ArHi FF! Dante's Labyrinth: Thread 1 [Completed] - Page 8

I am already insanely hooked by these mentally deranged individuals thrown together in a mad house. I think you are having fun here showing these goody 2 shows as twisted souls. Loved looney Payal, psycho Akash and maniacal mastermind Arnav. Is this another experiment gone wrong? Bring it on, let's go to the dark side.

Wow, got a look into Arnav and Khushi's twisted psyches from that game of chess. Reserve a place for me in this facility of yours because even after reading this rather...foreboding update, I'm sniggering at the thought of Aakash in a superman's cape😆

Wow u are starting a new one
Wish my exams wherent knocking the door
So for some I will be a irregular reader
Will catch it up later

interesting one...

Gr8 part
thanx for the pm
Twinkle

Ah ha! Sicilian defence - now this is an interesting update giving us a peek into the minds of the inmates at the facility. It is premature to say this one is intelligent or this one is not. I am amazed at the manner they played the game, two people the reason for them being their still to be clearly revealed. I am excited for more and despite the warning, this is going to be one story to watch out for.

Awesome!!!

Read the two updates. I am really very excited to read this one. Actually I am excited to read anything dished out by you. Arnav seems to be more than a druggie as he described himself in the first part. He schools his emotions very well. Khushi killed her sister ? She seems most normal to me among all the characters.

Chapter 03: War Crimes

The inevitability of talking to a shrink came to her like a bad epiphany. It was her first day in the facility and the normalcy she foresaw was falling like castles in the sand. She knew that normalcy was always found in mental health facility where everyone was taken away from the madness in the world outside which conveniently wore a mask of realism and hypocritically dictated rules of sanity and insanity. In an asylum they accepted their demons and brought it out in open, under the sun and allowed doctors to help them tackle them on their own terms.

Their madness made them sane.

"How is your wound Khushi?" She looked back at the doctor's face stripping her eyes off the beautiful view from the window.

She touched hesitantly on her forehead and grimaced as her fingers brushed the sensitive area. "It still hurts a bit Mr. Jha." She said.

His face didn't betray what he was thinking. "I am not talking about that wound," he said and trailed his eyes towards her torso and brought it back to her face.

"Oh, that one," she said lightly. Without as much a hesitation she raised the hem of her t-shirt to her neck baring her chest to the doctor. The doctor flinched and turned his face away from her bare chest but he couldn't miss the long slash across her torso – a reddish scar running from right breast bone diagonally cutting across her stomach and all the way to her hip. Her lips snarled in glee at the doctor's expression. "Isn't it healing well Mr. Jha?" She asked slowly dropping her t-shirt.

"Have you spoken to anyone about it?" He asked her adjusting his spectacles.

Khushi stared at him for a second longer than necessary. "A psychopath with a misplaced sense of morality tried to gut me alive as a punishment for what he believed I did to my sister Mr. Jha. That's all there is to it."

"In your first statement you mentioned that you looked him in the eyes when the killer ran the blade across your stomach but you retracted it few days later," he asked looking at the copy of her statements from the police.

"I was severely traumatized Mr. Jha and I guess it sort of addled my brain." She said nonchalantly.

"Khushi, why did you lie?" He asked keeping his question open ended and waited for her to take his bait. If she accepted that she lied to the police during her first statement then it would mean that she was deliberately lying or severely traumatized. If she lied the second time, she was hiding something.

"I have lost track if the lies I have told and the truth I have manufactured. You have to be a bit accurate in your questioning Mr. Jha." Khushi maneuvered around the question.

"Why did you lie to the police?" He continued the tactic. Khushi was a government appointed patient to him after she was arrested on spot and didn't confess to murdering her sister. All the evidence was circumstantial and he had seen the detachment in her eyes when the prosecutors spoke about her sister. What could have generally put her in jail had failed this time when her lawyer claimed her to be legally insane and the court bought it as there was no forensic evidence to really prove she did it and her insanity could have made her pick up the murder weapon and sit in pool of her own sister's blood. Her mother and step-father had refused to even look at her but she had quite a decent inheritance from her biological father allowing her to check-in to the country's finest psychiatric facility which was partially funded by the state.

"I was young and a bit rebellious. My mother's husband refused to buy it for me and when the opportunity presented itself…." She smacked her lips then. "It was too overwhelming to pass up. Haven't you ever had that feeling Mr. Jha? The moment of doing the thing the heart desires the most – almost like expressing one's love." There was laughter in her eyes.

He sighed. "I am not talking about the first time you were caught stealing a Barbie doll at the age of eight Khushi. I am talking about the attack on you." He said making his question specific.

She dramatically slapped her forehead as if she realized something huge. The expression vaporized sooner than it arrived. "Then you should ask me specifically then Mr. Jha without resorting into cheap wordplay." There was stone in her voice and he knew that she understood his intentions.

He held her eye without reacting. He decided to change the topic to throw her off from her own game. "Why do you think you were attacked?" He asked forgoing the politeness.

"You should ask the guy who did that to me," she was picking out the dirt under her nails using a pencil from his desk.

"Oh, I will when he is caught. Since you survived such a brutal attack, you should be wondering why it happened to you," he asked.

Khushi laughed loudly, mirthlessly then. "You sound disappointed Mr. Jha." She asked looking up from her finger nails.

He chuckled. "I am disappointed that you are purposefully trying to be nonchalant about the way the killer held your life in his hands. The psychological impact of that very act is enormous and until you get past that mental roadblock which is avoiding you to talk to me…we will have these sessions."

"You are the boss Mr. Jha," she shrugged.

He scribbled in his notebook about her strong resistance to discuss what she went through. He felt uncomfortable in her unwavering gaze as if she was searching his mind with iron claws and documenting pieces of information she would find there. He kept his face neutral as he wrote few remarks.

"Can I go now?" She asked standing up. He nodded at her. They both knew this wasn't the last time they were going to see each other.

She was about to leave but his voice stopped her. "Khushi, have you ever wondered why he left you alive?" He asked. Bingo, the thought when several expressions ran across her face betraying the turmoil she felt with the question. He didn't smile at this small victory nor did he question anything further. He had gotten an answer and he now knew what made Khushi react.

He stopped her before she could answer. It was best if she stewed a bit more on the question. Answering immediately would put a definitive end to the session and he didn't want that. "By the way Khushi, it is Dr. Jha; not Mr. Jha." He smiled at her kindly.

"If you say so," she said and looked at him unblinkingly. Her lips curled into a smile and said, "Doctor"

He watched her retreating back and waited for several minutes in silence. His temporary office at the asylum wasn't as large as he was accustomed to but it seemed like he had to get adjusted to new environment fast. He saw the report from one of the orderlies who were on recreation room duty that afternoon. Khushi and Arnav had played chess without a board but using the image of board in their minds. It took intelligence, memory and a great deal of control to pull off something like that. He knew that Arnav was capable of that as he had studied Arnav's case extensively but he wasn't sure about Khushi. Maybe exploring this outside the perimeter of his office would help him crack her?

What's more interesting was that it was the first time Arnav had voluntarily let anyone sit with him during the inmates' free time. He was one of the very few who could tolerate Akash's psychosis but he didn't allow Akash anywhere near the table he had marked as his own territory during the one hour break after lunch.

He didn't know if it was an improvement or was it the start of cataclysm of everything they had come to known about the two.

Whatever it was, he had to observe and wait.

Author's Note:

I don't see a point in sending PMs anymore. More than half don't read this anyway. I will do what I do for We, the people: Send PMs to those who comment on last two chapters. Will start this practice from Chapter 5.

I will update this FF more regularly than I originally believed... I am liking it more than whatever I have written [besides WTP]!