Between The Pages

Chapter 24

"Dev..."

The sound that left Anjali's vocal chords was barely a whisper, but the emotions in it made Dev fall in her love all over again. They were already locked in an embrace and that little whisper made him tighten his hold around her. It had just been a couple of days since that hospital debacle, but those two days away from her felt like a millennium to him. The feel of her hands around his neck, the tickle of her breath down the neck, and the sound of her throbbing heart, they all felt like home to his bruised and battered figure.

She had always been the balm to all his scratches, and today, she proving it once again.

"I want to drown myself in the ocean of your eyes, I want to climb the very mountains of your smile, I want to burn myself in the lava of your love; but more than anything else, I want to reside in the home of your heart."

She pulled back from the hug whispering those lines. Staring deep into his eyes, her eyes gleamed with a newfound innocence as she let the words out.

"Marry me, Dev. Make me yours till the end of eternity."

Dev was dumbstruck. Even in the darkness of that warehouse, he could see her eyes shining like a diamond.
They were showing him a glimpse of the entire world and in the center of that world, he saw the unwavering figure of Anjali. They revealed her love in its true form. No, they weren't just talking to him, her eyes were seducing him.

For once his heart wanted to be a prey to that seduction, but his mind made him repeat his universal dialogue again.

"You know being with me means consequences, and..."

This time though, he never got to finish his line. Her lips had found his in an instant as they as they lost themselves in the kiss of the century.

Anjali didn't need any other answer for her questions, his kiss said it all. Both knew they were locked in an unbreakable bond. Theirs was the relationship which would test the limits of forever, because they were never going to break it, ever!

A smile formed over Natasha's face as she finished reading the final update of The Adventures at the Phone Booth. But then, that smile had never left. Right from that first line and all through the fifteen chapters, her smile had never left. Even she was surprised as to how can someone keep her smiling for so long. Guess, this MrAdventure is indeed someone special after all.

On the other side of the screen, Tanmay felt like he was on the top of this world. Just a couple of nights ago he was finding it really hard to connect with those characters, and here he was today writing four chapters in a single streak. He had planned for a happily ever after ending since this was his first story, but then, those cliché kind of endings had never amused him. He had to make it look real. And the circumstances didn't help at all. They say your mood governs your writing. He found it to be true last night. His sad mood forced him to kill Deepa.

Yes, he had to admit that he finished the story in a kind of hurry. It wasn't the best of ends he could have written, but what mattered more was that he wrote. After a long period of wordless days, the moon finally decided to sprinkle some words on him. They flowed in a heap and he never asked them to stop. Together, they struck a combination which was able to finish his first ever story.

Yes, the start was magical and beautiful, but the end gave him a feeling of satisfaction. And it was all because of Riya.

He was amazed to see how some strangers had the power to manipulate his life. After all, they were nothing more than some binary digits flowing to and fro in some algorithm. They shouldn't have had such big an impact. But then, life has always been full of surprises. Somehow, just somehow, those strangers had meant the world to him. And an even more frightening fact was that they held the power to make or break that world.

They said that a reader was a writer's puppet, but in his case, he felt like a puppet to those girls. First MissMagician and now Riya. History was repeating itself all over again.

When MissMagician left, he had gone into a shell and stopped writing. But he had learned from his mistake. This time, when Riya showed the same signs of disappearance he didn't allow the writer in him to go into a shell. Instead, he diverted those feelings of hurt to turn them into words. Four chapters on the trot, that was a record in itself. And he was proud to be the owner of it.

However, proudness didn't come easily to all the people. It was feeling to be earned and Riya was far from doing that right now. On one hand, she was happy to see that Tanmay finally finished his story, but on the other, it troubled her to see that her absence was actually fueling him. It was actually making him better. Confusion engulfed her in a way like she had never known before. If it was going to make him write, then maybe this was the way forward. Dramatically, my disappearance could be one of the better things that would happen to him.

Usually a race-car, time took that exact moment to turn into a snail. The three individuals found it hard to get past the day alone. Mercifully, the day did turn to night. And once the moon was out, magic started to flow.

Tanmay was going through his notifications when he heard the cuckoo from his clock chirp twelve times. Midnight! He had finished replying to all the comments and felt too tired to read anything else. Sleep was beckoning him ahead. He was about to hit the bed when his phone pinged two more times.

As he stared at the screen, he knew he was having a dream. Otherwise, those two notifications on his screen were just not believable.

'A message from Riya.'

'A message from MissMagician.'

***

26th August 2017

'The Adventures at the Phone Booth' has finally come to an end.

Hopefully, you'll get to read the whole story one day.

Till then, enjoy the lives of Tanmay, Nat and Riya as they fight one last battle against each other.

Who will win?
Who will lose?

No one knows.

So, stay tuned...