Entropy || A SHIVIKA - ISHKARA - RUMYA FF [A/N Page 9] - Page 5

Hi everyone!
I'm sorry for how late this was but I do hope you enjoy it! Also, I have a question for you all:

Which of the six characters do you think would be scared of the supernatural and/or the paranormal?

Please leave your thoughts and comments below 😊

CHAPTER 2 |Echoes

In the last hour or so, Omkara and Ishaana had resolutely ignored each other.

Omkara couldn't stop thinking about her.

Bela had made him sympathetic, but Ishaana had changed him.

He had seen so many girls like Bela. Broken by the world's injustices, so desperate for an escape from its cruelty.

He had yet to meet someone remotely alike Ishaana.

She was different.

Ishaana had destroyed the remnants of the faith that he had had in the world.

All his life, he had only seen the world in black and white. There was no grey for him, and if he knew anything about the woman beside him, it was that she only dealt in the grey.

He realised that she had done what she had done to save her family. That her father was a gambler, and that he had gambled away his own life, and was nearly through with Ishaana and her sister's. As perverse as he thought it was, he had gotten Shivaay's PI to look into her life after he had found out about her attempted con.

He needed to know the complete truth, and Omkara Singh Oberoi would do anything for the truth.

What had initially hurt him the most was that she had confirmed the manipulative ways of the world, and that she had confirmed it so very gracefully.

Indeed, he had thought that he could see truth in her eyes. That somehow, he could feel the burden that this stranger was carrying, her battle with the world impacting him in a way that he didn't think was possible.

But he eventually understood that, that day on the stairs of the museum, he hadn't seen Bela's pain, but Ishaana's.

And he knew in his heart, that Ishaana's pain had been real. And as much as he didn't want to accept it, it was the truth.

But that didn't justify the lies.

She had broken his trust. She had lied to his face. She had used him. She had insulted his family. She had insulted his brothers.

And despite all of this, he couldn't hate her.

It surprised him that his brothers, so extremely protective of him, had accepted her so easily.

Well, it hadn't exactly been easy.

For months on end, Shivaay had refused to properly talk to her, moreover, he had held the stolen car incident above her head, threatening to get her arrested if she made any mistakes. But even then, Omkara had no possible justification for why Shivaay had hired her at all. In all of the years that he had known Shivaay, he had never done anything so extremely unexplainable. But if Om had initially thought this was strange, soon after Shivaay's actions left him even more perplexed.

He promoted Ishaana to Mahesh's job as Shivaay's personal assistant. Om knew his brother, and even though he made sure not to talk about her near him, Om could tell that Shivaay had become reliant on her, and many a times, Om had actually caught his brother telling Rudra about how extremely good Ishaana was at her job.

Rudra, himself, out of love for his brother had taken to downright avoiding her. But after he accidently managed to drop a dumbbell on Ishaana's foot, Rudra's emotional side had finally been awakened, and through his frantic apologies and her repeated reassurances that she was okay, they had slowly become friends.

And now, whenever Rudra and Ishaana were together, they were constantly laughing, or supporting each other with their equally inane desires. Rudra had taken to calling her Didi and Ishaana, herself, doted upon him.

On the other hand, Ishaana, too, was plagued with thoughts of Omkara.

She didn't know what it was about him.

She had successfully conned countless men without a second thought. It had been so easy to use them, but somehow, Omkara Singh Oberoi had made her slip.

His compassion had gotten under her skin. He was different from other men; unlike them, he had actually cared about poor, broken Bela. And she hadn't planned for that to happen.

Omkara had triggered her conscience, something that she had hidden away for years on end. There was no place for a guilty conscience in the life she lead.

He hadn't affected Bela, but he had changed Ishaana.

For one, it had been a blow to her very being when he had attacked her family.

She would be the first to admit that her father had committed too many sins to count. Sometimes, she thought that he too, was only using her. Even with this knowledge though, he couldn't hate him. Whatever her father was, he was family.

That was the difference between them. She wasn't like Om; she couldn't abandon her family for truth.

His naivety astounded her - she had conducted thorough research on him before they had even officially met, and his ideals and principles were so extremely idealistic. Too idealistic.

Didn't he know that the world doesn't work that way?

Surprisingly enough, as an artist, he didn't quite seem to understand the many shades of the human character. He only saw the world in black and white, but the truth was that every person does good, just like every person commits sins.

Idealism and truth sounded great from well-established, wealthy artists like him, but not from girls like her. The only thing that mattered to her was protecting her family, and surviving in a world so overwhelmed with pain.

But even then, a wave of remorse swept her off her feet.

Ishaana kept telling herself that she had done it for her family, and that she had her reasons, and that people like her couldn't afford to feel bad for the things they had to do to survive.

And yet, she couldn't stop feeling guilty.

Without so much as a word, Omkara had once again, brought upon a sea of emotional turmoil in her.

The only person who could calm her raging emotions was on the other side of town at this very moment, and Ishaana suddenly knew what she had to do.

Her bubbly younger sister picked up on the second ring. In the background, she could hear the sound of her father singing along enthusiastically to a loud Gujrati item number.

Ishaana smiled, the resentment that she had felt minutes ago, gone in an instant.

"Hi, Didi! It's quite late, why aren't you home yet?" The sound of her voice was reassuring in itself. The hefty Oberoi Corporations paycheck had paid off the loan sharks quite easily, but she couldn't help being worried about their intentions regarding her sister. They had already threatened kidnap more than once, and with her father's ability, or rather, lack thereof to protect his daughters adequately, the anxiety was called for.

"Listen Mona, some urgent work came up. I don't know when I'll be back home." Ishaana murmured quietly, hoping that Om wouldn't be able to hear her through the sound of the distant Mumbai traffic. They were already quite secluded, and she couldn't see any car on the road except Rudra and Saumya's, so she lowered her voice, now just a bare whisper.

"Is Jeeju with you?" Her sister asked apprehensively, and Ishaana's stomach lurched. Her desperate con scheme had been terrible, but she did miss the time where she had met the kinder side of Omkara Singh Oberoi.

"Don't call him that, Mona. And yes, he is."

"You used to call him prannaath! Anyways, I know why you're calling. Don't worry about us, I know where the money is kept, and I'll make sure that Papa doesn't play any games while you're gone. Just take your time, and do what you need to do, okay?"

"Mona, I need advice. What do I do?"

"Come on, Di. Just talk to him, it's about time you two got over it. Everyone else has."

Ishaana didn't question how Mona had known what she was talking about. She always knew.

"Yeah, I know. But - "

"Look, this is the perfect chance. Make amends with him."

"But why should I have to be the one to do it?"

"Because..." But Mona's explanation couldn't be heard properly, as Ishaana was losing signal. All she could hear was disjointed words, and the knot in her stomach tightened painfully.

"Mona, I can't hear you properly. Hello? Mona?"

Hanging up in dismay, Ishaana looked out the window. In awe, she realised that the road they were on was narrow and winding, and it was getting so dark that if not for the headlights, she wouldn't be able to see Rudra's car. From what she could see, the road was nearly swallowing the path, and the car was bumping around more, evidently the road wasn't very safe. Ishaana knew that this wasn't the main road, because at a certain two-way intersection, she had seen a peeling sign pointing towards the main road. And Rudra had turned the opposite way. Where were they going?

While she pondered about this, Ishaana saw another sign, and finally everything clicked.

Omkara was blindly following the car in front of them in determination, and so he hadn't noticed what she had.

Mehrauli 100km ahead.

A sloppily written cardboard sign bore these words, and she almost face-palmed. How had she not realised earlier? Who drove two hours away from home to have sex?

She had assumed that they had wanted some sort of weird, animalistic ambience, but in retrospect, from what she knew about Rudra's libido, he didn't seem like the type who would want to wait.

"You were right." Ishaana said, finally breaking the silence. Omkara didn't reply, just looked across at her questioningly, brow quirked in confusion.

"They're not having sex. But - "

"Are you telling me that we drove for the last hour for nothing?!" He burst out, and Om suddenly felt like he hadn't talked in ages. He loved serenity, and yet with her, silence was stifling.

"They're - "

"Wait, then what are they doing?" Omkara cut in again, looking perplexed. He remembered back to the time that Rudra had driven out to the grocery at 1am in the morning, because he had been craving chocolate cake. He vowed to personally hide his brother's dumbbells if he had decided to -

"They're going to Mehrauli."

"No, that's where Shivaay and Annika...Oh shit."

Ishaana nodded encouragingly, and she casually waited for the outburst that was imminent. In fact, her companion was already turning red, voice raising.

"Rudra must have decided that he couldn't live without Shivaay for a week! He always pulls stupid shit like this! Goddamnit, you know this one time, Shivaay had to come back from New York a week early because Rudra wouldn't stop crying?! And when he finally came back, he told Shivaay that he lost muscle definition because of that one trip!"

He quickly quietened after he realised that he had talked to her willingly, and more than he had needed to.

The issue, Omkara realised, was that Ishaana was a magnet. That through everything that she had done to him, all the lies, he couldn't stay away from her. He had absolutely no idea why.

She conveniently interrupted his sudden epiphany, waving her hands around in sudden excitement. If there was something she really liked, it was a mission.

"So are we going to keep following them?"

"Yes! I'm not letting Rudra ruin this for Shivaay and Annika. The only reason Dadi sent Annika with Shivaay is so they could finally get it in their heads that they're in love with each other! This trip was supposed to give them the alone time they needed, what with Shivaay's constant calls from work, and Annika always running around the house doing something or another, they don't have time to breathe the same air, let alone talk to each other! I thought Rudra finally grew some brains, but then again, he's always been the Dumb Oberoi."

"It's not all Rudra's fault! Saumya's helping him too." Ishaana interjected indignantly. As much as she adored Saumya, her loyalty to the youngest Oberoi brother stretched far and beyond.

"Hey! Don't say anything about my sister! Rudra must have dragged her into this mess, she's too mature for all this childish behaviour!"

"And yet, yesterday, she was so angry at Rudra, she decided to cut holes through all of his shorts."

"Yeah, well, it was about time he got rid of those shorts, anyway."

"Do you hear yourself? We both know that together, those two could wreak havoc through the whole of Mumbai! Saumya may be mature on her own, but when she's with Rudra, all that goes down the drain. And Rudra's always been immature, so that's that."

Omkara was unyielding about his opinion, but his voice considerably softened as he quipped back wearily.

"It's not Saumya's fault."

Ishaana took her time exaggerating a frustrated sigh.

"Well, whoever's fault it is, we have to stop them before they do something infinitely stupid."

He couldn't disagree with this, so instead, Omkara turned his attention back to the car in front of them.

***

Meanwhile, in the car in front of them, another important revelation had come to light.

Rudra, being as spoilt as he was, realised that he had absolutely no idea how to activate the GPS system in the car.

So, much to Saumya's delight, they had gone old-school, and thus, she had excitedly taken up the role of ordering, no, instructing, Rudra on how to reach their destination. But, as it goes, after an hour of repeating directions constantly (Rudra had the memory of a goldfish), interspersed with regularly yelling at Rudra to drive at a legal speed, she was quite exhausted.

"Remember to turn left at the end of this road, Rudy. And then it's pretty much a straight path." She grumbled, as she slid lower down the passenger seat, trying to find a comfortable position to rest her throbbing head.

"Hey, Somu! I'm bored, let's play a game!" Rudra took one of his hands off the steering wheel, and poked her cheek gently.

I'm sleepy." Saumya swatted his hand away, frustrated. After murmuring yet another reminder of the next direction, Soumya closed the atlas with a snap, and closed her eyes.

"But Somu..."

Rudra stopped nudging her when he realised that his best friend had fallen asleep and he hastily turned down the upbeat Bollywood music that the radio had been blasting. Turning back to the road, he assured himself that he knew what he was doing, because Saumya had told him before she had fallen asleep. Turn left at the end of the road.

While he drove towards the intersection, he found himself preoccupied with thoughts of his cohort.

She had taken to babbling in her sleep again, like he knew she always did. Today, he noted amusedly that she was promising her mother that she would only eat four aloo parathas for breakfast. It was so strange; the things that had originally put him off her were, to him, now the most endearing facets of her personality. Over the six months that they had known each other, their relationship had gone from rigid intolerance to a friendship that he wouldn't forfeit for almost anything. After his brothers, she was the only person he completely trusted. Saumya had been with him through all his happiness and achievements, and yet she had also stayed during the uncountable breakups and the family tragedies.

He would never admit this, but all in all, she was a part of him.

Shaking his head at his inherent ability to go sentimental at any given moment, Rudra noticed that he was reaching the intersection. He put his hand up to indicate, and then realised that he had no idea which way he had to turn.

He winced at his horrible memory, and snuck a look at Saumya to see if by any luck, she was awake. Nope. She was still sound asleep; and he knew that Saumya could only be woken up when she decided to wake up.

Right, left, right! No, left. No, right? Was it left? What did she say again?

After debating with himself quite fruitlessly, he decided that if he didn't make a decision soon, when Saumya finally woke up, she would murder him.

So Rudra Singh Oberoi did the one thing he always trusted when it came to decision-making.

Eeny, meeny, miny, mo.

Content with the result of this intelligent resolution, Rudra finally turned.

***

The two stranded ex-inhabitants of the car, unmoving, had spent the last half an hour entertaining options, and theories.

"It had to be the ghosts!"

"Shut up! I can't believe that something like this could happen to Shivaay Singh Oberoi!"

"Yeah, well it did. Ghosts don't care who you are, and neither does anyone else in the world!"

"Will you shut it with the ghosts? I'm actually thinking about getting out of this mess! But still, how dare this happen to me?"

"I thought we established that ghosts don't care about you!"

"Again with the ghosts!"

"Okay, fine! This is just a matter of bad luck and fate then! And you couldn't even control a few buffalos, let alone fate!"

Shivaay Singh Oberoi paused for a moment, in awe of the woman before him. In all of his life, no one had ever dared to speak to him like this, and yet Annika carried on like this was second nature to her. To be fair, it probably was. He quickly shouldered this thought, and continued in his best form; as a businessman. That was the strongest part of him, and he reminded himself smugly that his negotiation skills were of the utmost quality.

"Listen, Annika. I know the situation looks bad, but in the scheme of things - "

"Yeah, yeah. So what do we do now?" She cut in, impatiently. Shivaay continued, slightly annoyed; he had a feeling that if there was one person that his excellent negotiation tactics wouldn't work on, it would have to be her.

"We could just spend the night at the bus stand on the main road and then my choppers can - "

"You and godforsaken choppers! I'm freezing, and I haven't eaten anything since this morning and that was a million hours ago! And if we stay near this goddamned road, the ghosts will get us!" Annika whined, glaring at him through her dark eyelashes.

Shivaay rolled his eyes, but he realised that there was one other way to convince Annika to listen to him.

Talk to her like he talked to the youngest Oberoi brother.

Annika and Rudra were quite similar in personality, and intellect, so he assumed that she would respond better to a kinder approach.

"Ghosts don't exist, Annika." His voice coaxing, carefully observing her face to see any hint of emotion.

His companion just huffed.

"You can't ever look beyond your own beliefs, can you? Well, you and your beliefs can rot here in peace! Unlike you, I'm going to actually get out of here."

With that said, Annika made her way determinedly towards the neck of the woods. Her knowledge of Shivaay had told her that his dominant side wouldn't be able to handle being side-stepped, and so he would definitely stop her. But he wasn't, and she was fast nearing the forest. Now she was afraid that he wouldn't try to stop her, because she had only said what she had to make a point. Just the thought of going into the dark expanse of seemingly endless trees made goosebumps rise warningly on her neck.

"Annika! It's an enormous forest - you're going to get lost."

When she finally breathed out, Annika realised that she had been holding her breath. She turned towards Shivaay, and eyes shining, she almost whimpered. The darkness was bringing out a certain vulnerability in her, and so the small act of compassion had managed to soften her.

"I'm starving, Billu Ji. And it's about to rain, see the clouds are separating!"

Shivaay sighed. Well, he wasn't going to desert a young woman, dressed as she was, in the middle of some remote, uninhabited area. The lecher from earlier one had already confirmed that. So there was only one option, and as much as he hated it, he wouldn't let her do it alone.

"Let me come with you."

Annika hadn't expected that. It wasn't like she would go into that ghostly forest alone, and her calculations and prior knowledge about Shivaay Singh Oberoi had made her think that he would refuse as well. But he hadn't, and now she was petrified.

Ghosts, darkness and the wilderness were bad enough alone, but together, now that was a whole other thing.

She assured herself that Shivaay would be there, and that made her feel better. And then she internally yelled at herself for her stupidity. A dark, haunted forest was a dark, haunted forest with or without him. But somehow, the prospect of him being there with her gave her some comfort, and Annika allowed herself to realise that he made her feel safe.

Which was insanely ironic, because hand in hand with Shivaay Singh Oberoi, came all the problems in her life.

He had...what hadn't he done to her? Everything from getting her arrested to buying out her house. And yet, she was attracted to someone who would never, ever reciprocate her feelings. Not that she liked him like that, she just liked the way he seemed to genuinely care sometimes, and the way he adopted everyone's problems as his own. And most of all, she liked that he loved his family more than anything - they had that in common.

As they finally entered the bushland, Annika felt her heart drop, and she desperately tried to ignore it. Maybe she wouldn't be afraid this time. Not with someone with her, that too, Shivaay. Annika tried to concentrate on his scent; an expensive cologne not quite masking the fragrance of clean soap. It was so extremely like Shivaay, she thought darkly, the cool, stony exterior that couldn't completely hide the doting, family man inside. He was -

No, the distractions weren't working anymore.

Her breathing was hitching, and distantly, she could hear the sounds of a crying girl, and she wanted to scream. She needed to distract herself before she broke down in the middle of this forest, and in front of him.

She thought of Sahil, and what he would say to make her feel better. He felt so far away now, and she longed to feel his small palm in hers, scratching it reassuringly.

"Usse bhi kya darna, jho jugnu se dartha hai." She muttered under her breath, voice quivering. They were deeper onto the main trail of the forest now, and the wind had picked up dreadfully. She covertly looked beyond her, trying to be subtle that Shivaay wouldn't notice. He seemed as calm as ever, and she longed for the composition that he was harboring.

They were way too far into the forest to turn back again, and she tried to find cold comfort in the idea that maybe they were nearly out of the forest, and just about to reach the other side of the trees.

And then Annika felt worse because they had no idea what was awaiting them at the other side.

Next to her, Shivaay didn't understand what she was repeating over and over again. It wasn't a prayer, that much he had drawn from the words, rather, it sounded like a chant of some sort.

Being the experienced businessman that he was though, he could tell that she was scared out of her mind.

She was shaking, and he had a ridiculous urge to hug her. He remembered back to the night that he had thought she was Tia, and even though he had made a huge mistake in theory, he had never felt as content as he had been in that moment. Her warm body pressed up against his hard chest, his arms encircling her petite frame, the scent of her hair (a distinct jasmine) filling the air he breathed.

Shivaay cursed himself; he was acting like Rudra again.

So instead, he distracted himself with the task of making her feel better. He didn't want to talk though, because his sixth sense told him that the he wouldn't be able to stand the trembling voice (filled with false bravado) that would answer.

At the dead of the night, she felt his warm hand on her wrist, gently guiding her through the tangle of irate greeneries.

She didn't push him away.

There were no words said, no overpromising reassurances, no pleas to restore the calm.

A silent understanding.