Chapter 24
Game Over
A threat to society simply because I'm different
Well if it's a threat you want then a threat you'll get
And I'll show you my inner dissident
You wanted to categorize the hell I live in
But in a dimension of chaos there is no organization
Because insanity is unbiased on who suffers
Seeing only my demons watching with sinister grins
So now you'll have a peek inside the mind of this madman
A much darker reality than that of your normality
So I now grin and welcome you to my twisted wonderland
You have to learn the rules of the game ~ And then you have to play better than anyone else ~
Albert Einstein
Astha had eaten up all the fruits and drank the milk to her heart's content. She had been starving, but now she felt so full it was like she was never hungry. As her stomach was sated now, so her mind begun to work...
She pondered over how to escape and what to do in order to escape, she was so jumbled up with a combination of so many thoughts and emotions that her head had begun to ache...
The door connecting her and his bedroom had a lock and that too on his side, so he could seal or open the door at his wish. She was truly in a hopeless situation...
Giving up, she went back to her bed. Someone had changed the bed sheets, while she was in the bathroom, well good for her as the old one's were reminding her of him and his scent, she thought...
But after sometime, when sleep didn't come to her, she grew restless, twisting and turning, in order to get some sleep. Irritated she got up from the bed and after pacing a long time, thinking about her past, her present and how her future will be, she grew so frustrated with her helpless state that she kicked at the closed door, cursing that b*****d Mafioso...
To her astonishment, the connecting door, opened up with a creaking sound. Maybe he had left it open by mistake. Without pausing to think, she rushed inside, but to her disappointment, found the exit door of his bedroom, locked.
"What the heck?", she muttered angrily and banged on it, calling for help. But after half an hour later when her voice grew hoarse and her hands ached from banging continuously on the door, she gave up the struggle and leaned her back to the door to catch her breath...
She felt a sinking sensation in her middle, when she realized that there was no way out. Maybe that Mafioso won't ever let her escape and maybe she won't ever see her parent's faces or feel herself engulfed by their warm embrace, ever. Utterly defeated, she slid down the door, and sat on the floor with a thud...
"You", Avdhoot's face leached of all color. The man standing in the doorway was covered all in black, from head to toe, looking like a powerful figure from some ancient mythology.
Avdhoot squinted his eyes to see his face properly, which was still in the shadows.
But he didn't have to squint in the dark for long, as that powerful figure chose that moment to cross the threshold and step inside, closing the door with a foot.
His face came into relief, his cheekbones, looked sculpted in the dim lightning, his aristocratic nose more defined and his dark eyes glittering like some polished black onyx. A cold smile completed his dark visage...
His gait of a big jungle cat, slowly and steadily stalking his prey...
Avdhoot froze, the man looked somewhat familiar, but he couldn't name where he had seen him before.
"Know me", the man gave a short dark laugh, coming near Avdhoot. "Who are you and what are you doing here?", Avdhoot said suspiciously, he had steadied himself by then, and now he was looking calculatingly at the new apparition. "I should be asking the same question from you?", the man's voice was chillingly cold. "It's none of your business", Avdhoot delivered rudely...
Prabakhar Joshi and his whole family had stilled, at seeing the new entry and now they were watching the spectacle unfolding in front of them, with fearful eyes, their mouths hanging open...
"Well I am making it my business", he was coming nearer, slowly. "Stay where you are", Avdhoot suddenly took out a pistol from his pocket and pointed it at him, but the man infront of him didn't backdown, he kept coming near, his stride fearless, a dark smile twisting his mouth...
Avdhoot, put a trembling finger on the trigger, the stranger's confidence and fearless attitude was making him nervous. All his life he had confronted men who had cowered before him and had pleaded for their lives. But the stranger didn't look like someone who had or would beg for mercy, in his life. How would you put fear of death in someone's heart? in whose eyes, the death resides...
Astha sat there, gazing in an empty space, her mind totally numb and out of ideas. She had spent her quota of tears, just a moment before, and now she was feeling as if her soul was floating in midair. A leftover tear escaped the corner of her eyes, making a salty path on her cheek. She raised a hand to wipe her cheek, and quite accidently something caught her gaze. It was a piece of paper, or a card poking out from under the mattress. It looked like someone had tried to put it under the mattress in a hurry, but couldn't hide it properly...
Wiping her face from the back of her hand, sniffling, she got up from the floor, and hurried towards the bed. She pulled it out. It was the cutting of a picture...
There must be three people in the picture as someone had cut off the part that showed the woman, just keeping the important part and that of a man and the child sitting on his lap. Only the woman's arm was visible, lying on the child's thigh, the rest of the torso and face was not there. The child was about 5 yrz old, his hair a dark brown, his chubby face rosy with glee and his dark brown eyes dancing with mischief. Astha's eyes slid slowly across the child towards the man and got stuck on his face, with astonishment...
It was that Mafioso and he was smiling at the camera, laughter lines crinkling the corner of his eyes...
Avdhoot tried to push the trigger, but not before he felt something scalding hot grazing the side of his hand, and felt something warm trickle down his fingers. Then came the muffled sound of a shot being fired. The sound was muffled because of the silencer...
Avdhoot felt an acute crippling pain in his hand which made him crumple on the floor, screaming, holding his injured hand between his knees...
Ramlal had fired on his hand...
The stranger whistled sharply and four burly men came charging inside. "How did the mission went?", the stranger asked them...
"Boss we did everything just the way you wanted, killed his three men, and now there is no one outside", one of them, who was built like a hulk, answered him in a gravelly voice. "Did you checked properly, and what about the dead bodies?", he asked sternly. "Yes boss checked everywhere he only brought three men with him, and Abhinav had gone to get rid of the dead bodies, the hulk said obediently...
"Okay you go and wait outside, I'll bring him with me in a minute", he nodded towards Avdhoot, who was still lying on the floor, groaning with pain...
The men nodded their head obediently and went outside...
Still groaning, Avdhoot turned his shocked and pain-filled gaze towards Ramlal, who was pointing the pistol at him and then at Shyam. Their faces emotionless, unreachable, just like a cold statue...
In his shocked state, Avdhoot had quite forgotten about them. "Why Ramlal? Why Shyam", he asked brokenly, still dizzy with the revelation that he had been dealt the worst hand of his life...
"Don't ask why, ask how?", the stranger gave a soft but dangerous laugh. "Poor Avdhoot lying so helpless before me now, where is your famous attitude and composure, hah? Bring on your mask now", the stranger jeered...
"Who are you?", Avdhoot whispered through clenched teeth, his jaw working soundlessly in an effort to control the pain, flowing through his hand. "Still not know me?", the stranger mocked, bending down, to look into Avdhoot's face...
Avdhoot's gaze caught his face, which was now more prominent at such close distance, and got stuck on his features, taking him back to 24 yrz in the past. The stranger was the same and yet not the same, those eyes were the same, that had pleaded with him to leave his family alone, that mouth was the same that had begged him not to take his father away and those hands were the same that he had clasped infront of him, while he and his men had been laughing on his pitiless state...
He was a child then, the innocent eyes wide open with fear, lips trembling with misery, his legs and arms bloodied and grazed from being dragged on the floor and the cherubic face streaked with dirt and tears...
The picture fell from Astha's nerveless fingers, his smiling face had given quite a shock to her system. But the man she had met and laid with had never given such expressions, other than giving such cold glances, which would freeze anyone in the vicinity...
But he still smiles, her heart said. Yeah if you can call the twisting of his lips, a smile, really, she thought mocking her heart. Who was real? The man in the picture or the man whom she knew. But she didn't know him really, did she? She gave a soft mocking laugh at her thought. Other than you call the mating of bodies, really knowing each other, she made a disgusted noise in her throat...
What did she care who he was? and what was his story? for her he was only her kidnapper and her seducer, no seducer was a too lenient word for him, a rapist was a better choice for that person, who had forced himself on her. But he hadn't really raped her, had he? she was all the way with him too, she thought chewing her lips...
"To hell with him and his thoughts", she muttered angrily and was about to put the picture back under the mattress when her gaze caught sight of something written on the back of the picture. She narrowed her eyes, and read it. Some names were written across it in a bold scrawl, Abhinandan Agnihotri, Shlok Agnihotri and...and who, she thought quite irritated, the woman's name was struck off with a black marker. Someone had crossed it off with such vigor, that the marker had dug in the surface, taking away a chunk of hard paper with it...
"Please leave my Baba alone, don't take him, take me instead", the child was pleading, his tiny and chubby hands clasped together infront of him...
"Don't my son don't you dare beg for me", Niranjan shouted, struggling in the clutches of the goons, who were dragging him away...
"You've got to be strong my son, don't ever bow your head infront of these rascals", Niranjan was still shouting, while being dragged outside...
"Yeah yeah son, get up, be strong like a dog", Avdhoot jeered, crouching down beside the child to drag his face towards him...
The child spat in his face. Avdhoot gave a snarl and pushed him away. Getting up on his feet he gave a vicious kick to him in the ribs. The child, doubled up in pain, but still didn't scream. Infact he was laughing in Avdhoot's face, mocking him...
Just like the stranger infront of him was doing, but he wasn't laughing at him, instead his eyes were, laughing at him, mocking him...
"I don't know son, who are you?", Avdhoot swallowed, his gaze had caught sight of his pistol, lying not far away from him, and now the trembling fingers of his good hand were moving slowly towards it.
"Don't you dare call me son, you b****d", the stranger snarled, grabbing his shirt collar, and shaking him hard. Avdhoot's fingers had caught the pistol, they curled around it. But before he could raise his hand to shoot, the stranger put down his foot on his injured hand, grinding it on the floor. Avdhoot gave a shrill scream, the pistol fell from his other hand, and the stranger kicked it aside...
"Game Over Avdhoot Kirloskar", the stranger declared in a venomous voice.
Avdhoot felt the trap door closing on himself, Ramlal and Shyam were flanking the stranger's sides, their heads bent obediently...
"Now still don't know me?", the stranger jeered. Avdhoot again glanced helplessly at the stranger, his eyes pleading for mercy, but the child was gone forever, and in it's place was the monster and that too his own creation, his own reflection...
The eyes were the same, but the harshness had taken away the innocence, the face was the same, but bitter experience could be seen etched in each hard angle and plane, the lips were the same, but now they were not trembling with misery, infact a cruel smile was curling around their corners. He was Avdhoot and Avdhoot was him...
"You are Niranjan's son", Avdhoot whispered defeatedly, through cracked lips. "Got it right on the first chance have you", he jeered. "Yes I am Shlok Agnihotri, or should I say your Karma coming back to haunt you", Shlok gave a mocking laugh...
"Ramlal and Shyam, they were always your men", Avdhoot swallowed the bitter bile, forming in his throat. "Yes Avdhoot Kirloskar, they were always my men, you've truly beaten at your own game", his lips curled sardonically.
Avdhoot gazed at him for silently for some seconds then heaving a sigh he put his head down on the floor, finally defeat spreading through each and every pore of his body like cancer...
Then Astha's smiling face, appeared on the periphery of his vision...
"Where is my daughter? You've got her right. What have you done to her?", suddenly scared to his wits, he tried to get up from the floor. "Ohh so anxious to meet her don't worry I am taking you to meet her, she will be very delightful to see saintly daddy's true face", Shlok mocked...
Avdhoot's face paled. Before he could utter a single no, pain exploded at the back of his head, making him dizzy and he felt himself falling in a dark, bottomless pit, his insides swirling sickeningly, his last thought was of his daughter and then he knew no more...
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