777: Khadusmaan, are you there?
Inhale. Exhale. He will come, she reminds herself. "He has to" she says aloud, because if he doesn't, then she really has nothing.
Dabangg: Always.
And with the word spoken through the wires of her earphones, she sighs in relief. She wants to say, please don't ever leave, but instead she says:
777: Always is for keeps, don't make promises you can't keep.
With a scoff, he leans back, his ankles crossed and the weight on his shoulders now slowly releasing down his spine.
Dabangg: I'm a man of my word.
Without missing a beat, her response beeps through.
777: I thought you were a woman...
With a shake of his head, he runs his hand down his jaw to stifle a laugh.
Dabangg: Sorry to disappoint.
777: I'm used to being disappointed.
Her words make his heart stop. He wants to ask "Why, why, why?" Instead, he opts for:
Dabangg: Then I don't have to worry about not meeting your expectations.
Abhira's eyes shut at the robotic tone that speaks his words into her ears. It is so close to kind human contact that she almost flinches each time a manufactured voice speaks aloud. It leaves her with questions, too many to ask, too many she's afraid to hear the answer for.
If he too is manufactured, if he too is fake, then the realest moments of her life will always be her sadness, her pain, her anguish and that is her terrain.
But she is tired, so tired of walking it.
777: I didn't have any, anyway.
She lies.
Dabangg: Good.
Blowing air from her nose, she shakes her head.
777: Don't care what anyone thinks of you?
He is so very, very close to telling her the truth- that no, he doesn't, he never did until she stumbled into his life, but that's too honest, far too real and he cannot be real in a world full of lies.
Dabangg: Why would I? What have anyone's opinions ever done for me?
777: Proved your opinions wrong? Or are you the always right type?
Dabangg: I *am* always right. It's not a type, it's a fact.
777: More like a typo. To err is human, don't you think?
Dabangg: Mistakes cost lives.
She grins.
777: Khadusmaan indeed.
***
Armaan ran his hand through his greying hair with a sharp intake of discontent.
There wasn't anything in this world that made him happy, but absolutely everything made him sad.
Until one day the sadness disappeared and in its passing had left him with anger; red hot and brutal, a fire that burnt him from within.
He did not care to null the flame, it was what kept him going. He'd never been the phoenix to rise from the ashes; he was the lick of heat cascading through the world.
Fire became him, and he burnt.
His fist clenched around his mother's ashes, they flew like sand down his knuckles and into the air.
Burning. Rotting. Corpse.
Was all he knew of his mother, that was his only certainty.
That she was dead and he would join her.
"Dirty".
"Disgusting".
"Dalit".
Is what he heard.
"Shivani"
"Strong"
"Serene"
Is what he said.
He didn't know if he was right or wrong.
But he believed.
Like a humble follower, on his knees, hands fixed together and fingertips pressing into one another; he prayed.
To her.
Always, to her.
"Ma" he gasped gutturally.
Armaan's knees smacked painfully into the concrete, brittle as his bones were becoming, he basked in the pain. It was all he knew that made him alive.
Digging his nails into his palms, his chin hit heavy on his chest, eyes scrunched shut and his bottom lip a tremble of the only label he'd hear for the woman who'd birthed him.
"Ma".
"Ma".
"Ma".
Visceral as it was, it wasn't enough.
Would anything ever be?
The bones in his back cracked, convulsed as he shuddered in agony, each sob a deranged sound of want, of desire, of need.
Then a distant buzz in the background snapped him away from the grief that haunted him like a shadow; always behind, always in front, always above, always beneath.
Always, always, always on.
777: Are you more the SRK type or more the SK type?
With a gruff grunt, he grabbed his phone.
Dabangg: Would it matter? You don't know what either of them look like anyway.
777: Touché.
He smiles then, a full fledged smile that shows the glistening of his teeth.
Khadusmaan-One, 777-Nil.
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VII
Fanfiction*VII* is a gripping and emotionally charged story about survival, betrayal, and the blurred lines between justice and exploitation. At its heart is Abhira, a woman whose life has been consumed by violence since the murder of her mother when she was...
