The bright yellow headlight fiddled with the raindrops as the downpour continued. 

The tyres hissed over the rain-washed road as those hands stayed still on the steering. She had turned the dim headlights on too, even though the road was completely vacant. 

Her other hand fidgeted over the radio to no avail. The time on the LED of that stereo kept digiting ahead but her mind was stuck in the past. Her conversation with Dr. Eskont and Sofia was still trying to mingle with her brain matter in her head.

She kept quiet. But her inner head voice did not. It was screaming in her ears. She was all alone in the car but from the inside, she was still standing on that reception table, trying her best to make Sofia elaborate her last said statement.

Her mind had kept shifting from zoning out for a moment to pay full attention to the dark wet road.

She gulped down her anxiety but was also being drowned in it at the same time. Her mother's endless phone calls went straight to the missed calls section. She was supposed to be home an hour ago but she had been driving like a snail the whole time.

'He said he wants to talk to you.' Sofia's voice played in her head again. It was the fifth time her mind made her listen to everything again.

'He asked me to tell you that you have to get to his room as soon as you step into the hospital tomorrow morning... What did you say to him to make him so angry?' Her words banged her head from all directions. It was just an hour ago when that strange incident happened.

A few humanly movements were captured by the headlights now. She got near to her house.

'I'm scared for you Nivedita. Not because he was angry—' her words kept getting scarier with every second. '—but because the last person he called in her room was Jane.' Her eyes spoke a million words that Nivedita could not even catch to decipher. She had held her hands while saying that statement. 

She needed to stop remembering the past. Her bad habits had always brought a hard time upon her. 

'Why would you say that, Sofia? Are you trying to hint at something? As if he—' She had pulled her hands away from her grip. That sole statement from Sofia made her lose her sanity for the whole ride back home.

A few locals strolled on the roadside in raincoats. Some with a few plastic bags in their captive. While some roamed with free hands. She was almost home now.

'No. Of course not. How can I even say something like that? I'm scared  because I think he might transfer you there too.'  Where? Where would he transfer her, she had thought.   

She was on the brink of having an anxiety rush when she saw the iron gates of her own house lightened up by the lamps over the fence. Although the house was only a day old, she had her family there. Her real home.

'To the Psychiatric Hospital. Jane was also transferred there. She used to work here in her early days but one day, something similar to this happened and the next day, she was gone to that hospital. I don't want another of my friend to go away.'  She smiled at her lovingly. A smile full of hope. But what hope even Nivedita did not know.

The conversation might have ended with a goodnight but it never reached a conclusion in Nivedita's mind.

This incident created insulation around her head like a helmet, that prevented anything else from entering her ears. 

I don't want to work in an asylum. I would never want to. It was now only her words against hers. The words that were never exchanged with someone in reality and were kept hidden inside her chest.

She honked a few times to signal them to open the gate for her. Jay came out of the house with an umbrella in no time. He opened it while burning her soul from his angry eyes. She stopped the engine and pulled the keys from the ignition. 

"What the hell did you do to your phone? Its basic use is to pick up the calls. Why weren't you picking it up?!" He shot at her with whatever force he could gather. He wanted to make his voice louder than the pattering rain. 

His one hand held the umbrella and the other opened her car door for her.

I can't let them know. They have already been in so much trouble because of me. She was resolute.

"Jay I'm a nurse. An emergency can rise up from anywhere at any time in my job," she said with a fake explanatory look.

"Whatever! Ma is really angry. The volcano can burst anytime now." He lifted his hand a little above to encompass his sister in the umbrella.  

"Yeah, I know." She picked up her bag and both of them headed towards the house. She was ready to feed her some lies to keep her away from it.

As soon as the door opened, the warmth of the lamps and blubbing on the television inside her house relaxed the aroused bumps of her skin hair. 

"Where in the world have you been, Nivedita?" Mrs. Rai fumed out as she dashed a clean plate on the dining table.

Nivedita could easily measure how angry she was. Not from the diction of her sentence but from the pronunciation of her full name by her mother. Albeit the silent noise of her angry utterances obscured the past few occurrences for the time being.

"I'm really sorry, Ma. I had to prepare another patient for an operation. I really can't say the word 'no' in this job. I'm sorry I forgot to inform you." She dusted a few crystalline droplets from her shirt and placed her bag on the sofa.

Jay lied back on the sofa in front of the television and resumed from where he presumably had left when Nivedita arrived. A small red Netflix logo stood on the corner of the screen when Jay paused the movie. 

"Please Nevy, you know how is everything here in this town. If you want to keep continuing working there, then you will have to promise me that you will update me if anything like this happens again," she blurted out. Her hands were on her waist as her body radiated anger waves from even two chairs away.

"I promise, Ma. I will inform you next time. Now, can we please eat? I'm really hungry." She made a cherubic face and hoped it would work on her mother.

"Fine. The food is being microwaved. Freshen up." She headed back to the kitchen with a lower intensity of anger now. 

"Being cute won't help you every time," Jay shouted from the sofa as he resumed the movie again.

Nivedita shrunk her nose with frustration and got ready to get back at him. "Oh look, what a sight. An idiot sitting in front of an idiot box." She got up from her chair to get back to her room upstairs and get changed.

"It's not an idiot box anymore. It's a smart television now. And I can't even tell you how much I cringed at that comeback." He tilted his head above when she started climbing stairs.

"Oh, so you accept that you are an idiot but that tv is not?" she shouted and came down to take her bag from the sofa.

"I'm not an idiot."

"Yes, you are."

"And you are a twenty-five-year-old kid who can't even find herself a boyfriend." He regretted it the moment he said it. 

Words hold the capability to create a scathe more painful than any physical wound.

"I'm-I'm sorry. I didn't mean to—" He witnessed the shift in Nivedita's facial expression and decided to remain quiet. 

She picked up her bag and stomped up the stairs without saying anything. She burnt with anger from the inside but had no choice other than getting calmed on her own. 

After drowning herself in the hot shower for ten minutes, her body gained the energy back. But the urge to not get out of the shower was weaker than the urge to get some grains inside her body. She quickly hopped downstairs.

The luscious delicacy decorated the whole table. From the hot saffron biryani to orange vegetable pulao, the dishes created a magnificent colour combination. The mouth-watering fragrance emerging from the fumes of the sizzling food melted Nivedita's anger like a butter cube on a hot pan.

"Nothing better than a table full of delicious food to end a very very weird day." She jumped on the chair and lifted up her plates to serve herself. 

Her black tank top and pajamas comforted her body from the outside while the exploding taste buds satisfied her from the inside.

Jay was still quiet as he knew it would take him at least a day to get over the guilt caused by his slip of tongue.

Mrs. Rai smiled beamingly as her children devoured the food with pleasure. She was about to ask Nivedita about her day when she interjected her thoughts.

"How was your day at the research center, Ma?" she asked before taking another spoonful of the pulao.

"Ah, it was just...hectic. I got acquainted with a few of my colleagues and got familiar with the workplace. You know, the owners of the Eskont Research centre also own both of the hospitals in the town. They are a hell of a rich people I tell you." She put the spoon in her mouth.

Nivedita thought that she was done with words whirling her head but the night was just on its peak. 

"Eskont...? Shit! That's why that name sounded so familiar. Eskont Research centre offered you the job. How could I not remember the name of that doctor!" Her spoon sat on the table as the light of realisation sparked her neurons.

"Yes, the Eskonts twins. They manage the three sectors together," Mrs. Rai said. 

"Wait. Eskonts twins?" Her head was about to burst into smithereens anytime now.

"Yes, they are twin brothers. Erik Eskont and Sven Eskont." 

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