ArHi FF! Dante's Labyrinth: Thread 1 [Completed] - Page 51

After Khushi's theory on Akash, I think she does have a logic. The way you are portraying every character and playing with our mind, its highly commendable. I have said it multiple times but again I will say "You rock dear, just brilliant".

Interlude I: Arnav, aged seventeen

"There are voices in my head, talking continuously telling me about sky, leaves, mathematics, birds, gears…they are all invading my mind at the same time and when I close my eyes to sleep – to shut it all up, I see the body of my mother hanging from ceiling fan. Even sleep evades me when I need it the most and so to dull my mind and forget it all, I smoked my first joint when I was fourteen. I haven't looked back since."

"Is the voice in your head talking to you right now?" Dr. Rao, the psychiatrist by senior Raizada asked seventeen year old boy who was sprawled on his bed in a lazy spread. Dr. Rao knew it better; he wasn't being lazy.

"Voices, doctor." The boy corrected, "There are voices in my head. One is right now reciting me a book from my father's private collection, another is telling me why I shouldn't trust you, there is another which is solving a puzzle I saw in newspaper last night and another is simply asking me to shut up and blow a joint." He shrugged in the end.

"How do the voices sound?" Dr. Rao asked. He wondered if the drugs had infused in his system to the point there was a probability of permanent damage to his psyche.

"The one which is solving the puzzle is that of a young boy. The book recital is of an older woman…probably in her thirties given the huskiness and the weight certain words carries." He stopped and his eyes became shifty.

"And what about the voice which is asking you not to talk to me Arnav?" Dr. Rao insisted.

Arnav was silent for moments. He looked visibly troubled and appeared to be torn. Dr. Rao waited patiently for him to decide and was silent. "It is my mother's voice." He replied softly.

"Whose voice is it you hear which persuades you to drown your consciousness?" Dr. Rao had no idea why he was taking this line of questioning. In his entire career he hadn't seen someone as brilliant as Arnav yet as damaged as him.

"It's the voice of a six year old girl." Arnav replied. Dr. Rao didn't know if he was telling the truth or making a mockery of the interview. He was brought out of his drug induced haze and was sober at the moment. The jitteriness of an addict was absent in him which sort of supported Arnav's theory but Arnav was a rich boy – meaning expensive drugs.

Dr. Rao administered a mild sedative and walked out of Arnav's room frowning. Senior Raizada was as usual out on business and had handed over his son's responsibility to Arnav's nanny and butler. The clich was never this ironic.

"Mrs. Sharma, was Arnav the first one to discover his mother's body?" Dr. Rao wanted to understand the beginnings of the problem with Arnav. He believed that it lied with his mother's untimely and ghastly death.

"Yes doctor, he was." Mrs. Sharma, forty five year old window replied with a soft sigh.

"Can you describe that day for me please," Dr. Rao said and pushed the recorder towards the woman.

"It was one of those sunny days amidst a heavy monsoon season. Arnav was jittery being cooped up inside the house for a long time and the first ray of sunshine had him running out of the front door. His mother was sad…of what, I do not know. Since the moment she stepped into this house she has had tragedy as her shadow. The origin of her depression was seeded long before she came into the house. That day she gave into the temptation…and hung her herself." Mrs. Sharma reminisced.

"You found Arnav staring at the hanging body, yes?" Dr. Rao questioned.

Mrs. Sharma nodded. "He was standing on the threshold of his mother's room and watching her gently swing. He didn't scream or cry or make any sort of noise. He just stood and watched."

Dr. Rao frowned. "Did he say anything?"

Mrs. Sharma bristled. "I asked him not to see the sight anymore and leave. I had already screamed for the butler and other house helps to come but Arnav stood in front of me composed and watched his mother. When I dragged him away forcibly he went back to his room and sat by the window looking thoughtful. He didn't cry."

"Did you ask him why?"

"I tried to talk to him for several minutes but no avail. He watched the world outside his window in a trance like silence. I believed he was traumatized."

"But…" Dr. Rao was curious.

"He told me he had been thinking about the way the ceiling fan had held strongly when a person was hanging to it." Mrs. Sharma said her eyes clouding. "He was fascinated by the mechanism of his mother's death."

Dr. Rao leaned back on the chair and exhaled slowly. "Did he really say 'person' and not 'mother' when he referred to hanging?" He asked explicitly.

Mrs. Sharma nodded. "I can never forget those words doctor. Those were his exact words." She affirmed.

Dr. Rao smiled in understanding.

*shiver again*

Interesting

so arnav's condition is not only bcoz of drugs

i have never read a story where just cant guess whats happening

He wasn't exactly "normal" even before his mother's death, was he? That incident perhaps pushed him over the edge..

I am scared... Cant there be a light chapter in between

I have PMed you my comment.

tht was really scary one...the boy has seen his other hanging frm the ceiling and didn't reacted in any way and after tht he stated tht he was attracted to the mechanism how the fan was holding the person hanging??????

This incident and the drugs after thzt must have been the reason for Arnav's mental condition.

Arnav's breaking point was seeing his mother swinging from the ceiling fan ...