Even devil, ghosts, monsters and witches are less dangerous than the fake human beings.

Dark omnious clouds sprawled across the sky and the wind picked up, howling, crying, warning, baying like a wolf into the night. The air was thick and the world felt small. There was a mutter of thunder from the blackened sky as the wind tore leaves from the trees followed by rain that poured down over the city with a roar. The violent unforgiving wind raced through the streets and in the middle of this wrath of nature, I was sitting on the middle of the street having Manik's head on my lap.

No matter how loud I cried for help, all the fake humans cared about was getting a picture of their superstar lying in a puddle of blood. People could watch the drama, relish it but not step ahead for help.

The rainfall washed away the blood from his face every second before it started oozing out again and I felt like I was underwater with there being no way out. The people got alarmed by the siren of the emergency vehicle lighting approaching us and the moment I noticed the ambulance bus driving closer, I clenched the shirt on top of Manik's chest in apprehension.

A good number of ward boys placed his body on top of a stretcher whilst his hand was still tucked into mine and I refused to let go. His fingers were cold, pale and covered with blood yet they were a satisfaction to be held because it was him. They rushed the stretcher inside the bus and I wasted no time in overthinking the consequences. I just goddamn needed to be there by his side.

The vehicle was moving at the speed of a snail because of all the mobbing happening outside and every delayed second was putting a question into his survival. People in the tumult, slapped the window on my side sticking their noses to the windows and my heartbeat dropped at those rocketing inhumanity.

Steadily as the ambulance picked its speed, various ducts, tubes and syringes were pierced into his skin and I squeezed his fingers little harder seeing his heartbeat drop on the monitor even after they put the oxygen mask. No matter how hard I dug my nails into his pale skin, he still wasn't reacting coming out of his senselessness and that was unnerving me to great extent. I was in the habit of a loud Manik, sarcastic Manik, mean and cruel Manik, helpful Manik but not this silent human being that laid lifeless.

"Hey..." I whispered into his ear while my tears mixed with his cheek. "Stay with me, p-please? How hard is it to stay alive?" I kissed his bruised cheek and rested my forehead on his.

The ambulance halted with a jolt and soon as the door was opened, a big medical team awaited our arrival. They hurried in getting the stretcher out of the vehicle forcing his locked up hand to be parted from mine. I knew I had to let go but I wasn't prepared for such separation. Not today. Not ever.

I watched them take him away from me until the time he slowly ebbed away from my eyesight. Curling and uncurling my toes, I stood skeptic to drag myself out of the ambulance but I knew I had to and so I did which was a huge task in itself.

Pulling myself out of it got me only attacked by the camera flashlights and microphones pointed to me with voices behind them that threw roasting question after another but nobody really asked if he was going to make it out alive; the assurance I was in desperate need of.

They surrounded me from all the sides like there wasn't any escaping the truth that the light of my life was losing its shine. I gawked their blurry faces and the lights that burned my vision but their questions soon started fading into the air as all I saw before my open eyes was Manik lying on that road, shedding blood. I knew this sight was going to haunt me for a long long time now and this..being just the beginning.

A strong arm rescued me from the commotion hurdling me inside the hospital and although I tried to figure out who it was, I couldn't because of my blurred vision. I just felt being pushed somewhere ....somewhere far away from those inhuman stuffs but all I saw with my open eyes was still the blood gushing out of Manik's skin and me calling for help endlessly.

"Nandini, are you okay?" Abhimanyu nudged me and I looked around my surrounding, fazed. "Do you need t.." He couldn't get to finish seeing me run away from him and towards the large elevator from where Manik's stretcher was heading out of the emergency room. I suddenly felt my world to be unsafe without him in it. I needed him to protect me just the way he always silently did.

Locking my fingers again with his nonreactive cold ones, I sprinted along with the stretcher studying that his pale was face losing its colour every passing moment.

"Manik..." I leaned over his face caressing his cheek jogging my way. "Don't die. Please don't. This life is very long and I can't do without you. Come back..hurt me. Push me away but don't..."

They moved his injured body swiftly inside the ICU shutting the door on my face and both my palms rested on it losing the count of my own shallow breaths.

"..give up." I cried rubbing my forehead on the wooden door.

"Are you now satisfied?" Stunned, I looked aside to find out my own version standing by my side with her judgemntal gaze tearing me apart.

I looked around wiping my tears away feeling the light on top of my head a little dimmer and no matter how much I tried to avoid the worst, I couldn't. I couldn't avoid my own demon, the one that would confront me for everything that happened and there was no escaping this angst because secretly, she kept a tally of everything.

"What do you mean? I never wanted this to happen to the love of my life?" I retaliated and as stupid as it might sound I was reacting to my figment of imagination. Might as they say, I was close to losing my mind.

"But he is there on that deathbed, fighting with his fate, the reason being you." She smirked and Lord knew how much I wanted to wipe that crooked grin off her face.

"I never wanted any of this, okay?" I screeched rocking to and fro clutching my elbows. Her presence was unsettling me taking my darkest fears out of her bag. "I knew. I fucking knew that he didn't do a thing the world accused him of. I-I just wanted to push his buttons for him to scream the truth, not to me but to the entire world. I wanted this world to fucking shut up." I was a crying mess and she didn't care.

"And you pushed all his buttons and look, where you got him to!" She sneered.

I shook my head "I wanted him to speak up and his silence frustrated me. Deep down I believed his innocence and my Lord knows that too but somehow my fucking tongue wasn't in my control. I just couldn't stop hurting him with my words. Everything was too much for me to take inside. Everyone has a rock bottom and I guess, it was mine" I cried collapsing on the floor hiding my face in the web of my hands.

"What happens now? Say, if he dies?" She asked brutally and my breath swanked.

"He's going to be fine?" I whisper-yelled lifting my face up; still on the floor.

"Now, that sounds like a desperate question." She moved her lips into a wicked smirk crashing my soul into zillion of pieces.

"No. He's going to survive. I can't lose him. I can't lose him. I can't lose him." I murmured praying to my Lord.

"Keep repeating if that makes you hope." She snickered and I gulped hard keeping my eyes closed.

"Don't forget that you are my imagination only." I glared through my tears.

"No. I am your thoughts." She sounded blunt.

"I am going to count till ten and when I open my eyes I want you gone." I closed my eyes starting to count.

One

Two

Three

She murmured few 'No' closer to my ear but I kept continuing.

Four

Five

"Nandini stop. You are being foolish." She laughed.

Six

Seven

Eight

And I could hear her laughters disappearing. To keep myself sane , this Nandini had to vanish.

Nine

Te...

"Don't worry, Sir. We have the best medical team here for Manik sir and they are trying the best they can." Abhimanyu's voice startled me and as I opened my eyes, she was gone. She was nowhere to be seen but my eyes met another pair of light grey ones. Manik's father who looked at me curiously.

"Sir, Nandini is the one who brought Sir over here on time." Abhimanyu briefed and his father's eyes softened watching me push myself up the floor. He might have recollected me from the night of their birthday party and so he didn't hesitate a bit to walk towards me. I leaned back on the wall trying not to fall apart on the floor again.

"Don't worry, child" His father assured putting a hand on my shoulder and my knees trembled begging me to collapse once more. "My son is a fighter. He will  not give up. Not without a fight."

I lowered my eyes letting some more tears roll down. This was the funny thing about tears, the moment I thought there were no more left, they showed up. Uncalled.

"Words would fall short if I start to thank you for saving my son's life." I felt sick in my stomach.

"I-I am you guilty." I murmured, weakly.

"Mhm?" He furrowed softly unable to hear a thing.

"Your son is on that bed bec-because he stole something away from me.....my death. It wasn't his call but mine. It is because of me only that he-" His hand slipped from my shoulder as he took a step away to study his son's blood allover my clothes.

To him, I wasn't a saviour anymore rather the one who had his son's blood on her hands. I enjoined my hands asking for forgiveness; I failed to understand to whom exactly I was apologising to. His father? Manik? To myself? To my demon? To Lord?

I cried biting my lower lip so hard that a drop of blood formed there watching him go out of my sight. I was weak enough to stand and my knees decided to not play their part as they again hit hard against the cold marble floor. The door of the ICU opened and my over-repeated prayers froze in the midway. A junior doctor came out asking Abhimanyu if he could arrange the blood and Abhimanyu's face turned to the floor.

"Manik Sir's blood is very rare and his body can't receive blood from anyone as you said and in this situation the only man matching his group who could donate him some blood is not willing to." He replied defeated.

"Wh-what? Who?" I stood up to my full length rushing to Abhimanyu and later nudging him to get an answer out of him.

"His twin brother, Aryaman sir. He refused to save his brother." My lips parted but words hardly formed.

The doctor went inside sighing heavily to inform it to his seniors while my throat dried as my eyes kept looking into the blankness. There was one tiny hope into this situation and that too was passing out of our hands?

"He refused to save the life of his own brother?" I screamed not believing what I heard. "You-you got to be joking! Give me your phone, I will talk to him." I moved my hand before him asking for the phone.

"He won't pick up." He informed.

"Then I will fucking walk to his home." Pulses rushed to my head.

"He left for his flight an hour ago." I took a step back. How could the world be so cruel to him? Was he so bad to people that they wanted to have him dead? Did they get to settle their scores at this hour when he had nothing more to offer?

"Is there no other way?" My voice turning into a whisper. A whisper into a prayer. The prayer being a desperate plea.

"We will go to the end of this world to save sir, Nandini." I started walking away from him slowly not knowing where exactly was I going.

On the lonely corridor with leaving Abhimanyu behind gazing at me, I walked unplanned finding the other Nandini standing by another door giving me another of her displeased look. I was a loser. If only I could turn back time and lay myself under that car instead of him!

❃

The ugly night turned into a dull morning but I didn't see a single ray of the new sunlight. The morning turned into a cursed day, the day into a deaf afternoon and my ears were already tired of the silence. The sunlight got replaced by the evening stars and slowly by the moon but my Lord wouldn't answer my prayers. I could empty the last drop of blood my body consisted if it meant saving Manik but with him being a special and restricted donee, it just wasn't the case. I called whoever I could but there wasn't any luck left on this earth for me. His people ran errands to get things arranged but yet the criticality of the situation wouldn't lose a shade. Celebrities, friends, cousins came to see him out of that ICU door but nobody would share the happy news that he gained his consciousness because he was so stubborn that he decided he'd make me suffer for my actions.

I closed my eyes but I didn't feel tired when tried visualising myself in the same middle of the street and cold sweat broke on my forehead watching Manik helplessly trying to catch my hand. God, why did I have to be so stubborn! I tried to visualise that the same deadly bright headlights approaching me but this time, Manik was too late to help. He tried, ran but the car already rolled me over and over again under its wheels and I clutched the cloth on my thighs opening my eyes as I felt the midnight breeze of the hospital garden hit my skin.

The whole day I didn't care to eat or drink anything nor that I felt except for few sips of water. My brain was retiring slowly and thus I decided to sit on this bench at 1 in the night in this beautiful rose garden where the darkness was the only light except for the moon shining above. The scent of those tender flowers dangled on my nostrils which didn't get to smell anything other than pungent medicines and raw blood. My clothes were stained from his blood and I refused to let go of his only souvenir I had left.

"The stars look beautiful tonight." Inhaling hard, I closed my eyes realising how my brain was starting to trick me whispering voices to me that weren't real. I decided not to look at the direction because I already knew the source of such voice was my brain itself.

"But you look more beautiful under this moonlight." The voice spoke again and gaping down at the soft grass beneath my feet, I couldn't help but bring my eyes to see the one sitting on the other end of the same wooden bench.

Manik looked fresher than ever before with no scar, no wound, no pain on his face and body. He beamed under the moonlight in the same shirt he wore before the accident; the only difference being it had no blood on it.

"You knew jumping before the car perhaps was going to kill you, yet you did." I murmured while he stared deep into my eyes.

"If I find you in situation like this a hundred more times, then I am again going to jump before hundred more cars." The corners of his lips smiled.

"..Why?" I whispered.

He tore his gaze apart up into the sky smiling to himself watching those stars twinkle while all I kept looking was this beautiful man appreciating the stars. His eyes suddenly found mine but neither did I flinch nor pretended to look away.

"That's one reason I will never tell." He smiled again.

Maybe, some things were meant to remain just as a silent feeling.

Putting my eyes low, on the bench, at the distance between us, I sighed knowing I was conversing with my figment of imagination but it felt so satisfying seeing him not covered with bandages. It felt nice in a lot of ways.

"Can't you fight with everything and come back to me, hearty and healthy?" My nails scratched the wood in the space between us.

"That's just not in my hands."

"But you are Manik Malhotra!" I tried reasoning watching him look down at the grass from the sky.

"That just makes my score worse in this game with my fate." There was a certain dejection in those eyes that were shining seconds back and I stood up picking my last bit of sanity along. He sat there watching me walk away from him while I feared turning around.

He wasn't real but the man lying on that hospital bed inside was; although I couldn't be any more thankful to this Manik who offered me this little piece of peace.

✿

I stood gaping through the glass on the ICU door watching the doctors treat Manik without a break. Earlier in my life, I was scared of falling in love with this unconscious man lying soundly, then with time, I got terrified at the thought of him hurting me and look at the irony of time, I now was afraid of losing him in the hands of death. Life and its stages.

Feeling same the presence by my side, I breathed out lightly looking at the ailing Manik through the window. He looked so delicate and off-colour.

"Do you think you are going to survive?" I asked peeking through the window knowing this time I was going to get an answer.

"They say I have broken my ribs and that my lung may collapse any given moment." The Manik who stood beside me informed and I ducked weakly still looking through the glass like a statue.

"Do you think you can fight this?" I asked straight looking into his eyes of the man who was leaning back on the wall.

"Do you want me to?" He asked.

"....Yes. More than anything." I felt my throat shiver.

"Come on now, let's get you some rest." He patted on the empty bench beside him outside the ICU for me to sit down. Quietly, I did because I was tired of feeling like a loser. He was there struggling with his life and I couldn't be of any help.

"Now try getting some sleep. You haven't slept since two nights." He insisted.

"If I close my eyes, you'll vanish and I don't want you to be gone." My voice was hoarse yet clear enough for him to understand my phrase. Though imaginary, yet this Manik was reducing my fear of losing the actual Manik tad bit.

He scooted closer sealing the distance between us taking my hand into his and I couldn't tell the difference between my imagination and reality for my heart still raced the same way whenever actual Manik came that close to me.

"I don't know yet for how long I am here to stay but I promise it won't be this quick." I rested my head on his shoulder and he measured the gap in between the length of our palms.

"And don't keep dreaming about getting yourself hit by that moronic car." He muttered near my ear and my arms tightened around his bicep. My eyelids felt heavy like honey drops resting on them but I could feel him tight in my embrace.

"What if I do?" I questioned with my eyes closed, a step closer to sleep.

"Then I will have to enter your dream to save you there also, I guess." His lips pecked the side of my forehead and a broken smile lit my face.

It was the most awkward part about being us. Manik pulled me closer when either of us slept and pushed away harder when awake. He didn't whisper poetry in my ear, creating soft shivers down my spine but tangled his fingers in my hair until I fell asleep, entwined in each other's arms, peacefully; without a care in the world.

⚘

My sleep broke in the darkest hours of night wanting him to put his arms around me providing me the warmth but as the cold air tickled my body, I opened my eyes to find myself alone on the bench. He was gone like he was never there and that simple realisation of reality weakened my heart. My head was hurting and the rest of the body felt the soreness as well. I was thirsty but didn't want to fetch water. Instead, I chose to go to the washroom but before that I stopped by the ICU window and a deep sigh exhaled the cracked skin of my lips. Upper half of Manik's senseless body was being treated with various equipments and I could see clearly two ducts were inserted inside his nostrils. A whimper came out of my lips and softly, I caressed his image on the glass.

Inside the washroom which was only occupied by me, I kept splashing water from the sink before the series of mirrors. Maybe, I was broken from the start with the difference being that now I was broken with a hint of his memories capturing my entire existence. A warm touch on the middle of my back made my sore senses touch the sky and without wasting a moment, I turned around knowing the answer.

"Where'd you go? You promised to stay?" I spoke breathless with water dribbling down my face.

"Do you realise that the only thing standing between you and me is the reality?" He asked, poised.

"I feel you in my bones and under my skin ruling my mind and warming my heart and I don't care if this is not real because it doesn't feel wrong, does it?" I held his hands and he looked down at our entwined fingers, quiet.

I sighed "I saw this...weird dream."

"Did your dream have me in it?" His thumbs rubbed the back of my hands. I asserted feebly.

He smirked "Got to be weird then." He chuckled. "But I would like to know how you deal with me in your dreams, at least. But let's just stop wasting water, first."

I gaped behind and realised the running tap which I forgot to close. Quickly, I dealt with the tap not letting go of his other hand.

"I-I saw.." I moistened my dry lips "a beautiful countryside field..full of colourful tulips- yellow, pink, red, orange, green, white... tall grasses, magnificent butterflies and.. and you." He smiled nodding his head politely asking me to continue.

"The sun was up but its rays weren't scorching. You were standing with your back at me and eyes looking into the horizon where the orange of the sky met the green of the grasses. It seemed like you have been waiting there since ages for someone to arrive yet you weren't impatient. When I ran closer to you, you didn't budge much except for looking deep into my eyes while I was looking into yours trying to catch my breath somehow. You smiled, maybe, you got some answer to your unasked questions and I answered them without having the knowledge of the question. Tears pooled on the bed of my eyes and you looked away, politely... again into the horizon as if you never saw my tears. I cried and cried standing beside you but you never turned your gaze towards me. My tears begged your attention but the horizon offered calmness to your eyes. You unheard everything. Gentle breeze billowed the tall grasses from left to right and the flowers dangled in rhythm; few of butterflies left the flowers they were sucking the nectar from and flew away unknown in the air." My eyes were blurred from the vision of my dream.

"And?" Manik was quick to ask yet unhurried.

"And then.. when I saw myself again..you-you weren't there where you were minutes back. The spot was empty beside me leaving no trace of you behind and no matter how loud I cried or how fast I ran into the grasses, I could find you nowhere. This wasn't a dream, Manik..it was a nightmare and I refuse to sleep for the rest of my life if it means losing you in it." I was sobbing again and he left my fingers slowly resting his butt on the edge of the sink.

"Do you remember what I told you once? That..Murthy, you have my destruction written in bold in those eyes of yours. I kissed your love and embraced the death. Look, how powerful is your love." He smirked softly shaking his head.

"No! You don't say that. Please?" I cried joining my hands. "I wanted you to put an end to your mysteries that's it. I-I know my words cut you worse than a knife but I wasn't thinking anything. I am sorry, I beg your forgiveness. But you cant believe this that deep down my heart, I believed all that I heard. My judgment sure was clouded but not my faith. God, I am so so evil! It's all because of me that you are enduring this pain. I hate myself. You should have never met me." I hid my reddened face behind my hands trembling uncontrollably while his features turned serious from the earlier playfulness.

"Hey hey hey! No, stop that." His embrace warmed my cold soul. "You are so sensitive. No. God, I was just saying. I know...I know you." His fingers played with my hair to calm me down and I clutched the shirt on his back harder.

It was pathetic, to have him and then not really him. My watery eyes widened when I looked into the mirror and all I saw was me hugging the emptiness. He wasn't real and I knew that yet it did hurt. Very bad. In my sensation, I felt his warmth and that was sufficient for me and my life. He was real in my imagination but my imagination wasn't real.

"I won't let you go. I won't let anything happen to you. You are going to be fine. You will be safe. You can't. No..you can't." I cried feeling him slip away from my arms and the coldness hugging me all again.

"He can't be a coward." I opened my eyes feeling a foreign touch land upon my skin and flinching hard, I distanced myself from the same.

I looked around crazily trying to get him back in my thoughts but he wasn't there. Nowhere. No no no I couldn't be alone on this cold lonely bench without him by my side. As crazy as it might sound but immediately I wanted to fall asleep again to feel him back but my hands were tied. Running hands through my face roughly, I looked at the frame beside me on the bench whose touch was earlier on my skin and my mouth opened in an o.

"Aryaman?" I couldn't tell the difference really whether it was also my brain playing with me or if he was really there in a jet black hoodie having a coffee in his hand and the other kept for me on the bench.

"You came?.." My eyes darted to the tiny band-aid on his left arm "And.. you-you donated the blood too?" I was completely unaware of the reality for so long I had been lost in my imagination with Manik.

"Oh wow, I really did!" He replied sarcastically pulling the sleeve of his sweatshirt down. "Bad dream?" I rested my swollen nape on the headrest of the bench.

"Not even close." I picked up the coffee after he gestured removing the lid.

"But you came then why did you lie?" I asked feeling the hot vapour of the coffee hitting my nostrils.

"Who said I lied? I really left for the airport but somehow...couldn't board." He leaned over resting elbows over his knees.

"But you hate him...." I stated the fact meekly swirling the stirrer.

"But I can't get my scores settled with a man who is standing on a crossroad of life and death." Standing up, he walked towards the glass of the ICU door.

"The Doctors aren't telling me anything about him because I am not family. Did they..." I paused.

He sighed "They stopped the internal bleeding inside his head but his lung is badly punctured. They say his survival is difficult..but not impossible. The typical statement, you see." He answered looking at his moribund brother.

"Today, I would like to tell you something, Nandini." My tired eyes met his calm ones. "Nobody is one hundred percent bad or hundred percent good. There's flaw in everybody whether we appreciate that or not and without those flaws they are nothing. Mistakes are even made by Gods too." He turned back his eyes towards the ICU and I stared down at my knees with heaviness forming a void inside my heart.

"All our lives, Manik and I have hated each other so earnestly that we never could share a brotherhood. I am not complaining though, I still do hate him eternally but how I wish, I could turn back the role of time and save each of us from this crossroad we are standing today. But that won't happen." He gulped smiling to himself.

"Yes, we simply don't stop praying to our Lord just because he gives us pain." I murmured recollecting our night on Diwali.

"It does create a difference considering if we are praying to a God or a Satan." Our eyes averted to the source of such scornful sentence and I stood up.

"Randhir?" My guts tightened. After sparing me a glance, he walked towards Aryaman who looked as confused as never been.

"You came here, saved him like a dutiful brother which is the right thing to do but you know, you might wish to undo the same after you know he deserves none of your forgiveness." Randhir spat.

"Randhir, don't." Words came out of my gritted teeth.

"Well?" Aryaman initiated crossing arms across his chest "What is this new plot twist?"

"Aryaman, I really hate to be the bad guy here but you must know something and-"

"Randhir, shut up? What's wrong with you? Can't you see this is not the time for all of this?" Blood rushed to my head in anxiety. Randhir had no right to tell Aryaman about Chetna, if Manik had been his guilty then it was for Manik to surrender himself to his brother. Randhir could not snatch that right away from Manik, the last thing he had.

"What am I missing?" Aryaman's eyes switched between Randhir and me.

"There's nothing as such." I denied.

"I can't believe you, Nandini? This man needs to know after all this years? How long are you going to keep this a secret? I thought after knowing everything, you would do the right thing!" Randhir miffed irritating the hell out of me. I was scared; scared to my death.

What if Manik had some solid excuse behind everything and I was sure the way Randhir was going to say it, would deprive Manik of his brother's forgiveness for a lifetime.

"Whoa, what?" Aryaman seemed focussed.

"You have no right to come in between brothers, Randhir. Just-just stop." I moved my hands in dismissal.

Randhir turned Aryaman towards him and my breath got stuck in the middle of my throat.

"I don't know who you are going to hate more after this. Manik, Nandini, me or yourself? But you have been there in the dark for too long." Randhir worded attentively.

"No..." My heartbeat was caught up in my mouth. "You won't say that..Randhir."

Randhir gulped "There is something Manik hid from you and the world and the answer to all of this can be found at the City-"

Randhir's face sharply turned the other way with a crashing sound in the air and my stomach churned into pieces. Aryaman's eyes widened and my fingers covered the shock on my mouth once I realised what I just did.

I slapped Randhir.

"God..." I whispered into my covered mouth but I had no alternative left up in my sleeve.

Aryaman chuckled a bit immediately rectifying himself. "Well, I think- I should probably go." He excused himself leaving a shocked Randhir and an ashamed me alone in the corridor.

"Randhir, I am- I.. sorry but what were you thinking?" He faced me but there wasn't any question in his eyes. He chuckled angrily before puffing some air out of his lips.

"You know, Nandini.. I don't know anymore if you're more pathetic or loyal for still thinking about him?" My chest clenched and avoiding his eyes, I slowly walked towards the place from where I could see my Manik, the door.

"Nonsensical it might sound but I know one thing," I began "Once I tried pushing him away being manipulated by the world and look, where have I got him? I don't care how villainous it sounds but if keeping a secret alive with me would mean Manik's life then I am sorry but I will keep an ocean of secrets to keep him alive. No offence." My eyes stiffened. He ducked slowly having grasped each word by word.

"None taken." He turned around to leave and I heaved a sigh of relief but then he was again back on his heels with a new spark in his eyes. It felt like it was a new light he was seeing me in and I didn't know if it was good or bad.

"All this while, I failed to understand why a light would willingly waltz towards the darkness. But now I realise.." I gulped so hard that the tissues in my throat pained at the anticipation of what his final verdict was going to be.

"That you got attracted to his darkness but you had parts of you as dark as he has and tonight, when you sound exactly like him, I can barely make a difference. Maybe, you were always like him and I couldn't see. Maybe, you were always an angel with horns which only he could see." I didn't turn around to him, my nails on the glass of the window drew scratches and after I felt his slow departure, I rested my forehead on the glass weeping without a choice.

My bones turned into dusts seeing my reflection on the glass of the window at the thought of what I was becoming slowly. My heart shrank like a tossed paper every line on which was blotted.

✿

The world was as silent as if it ended in the night. The sun was still resolutely below the horizon and the street was as dark as some old-school black and white movie. I stood on the roof of the hospital, at the edge feeling voidness eating me alive. Maybe, I awaited the new dawn of my life, our lives. The huge buildings were like silhouettes against the crimson sky and the air felt like ocean.

"As the sun will rise, I would be gone." He stood by my side as if we lived our entire life in just one night. I knew he spoke about about my stupid imaginary Manik but what if I never got to meet him ever again.

"I suppose...you have to. Because the tears in my eyes and pleas on my lips aren't going to stop you." I spoke like a robot looking at the end of the sky.

He rotated his face to have a closer view of me and his fingers slowly crawled over mine on the concrete fence.

"You know that feeling when you don't wanna leave and just hold on to that one thing which means the most to you? That's the feeling I am getting right now." My fingers didn't react to his touch or to his words whereas it was my poor heart that was crashing on the ground begging him to stay.

"Why do some people drown in puddles while others swim in the ocean?" I asked knowing my heart was sinking deeper and deeper and no matter how I called, it wouldn't react.

"I guess we choose how we wish to suffer." He stated turning me by my elbows.

I had nothing to ask so he had nothing to answer. Time was awkward and for the first time ever, we ran out of topics. His cold fingers created this hurricane of emotions inside me when they touched my chin and our eyes became one. With every smile, every look and every time he touched me, he made me a part of himself. And, if I lost him I'd lose it all.

"It terrifies me how fascinated you are by my destructive things." He cupped my face and I blinked hard letting those fountain free from my eyes.

"I don't know how strong do you think I am but you must know I can't be stronger than this. I will fall apart. I will break down and I would need you to gather me. Your Murthy isn't as brave as you think." His lips sealed my words by lingering on my forehead. Could my heart love him one more time? Just for one more minute before it finally breaks?

"Only if you knew how weak your strength gets me." He whispered in between his kiss and I clutched the shirt above his heart.

I took his hand in mine and placed it over the left side of my chest and I could see moisture in the corner of his eyes. Be my imagination but I knew he was feeling the things I felt too. Either we both were sailing together or drowning together but... we were together in that very moment when the Sun was starting to peek through the horizon and the morning birds would start chirping from their nests.

"I have this one and only heart, Manik Malhotra. It is beating and I have given it to you. Now, don't kill it by stopping the beat of your heart." His touch on my heart didn't escalate the beating but surely coated my emotions with this unknown spring of emotions I never knew could exist.

"Loving me is the biggest mistake of your life." His hand being still on my heart and eyes grazing mine.

"If you can't walk into the light with me, then I can let your loving darkness consume my light. But there ain't going to be a gap between your and my name." I held him ever so close. I would rather stay in darkness with him than risk finding the light just to have him taken away.

Our life together was turning into re-runs; marathons of déjà vu, no studio audience to fill the empty space. Even when it was different, it was still the same.

Just as the Sun was beginning to come out of its orange layers, I held him tighter in my arms feeling his hold to be loosening. I lost him once, I could never again. Losing him would put an end to my world but here I was slowly and unsteadily letting him slip away.

I was scared to death that in a week, month, two months, a year, a decade his presence will still be a question I'd ask myself every night before sleep.

The human being in my arms started turning into golden dust like he was made of sunlight.

And, I stood there one more time watching the dusts return to the Sun.

The night was over and it was time to go home but I didn't know where he was.

❋

The End.

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Just kidding.