Kurukshetra

First sight

You shouldn't be seeing me the man whispered. He stares hard, his eyes hypnotizing my every cell. Agonizing pain seers through my muscles. The whiff of blood churns my stomach. I sob as the viscous red liquid soaks my sweater until the blood drops on the shiny white marble. My hands give away to the tremble as I try to pull out the silver dagger that has ruptured the blood vessels in my abdomen. Every breath was weaker than the former.

I fell hard on to the dusty ground beneath me, getting back to the noisy reality of college when a strong hand shoved me. 

"I'm sorry, I just meant to scare you" whined Shanaya reaching out to help me. "But the fall was hilarious" she pointed at the ground and snorted making me laugh.

"Not funnier than your snort," I remarked dusting my lab coat. 

"Listen," she said under her breath moving closer to me, her eyes scanned the premises as though the walls were trying to hear our conversation.

"It's the fog. Again," she said, her skin pale and blanched. 

My jaw dropped when the meaning of her words hit me. Her anxious eyes getting back the memories of heavy drums and fire, the hooded figures and the never-ending chants.

"We promised not to talk about it" I stressed stepping away from her.

"I know. But I saw it. And I'm not a fool. I can differentiate the regular early morning fog and this wired one. I could feel my blood turning cold. What if it happens again, I'm worried." Shanya said in one breath.

"What's Mahi's and Ashna's say about this?" I asked.

She shrugged, "haven't seen them since morning"

I nodded. "We will talk later...? I have to, well actually should have been in the lab working on the mercury vapor spectrum ten minutes back" I said looking at my watch.

"Oh, well you ain't gonna get the right answer. The markings on the vernier scale are faded..." she singsonged. 

"Wish me luck" I sighed and gave her a quick tight hug. "It's going to be fine" I assured her and dashed towards the lab.

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Waking up is one thing, leaving the bed is the real challenge. Especially when it's a Monday of December and when you are cocooned in your blanket, the challenge is next to impossible.

Mondays for me are always a duel between sleep and attendance. Six hours of lab substituted with an extra class after 3. 

And today, my group being extremely lucky had to repeat the entire experiment because of one wrong reading. That is another hour of staring at the Mercury spectrum. As an added bonus we got to plot all the six sets of graphs again.

"How can mobility be negative? Common sense girls" said my friend Kayani mimicking my physics lecturer Ms. Puala in a squeaky tone with a pouty lip and anger flaring up her nose as she erased her graph for the third time.

"Shhhhh... We have her class after 3, and I haven't studied quantum field theory. If she hears us talking we are going to be the sacrificial goats for the day". I whispered glancing at the plumpy figure walking around the room monitoring us.

"Talking about the class after 3, are you going to Aiden's party?" asked Kayani turning red.

"He invited you as well?"I growled.

"He has invited everyone who had been there for the fest last year" revealed Saachi getting under the table to dig for her bag. She took out her phone and scrolled through her messages. "Look" she showed me the invite. Kayani shifted towards the edge trying to shield us from the scrutinizing gaze of the professor. 

Not a single day during our relationship went by without me complaining about the numerous amount of short forms and typos Aiden used while texting. Now looking at the message I realized it hasn't got any better. 

"It's more like a reunion and patch up than a send-off party" giggled Kayani, sticking her graph sheets on to her record notebook. "It's going to be awkward"

I shifted my weight from one leg to another and hid my face in my palm. "I'm not going" I declared. I moved towards the power supply, turned the spectrum off and started to clean the mess on the table.

"Won't that be rude?" inquired Saachi bundling up the graph sheets.

"He is being stupid. I.do.not.want.to.be.a.part.of.it"

She rolled her eyes and shook her head. "Well, if you say so." the rest of the class went in complete silence with the necklace around my neck causing irritation of the skin. 

After another hour of lamenting over the graphs, I proudly looked at the perfectly inverted parabola. Kayani mouthed perfect and brushed away a fake tear.

"Yeah, finally. Let's go and get this signed before she starts complaining again ".  Saachi frowned pointing at my lecturer, who was busy criticizing Mahi and her group, who seemed to be stuck with their fluctuating Voltmeter.

I will have to inform Mahi about the fog. I tried to catch her eyes, but she was staring blankly at Ms. Paula, with her shoulders drooping. Maybe later.

After getting our graphs corrected and some last-minute advice about our common sense we made our way out of our physics lab.

I scrambled for my phone and texted Aiden on Hangouts as he was online.

Anu: Are you nuts?

Aiden: What happen?

Anu: Why did you invite all my friends? They have no clue about your brother!

Aiden: Then it's high time they got to know him ;)

Anu: ...

Aiden: What?

Anu is now offline. 

I sighed and put the phone back into my bag after leaving a text to Ashna, Mahi and Shanaya to gather in the basketball court during the short break.

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The college library, named as the most haunted place in the campus was filled with an eerie silence as always as I went through the fiction section at its far end. The lab would go on for another one hour and I wouldn't be meeting the girl gang until the next break. Hence here I was going through the racks stocked up with detective, homicide, fantasy, thriller, and fictions of many other genres. I was particularly looking for Satyajit Ray's Feluda. The Indian Sherlock Holmes.  

"It was here yesterday, ugh". I racketed every shelf in frustration earning weird stare from the librarian. "Da! Schliesslich!" I exclaimed. The book sat in the corner of the fiction section. I bent down in a hurry without noticing the nail that had protruded at the bottom. A flash of pain ran through my nerves as the nail punctured my palm and the blood oozed out. 

I moaned stepping away from the nail and the book now smeared with blood. I looked towards the reception where the librarian sat turning the pages of "The Times Of India".

I rushed towards her, but this time I had only one problem. I never reached her. The more I ran towards her the farther she got. I screamed at her for help. " No, Please !, God! no !" I chocked as the tears fell. "This is not happening, I don't want this to happen. Again! " I shut my eyes and ran until my legs gave away.

 The cool breeze brushed my hair. My eyelids fluttered open. I was sprawled on the ground. The oozing had minimized. I was no longer with the four walls of the library.  

"No....." 

I stood on a hearth. A place I have been dreading not to see again. A high pitched sound of battle cry,  the clanking of metal armor vibrated through my eardrums along with the metallic whiff of blood. As sudden as it occurred, I was pulled into it as a meteorite pulled towards the center of the galaxy. I was sucked into a void and thrown into the abyss.

And the last thing that was registered in my mind was never-ending darkness.

hi guys, I never thought I could make it to the third chapter. But here it is. thanks for all your support and encouragement.