Touch Her And... (Completed)

Bonus Chapter #1

"I can't believe this happened to Dev bhai, that too by none other than Rik bhai. What a curse!" Manik said looking outside as his eyes teared up.

"Possibly the curse has broken. Now the only thing concerns me is Dev's life. That guy suffered way too much." Arjun said inhaling from his cigarette.

...............

This alleyway always intrigues Manik, from the very day he came here. But Manik being Manik just never paid enough attention to it. Now when he decided to shift elsewhere due to his professional needs and mostly due to his need of staying away from Teressa, something inside him keeps pulling him towards this alley. A pull he tries hard to ignore again but can't. He would be leaving Kurseong for God knows how many years, he wants to take every good memories with him.

His car takes a turn towards that steep alley. The more he drives into it the more he feels as if he knows this road quite well. There should be this huge and extended pine forest on both the sides and at the end of it should be this beautiful white church. The road should be mostly secluded and lonesome, not many people should be living here. But now as he looks around him, there are a few houses, stores, bakeries. Then why does he feel like these were not here? He has never been to this road before. He is certain.

He keeps driving as his eyes fall on the smallest glimpse of something white peaking its triangular head from behind the forest and his eyes widen with shock.

"No way!" Manik whispers to himself as his car moves towards the white church. But it stops before he reaches that point as his eyes fall on a clearing on his right. He stops his car and comes out of it. His legs take him towards the part where the pine trees have started to become less dense and the closer he gets his heartbeat keeps increasing.

Even when the daylight is shining bright outside, this part of the forest seems to be covered in a bone chilling darkness. But his curiosity gets the better of him. He keeps walking deeper inside until his feet waver and his whole body freezes.

His grey eyes stare back at the nearly destroyed old house. His breathing becomes heavy as his legs finally get back the life and start moving towards it. The closer he gets to the house the clearer everything becomes. The pictures, as if he can see everything infront of his eyes, the stairs, the trees, the huge wooden green colored doors, but on the other hand he can see how everything is destroyed, when he looks properly he gets to understand it better: not destroyed, it's burned.

But he doesn't stop, he places his foot on the stairs or one should say whatever is left of it. His hand instinctively gets extended towards the once red but now burnt and black walls of the house and without his knowledge his eyes tear up. A pain, he has never felt in his entire life, attacks his senses. The further he moves inside the more he pants.

There, right there should have been the alpona (kind of rangoli), at the very entrance. Then should be the huge open dalan (a roofless veranda) at the very middle of the house. Surrounding the open veranda should be the square shaped corridor with attached rooms to it.

The more he enters the more he gets attacked by thick spider webs, rats and even pigeons. The thick dust has covered his well polished and expensive shoes, but nothing seems to faze him. As he keeps getting inside, sometimes crossing the broken and fallen pieces of the old house, sometime unintentionally breaking them himself because of how old they have become.

Finally he reaches the once open veranda, now a burnt mess. His eyes immediately start scanning its surroundings as if searching for something. Something that even he doesn't know. His legs start taking him towards the left part of the corridor and he obliges.

If he saw how the house has been burnt from outside now he is probably witnessing the most affected part of the house. His white polo shirt is covered with spider webs but he walks forward tearing the thick webs with his hands and coughing continously in the process but something inside him is going crazy.

At this point he feels nothing but the utmost need for reaching where his destiny is pulling him towards.

Finally his legs stop infront of what seems to be the last room of this corridor. The room that's probably burnt to ashes. He steps inside. The pain that was bearable a few seconds ago now crosses every limit. An ache that keeps hammering his heart from the inside, makes him insane as tears trail down his cheeks. His whole body goes numb and his knees starts getting weaker. He fails to stand anymore and closing his eyes kneels down, then and there.

And the very moment he closes his eyes a stream of familiar glimpses occupy his mind. The room changes from burnt and black to bright yellow. He keeps seeing things, a bed beside the window, some comfortable pillows, a huge bookshelf that has a lots of Bengali and English books, a lantern, a kitchen, a stove on the floor, a middle aged woman cooking something on it, she is holding a hand fan made of a tree leaf. She turns her face directly towards him and smiles, her hair is tied in a loose low bun, there is sindur on her forehead, she is wearing a white saree with red border on it and hung a shawl from her right shoulder. His heart aches for no reasons, even in his subconscious he extends his hand to touch her but fails.

The scene immediately changes to a small girl, in an open field, wearing a pink saree, with a full sleeve white blouse. Her two tiny braids are jumping as she keeps jumping and clapping at something, while laughing innocently. And then his eyes fall on the person standing infront of the small girl. He can see her from behind as she tries hard to get some fruits from the tree.

Her curly hair bounces every time she attempts to jump, her saffron saree's end is held open by the small girl, probably for catching the fruits.

And then she turns and his heart stops. Her amused husky eyes looks at the small girl mischievously. And the same pain becomes suffocating to a level that he finds trouble breathing.

Just when he wants this to end, the pain to end, just when he hopes that everything is done, the scene snaps to someone else. A girl, in specific. A girl with long straight hair, running through the pine trees. She's wearing a maroon saree with white stripes in it and a woolen white blouse underneath. He runs behind her to see her face, the closer he runs the more the pain increases. But it is a weird feeling, a feeling of home, a feeling of safety, a feeling of peace that he feels around her, as well as this pain. How is it possible? To have all this feelings together?

He tries to see her face but everytime he attempts the scenes snap back to a room, a tiny window, a lantern, the same girl with curly hair, dreamy eyes, saffron saree, reading books under the small amount of light that lantern can offer. The girl thinks and smiles on her own. She loves to read, loves to smile. The girl who smiles to everyone except him, a girl whose face reflects nothing but sheer honesty.

The pain surpasses all the limits and his breathing hitches. His grey teary eyes snap open and he finds himself fallen face first on the ground. He coughs and sits straight, breathing heavily.

The only word he gets to utter is:

Ambika.

A/N
As promised I am here with the Bonus Chapter. Hope you like it.

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Love, Puja.😇