Cupid's Karma | ONC 2024 ✔

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Ayra Khan hadn't always been a pessimist who shunned destiny and the threads of fate that bound humans to one another.

She was once a dreamer, a romantic who found pleasure in nature's vast canvas, twirling from one beautiful landscape in her life to the next. Growing up surrounded by books, she had felt that real life would be like a fantasy once she met her soulmate.

It could be due to the books she read or perhaps the movies that influenced her from an early age. From the Disney classics that she watched with her cousins in her childhood to the Bollywood movies in her teens, love had become a concept that felt necessary for happiness.

All that literature made her believe that a soulmate could brighten the dull days like music in a desolate inn, or like coffee and cupcakes on a cold snowy evening. The addition of one person could make all the difference, or so it seemed at that naive age when life is a blank canvas yet to be painted on with millions of colors.

However, the search for her soulmate wasn't an easy one.

Six people had come and gone from her life but she hadn't found the soul that could be deemed as her other half. It wasn't that she was looking for someone perfect, the problem was that she couldn't find anyone who stayed.

No matter how promising things were in the beginning, sooner or later, it came to an end. And when it did, it felt as if an old cycle was repeating itself; denial, grief, yearning, and then finally acceptance.

That last stage was the trickiest because it pushed her into believing that perhaps next time, things would be different. But she had seen six people come and go, sooner or later, with the same cycle repeating all over again.

Six people were enough to push her into accepting that perhaps she was not made for love. Or some other entity was messing up with her love life on purpose.

The only entity she could blame was Cupid, the supposed god of love who struck people with his arrows and made them fall for each other.

As she stood on her balcony, looking up at the stars woven on the dark sky's tapestry, she couldn't help but wonder if that winged cherub existed, striking people with his arrows without caring for the consequences they would have to go through.

Love might be a beautiful feeling at its best, but when it comes to the worst, it could cause death, heartbreak, and sometimes, wars even. The war of Troy was fought for a woman stolen from her country under the guild of love. Heartbreak could lure people to depression, madness, and eventually suicide. So many people died because of love; untimely love, unrequited love, forbidden love, a love that was never meant to be...

Yet those four letters held the power to bewitch minds, intertwine souls, and become the purpose of each breath that was taken.

"My love, how could I ever live without you?"

Sugary sweet words that broke like the crust of an overbaked pie, the decadent particles lingering in one's mouth, tainting it with a bittersweet aftertaste.

While many died for love, many survived to fall for another. Was that Cupid's doing too or some other force was responsible for it?

Ayra didn't know but could only wonder in the dark of the night that enveloped her.

Perhaps she had been struck by all the wrong arrows, leading her to people who were never meant for her. Perhaps fate had other plans but she was too exhausted of going around in circles with yet another lover all over again.

Maybe it was time to put an end to the dilemma once and for all, a tiny voice mumbled in her head, the intrusive thought winning over her rational self.

Her eyes followed the trail of a shooting star, a clear white streaking through dark blue. Her grandmother used to say that wishes made on a shooting star always came true but she had never believed in that notion.

That night her heart urged her to make a wish, the crumbling defenses that she had put up on her soul beseeching her to say something, anything, to lessen the pain.

"If Cupid exists and if he is responsible for making people fall for each other, then I wish to make him pay for all the trouble his poor matchmaking has put me through."

Unlike others, she didn't want to see him out of some heartfelt devotion. Instead, she wanted to confront him about his methods, including setting her up with so many people yet not even one of them turning out to be right for her.

She assumed Cupid would be just like the antique paintings she had seen earlier; a child having control of the deadliest weapon of all. A love potion doused on an arrow controlled by a child who could aim for anyone anywhere, playing the dangerous game of love and attraction as if it was tag.

In any case, he needed a clear warning to be careful before striking however and whoever he pleased with his arrows. And Ayra wouldn't hesitate to deliver that warning fair and square, even if it took giving the god of love a taste of his own medicine.

She hadn't paid heed to that wish she uttered in the loneliness of the night. She simply said what came to her mind. But those words combined with her frustration from earlier turned into a plea that the universe couldn't overlook.

It felt absurd once said out loud but a desperate wish made from the heart is always answered, sooner or later. Right then she had been desperate and her heart had supplied the words itself. Combined with the shooting star occurring at the perfect moment to eclipse those words, her wish was bound to come true.

The shooting star's trail seemed to turn brighter for the slightest of seconds before it vanished, darkness filling the splatter of white once again. It was the universe's way of telling her that no matter how absurd it felt, her wish had been granted.

The next time Cupid was close by to strike her with a love arrow, she would be able to see him and could catch him in the act too if she was sharp enough.

It would be an interesting twist of events, considering that Cupid or rather Eros was unaware of Ayra's wish that could change everything.

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