Doriyan- a collection of short stories

A drunken call: 1

Aashvi scrunched her eyes as the morning sunlight hit her, threatening to disturb her peaceful slumber. Twisting and turning in her sleep, she turned away from the sun rays in a quest to find a better position to sleep. The sun had been trying to wake her for a while now, but the severe headache she had was not helping it at all. All she wanted was to sleep more.

She opened her eyes ever so slightly and on finding her surroundings totally unknown, woke up in a start. She looked around her only to find that she wasn't in her bed. Forget bed, she wasn't even in her room! As if all these weren't shocking enough, she found herself in someone else's t-shirt.

Her breathing turned heavy as she realised that something had happened the previous night. Something terrible. Something that shouldn't have happened. Something that she didn't even remember happening. She tried to remember hard how she ended up here, but she just couldn't remember anything.

"Ut gayi maharani?" She heard a familiar voice ask. She looked up to find her best friend, Dev, leaning against the doorframe, sipping his morning coffee. He had that annoyed look on his face that she rarely saw in him.

"Dev..?" His name escaped her mouth in a whisper. "What are you doing here?"

"This is my house, sleepyhead." He replied, shaking his head in disappointment.

"Oh," She looked around as if in realisation. Now that he said it, she remembered this room from his birthday party last year. "Then what am I doing here?"

Dev raised his eyebrows in surprise. "Aren't you supposed to have the answer to that?"

"What happened last night?" She asked in dread. "What am I doing in your house and your bed?"

He covered his mouth with his free hand in shock. Then, as if slowly reeling from the shock, he asked, "You don't remember anything?"

"Remember what? What happened, Dev?" Her heart was literally about to jump off her chest from the unknown. Just what had she done that he was annoyed at her first thing in the morning?

"You don't remember calling me?"

"Calling you? When?" Just as the words left her mouth, it came to her like a distant memory that had been locked behind a door.

Flashback

It was quite late at night and he had been working at home when she called him. Although confused about why she was calling him at midnight, he picked it up.

"Deeeeevvvvvv!!!" Came a squeaky voice from the other end. "Will you come and pick me up, prettyyy pleaseeeee?"

Taken aback at the sudden exclamation, he checked the caller id once again to make sure it really was her. Sure, he recognised her voice, but this was nothing like his best friend's normal behaviour. The way she spoke, it was no rocket science to understand that she wasn't in her senses.

"Where are you, Aashvi? And...are you drunk?" He asked in concern as he immediately wrapped up his work in a bid to get to her.

"Drunkkk? And meee? Nahii tohhhh."

"Where are you? I'm coming."

"I was at my colleague's birthdayyy party. Now the party is doneee and he's offering to take me home. But...I don't wanna go with him... so you come and pick me up. I'm reaaallly tired and I want to goo home but..I don't know the way..." she replied like an innocent child.

"Okay, okay, I'm coming. Did someone spike your drink?" He asked in concern.

"Ehhh. Are you cominggg or nott?"