Chapter 4 - Dead in the Maze
It is the dim haze of mystery that adds enchantment to pursuit...
But some mysteries are better left unsolved...
What if you find out that the person you thought ..you know very well about ..you actually know nothing about him..?
"Manik..leave me..you are hurting me..."- Nandini squeaked under his hold..
"Really..what about you hurting me all the time..I told you..wherever and whenever you go ..atleast tell me about it..what would have happened if I ..I didn't come on time.."- Manik blabbered..in daze..
"Manik..I am right here in front of you..what would have happened and moreover I saw something there...moving.."-she pointed at some distant shadow..
"Saw..what did you saw..tell me.."- his voice was a little higher this time...
" Manik..what's wrong with you..may be someone's broke into the house.."- she was wriggling under his huge frame...
Her words were soothing for him as he knew she didn't see anything ... " may be he reacted too sudden this time..what if she gets suspicious...no..he won't let that happen.." - he loosened his hold on her..
"It was nothing ..I mean ..may be a cat..you just don't need to worry about it..come..."- and he dragged her to their bedroom..
Clutched under his monstrous grip.. sleep was far fetched from her eyes..he was clinging onto her as she would be leaving anytime soon.. " why is Manik behaving like this..." - she kept pondering about all the things that happened recently though much to her disappointment.. she couldn't come up with any sort of justification that would explain his weirdly odd set of illogical do's and don'ts ..
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"Manik..how long..the food is getting cold now..."- Nandini was waiting for him at the dining table in the hall..
Suddenly she remembered something and took her phone..sadly there were no missed calls or any messages from her friends or family..." Why is no one wishing me..."- she wondered ..this never happened before.."Did they forgot..all together..how come..this one time.."-she reasoned through all the possibilities..forgetting her birthday was next to impossible for her over enthusiastic friends...and then something caught her attention..."There is no network...oh may be that's why.."-she zapped her phone through every direction.. roaming through every nook and corner but to her dismay...there wasn't any signal..no sign howsoever weak it may be..
" This is crazy..."- her face got glued to the adjacent glass window gazing at the distantly aligned network towers in succinct rows..it seemed like from the past few days..all of a sudden..everything got weird.. from seemingly complicated manik's bizarre actions to ..now these huge wacky towers who were hell bent at ditching on her birthday..
Lost in her chain of thoughts..there this sudden flash caught her eyes abruptly.. and as she bend to peek through.. she saw a hand was trailing over the ledge .."may be someone's spying on us.."- she thought..and remembered the instances from a day before...she was sure that someone's trying to break into their house...she even tried to tell Manik about it..but he was hardly concerned ..
"This time..I am going to catch him.."- Nandini carefully hatched a plan and moved outside for the same..
Dressed in most kooky and alienated manner..with a bucket in one hand shielding her out of it's way from the worldly evils..while a mop in her other hand to beat the ultimate devil and a helmet on top ..she was sure to defeat any whatsoever difficulty coming her way..
She paced at a snail pace hiding behind the bushes and in a sudden blitz tapped on her shoulder and came in front of the bugger scaring him out of his wits...though what she saw next shook her to the core..
"And there I saw a lady in ragged clothes..her face was pale ..her eyes were hollow..devoid of any emotions ..and her convalescing sunken cheeks..in all it looked like she didn't even had a proper meal from days.."- her plight frazzled Nandini ..
" Shocked, stunned ..she was frozen at her place and was gaping at me as I caught her red handed..she stared me with a sharp and rigid expression .."- she was about to run away when nandini caught her wrist..
"Please leave me .."-the lady shouted..
"Would you like to eat something..."- Nandini asked out of the blue..though it eventually managed to calm down the nerving ends of the lady as she finally stopped sailing her hands up and down ..and in a quick ..Nandini offered to take her inside and told her that she will get some food for her there...but the lady blatantly refused and demanded food right there...despite of being hungry the thought of being inside was scaring her more..
After a much sought out discussion ..all the while with Nandini persuading her to come inside despite her banal no's ..it concluded with Nandini finally accepting her defeat ..as she went inside to get some food for her...
"Strange she is.."- Nandini thought as she moved ahead towards the lady with some food in a plate...it certainly took some time on Nandini's part to locate her..as she had perfectly camouflaged herself behind a pillar..
" I shook her ..she shrugged her shoulders..after a much thought she finally took the food and gobbled it up in one go..while I was staring at her.."- ..Nandini wondered what bad had happened ..that scarred her for forever..
"So you were the one..I saw last night..."- Nandini spoke..
The lady looked at her once..and then in the next instant completely ignoring her.. started munching on the food ..
"Nandini ..where are you.."-Manik shouted from inside and it's when ..the lady stopped eating..and looked at Nandini with widened eyes ..
" After a much needed meal ..she looked at me ..and what she said next shocked me to core..."- Nandini stared at her from head to toe..
"RUN...just Run for your life..."- the lady squealed..and before Nandini could respond she disappeared from there in the woods..
"Nandini..what are you doing here..I have told you.."- before Manik could say anything further Nandini muttered..-" where did she go..."..
"What ..who you are talking about..."- Manik was alert..
" A lady..she was here a second ago.."-Nandini squinted her eyes ...
"Come..the food is getting cold.."-and he took her inside in a haze...
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"Run...just run for your life.."- the words were on a constant loop in Nandini's mind .."what does she even mean...why did Manik stopped me ...what's inside there.." - ..there were questions popping in her head every now and then ..
While in one second she was going all cranky and in the other she made her way to same place where she had been before..though this time she was even more determined to find out the truth..
"The staircase.."- she envisioned her chances of getting there without manik's disturbance and now as manik was out for some work..there was a slim chance of working it out well too..
Carefully she turned the knob and with in a flash glided inside..
Far from what she imagined..haphazard state was long gone and it was beaming in it's new avatar...dim lights had engulfed the darkness..and the carpet was squeaky clean ..everything felt new..it felt like everything has gone through some sort of rebranding ..though she had been there for once but she was sure it was way different before than it is now..
As the moved ahead she saw the whole room had a few compartments..and cabinets which she found were empty as she rummaged through them...
"Am I thinking too much..that lady..what did she meant..huh..relax Nandini ..you can't go doubting Manik on words of anyone..this is not correct.."- she was now feeling guilty.. for in a flow.. she chose to get herself influenced and even went on an extent of finding faults in Manik's act..
"I trust Manik..yeah ...I believe in him..he won't do anything that he shouldn't be doing.."- decided to put an end to her silly investigation..as she turned hastily ..her foot got stuck in the carpet and she fell down..
"Ahh..I should have been more careful .."- Nandini squirmed in pain..and as she tried untangling herself ..she felt something unusual beneath her fingers and she unshackled it from one dark corner underneath the carpet ..she found out it was a diary..an old diary perhaps..which had it's corners crooked down the line..
"What's this..."- Bemused She started shuffling the pages ...most of them were turned yellow..and had rough stains and patches..her eyes got fixed at one blotchy page..which was crossed many times ..it was a diary entry...the writing looked a bit familiar...she jumbled up the words in one place and started reading it...
"Why does everyone hates me..
Why does no one wants to be my friend..
They say..I am mad...
I know it's not true...
Today I found a beautiful butterfly in our garden..
It had golden blue wings..and was looking so pretty..
Though before I could go and touch it..
It went far far away from me.. fluttering it's wings..
I told dada...I wanted that butterfly...
But he didn't let me do that..
You know what dear diary..
I finally found a way to keep all the things close to me..the way
I wanted..
They will now stay with me forever..
And they won't leave me ..like the others did..never ever ..
- Manik Malhotra "
And as Nandini reached to the end of the page and tried wrapping herself in those words..But before she could understand any of that ...something dropped down..and as she looked what it was...it snapped her senses out..it was a butterfly..a dead butterfly..
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sorry it took longer than expected.. it was going to up by lunch..but for some or other thing..it didn't work out ..
And for the story..if it sounded unpleasant or spine tingling ..then let me tell you..for a bit of warning..the mysteries are going to get much more stronger so please..hold onto it ..😉
NOTE : I saw many of you were worried ..about what I am going to do with Nandini ..am I going to kill her...No..huge No ..I am not a sadist ..I love Manan like you do..there are things much more mysterious than Manik Malhotra ....trust me on that..yes he has some issues that are going to be resolved throughout .. but .. I won't be making him a murderer.
If that makes you happy or gives you some relief.. ..then yes end game will always be Manan..please believe me 😊
And those asking me for some Manan scenes..there are lots in flashback and ..I hope you will like them !
PS : Please give thumbs up or comment if you want to see more 😳
PPS : Have a Happy and Safe Diwali 🥳
Edited by -TheQueen- - 9 years ago
