Mᴀɴᴍᴀʀᴢɪʏᴀᴀɴ | #RoadTripSeries ✓

c h a p t e r - o n e

Place - Mumbai

The full-moon shone in the sky as his brightness fell inside the room making it lit. The weather outside was pleasantly cold which is very rare when you live in the city of dreams. But just living here won't make your dreams come alive in fact, you need to keep on trying even when your dreams get shattered in the blink of an eye. But right at the moment, Aayrah was in no mood to start anything new. She was pissed at her boss for firing her without any notice. She rebelled against it saying he has no right to do so but he threw the compensation amount showing her way out anyway. Now, why did this happen?

Two days back...

Toon Magazines, one of the leading cartoon magazines online as well as with publications. Aayrah got placed in her dream company with the first attempt by showing off her amazing skills. She completed her BFA degree in drawing and painting from the Institute of cartoonist, Bangalore. She was planning to do her MFA but instead chose this job when it came her way unexpectedly.

It had been 3 years since she was working in this company. But lately, things were going hard for her she felt she had no freedom to decide even the smallest things. She didn't like getting caged or being told ever since she was very little. She liked to live her life on her own terms. She has always been totally different from her elder sister Ahana who was more into following rules and listening to the higher faculty. Aayrah has been grown with the comparisons about how Ahana is an ideal child while her reckless and stubborn behaviour became a headache to many except for their parents who had been more protective of her because of the same. They cared for her more as Ahana has the ability to get settled in any environment while Aayrah couldn't breathe and felt suffocated. She always wanted just one thing and that was her freedom which was most important for her that anything in this world.

Early in the morning like every day, Aayrah reached her office on time. Coming to this building named Toon Magazines always made her proud of her achievement but lately, she wasn't much happy. The office was fancy with an open room which had bean bags and tables placed everywhere along with swings here and there making it look trendy and keeping the environment happy where people would want to work with their own will. Making her way through the set of tables she reached main editors cabin as her long term friends here Priya and Rishi informed her she has been called and the temperature was raised right from the time Akhilesh, the Editor in charge, arrived in the office. She gave it a thought about what could have happened. She remembered doing her work before time. With a confused mind, she made her way towards the door holding nameplate with Akhilesh's name on it and knocked gently two times.

Akhilesh called her in and Aayrah can tell just hearing the tone of the voice that this wasn't going to be good. Just as she expected, Akhilesh gave a sharp gaze to her but that wasn't enough to make her scared. She wasn't the girl who would fear her seniors because they have an upper hand. She shut the door close and made her way to the table standing beside one of the chairs. Akhilesh didn't ask her to seat but instead threw a copy of the magazine on front of her making her even more confused. She took it in her hand and went through it. Finding no mistakes, she looked up at Akhilesh again who was glaring at her.

"Found nothing?" he asked raising his eyebrows. Just to make him feel better Aayrah looked at the copy once again and up at Akhilesh shaking her head negatively. Akhilesh sighed and got up from his seat making his way towards Aayrah.

He took the copy in his own hands and pointed at the cartoon filling the whole page.

"Who the fuck gave you the right to add this?" he asked raising his eyebrows. Aayrah was disappointed with the way he spoke to her but contained her anger out of respect for her senior.