Cloaked Intentions

Chapter 8

Swara looked at the right side of his torso again. It bore faint welts alongside it. Time had faded them, but they were still there for her to see. She gently brushed her fingers along them as she remembered how he had gotten those.

She had pulled his new Game Boy Advance from his hands, tired of his daunting concentration in the game, at the cost of ignoring her, and thrown it away. He had been angry and screaming at her and she had run away from there. They had run all the way to the other end of the common garden near his house. She had been looking behind, seeing him catch-up to her and turned around too late to realize she was heading into the barbed fence at the end of the garden. She had closed her eyes, scared of the impact and the pain she was about the experience, when she felt him wrapping his arms around her and turning her away.

"Are you okay?" He had asked her softly after a minute

She had opened her eyes and nodded quietly, hugging him tightly in fear, only to hear him gasp in pain. That was when she had pulled back and realized that the barb wire had torn through his shirt all the way from the right side of his torso to part way around his back. He was bleeding and the shirt was quickly getting soaked with his blood. She hadn't been able to hold back her tears, seeing him in that state, and had cried profusely, only to have him calm her down, assuring her he was okay and that he would be fine. It had taken 2 weeks for him to get better. It had spoiled his twelfth birthday party. He had a tough time, even sitting or sleeping, during those days. But he had never ever let her feel that he was hurting, because he knew she would feel even worse, though she knew he was.

Now as she looked at those welts, her eyes had teared up again. Sanskar gently moved her fingers away and drew his shirt back down.

"We need to leave now, Swara" He said softly.

She looked up at him "What is going on, Sanskar?"

"Not here, Swara. It is not safe. Let us just get out of here" He said looking into her eyes somberly.

Swara nodded, letting him take them away from the place. They changed a few taxis before he took her through another maze into the garden that she remembered from her childhood. They walked through it into a private property. The house she saw, brought back a lot of memories, despite the condition it seemed to be in right now with weeds growing all around it. Sanskar went to the shed at one end of the property and ran back to her with a key. He took her to the back door and opened it to let her in.

She had been entering this house after fourteen years. It had been a place she had spent most of her childhood in, even more than her own house. But now it didn't look at all like what she remembered it to be. All she could see there was some furniture covered under white sheets of cloth. There was no life in that house, when once that was what it represented for her.

"Sanskar" she uttered after she had taken the hall in "What are we doing here?" she asked.

"You wanted to know what was going on" was all he said as explanation.

"I don't understand" Swara said confused

Sanskar looked around the room before looking back at her "This is the only place Sanskar exist now. He has been stuck here, locked away in the past, for past fourteen years. The one who exists outside these walls is Laksh. Only Laksh"

"Why?" She asked softly

He gave a sarcastic snort before replying "Why? Why do you think, Swara?" he asked her angrily. Seeing her eyes widen, he continued "Ah! You remembered then? How lucky for you that you can forget. I, on the other hand, live through it each day and each night" he said, his voice cold as steel.