Next morning, Ritvik woke up a little late. It was Sunday and he needed to compensate for the inconvenience caused last night.  After opening his eyes, he noticed his head was still lying comfortably on Ankiet’s chest. It was Aniket’s company  and his  soothing touch that made him feel comfortable and fearless. He could only sleep after he moved close to Aniket and kept his head over Aniket’s chest close to the shoulder. It miraculously helped him get rid of those hungry eyes haunting him last night.  Noticing how he was sleeping, he felt embarrassed and shy. What if he was noticed by Aniket in this awkward sleeping pose? He raised his head up to see if Aniket was awake. To his surprise, Aniket was still appearing to be lost in deep sleep without knowing anything about this physical world.

Ritivik got up, and after finishing the daily chores, when he returned back after around 40 minutes, he found Aniket still lost in sound sleep. It was unusual. He was looking lost so deep in sleep that he hardly had changed his sleeping pose since he was laid on the bed. His breathing pace was slow, and steady, but with deep breathing. It was only his breath that was distinguishing him from a dead body as there were no other movements except intermittent movements of his eye balls.

Ritvik sat on the bed next to Aniket. He was feeling anxious. He was worried about well-being of Aniket.  He had hardly seen Aniket having such a deep sleep. He was the guy who hardly slept even during night. Most of the nights, whenever he woke-up, he found either Aniket lying next to him, smiling and looking at his face with his fingers massaging his head or caressing his hair gently while he was asleep, or he was woken-up by one of the attempts from Aniket to make sure his body was somehow touching Ritvik’s body.  Whenever this connection broke, it did not take more than 30 seconds for Aniket to re-establish it. He was unable to sleep unless he felt Ritvik with him. It always made Ritvik smile and wonder if Aniket really ever sleeps during night. But today, it was so different. He was certainly not normal. He was not in his senses. He was unconscious.

Ritvik tried to wake-him up. He leaned forward and started massaging his head gently. He leaned a bit close to Aniket’s face and called his name a couple of times, expecting a response, but there was none.  He now held Aniket’s face from both hands and shook him mildly trying to wake him up with a louder voice but he still did not react.  This made Ritvik more worried about well being of Aniket. His eyes became teary and his voice started trembling. He did not want to loose his loving friend who happened to be his roommate too.  He leaned a bit and kissed on Aniket’s forehead and asked him to wake up. He was unable to understand what happened to his jovial, caring and loving roommate in a night that turned him so un-lively.  He must be very sick that is why he was not responding to him. Out of fear and anxiety, one of the drops from his teary eyes over-flowed and fell on Aniket’s face close to his right eye.  Ritvik was unable to see clearly with blurred vision due to freely flowing tears from his eyes. One after another drops started rolling out and followed the path of previous one.  His tears were a little warm, perhaps because of the heat they felt in which Ritvik was burning. Perahps, these warm droplets filled with emotional energy of Ritvik touched the soul of sleeping beauty and made him return back.

A couple of moments later he heard feeble mumbling. It sounded like Aniket. He wiped his eyes to clear his blurred vision. Yes, it was him.  He had not opened his eyes yet but there were signs of life coming back to him. His lips were moving, he was trying very hard to open his eyes but failing to do that. He was trying to say something but it was indistinct and very feeble to understand even from so close distance when he was holding his face in his hands. But now he was happy that at least he was coming back to life. He ran back to kitchen, and brought some water and a spoon. He thought probably some water might help him get symptoms of life, after all ” The Water is the life”.