Unreachable Destiny- The Curse Of Your Love

Chapter-20: The game of survival.

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Aditya is in the Hospital with Amish, Parul, Nidhi and Kaushal while Kuhu and Maya greet the guests as they send them off.

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The first indication is Meenakshi is nowhere to be seen.

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The second indication is when the light goes off.

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Ranav goes to check the main power panel of the house.

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The light returned in just a few minutes and Meenakshi was still missing.

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The sound of two bare live wires colliding catches Maya's attention as she looks around to find where it is coming from. Her eyes land on the headwall of the house as her body goes rigid.

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Everyone else noticed the fire around the headwall as Maya's eyes refused to leave the painting hanging in the middle. Mishti Rajvansh looked back at her daughter with kind eyes through the picture.

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Someone screams, and everyone panics. People start moving out of the house as Kuhu leads them to safety. Maya stood still in her place with her feet attached to the ground as she witnessed the growing fire around her mother's portrait. It was all part of the plan, She told herself. Yet her heart was unconvinced. Maya has to let it happen, so that she can play the victim, but her feet won't move. Let it burn, Maya. Let it all burn. Yet she doesn't move. Let the past burn. But that very past includes her mother. Before she even contradicts herself, Her feet take her forward. She was running towards the painting before she even realized she was moving.

Thud, thud, thud... It was not her footsteps, but it was her heartbeat that rang in her mind.

As soon as she reaches the painting, she immediately pulls it off the wall and hugs it to her body. 

Kuhu who had been busy helping others out, and Meenakshi, who had just arrived, noticed that Maya was missing and panicked.

"MAYA!!" Kuhu screams as her heart coarctates with pain. She would rather be hated by her daughter for the rest of her life than to lose her altogether. Meenakshi frantically looks around and finds Maya inside the house. Her eyes bulge as she realizes what's happening.

"Maya!" Her breath leaves Meenakshi for a second and all she can think of is how did things come to this. What did she do?

Out of nowhere, Amish dashes into the crowd, leaps over the fallen decorative pillar over the entrance and enter the house, which only makes the rest of the family panic as they watch yet another child of theirs run into the fire. Akshay, who was already in the house helping everyone out, grabs a drape from a table as soon as he sees Maya and sprints at full speed towards her. Ranav who returned after checking the lights was only met with a frightened crowd standing in front of the house with worry written all over their faces. He soon realizes the reason as he sees Maya inside. He takes a step towards the house with the intent of putting his life on the line for Maya but as soon as he does, he feels his heart clench in pain that he cannot recognise. His mind flashes with images of fire as his breath hitches. Before he can try and make another attempt towards the entrance, he falls to his knees with pain as flashes of fire in a mansion keep appearing. He looked at Maya as Amish and Akshay ran to her side with a tear slipping out of his right eye as he fell to the ground. The last thing he sees before everything goes black is Akshay helping Amish put a blanket around Maya as Ranav's vision grows blurry. He could hear sirens in the distance but could not make out anything else as he slipped into darkness.

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Maya hugs her mother's portrait with everything in her as she watches her brother run towards her with genuine fear in his eyes. Why is he here?  He was supposed to be in the hospital. Maya made sure that none of the people she cared for would be present when the time called for her to execute her plan. As both her brother and Akshay ran towards her, she felt tears stream down her cheeks as she finally broke down. All the emotions she tried to cover up the past few months with a facade of hatred slipped through the cracks of the tight walls she built around her. They cover in a blanket as they stand by her side with fire leaving no space for them to exit. Maya held onto her brother's hand in her tight grip becoming a child in his arms as Akshay rubbed her back. At the moment Maya could only think how she failed again. She couldn't control herself. All hope is lost. At that moment, somewhere in the corner of her mind, she could hear a woman scream at the top of her lungs. The voice sounded like hers but not hers, but she had no time to question as the sound of sirens filled the air.

Suddenly, fire extinguishers were sprayed and everything faded into the background as Maya, along with Akshay and Amish, took the steps down. The crowd watched as the siblings held onto the portrait of their mother. As the fire smothered, in the smoke, Maya watched her brother, Aditya, with a fire extinguisher in one hand as he rushed to hug Maya. Akshay slipped out to let the siblings reunite. Akshay watched as somehow, he suddenly felt his heart grow lighter at the sight of Maya safe from the fire. When he saw her in the middle of that fire, he could not explain the feeling of Deja vu he felt. But now, he felt like there was nothing in this world weighing down on him, like something he never realized carrying was suddenly lifted off of him.

"Maya!" Amish holds onto his younger siblings with a tight hug, unwilling to let go. In just one evening, he had watched both his siblings in danger and he couldn't stop it. For the first time in his lifetime, he felt useless as the elder brother. "Adi!" But with both his sister and brother in his arms, he could finally breathe again. The rest of the family surrounds the siblings, trying to comfort each other as Meenakshi stands at a distance with nothing but regret in her heart. No one should know that she was the reason for this catastrophe. She was the one who messed with the wires with the intent of burning the portraits of Mishti to prove her point that Mishti is the curse of The Rajvansh family. She wanted to win over her grandaughter, instead, she put her entire family in danger. But how did this happen? Because all she wanted to do was create a small spark enough to burn that one painting but how did it end up firing up the entire house? She had been extremely careful so as not to hurt anyone and made sure no one would be near the painting at the time of the fire. How did this happen? Unless someone else messed with the wires as well. 

She looked at her family as they hugged each other and her confused gaze fell on each of them. Her eyes froze as she met the eyes full of intent gazing back at her. Those eyes of utter determination belonged to none other than her beloved tormentor and her granddaughter, Maya Rajvansh. Maya looked back at Meenakshi with a faint uplift of her lips, which was the only indication Meenakshi needed to confirm her doubts. This fire was a statement. A statement that says, she's willing to put her own life at risk to counter attack. It is at that moment that Meenakshi started to realise that she can never win against Maya, because Meenakshi can never put her own life at risk. If Meenakshi's obsession is to control everything, then Maya's obsession is to dominate that control. It is a never ending war where only the fittest can survive and it is not a secret who that was.