Two Souls ✔ [Completed]

Two Souls : Chapter 02

A/N: What would happen if the other two books never existed?

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Interlude, May 2018

Tenderly you stroke my hair. You search my eyes for a flicker of response to your touch and refuse to notice the coldness of my body. Two of your tears land on my cheek and find their way down my face before they as well freeze in place. What kind of lips do you want to taste? Lips sans any hint of life? Why can't you believe what my dead eyes try to tell you? Why are you weeping for me? Your fingertips trace the exposed skin of my arm. Not long ago I used to revel in this delicate feeling. And even now that my body is indifferent to your caress, even after all that happened, I still love you. Do you remember the way my lower lip used to tremble when I awaited your kiss? Will you forget me now? Of course you will. Not right away, not completely, but you won't remember me the way I longed to be. Don't touch me anymore. Don't caress me. Don't think of me when the black soil engulfs me. Stay where you are and let me go. For all the moments of happiness you gave me, I am grateful. But please forget me. Please remember me for all eternity.

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June 2020

Things move from order to disorder. It's just the way of the world and there was nothing Vansh Raisinghania could do about it. He figured that there was also nothing unusual or special about the indifference and coldness he felt day after day. Warmth was an anomaly in this world anyway. He just had to look into the nightly Florida sky above him and was confronted with eternal cold and transient hot spots. Vansh was almost able to hear his wife complaining about his habit to rationalize everything, even the beauty of the stars, but she wasn't at his side tonight, hadn't been for over two years.

The mere thought of his late wife inevitably brought back another memory. But then again, that one was always at the back of his mind, he just usually refused to purposely revisit it. Not so tonight. Tonight, given the foul mood he was in, he wanted to be a slave of his deepest fears.

Upstairs his imagination led him. The second to last step loudly creaked under the soles of his shoes. Standing in front of the closed door he felt death's icy breath against his neck and already knew what would wait for him inside the bedroom. Now, in hindsight, he wasn't able to tell if he actually had had that premonition on this fateful night or if he had added this disturbing detail later. The door opened without making any sound. The room was mostly dim, but blood glistened like rubies in a persistent ray of moonlight.

Redness on the wall.

On the floor.

On cotton fibers.

On exposed, maimed skin.

Again he wondered if his daughter was only collateral damage. Would it have made a difference if he would have brought her up brave enough to sleep alone in her own room? A close-up of the single gaping cut on her throat flashed through his mind.

Vansh hastily reached for the light switch, even though he was aware that the glow of the wall lamp would only illuminate the patio, but wouldn't suffice to shoo away unwanted retrospection which was already haunting him for 764 days now.

His fingers absentmindedly skimmed over the crinkled surface of the outdated newspaper in his lap. He once again stared at the picture of Vihaan D'Silva in which the man looked pretty much the same as five days ago, when Vansh saw him in court.

The tousled, mousy hair.

That shy, almost apologetic expression.

Handsome in a rugged, puerile way that betrayed his real age of almost fifty.