Posted:
Chapter 56
Something's are so hard to predict, that even though you spend your whole life finding the exact
cause of it...
Kaka was still thinking about Veer and the evil spirit that was following Veer since the day he landed in Darjeeling.
Reality is shaped by the forces that destroy it. Then no matter where you are, in a crowded restaurant or on some desolate street or even in the comforts of your own home, you'll watch yourself dismantle every assurance you ever lived by.
You'll stand aside as a great complexity intrudes, tearing apart, piece by piece, all your carefully conceived denials, whether deliberate or unconscious.
And for better or worse you'll turn, unable to resist, though try to resist you still will, fighting with everything you've got not to face the thing you most dread, what is now, what will be, what has always come before, the creature you truly are, the creature we all are, buried in the nameless black of a name.
Kaka was conscious and thought about Chandni, Even if she be not harmed, her heart may fail her in so much and so many horrors; and hereafter she may suffer--both in waking, from her nerves, and in sleep, from her dreams.
He took a long breathe "It is the sheer ugliness and banality of everyday life which turns my blood to ice and makes me cringe in terror." He thought in his mind.
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Chandni quickly sauntered into the big palace, Veer saw the dripping stone walls of the old uninhabited palace.
He glanced around the locked inner rooms and secret dungeons.
She could hear the footsteps creaking upon staircases and clanking of chains "did you hear anything?" she queried to the handsome man who was still glancing the old palace that seemed different from his first visit.
It was clean and there were people working inside the palace. But now it looked preoccupied with bats and rats and spiders.
"Veer I could feel it at night; slithering and curling around my soul as it slowly devoured me. It seemed it was draining my energy and replacing it with an evil I was afraid to confront." She said.
Veer could feel some one around him "It touched me, with something terrible"
Soon they heard the fingers tapping at casements, sounds of howling's and shrieking, groaning and scuttling
"Is this a kind of dream?" she hoped
"No I'm not a dream, I'm your worst nightmare" A squealing voice came from behind Chandni.
She clutched to Veer's shoulder, she was indeed sweating. Something hit Veer's head and he fainted.
With a timid voice she spoke up "who...who are you?"
While she was still in shock the evil appeared right in front of her "My feelings for Veer are mine, and mine alone. I loved him, and that is all anyone needs to know. The rest does not matter"
She knew her life was in danger, she tried waking up Veer but it seemed something hit him badly.
She ran outside the palace...
She could hear the chaotic laughter trailing behind her. It turned the ageless trees into a menace.
They loomed around her.
"God, please help me" she whispered against a tall tree...
Suddenly she felt a strong grip on her shoulder, she screamed and turned around
"Veer" she cried and hugged him tightly.
"Which is the true nightmare, the horrific dream that you have in your sleep or the dissatisfied reality that awaits you when you awake?" she said
She looked at him, the weather turned pleasant with the morning sun.
"There are horrors beyond life's edge that we do not suspect" he said.
She cried out loudly while tightly holding him.
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Veer realised today what was tormenting Chandni from last so many months, all she was going through. She seemed terrified by the reality.
She was still sleeping with her head on his lap "Chandni has faced horrors in these past months... I don't know which is worse. The terror she felt the first time she witnessed such things, or the numbness that came after it started to become ordinary." He said to Maneka who was shocked to hear what Veer told her...
She felt sorry for Chandni "we must do something to save her" she thought something and walked away
"Chandni I will kill that terror that is trying to harm you. It has to face me first before it reaches you" he whispered while tightly holding her.
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Late during the night
Chandni woke up just to see Veer sitting on the couch and sleeping. She did not disturb him and walked to get a glass of water.
She stood silently listening to the ticking of the clock. Something creaked outside. The darkness was oppressive, and after thinking for some time screwing up her courage, she took the box of matches, and striking one, went to look for a candle.
At the foot of the door the match went out, and she paused to strike another; and at the same moment a knock came as quiet and stealthy as to be scarcely audible, sounded on the front door.
The matches fell from her hand and spilled in the passage. She stood motionless, her breath suspended until the knock was repeated. Then she turned and fled swiftly back to her room, and closed the door behind her. A third knock sounded through the house.
Veer woke with jolt and opened the door... it was dark indeed "Veer, look whose here"
Veer rubbed his eyes and saw a strange man, tall and old with a long beard. He looked more than hundred years old. "Yes"
The old man glanced around the small room then looked at the man standing in front of him. The old man looked shocked and surprised at the same time "first time I have seen the most shocking thing in my life" he smiled at Veer and walked inside.
"Terrible and ancient and scarred with the endless cold of space, the terrible and ancient things glistened with frozen moisture" he said to himself
Veer was getting furious ... He turned to look at Maneka who signed him to be quiet.
Holding a big stick in his hands he tried to survey every corner of the cottage.
It was late night and the whole village was quiet. But the whole forest was peopled with frightful sounds--the creaking of the trees, while sometimes the wind tolled like a distant temple bell.
Chandni quietly opened the door and saw Veer, she quickly rushed to him.
He held her in his arms. She looked up to the old man who seemed to have come to rescue her "What is the point of our lives? There isn't any."
She hoped while painfully looking him "I can't seem to decide how much horror and how much joy lies within that simple truth, but I know it is both of those things at once."
Veer embraced her tightly. "Nothing will happen to you Chandni. I will not let any evil to touch you" reaching down with one hand to gently wipe away her tears.
The old man smiled at them...
"There stood a great Kingdom in the centre of the gardens, where now is left only that fragment of ruin. This kingdom had been empty for a great while; years before this was the ancient palace- and there was a king."
He stopped for a while and continued...
This place is shunned by the people of the village, as it had been shunned by their fathers before them. There were many things said about this place, and all were of evil. No one ever went near the palace, either by day or night. In the village it is a synonym of all that is unholy and dreadful."
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To be cont...
Anupamaa
8