Arhi FF | Iss Darr Ko Kya Naam Doon

Chapter 2 | Flashback

At Sheesh Mahal, Lucknow

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Fifteen years ago.....

"Chhote?.........CHHOTE....CHHOTEEEEEEE!" shrieked Arnav's sister Anjali Singh Malik - now Anjali Jha, her scream echoed across their parent's sleeping chamber. She stayed rooted at the arched doorway to the room as she spotted her little brother kneeling......in front of their parent's.....bodies.

To the right of the monsterous four poster bed, they lied on top of the other. Their eyes wide open, staring into nothing. The curtains hung on the bed frame were sprayed with tiny droplets of blood.

She couldn't think straight. It was hard to believe what she was seeing in front her. Her mind scrambled to find a footing in the madness of this horror that appeared to have ensued in front of her. To find a way to figure out what to make of this scene across the room. To make sense of it. Anjali desperately hoped she was dreaming. Otherwise to think of what she was witnessing is real, all that....gore.....and her sweet brother being exposed to its ugliness.

Earlier, when the wedding pheras had finished and her husband was performing the sacred wedding ritual of filling sindoor in her hair partition, she noticed her parents were absent from the mandap. And few moments later, at the end of the wedding nuptials, she had caught her Chhote leaving too - in a hurry, as if running after someone. And a minute after that, once the wedding was over Anjali rushed in the direction her brother went in as she and her husband were scheduled to take a half an hour break before they had to change for the reception.

And still dressed in her wedding lehenga she had followed him to their parents' room to reprimand him for his sudden dissappearnace at his own sister's wedding and to ask him to check where their parents were.

No no no no no, this couldn't be happening. This isn't real.

This CAN NOT be happening.

These things don't happen on a wedding..right? Isn't it supposed to be the happiest day of your life. Not on the day you are supposed to start a new phase with the love of your life.

Arey not everything can be perfect but surely things can't go this much sideways.

Perhaps this is only a figment of my imagination. Must have been triggered by the all the stress of this wedding. Shyam was right. I should have rested more.

Yes, that's it. That's what it is. It HAS TO BE IT, she fervently thought to herself.

She stood immobile at the entrance; unable to breath or move, for fear of bringing this nightmare she seemed to be stuck in, to reality. Her mind rejected this reality....of what her parents lying askew on the floor with an object - a gun, lying too close to her father's hand, suggested. That there might be something vile that had preceded - caused their parents' death.

Hey Devi Mayya, yeh kya dekh rahi hoon she thought, grappling for some sense desperately.

"Rani Saheba", someone called from far distance.

That jerked her awake, as if a bucket of cold ice water had been dumped on her. A large gush of the long held breath rushed out of her. She breathed heavily, trying to catch breath, as her eyes roamed across the room once again.

With a different perspective. This time, other than despair there was grief and......questions.

What is Chhote doing here?

And what exactly happened here?

What caused her parents....death? A knot formed in her throat at that thought.