11 Hours

1.

In a way, it was good. Else she'd be pestering me with a myraid of questions to know what I was doing at the exact moment.

I sighed and turned towards the monitor. There was a pop up message from a horny girl who was staying in the next street and calling me for sex?

Stupid brezzers!

I wondered how a computer server located somewhere in the US knew about who was horny in the street next to me. Sonetimes I feel machine learning has reached its apotheosis only when it comes to matters of sexual nature. I laughed it off.

I closed the pop up window and started to focus on the photos. As a few unworried seconds passed by, a baffling discomfort overwhelmed me. I felt a sudden surge at the back of my head where I had been operated.

I tried to concentrate, but couldn't. To Divert my attention, I took my phone to look at the messages. There were quite a lot but none was from y/n. She hadn't called nor had texted me. Her last seen showed '8 p.m.'

There are times when you have a hunch that something is wrong with your loved ones. They could be miles apart but deep down in your heart you would know that they're alright.

I felt so at that moment. Perturbed by an inexplicable uneasiness with a rein of Doubt, I dialed her number. It took two seconds after the automated voice replied that her phone was switched off.

She would never turn off her phone.
I knew that for sure.

Was everything all right?

I doubted.

I looked at the clock, it was 10:38 p.m.
A wave of anxiety engulfed me. I tried hard to keep all the negative thoughts away but they rapidly swirled in my mind. I became restless. A deluge of uncertainty embraced me as I dialed her number once again, in panic.

I wasn't sure if I should be alarmed or wait for a few more minutes for her to arrive but my heart was pounding hard already. Thee clock was ticking. I couldn't browse any further and kept trying her number again and again. Her mobile remain switched off. And for a minute I wanted to throw the phone and break it, but thinking of the salary I was receiving,decided against it.

I closed the laptop and pulled my phone of the charger. I was moving around aimlessly in my room,my parents had gone to our hometown and I was alone at home. After a few minutes of desperation, I decided to go downstairs and wait for the gate of our apartment.

I took my mobile as well. I desperately hoped my gut feeling would be wrong. I prayed that nothing should happen to  y/n and it should be one of a case where her mobile had ran out of charge.

"Why didn't she charge her phone?" I was so frustrated.

"My mobile battery never dies down the entire day." She had once told me when we were having a casual discussion on how long our batteries last.

"Maybe you should use your phone for that, browse something or at least look at it once in a while." I said.

Y/n never used her phone while at office. If I called her she would never pick my call and even if she picked she would talk in whispers and even if she talked it would be 'I am busy now talk to you later'. At times the automated voice conversed more than her.

I fervently prayed that nothing like that should've happened to her. She must have overused her phone owing to the free wi-fi at her office and must have forgotten to charge it.

Right?

A million harrowing thoughts fired up my mind and I relentlessly kept neglecting them. There was no stopping my anxious mind from listing out the daunting conclusions at times of uncertainty.