46| Verity
Kaya wondered if anybody knows what dying must feel like????? But none does. You cannot know what they say, because no one says it.
The people who die aren't around to tell us what it felt like when it happened. The people who lived never died to begin with, so they're unable to describe it. But Kaya was in it to talk about it to herself while she could.
There was a moment, only a split second right before she closed her eyes which seemed like the very last time-when she could actually feel herself embracing death. She felt her heart begin to slow down, preparing to come to a halt. She felt her brain shutting off, the circuits slamming shut like doors. She felt her eyes closing-no matter how fucking hard she was trying to keep them open as his hands cut the air off her lungs, his weight upon her burying her into the ground.
She began to realise that whatever bare minimum she was looking at in the moment that's the last thing she was ever going to see until she heard the crack of his skull before the shattering of blood reached her.
She gasped and took a quick and haste step back with her limping body.
"Huh." She breathed.
The man was right above her just a matter of seconds before hurling abuses at her. She was fighting him off but almost giving up. And all of a sudden he was silent, lifeless and gone.
The gun fell off her shivering hands as she felt the blood wet and soak her. Kaya immediately pushed his body further back, crawling and sitting up.
Her eyes were still wide open in horror, staring at him as she was trying to process the last minute.
She thought about it again, he was right here a minute ago, strangling her to death with all his might and intention while pulling her pants down her waist and now he was so quiet, motionless and gone. Gone forever.
Kaya had caused another death. Another?? Was it so easy to kill???!
It had only been anticipatory grief and fear until she parked her car to walk towards the tin shade Nikhil had called her to meet him in the forest.
With every step that she took to get to this moment, she realised that it was no longer imagery, the reality was unfalteringly blazing before her eyes; it was no longer a game she was playing alone but a battle ground she knew no rules of.
It was strange how she had thought about this day every single second for the past year yet it came to her so new and unprecedented, nothing like what she had envisaged it to be.
At times she felt as if she did not even realise when she had brought herself to this point and at other times it seemed as if she had bled through all of this.
With each step she took into the wild the more she lost her sense of being, her sense of self. With each step her memory blurred and she no more knew what she was up to, what she'd been trying to achieve all this long and if she still wanted it especially at the cost of her own self??
But it was too late to contemplate now, too late to try to decipher the meaning of it because people were defined by the choices they made and the choices had consequences; consequences that were entirely beyond their control.
"I thought you would not come." Nikhil's shrewd voice broke her trance. A sly smile followed as he turned around towards her, taking in her presence. "I thought you'd still trust your appeal on Aryan?" He continued. "But good that you didn't. Hmm??" He hinted.
