Celebrity Castaway | COMPLETE | MaNan Fiction

20| Gone Too Soon

A/N : Dear Readers, first & foremost, I am SORRY. I am sorry for writing this chapter. I wept while writing & I know it is HEAVY. If it wasn't absolutely necessary to propel the story, I wouldn't have written it.

Also, it is one of my MOST favourite chapters of this story.

It is HUGE, and I just hope there is someone around to hug you tight, after reading this. If not, here's a mama hug from me. :*

On that note, let's begin. (I can't get myself to write, Happy Reading this time!)

Oh, and papps* is a colloquial term used to refer to the paparazzi's (press for the media folks).

***

There were splashes of blood smeared across Nandini's neck, face and dress, as she stared horrified and stunned at the same time. For the first ten seconds, no one reacted, such was the impact of the gun shot. Manik had forgotten to breathe and the capability to move. However, after the first impact, in a matter of another ten seconds, he heard a soft thud on the ground next to him and strangely, it wasn't Nandini that hit the ground. Manik had momentarily lost the ability to even move his muscle and see what fell, but a small part of him breathed in relief seeing it wasn't Nandini. In fact, Nandini was staring at something on the ground with an expression of aghast and hysteria.

"Manikkk.." Nandini screamed in the next instant and that pulled Manik out of his temporarily stunned state.

"Nandini, are you.." Manik snapped back to reality and was beginning to enquire about her safety as the world around them slowly tuned back into life, with a rising cacophony of terror and alarm, around him. However, before he could say more, he heard Nandini finally shriek.

"Abhimanyu...!! Oh my God, Manik, what do we do?!"

Manik finally tore his eyes away from Nandini and looked down at the ground beside him to see the bloody motionless body of his security in charge Abhimanyu, on the ground, lying spread-eagled. He gasped in shock as he immediately bent over him to notice blood gushing out of the region where his neck met his shoulder. He immediately pressed his fingers on the wound to stop the bleeding as he shouted for Cabir & medical support.

As the moments passed there on, Manik couldn't clearly remember the order of events, but at some point he remembered Nandini bending down over them and patting Abhimanyu with her tear stricken face to revive him. He kept trying to read his pulse from below his ears, but it was very faint.

Cabir along with a bunch of other security folks had immediately rushed towards them, and even amidst all this chaos, Manik remembered clearly instructing Cabir to ensure Abhimanyu is immediately taken for treatment and the police be informed. He then dashed towards Nandini, who by then was stupefied in shock, as she sat next to Abhimanyu, clutching his hand tightly. Manik was losing focus, the shock, the impact, the sight of Abhimanyu's blood strewn body had shaken him to the core, yet he knew he couldn't fall short. He took a deep breath and almost crawled towards Nandini, who was sitting on Abhimanyu's otherside on the grass and pulled her into his arms. Nandini hadn't noticed him, she was sitting there weeping miserably. Manik cradled her head into his chest with one hand and held her stomach protectively with another, and taking all her weight on him, he staggered to stand up.

"Nandini, are you hurt?..Nandini? This is all his blood, right?" Manik asked her in a desperate voice as he looked down to inspect her body for any wound or damage.

"Manik, Abhimanyu..Manik please save him..Manik he will be okay, right?" Nandini kept repeating the same thing on a loop, as she shook like paper in his arms.

"Navya!" Manik called out for Navya who immediately came next to him. She looked as much in shock. He commanded her to be with Cabir and inform Zubin on the incident and asked her to come back to the penthouse, once Zubin had arrived to support Cabir. She nodded meekly before glancing at Nandini.