New Arshi FF: OMEGA by TINA! *IMP NOTE--PG 5*

Nothing in my life had ever made much sense.

Why my parents were dead and gone long before I could remember their faces. Their smiles. The sound of their voices.

Why my aunt, the only family I had left on this earth, kept me from going to school and tutored me herself though I knew well she found no joy in it.

Why the summer I turned six, she'd turned down the marriage proposal that I knew she'd been waiting years for. The man had been a soft-spoken widower, his daughter Payal, a friendly girl my age. In another lifetime, I imagined my aunt not rejecting the man, but accepting his hand. Imagined growing up just as any other girl, with Payal as my closest friend. My confidante. My sister.

But my aunt had said no--and rather firmly too. The following morning, she'd taken me and the few possessions we owned out of Lucknow to an isolated village. Its name could be found on no map and yet, it was the only home I'd known since turning six that fateful summer.

Fifteen years had passed since then.

Tomorrow, I'd turn twenty-one. The day would pass much as any other birthday in my life, with no big fanfare, no cakes or balloons. When I was a child I'd once asked my aunt, Garima, why we couldn't at least celebrate with my favorite chocolate. Was I asking too much?

And she'd told me, staring at me with an unblinking stare, "Your birth is no reason to celebrate; it's the opposite of that.

I hadn't known what she'd meant then and I couldn't make much sense of her words even now. Lying back on the tall, sweet-smelling grass that bordered the back of the small, brick home my aunt had bought years ago from a dying farmer, I sighed and contemplated the sun blazing down on me.

Its heat warmed my skin and its brightness blinded me. I closed my eyes instinctively and immediately, I saw him.

Again.

The flashes were usually quick, lasting no more than a couple second each, but this one lingered.

A tall, lean man, naked to the waist, his hair wet and cropped close to his head filled my vision. Though I could see only the back of him, I knew he was beautiful. Dangerously beautiful.

I'd never seen his entire face, not once, but there had been flashes of his strong jaw, dark, vacant eyes, and lips that appeared smooth and soft to the touch.

There was an almost tangible hardness to his features, a raw strength to his entire build. I didn't know how but something told me he had not lived an easy life. The harshness on his face, the bleak shadows lining his eyes, those soft, unsmiling lips all pointed to it.

Every part of him was compelling, especially to someone like me who'd never been this close to any man. I was grateful he was not real, for it shamed me to admit how often I thought of him. How late I stayed awake at night, recalling every second of the visions. Even his hands, his fingers long and tanned, capable of taking someone's life with one twist, captivated me.

I'd never seen so much of him before and for so long. His naked skin looked as smooth as the rest of him, his muscles rippling as he turned his head just slightly, almost as if hed sensed my presence, but that was impossible.

And then I heard it, his voice, dark and foreboding, as if he lay beside me on the sun-warmed grass, whispering in my ear.

"You're mine, Khushi."

I snapped my eyes open, shaken to my core. He'd never said my name before... Even now I could swear he was nearby, his husky voice curling down my spine. For some strange reason, it didn't feel foreign, but almost as if I knew it. Knew its power. Its strength.

"Khushi!"

My aunt's shout carried over the thundering of my heartbeat and I bolted to my feet, ignoring the pain of sharp twigs and stones as they tore into my bare flesh. I didn't seem to feel it. All I could focus on was him.

The specter that had been haunting me for years, since the time I turned sixteen. I'd heard only his voice in the beginning, calling out to me, demanding I answer. I had no idea how to. Even if I had known, I doubted I would have. Whoever he was, he terrified me.

"KHUSHI!"

I pushed open the door, my breaths coming fast and choppy. "Yes, Garima?"

She'd forbidden me from calling her aunt or masi from the moment we'd arrived at the village. Everyone believed me to be no more than her servant, a mute servant girl my aunt had told the most gossipy of the lot. By the next morning, everyone had known and it was enough for them to leave me alone except for the occasional looks of pity. No one had spoken a word to me in years. I had no friend. No family except for the woman who refused to acknowledge me publicly. No hope. No future.

And why had my aunt done all that? Why did we live like this, far from civilization, hidden from the world? Like I said, nothing in my life had ever made much sense.

My aunt, if she felt any guilt for it, never showed a hint of it in my presence. Her frown intensified as she studied my dirt-streaked face, my hair which was in a sorry state, half undone.

"Where were you?"

"Nowhere. I mean, just outside."

She grasped my shoulders, shaking me. "Where? Did you speak to someone? Did you sneak off again to look at the television?"

There was only one television in the village, it belonged to the richest man, though he was generous enough to show everyone a movie on it every couple of months. I had seen a few, hungering for a glimpse of the world I'd left behind. I knew out there, somewhere, Lucknow and the rest of the world was bustling along, that the TVs and phones had to be far more advanced by now, and something I'd heard the rich man talk about, the internet, whatever it was, had to exist. All I had were the few tattered copies of textbooks and paperbacks my aunt had smuggled with us years ago. Classics I'd read time and time again until I knew them all.

It twisted something inside me to know that I was not at all accomplished like the girls in those books set hundreds of years ago. I'd never gone to a real school and there was no hope of me ever attending a university. My aunt would never allow it.

My anger and all the frustrations that had been festering in me since I woke at the crack of dawn this morning, exploded. "What if I did? I'm sick of this! Sick of living like this! Tired of being kept away from everyone and everything! You've ruined my life!"

My aunt laughed, though the sound held not a drop of warmth. "Oh, you stupid, stupid child. I haven't ruined your life, I've been trying to save it!"

"From what? I broke out of her hold and stumbled back. "Help me to understand! What are we running from? Who are you trying to save me from?"

I'd asked these questions for years and never gotten any answers. Normally, this would be when my aunt would force me to my room, locking me there for days at a time. Hunger, I'd learned, was a powerful motivator to keep quiet. To become mute in every sense of the word.

But to my astonishment, this time my aunt gave me a reply. A reply that chilled me to the bone.

"I'm saving you from the man haunting you." At my wide-eyed gaze, she nodded. "You've seen him. I know you must have, Khushi. A flash every now and then. The connection is too powerful to remain quiet for so long. It must have shown you his face."

It never had. Not completely. I'd seen only glimpses of his features or his face half in shadows. "A connection? I share a connection with h-him?" My voice wobbled. My hands shook as they rose to my face, feeling the coldness of my skin. He was real? My world, all I thought I knew, seemed to tilt on its very axis. "Who is he, masi?"

Her hand struck me hard across one side of my face, jarring but not surprising. She'd slapped me before for making that mistake, for revealing our true relation as aunt and niece.

"Never, ever, repeat that. No one can know." Suddenly all her anger seemed to be sucked out of her and she followed me down onto the ground, taking hold of my trembling hands. "I'm sorry, but you don't realize how dangerous this is. Our only hope to keep you safe and untouched is for you to remain unseen. Unheard. He must never, ever, find you."

Tears escaped my eyes and I found myself hating whoever he was. It was all because of him I had to live this sorry life. Why I couldn't attend college like any other girl my age. Why I'd never have friends. Why I'd never be normal.

"Who is he?" I asked again, my voice barely above a whisper this time.

My aunt embraced me, stroking my head, her own fingers shaking. "I have no idea, Khushi, and I can only pray it remains that way."

"I don't understand. None of this makes any sense to me."

She gave me the same pitying look the villagers often did. "I pray that stays the same as well...that you never find out about the dangers you face. Imagine that he is a hunter and you his prey. He will not stop until he has you, my child. Our only hope is for him to never find you, never speak to you."

I closed my eyes, unable to tell her that the man I'd been dreaming about for years now, whose thoughts plagued me night and day, had already spoken to me. And today, he'd gone one step further and uttered my name.

His voice, silky and raw, filled my head suddenly once more, as if he stood in the room, uncaring of my aunt as he prowled my way. "I will find you, Khushi. I won't rest until I do. Until you're mine."

To be continued...😳

ps. I don't know why pics aren't posting and image button doesn't seem to work... I think I've forgotten lol