kind of overwhelming.

“What does the conventional social norms suggest when you have a lady in your room?” she asked with a crooked smile.

That happened to snap me out of my illusion. And instantly I realized that I was standing half naked. I made feeble attempts to wrapping my toga around me, only to get tangled by it.

Ilsa gave out a feeble laugh and said, “Let me help you with that.”

She reached out to grab the edge of the cloth from me. Her smooth hand brushed against my skin and I immediately felt goose bumps forming up my arm.

After I was fully wrapped up, I got to the main question. “What are you doing here??”

“Well, let’s just say, I let the wind guide me, and as it seems, the wind brought me to you. What a coincidence.”

“What…..a…….coincidence”, I whispered the words savoring every bit of it. But I can’t let my heart get the better of me, again. I have to stay practical. Her blue eyes bored into mine, trying to read my thoughts. They are trying to tell me something but I don’t know what. Maybe that’s the problem – I don’t get what people are trying to say.

“But, y-you shouldn’t be here.” I said.

“Why because my father said so-” she wants to go on but I interrupt her.

“Exactly!” I said that a little too loud. That seemed to take her aback, but that doesn’t stop me. “Because he said so. Because he said in front of the entire town. Because he threatened to kill me if I don’t obey him.”

By this point my whole body is awashed with hatred, not towards Ilsa, not towards her father, but towards me. Every moment of opportunity, to make my life better, I had missed due to my reckless attitude, flashed before my eyes. But now things are different. Now I am different.

Ilsa stared at me for some time and then scoffed. Everything I said brought down by a single expression of scornful derision.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” I retorted  back.

“I’ll tell you what’s that supposed to mean you rat bastard.” I have never seen her so fierce before and I have never been scared of her either. “You, Alair - The Great, you are saying me that you are obeying my father because he “embarrassed” you in front of the whole town and that you are scared for your life!?!? When the hell have you been scared of death and ever given a damn about what other people thinks?”

“Please don’t pretend that you know me, you have never known me.”

“Oh yeah? You think you are the only stalker in this room, sitting in the shadows of streets after feasts so that you can have a glimpse of me?” I felt my cheeks turn red, but she doesn’t notices it and goes on, “Well think again mister! I have been following you ever since you saved me from flowing into that river right after my mother died!!”

She paused for breath and then continued on before I could say anything.

“Don’t tell me that you want to obey my father because you are afraid to die or care what other people thinks. You are doing this because you are scared. You are scared of what I think of you. And want to know what I really think? I think that I am truly and deeply in love with you!”

I have been to all kinds of situations in my short lived life; none has got so off guard as this one. I stared at her blankly trying to figure out what just happened.

“I-uh- I don’t know-uh what to say…. You really mean that?” I managed to stammer.

“Oh come on!” She snapped at me and grabs me by my neck. She viciously pulled me closer. As our lips intertwined with each other, I felt the world dissolve around me until there is nothing except me and her falling into an eternal nothingness.

****

If you thought this was a happy ending, you couldn’t be more wrong. For things that took so much time to get fixed, it went sideways pretty quickly.

I don’t know how long we were kissing. It felt like an entire eternity. But suddenly the floor shook under us, breaking us apart. It didn’t take us a moment to understand what has happened. Living under the shadows of an active volcano has its own perks. Every now and then it grumbles, shaking everything around it and then resides being its usual self. It was nothing new…….

Our abrupt breaking set a fog of an awkward silence between us. For a long moment we just stood there, trying to think of the next thing to do. After sometime Ilsa broke the silence, “It feels unusual; when you finally reach your final goal and now you don’t know what else to do.”

“Well, for starters”, I said, “We can take baby steps. Do the next right thing and slowly everything will fall into place.”

“Yeah, we can do that.” She said looking at the ground

“But first we need to talk to your father. Even though you are right about me not caring, he still really scares me.”

She smiled at me. She leaned in, brought her mouth close to my ear and whispered, “I love you.”

****

“Outrageous!!!” cried Marcellus, Ilsa’s father. His mansion was located near the center of the city just past the town hall, where all the rich merchants live. Two giant stone lion guarded front door and it was mainly built to assert dominion and make everyone feel inferior.

Outside, Vulcanalia, a festival for Vulcan: the God of Fire was being celebrated with great pomp and show. The laughter and cheers travelled pretty loudly that it made me envious about the people outside. They don’t have to deal with what I am dealing with, right now.

“My daughter is not going to be with a jobless, penniless, hobo!!” Marcellus went on. “Guards!! Get this man out of my house. And Ilsa go to your room, we need to talk.”

The guards raised their spears and closed in on me.

“NO!” cried Ilsa that surprised everyone in the room. “No, I won’t listen to your pointless, baseless claims anymore. I am done satisfying your obnoxious ego. Mother had to die for that. But not anymore. It’s not for you to decide who I can love and who I can’t.”

“H-how can you?” Marcellus stammered.

He turned to me, his eyes bloodshot and filled with anger.

 “You.” His voice unnervingly calm. “You are the culprit. You brainwashed my daughter, my only daughter who never even raised her voice around me.”

“KILL HIM!!! Kill him now and feed him to the dogs!!” he ordered.

But before anyone could do anything, the ground shook and the building creaked. Fiery braziers tumbled down their stands and spilled hot coal all over the floor. The rope, with which a chandelier was hanging from the ceiling, got loose and came tumbling down crashing into the center of the room.

Everyone was too shocked to react. The guards still with their spears raised but bow looking somewhere else, Marcellus looking at his broken chandelier, Ilsa holding my hand. An ominous silence fell in the room and the world outside, like the one before a storm.

Then came the storm. A deafening explosion shook all of Pompeii. Glass window shattered all over the place and everyone was thrown on the other side of the room.

A drop of cold sweat ran down my spine. Through the broken window I saw Vesuvius, but it wasn’t the same as before. All its lush green forest had disappeared, and was now covered with soot and ash. Molten fire spewed from the mouth of the mountain and splattered across remaining forest. Dark clouds bellowed and reached the limits of the sky making it impossible to let the sun pass through. Simultaneous explosions blew up chunks of rocks and were now was raining down on the city.

I was so overwhelmed by this view I couldn’t muster up anything happening around me. I felt a hard tug on my arm and someone pulled me aside. The roof caved in right where I was lying. Splinter of glass has embedded all over my body. Someone kept dragging me so I lifted myself up and got out of the mansion, just before the entire building collapsed.

As I began to get my senses back, i started to think and act. My first thought was “Where is  Ilsa?”

The I realized she was the one pulling me. Now she has left me and went to her father who was being restrained by some guards from trying to get back into the rubble.

A burning piece of rock soared above us and destroyed the town hall. I picked myself up and got to Ilsa. I yelled, “Ilsa!! We need to move now!!”

Before she could say anything Marcellus cried out, “I am not going to leave it behind! My family has guarded it or thousands of years and it is not getting lost on my watch!”

At first I thought he has lost is mind, but then Ilsa said, “I know it is important but you can’t possibly go in there.

“It can save us”

I look at Ilsa questioningly

“It’s an ancient book given to us by the gods.” She explained, “It has answers written to all questions and troubles of life.”

“Where is it?”

“Deep underground, in a vault”

“I’ll go and get it.”

Ilsa looked at me like she as see a ghost. Her father took a moment to take in everything and yelled, “That’s preposterous!!!! No one has entered tat vault except a member of my family!!! How dare y-”

Before he could say anything else I grabbed him by his toga and pulled him close to me. “Listen you old haggard. Here I am trying to save you and your daughter and you are not making it easy for me. There is no way you with your worn out knees can get pass that pile of rubble and into the vault. So give me the keys that I know you have somewhere in you, so that I can do my job.”

Horrified Marcellus fished out a giant key from his toga (I have no idea how he hid it inside hid toga). Meanwhile huge chunks of rocks has barreled down from Vesuvius and already destroyed half of the city.

I took the key and was about to go when someone held me. Ilsa’s eyes were red, that brilliant blue now hidden behind a wall of tears.

“Please don’t go.” She begged

“I have to. Get as far as possible. I’ll find you there”

I set myself free and run toward a pile of debris and fire.

***

The trapdoor that led to the dungeon wasn’t covered with wreckage and was fairly easy to find. It opened up to a staircase going down. At the bottom I could see the vault straight ahead of a long corridor. The corridor was lit with multiple torches on both sides. As I moved forward another big explosion shook the ground. Cracks appeared on the roof. It was just a matter of time till it caves it. I reached the vault door and inserted the key in the key hole. The door unlocked, and creaked open. Inside was a pedestal with a pouch. I opened to pouch and found the ancient book with crippled pages. Without any hesitation I opened the first page, and felt my heart fall in an eternal abyss of darkness.

***

Another explosion shook the entire city, definitely bigger. All the torches went off as a gust of wind hit me. Something big and heavy fell from the top, the sound of the roof caving in. My only way out, now blocked by an unmovable pile of rocks.

I turned around and sat in the darkness. Something about this place was unnervingly calm. As I sat there waiting for my end, I tried revisiting all the good memories of my life. My childhood in the outskirts of Pompeii, me sneaking into places I shouldn’t go, lastly and perhaps the best one, my kiss with Ilsa.

I the closed the only written page the Ancient Book that said Always trust your instincts and you will never fail and set it aside. I closed my eyes to feel the lips of Ilsa on my lips for the last time, when a voice made my eyes jolt open.

“What do you think you are doing here?!?!”

Even though my eyes hadn’t adjusted to the darkness, those blue eyes and radiating aura was hard to not notice.

“Ilsa?”

“You have got to stop getting surprised seeing me.” She said, “You were supposed to get the book and get out of here!!”

“The book is useless. And the only exit is blocked. How did you get in?”

“I can’t just leave you in here.”

“But how will you get out now? I try to save you and you keep putting your life in danger.

“First of all there is only one person I will spend my last days with and that’s you. And second of all, this time I am saving you.”

Even though I couldn’t see I could sense her smiling at me. Her infamous crooked smile. She grabbed my hand and said, “Follow me.”

***

She took me to the other side of the vault, and traced her finger through the wall in a rectangular manner. The ground shook and dust fell from the roof and cracks widened.

“You might wanna hurry up.” I said.

She moved back and ran straight into the wall. At first I thought she had lost her mind but as soon as he collided with the wall, a rectangular portion of it got loose and fell on the other side giving way to a dark and empty corridor.

“How-?”

“A secret entryway to a tunnel that leads to the end of the city. Most probably used for smuggling and illegal trade. It was a lot of work to put the door back in its place the first time.”

I was about rush into her and kiss her but that was interrupted as something crashed above us, the ground shook and a crack appeared on the floor between us.

She caught my eyes. An unspoken agreement passed between us, and we began to run. I had no idea how the corridor looked, I had no idea where I was going. All that mattered that I had Ilsa beside me and the earth was breaking into two and was ready to take into an unending chasm.

Far along the way I could see light. Just a tiny glimmer but gave me a surge of hope. We ran alongside each other towards the light, helping each other along the way and jumped through the exit into a foothill of a small hill. Right after, the tunnel collapsed behind us. Rocks and debris kept falling on the mouth of the tunnel, each one tending to crush us. We picked ourselves up and moved upward. Our arms and legs were scathed with splinters of rock and wood and glass.

At the top of the hill we got a front row seats to destruction. Mount Vesuvius was no more the majestic silhouette at the beginning of the day. It was covered with fire, all its lush greenery now disappeared under layers of soot and ashes. Lava spewed for the mouth of the mountain and destroyed everything on its way. Where there once stood the majestic city of Pompeii now was a pile of rubble. The wall that stood for a hundreds of years kept tumbling down into the chasm created right at the center of the city. Dark clouds bubbled up into the sky, hot gas and volcanic matter flowed down into the city at ferocious velocity. Huge chunks of rocks blew off the surface of the mountain and kept flattening the city. 

After my fight or flight mode was turned off a surge of tiredness engulfed me. Ilsa’s condition was no better. She looked at me with weary eyes and asked, “What now?”

“A new start.” I replied