"Manik!" Varun shrieked.
Manik was puking at a corner of the glass, though it was pure liquid. Till the time he raised his face, Varun could see dark patches faintly forming under his brown, almost lifeless eyes.
"I'm sorry." Soha mutters watching the man intently from outside the cage, sitting quietly in a dark corner of the room. Varun's hands clutched in a fist with boiling anger as soon as he heard her.
"Shut the fuck up, you Bitch!" He cursed while gritting his teeth, hatred growing under his voice. "Stop pretending to care after giving him such high doses of drugs yourself!"
"Hey, it's okay," Manik muttered weakly, his tone turning raspier with sluggish words.
"She will keep eating you from inside like this, and you will become hollow." Hearing the dark reality from Varun's mouth once again, his body flinched visible and he couldn't decipher if it was from shock or the overwhelming weakness. He knew he will be gobbled up like this, and the hope to see his loved ones was steadily slipping through his hands like smooth sand.
"P-please," Manik begged, looking at Soha's direction as he tried to crawl towards it, lacking the energy and ignoring the pathetic feeling while doing so, "You told me to ignore her, I did. You told me to not let them come here. I-I said it. What more could I possibly do?"
"Stop begging to that freak, Idiot!" Varun shouted angrily.
"I told you to warn them from coming here for their good, Manik. My men are armed outside with Guns. They wouldn't be able to bear that." Swirling a Pistol playfully in her hand, she spoke calmly.
Manik's heart halted and his mouth was left open in helplessness. He felt like scratching his skin as hot sweat covered the whole of his body.
"And I gave you the drugs just so you wouldn't escape. I would never hurt you." Soha coaxed in a consoling tone, as if indirectly apologizing in that twisted, unforgivable way again. "Anyways, your turn Varun." Keeping the Pistol where she sat, she stood up and they could hear her steps forwarding closer. As she came into light, Varun's nerves shrieked in fear when he saw a fat drug-filled injection in her hand.
"No." He protested, a low, petite protest hinting that he had already lost.
"Don't show tantrums. It'll be worse if you do so." Soha stated intriguingly.
"There is already a lot of drug in my body, I'll be no better than dead if I have more!" Varun held cupped his head with both of his hands, shaking it in stubborn denial.
He was about to give up and step back in exhaustion as the two drips of drug oozed out of the pointed injector. "Please." Varun mewled lowly, "No."
Before she could transfer the toxin, Manik's restless voice halted her.
"Let him go." He whispered calmly. His eyes were gentle when he looked at Varun.
Varun frowns.
"I'll be here. You can do anything to me." Raising both of his arms in surrender, he shone bravely with sparks of sacrifice, "But not him. Please, He had already suffered enough in his life."
"What are you doing?" Varun breathed. His eyes had widened and there was complete confusion in his tone. "Why?"
"I was always privileged. Unlike you, so why would you go through more suffering when I am here?" Manik turns back to him, and his lips curved into a sweet, fervent smile. There was light in his eyes which sent Varun into a pit of dense thoughts.
"That brat Manik, he isn't some angel! If he would have been through shit then he would be just like me."
His own words resonated under the hollow of his mind, proving all of his judgements crushingly wrong about the guy with the brown eyes.
"Why would you..." His green eyes flickered in shock as he spoke in a trance, completely still.
"Why would I? Why would I care for someone when no one cared for me?"
"Manik is different. You had a choice. And if Manik would have been in your place, he would have still been good and knew how to protect his people."
Nandini's scream were ringing in his ears, making them warmer and red with trepidation, There was an awakening in his heart, as if it had been wrong for all of its life.
"Why would you save a stranger like me?" Varun asks breathlessly, his eyes pouring out with unaskable questions.
"You are my friend." Manik mutters, chuckling breathily as his eyes smiles purely. "Why would you call yourself a stranger?"
Varun gasped and his nerves were shaking, he looked at Manik as if he have never know him before.
"Friend?"
"You were right, Varun. You became this because of the things caused to you. But now, things can change."
"Change by what? Putting you in my place? Are you a complete dumbfuck?" Varun scolded with sheer ridiculousness in his tone.
Manik smiled chastely, peace written over his face. "I'm sorry I couldn't understand your pain before. But, now I do. And I can't let you get hurt anymore." There was a painful honesty in his voice, and Varun almost curses in disbelief at what a foolery this guy was about to commit.
"Manik." He whispered, bent down and defeated with a tear slipping through his cheek. "Don't do this."
"You deserve a life." Manik stated softly. "And I'll make sure you get it." There was an assurance in his tone, and Varun felt like sinking into the earth.
"I'm sorry." He quivered in a trembling tone, facing the ground as it absorbs a drop of his tears. "I'm sorry for everything."
"And what about me?"
Both of them suddenly turn to the woman waiting with the injection in. Her face was devoid of emotions as she asked randomly.
"You have me." Manik assured, "Let him go and I'll be enough. I'll do whatever you want."
"Shut up!" Soha screamed violently, agitation towered her eyes as she gritted her teeth in rage. "What do you think of me? What the fuck do you think I am?"
Manik frowns in confusion and Varun glares at her.
"I need both of you. Alive, well and with me. I'm not letting any of you leave."
"Why?" Manik asked genuinely, "You want me, right? So let him go."
"What do you think I want you for?" she asks mysteriously, "Sex?" Saying so, she chuckled heinously and soon it was converted into a growling laughter.
"What else? What else could you possibly want?" Manik turns solemn and his voice grows rougher.
Soha stops laughing. There was a brief moment of silence when she kept her head hung low, hiding her face and Manik couldn't comprehend what expression she must be caging. Mischief? A smirk? Playfulness?
"That doesn't matter." She mutters under her breath in a low, feeble tone. Manik frowns deeper. "I don't care what you think. All I want is you two, alive, well and with me."
"Liar!" Varun screamed in madness at her as more tears of aggression flew through his eyes. "You have always lied! Always! You never cared for me! You raped him! You abused people! This all you do! You have never loved anyone in your goddamn life!"
"Why would I?!" Soha shouted in a piercing tone. There was a blazing pain that trembled within her words and for the first time, Manik felt an ache in her.
"Why would I love anyone when no one ever loved me? Why would I care?!"
Varun felt a part of his soul being connected to her, as if she was speaking his own words. This is what he was, a fragment of her. They share the same pain.
"All my life," She whispered quietly, and in no time time her legs bent involuntarily as she knelt in front of them, hiding her face, "All my life I have craved for love, the love which has been fed to people in silver spoons."
Manik couldn't understand how she was talking out of such deepness. He couldn't understand why he could feel a stinging burn in her voice.
"But do you know the reality of the world, Manik? When people aren't fed love in silver spoons, they learn to lick it off knives." She concluded in a disastrous tone, gloom lingering around her voice.
"Tell me, Manik. What would I be, if I were normal? If I had a normal childhood, and loving parents, would I be this bad?" She asks childishly, and Manik hated the fact that he could form the unwanted innocence in her tone.
"You think I am not aware of the right and wrong, of the list of my crimes? Oh, I am, darling. Instead, I choose the wrong myself. I choose to sin when I could have led a rightful life. Because in rightness, all I have gotten is torture, and I won't bear a piece of it anymore."
Suddenly, silence fills the whole atmosphere as none of them spoke anything. And in the end, Soha broke the ice again.
"You think I wanted to be this way?" She raises her head, and both of them had their eyes widened looking at the spreading wetness over face and swollen, puffed out eyes. "I am my own fucking nightmare!"
Manik didn't knew what to think anymore. He backed a few steps away and kept staring at the knelt form of the woman from his childhood. Before this, all he could think of her was evil. Because she did evil things, but why? He never pondered. Why did she?
"Who hurt you?" He asks while panting wildly.
Soha looked up at him, and her eyes suddenly filled up with traumatizing confusion.
"Why are you asking?"
"Somebody hurt you, right?"
She couldn't grasp the tenderness in his tone. Why? Why would he believe her? Why wouldn't he curse her and hate her for everything she has done to him? Why does it matter to him if somebody hurt her, didn't she hurt him enough?
"Why the fuck do you care?!" She screamed miserably.
"I'm sorry if they did." He added weakly and his eyes were filled with empathy and emptiness. He understands.
This was the woman that haunted the nightmares in his entire childhood. She was the reason of his change, the dark, dense, fearful change. And yet, he couldn't bring himself to curse her. Is he that weak? That naïve? Instead, he felt like cursing himself.
He glanced back at her with complaining eyes and her eyes were already scanning him with bewilderment. She had never expected him to understand her. Her, a monster.
"But, you need to understand too." Manik spoke softly with plead in his voice, as if he wanted to console. "All of this," He looked at the harshness of the environment, "It won't provide you anything."
"I don't care!" She shouts angrily. "I finally have the people that I care for! I am nothing without you two! Let me be happy! For once in this goddamn life, let me build a small world for myself!"
Something in her words was so everlastingly heartbreaking that made him think through her mind. The helplessness was evident, as if, if these two ever left her, her existence would be destroyed.
"Why do you think that we'll care for you, after everything you've done?" Varun stated coldly and his eyes were depicted accuses.
"I will do anything!" Soha speaks with desperation, "I will take care of you both! Money? You want money? I will even provide you that! Anything! I will try my best in this world to make you happy, but just stay with me! This is all I need! I don't...I don't want to be alone again."
Manik could feel the fear in her shaking voice.
"Soha," He tries to console again, this time softer, "You need to understand--"
"No!" She cuts him in annoyance, more tears making their way, "Please! Please, I have never experienced love! No one has ever wanted me! Please, for once, give me a chance and I will prove to you that I am worthy enough to be loved. I will never ask for anything again. But please, don't leave me."
He nodded his head in helplessness; her pain was flickering so powerfully that Manik didn't have any words.
"Why? Why Nandini, Manik? She has everything! Family, friends, you! Look at me, just look at me! What do I have?" She breaks down. Her hands clasped tightly under the roots of her hairs as she weeps on the misery of her fate. "Why did they treated me like that, Manik? Like a wild animal! Like I am nothing in this world! Do you know how it feels? Being a nothing? Like a waste? Everday?"
"I don't know..." He pondered, but his mind was blank. All he could do was feel her pain, but he couldn't do anything to lessen it. "I don't know, Soha."
"Tell me, how can I let you go? How can I leave the only person who had treated me as a human, Manik? How can I leave the only person who trusted me back long, Varun? What else would be left with me? Nothing."
He didn't uttered back for long.
Manik closed his eyes, taking a deep, trembling breath, and when he opened them, they were coated like the finest and sweetest honey.
"Then let me help you." He whispered, pausing her wails.
"What?" Varun snapped, his tone hinting the insanity that he just witnessed.
"I can help you."
She seemed to have been trapped in his fruity voice once, but turned sceptic again.
"What are you saying?" Soha asked with confusion.
"We can be together. Always. All you need to do is trust me, and open this cage." His whispered with plead, carrying a sweet ensuring smile on his lips.
Soha hesitated, frowning a little between her dried tears. "B-but..."
"You said you'll be worthy, you wanted to prove it, right? Then prove it. Prove that you care."
"And then what?"
"Then we can escape. All three of us. We will move out from this country and start something new. A new world."
Soha widened her eyes, somewhat getting lost under a whirlpool of fresh, delightful dreams. "A new world?"
"A new world. This is all you would need to do, open the cage. I understand you. We will be free from all this then. And leave this worthless place."
"Yes. A Worthless place." She rasped, lost in thoughts.
"Please." He begged heartily, and she smiled.
Varun was watching her move towards the sealed glass intently.
"Okay." Saying so, she quietly typed a password to the seal, as it came out opened.
"Run!" Manik bolted out of the blue, shouting to Varun. And he ran.
Before she could contemplate further, Manik sealed the glass again, limiting her access.
"Yes! Yes! Freedom!" Varun chanted in ecstasy as he roamed here and there in the looming darkness. "Wait...this isn't it."
"The room is locked from outside."
Both of them turned back to see a smirking Soha, with the glass seal opened again.
"I know the password, dear." Saying so, she giggled, and slowly, it converted into venomous laughter.
Manik was about to hit himself in agony, but all of a sudden, he saw a Gun lying on the place where she was sitting, and running hastily towards it, he held it in his hand.
"Open it!" He shouted painfully, pointed the gun at her, "Open the door!"
"I can't." She shrugged randomly, enjoying their rage. "My men have locked it from outside. Just in case you got out of the glass."
"Then tell them to open it!"
Soha laughed again.
"If you won't...Then I will...I will..."
"What? Kill me?" She mocked cruelly, snickering at his figure. "You and I both know you don't have the courage. Go on. Try that. You don't scare me."
Manik stared at the gun, and his hands started to shaken, sweat abruptly pouring out of his palms.
"Do it, Manik." Varun shouted.
"I can't." He whispered helplessly, wanting to slap himself. "I can't kill her after all she has gone through."
Soha's smile turned to paleness. The echoed laughter was once again halted as she stared at him in pity.
"Stop trying." She mutters. "And come back in."
"I can't kill you," He raised his head, looking at her straight with determination, "But..."
Her eyes widened wildly as she saw him turning the point of the gun from her figure to his own head.
"No, Manik!" Varun shrieks in shock.
"Now do I scare you?" Manik warned, hoarseness covering his voice.
"No!" Soha screamed, as if she was about to be destroyed in the next second.
"Tell them or I will..." He pressed the gun point close to his head, closing his eyes.
"Stop it! No!" She shouted at the top of his voice.
And another second later, they could hear the gunshot.