Sankshipt got off the car in a hurry behind his whole neighbourhood, the area filled with loud cries and mutters where no one could recognize who was grieving in which language. His eyes fell on his Shukla aunty, who was holding her little boy’s corpse gently, tenderly, like he would slip away if she let him go. His father stood nearby, his hand on his boy’s chest. His dark brown hand didn’t contrast much with the already drenched blood-red mixed sea-green T-shirt of Rivan. Police were sealing the area with that yellow tape no one likes to see. Sankshipt couldn’t move for a minute or so. The whispers in the air went silent when Rivan’s older sister came into the scene and screamed like a fork screeching on a blackboard. People held her till she fainted crying, while her mother was refusing to believe that her son’s body was there but her son wasn’t.
Then Sankshipt wiped his eyes when he heard how an elderly man found Rivan’s body during his morning walk with his dog. They also talked about how Rivan was found in an unnatural way, his neck twisted in an unnatural way, and his body looked like he was thrown from somewhere. And the worst part was the blood stained on his cheeks which looked like it travelled through the beneath of his eyes. They also added it was going to be a hard case. And then he remembered the moment when the whole neighbourhood was convincing the Shukla family that their son would be fine somewhere, then they got the call from the police that they had found Rivan, but dead. Sankshipt turned his eyes from the police officers to the crowd of students at the boundary of the sealed area. Then his eyes met Vyakhya’s, who was standing there in the crowd, her eyes forcing her to look anywhere but the corpse she made of a person. She turned her head away from Sankshipt in no longer than a second, and they went where she warned them not to go, at Rivan’s family. How his mother still denied acknowledging her son's death and was fighting the police officers who were putting the body in the ambulance, and how his sister looked so desperate to hold anything that was her brother’s for the last time, and how Mr. Shukla tried his best to hold his wife steadily when his own legs were stumbling like a rag doll. Vyakhya aggressively closed her eyes, clenching them like she was physically restraining herself from thinking anything right now, and soon her cheeks were wet before Adbhut put a hand on her shoulder and said something about going inside the school gate and assembly. She took a step back and took her brother inside the school gate, running away again like usual.
Sankshipt went with the people who returned to their homes because he knew his sister would have woken up by now, even though it was her holiday and he had taken the day off too. No one cares about going to school when their home street still reeks from yesterday’s murder.
Vyani made her way to the classroom after her brother went to his. She repeated in her mind again and again that it's the next day, the next day, but the blood on her hands still smelled the same, just invisible now like Rivan’s existence. Everything was fine, and that was the only thing which wasn’t fine for Vyani. She dragged herself inside the noisy classroom, normally just avoiding every sea-green thing in the way, because it ridiculously resembled the colour of Rivan's T-shirt last night, the same one he bled in when his mother was crying desperately just to make him breathe one more time. She shook her head, it's alright, he deserved this, plus he didn’t have any remorse for what he did to her sister. People like that don’t deserve to live, that’s why he didn’t live in the same world anymore. Anything to justify it. It’s not that she can’t fill the balloon, it’s that the balloon has holes.
Asmita ma’am took the attendance, the assembly happened normally. She joined her hands but didn’t mutter a single word, because in her mind she believed sinners don’t pray, but in reality she believes that sinners do pray, and the loudest. Then, in the queue behind the class girls, she walked back in the corridor which was looking way too dark for a morning so shiny.
It was like normal. She went and sat in the third seat, second row like she always does, Amisha doing her physics homework as fast as she can before she asked Vyani in a feeble voice,
“Bro, did you complete your physics homework? Give me the notebook fast!!”
“What? Physics? No, I forgot it.”
“What? Then do! Didn’t you hear what she said last time? ‘It’s the last warning and I won’t forgive next time,’” Amisha said, mimicking his voice.
“Yeah, I know, it’s okay,” Vyakhya said in a tired voice, putting her head on the desk and closing her eyes.
“Are you alright?” Amisha asked.
“No, I don’t feel very good. It’s alright, you should complete it so at least one of us will stay in class and take notes.”
And as expected, Vyani was thrown out of class for not completing the example questions 2.2 to 2.6. Standing outside the class with the six other students felt like dread to her because those six other students didn’t commit a murder last night. She leaned against the wall, her mind thinking of all the thoughts it shouldn’t. She was painting the picture of dead Rivan in her mind again and again, a muse who wanted to create a museum in her mind. After a pool of thoughts, she started reacting to it physically. That’s when she flinched when Avsesh, Anirudh’s friend, whom she always found cool. It’s not like she had always wanted to be with him, but he was always so chill and cool in his own skin. Vyani wanted to mirror him, but in her current state she could only repel him.
“How did you forget to do your homework, that is so unlike you,” he said, leaning down to her ear.
Vyani clicked her tongue after a long flinch and silence. “I was busy with something.”
“Oh, did you get a boyfriend or something?” he said playfully, but he didn’t know that Vyani was already thinking about what she was busy with. Murdering someone? Someone's precious little baby? She had already started pulling her skin around her nails; it has always been an easier and invisible way of punishing herself.
“No, nothing like that,” she replied, already distancing herself from him. She wasn’t in the state of acting “human.”
Aavesh nodded and started replying to what someone else said. They all knew Vyakhya was difficult to talk to. Only if she was more like Amisha, it would be bearable to stand next to her in punishment.
The school day passed like a rustle of wind for everyone else, but for Vyani she kept thinking of ways to go back to yesterday and stop her own hands from doing something so irreversible. But no matter how long you stand at the grave, the dead remains dead. The last bell rang, and by this time all of the school was whispering about how a former student’s body was found behind the same building they were in. Some were making horror stories out of it, some were praying to their respective gods, while some were still painted by the blood of that very young man. Vyani grabbed her bag before Avni reached out to touch her shoulder and said something about physics and tuition, and Vyani replied with a nod before heading out and running half her way home, like a bomb that’s just a second away from explosion. She had already decided what to do. She would go to her sister’s room, who probably had already heard the news. She would go and confess to her crime that she committed a murder, intentionally. She clenched her fists like it gave her life, and she had to do it right now because what if one more minute passed and her mind started thinking something else, she wouldn’t be able to do it, like she always does with her cuts. Make it the moment you feel it, otherwise the mind starts looking for logic, and self-harm never leads by logic. She ran inside her street, pushing her way through the lump in her throat, only to find a big lock on the main red gate of her house. She went to the other side of the house and looked under the tulsi pot above the last boundary wall, and the keys were there, the keys cold against her palm as she fisted her hand before heading towards the main gate and opening it. She was already imagining where her mother and sister were, probably shopping for her sister's college starting, and her sister would be dying inside if she had already heard what had happened. Soon she was in her room, in the same uniform she was harassed the whole day by no one else but her thoughts. How do you look for a key when you were the one who locked yourself in? The room sounded like knife cuts, the walls stared like pleading children, and her body looked like an old corpse in the grave. Before she could put a pause to her thoughts, they started rolling down her cheeks as her eyes betrayed her, showcasing Rivan's corpse like a piece of art in the museum. It's hard to differentiate between imagination and reality when you never learnt how to switch between the two. Her sniffles hadn’t stopped before Tis appeared in front of her with a frown on his face.
“If you were going to cry about it then why did you do it?”
Vyani moved her head, the blurry figure of him before she wiped her eyes and he was clear, clear as sin.
“It’s not like I wanted to do it,” she replied, her voice breaking halfway.
“How long will you hide behind excuses?” he asked, his frown deepening.
“I—I… it’s not an excuse, Tis, you were leading me on too,” she said in a slow whisper.
“So now we are playing the blame game, he is already dead and the police are sketching this as an accident, we are not to blame.”
“We are to blame!! We killed him!! A human life! It’s very grave, not funny or a joke! Can’t you see how shitty this situation is!!” Vyani screamed.
“You don’t have to overreact, I already told Amris to put an order of generating a human life from our side. The creator won’t mind it now, I already paid for the damage,” he said, running a hand through his hair.
“Are you kidding me? That’s not—”
“A human life for a human life. We killed one and I have already put an order for the other to be generated, it’s fine.”
“No!! Didn’t you see his mother, his family, how they were crying and screaming!! Didn’t you feel anything!”
“He was bound to die! If not today then tomorrow, it’s useless to cry for a human death—”
“Shut up!!! You are heartless but I am not. The day you start feeling human emotions you won’t be able to say that shit.” Vyani screamed again, it was useless, Tis didn't killed him, she did.
A pause, before Tis closed his eyes and then opened them.
“Okay, then let’s stop that.”
“I can’t… stop crying, it’s like tears are coming without my control on them.” She whispered back.
“Not your tears, but his family’s.”
“What?” Vyani looked up at him.
“Yes, let’s make them stop crying and, as you said we are some kind of ‘criminal’ for being the cause of that,” he said before heading out of the room.
Vyani followed him with some hope. “Are we going to make him alive again?”
“That’s impossible.” He declared.
“But you just said—”
“We are going to make them forget he existed, the whole world, we are going to remove his existence.”
“What? Ho-how?”
“Close your eyes,” Tis ordered.
She did as he said before he ordered again, “Touch the Hucia.”
She did as he said again. Before he hovered his hand above the Hucia on her wrist and whispered something inaudible and told her to open her eyes.
“What happened? What now?” Vyani said, curious and worried.
“He never existed. Everybody who was crying about him will forget he ever existed,” Tis said.
The moment those words came out of his mouth, Vyani’s face went blank as she just looked at him with an expression he couldn’t comprehend, so he repeated again, “People forgot him, I erased his existence, is that hard to understand?”
“My sister too? Will she forget him?”
“Is your sister an exception? Of course she will forget him too.”
“How? I—I mean why? Why would they forget him?” She asked.
“Because you want to? Do you have to ask every obvious question?” Tis gave her an unimpressed stare.
“I mean what about everything he did here? Like he didn’t exist, so everything about him disappears too?"
“Yes, exactly. Now he never existed.”
Vyani was still looking at Tis with a baffled expression before the main door opened and her mother and sister entered. She ran out to the main door and Apoorva was parking the scooter and her mother was casually scolding her to do it slowly, with lots of shopping bags in her hand.
“Oh, you came early today, where is Adbhut?”
Vyani didn’t hear what her sister asked, she was way too busy noticing how casual everything was, her mouth open and eyes on her Apoorva.
“He must be on his way,” her mother mumbled, removing her sandals as she sat down the filled shopping bags on the floor near her.
“Apoo, do you know Rivan?” Vyani asked with her heart between her fingers, ready to clutch it after a sentence.
“Rivan? Oh, of course everyone knows him,” Apoorva said, removing her shoes casually.
Her heart dropped. Tis said everyone forgot him, then why? She gulped before she added, “Rivan, ‘Rivan Shukla’, you know him?”
“Rivan Shukla? I thought you asked about Rivan Ahuja, the singer,” her sister said with a laughter before adding, “Who is Rivan Shukla?”
Vyani looked at her as if she was insane, then fear, and then a flicker of relief, before her tightened shoulders loosened up a bit. “Oh yeah, the singer,” before she helped her mother in taking the shopping bags inside.
Then her sister showed her everything she bought for college, with giggles and smiles, like it was a casual nineteen-year-old preparing to go to college, not a girl whose boyfriend just got murdered by her own little sister last night.
Vyani went back to her room soon after, and pretended to sleep, her eyes shut tight and her legs shaking like she had just won a marathon no one else took part in.
ns216.73.217.39da2
and then Add to home screen.