Seize Her And....

Chapter : 20

Be My Subject.

The alleyway always intrigued him but that day it crossed all limits. Something kept pulling him towards the unknown. A pull he tried really hard to ignore but failed.

His heartbeat kept increasing as his car took a turn towards that steep alley. The more he drove into it the more he felt as if he knew this road since a long time. He was being controlled by someone he knew but he didn't.

Something told him that there should be this dense pine forest on both the sides of the road 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 surprisingly when he looked around, there were a few houses, stores, bakeries. He felt suffocated.  He had never been to this road before. He was certain but seeing so many houses and people all around suddenly made him feel disappointed, as if the scenarios changed. As if they weren't supposed to be here.

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

"No way!" He whispered to himself as his car moved towards the white church. But it stopped before he reached that point as his eyes fell on a clearing on his right. He stopped his car and came out of it. His body went on autopilot as his legs took him towards the part where the pine trees have started to become less dense and the closer he got his heartbeat kept increasing.

Even when the daylight was shining bright outside, this part of the forest seemed to be covered in a bone chilling darkness. But his curiosity got the better of him. He kept walking deeper inside until his feet wavered and his whole body froze.

His grey eyes stared back at the nearly destroyed old house. His breathing became heavy as his legs finally got back the life and started moving towards it. The closer he got to the house, the clearer everything became.

His head started spinning as multiple picture like memories started to surface right infront of his eyes.

The stairs, the pine trees, the huge wooden green colored doors, the red colored walls, the smell of home. He broke out of trance and his eyes fell on it now, everything, practically everything was destroyed, when he looked properly he got to understand it better: not destroyed, more like burned.

But he didn't stop, he placed his foot on the stairs or one should say whatever was left of it. His hand instinctively got extended towards the once red but now burnt and black walls of the house and a surge of emotions choked him from within making his eyes tear up. A sorrow, a pain, he never felt in his entire life, attacked his senses.

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

The more he entered the thicker the spider webs turned, he was welcomed by countless rats and pigeons. The thick dust had covered his well polished and expensive shoes, but nothing seemed to faze him. As he kept getting inside, sometimes crossing the broken and fallen pieces of the old house, sometimes unintentionally breaking them himself because of how old they have become.

Finally he reached the dalan, now a burnt mess. His eyes immediately started scanning its surroundings as if searching for something. Something that even he didn't know. His legs started taking him towards the left part of the corridor and he obliged.

The insides of the house were ruined. His white polo shirt was covered with spider webs but he walked forward tearing the thick webs with his hands and coughing incessantly during the process but something inside him was going crazy.