MIZPAH

14 | allure

CHAPTER: 14

From a very young age, Vrishti had accepted self-company as her solace accompanied by her love for art in whichever form it presented itself before her, the most favorite of all was her pencil-colored sketches smudged by small hands. Being a single child never bothered her much and when she reached teenage, her father gifted her a camera, and her love for drawing shifted to collecting live memories on a two-dimensional piece of paper.

So the hike day never happened, apparently the thing Erena and Riri oh-so spiritedly talked to the teachers about was giving them a day off since the college should focus on liberal learning of the students and let them look around the place as if that was not all the students seem to be doing by sneaking off in the evenings.

So the group decided to do the hike themselves.

"So we meet here?", Shayon asked with child-like enthusiasm in his dark brown eyes matching Lee's who bantered playfully with Naaz.

Naaz moved her eyes towards Shayon and hmmed, then they parted ways.

Vrishti adjusted the lens to get a closer image of the white flowers on the mossy bed, the sunlight falling on the soft dew-kissed petals looked like teardrops of the diamond. Taking some two to three shots, she got the picture of her desirable angle and got up from her crouched position, and dusted the damp patch on her black sweatpants over her knee.

She took out her phone and took a glance to check if she was on the right path. It was a good thing she was good at map reading as the timeline feature of Google Maps showed her the direction to where she had been the last day.

She walked some more following the directions on her phone and taking pictures on the way as her sneakers squeaked against the moss but halted altogether when she noticed some movement on her left and she turned towards the direction with the camera in her hand. The familiar figure calmed her racing heart as she passed a genuine smile.

"Oh it's you", she acknowledged while holding the camera in his direction and clicking on it but he wasn't visible through the camera.

She clicked on it twice before lowering it, she checked the direction in which he stood and held the camera again towards her eyes but he wasn't there. She stood there for some moments and kept looking at him confused.

With a dried throat, she asked even when she felt the air collapsing from her lungs midway, "What are you? A-Are you even real?"

Vidhyut stared at the woman, he stared at her some more, and in a calculated manner he spoke, "Well, I won't call myself real but..", he waited for the right words but seemed to be at a loss, "I...exist, my existence has a purpose."

"Are you my ima-", Vrishti tried to recall the Hindi translation for 'imagination' and repeated her question," Are you my imagination?"

His eyes were uncertain as she answered, "I don't thin-".

Vrishti interrupted him mid-sentence, "You know what, I don't need to know that".

She turned back but Vidhyut was before her even before she could blink. He was so close to her, she could make out the hazy edges of his cheekbones and his faded eyelashes. He was a beauty to behold yet a threat to be averted, the forbidden things were always alluring.

what have I gotten myself into

Those eyes...her head hurt, she could feel her heartbeat drumming behind her ribcage and a distinctive pain above her heart, this was a common occurrence now and there was a strong urge to rub on her burning skin but there were more important matters that needed her attention.

She looked at the frosty haze of the intruder who had invaded her personal space. She took some steps back with an accelerating heart and held her hands before her to create some distance between them.

"Look, I told you I have nothing to do with you. I don't know who you are and I don't want to know anything."

And as if he woke up from a daze, the glassy mist cleared from his eyes and Vidhyut took a respectable step back keeping his eyes on her shaking fingers.

With a bow, he repented, "I apologize".

He took a step back while eyeing the woman before her, who looked anywhere but him. He started again, "I mean no harm, I am not a mortal such as you, and mortals are forbidden to see me which is the reason I was a little alarmed"

Vrishti had no interest in listening to whatever he had to offer, she took some steps back just to make sure the man in front of him wasn't following her and then she took off running amid the moss-covered scattered roots of the mango trees, the green surrounding her passing by a blur.

Vidhyut stepped his foot forward to run but a force unknown to mankind stopped him and as if he could hear the jingling of the warning bells hanging at the farthest end of the Soul Sanctuary, he put his foot down and stepped back.

His fist lay by his side and he ran, firstly backward then with the wind in steps he turned and ran as fast as he could stomping his feet on the delicate blanket of white on the green moss as if his body didn't protest to lay down on the same flower bed and return home.

Slowly the sky was turning gray as the winds from the west danced all the trees in its symphony, it whipped on his translucent skin as harsh belts as he neared the massive tree with ash-colored leaves.

He barged in through the narrow slash and walked inside the passage, no flambeaus hung on the muddy walls, no sound of the running river could be heard at the far end, and no air made whistling sounds, it was silent and filled with darkness.

Confliction and rage overwhelmed him and along with the lightning roaring through the skies, his outcry shook the forest as the rain watched it all with silent patience.

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ooohhh intense *sighs a relief after writing a rollercoaster of a chapter*