Dreamy Red

Prologue

It was the middle of the night on a full moon day. Armaan woke up suddenly with a jolt. When he opened his eyes, a beam of moonlight shone right on his face. He squinted his eyes and sat upright on the bed while blocking the light with his hands. He wanted to close the windows. But before doing that, he wanted to have a glimpse of his beautiful wife in the shimmering moonlight. He slowly turned back towards the bed, leaned towards her and gently lifted the brown fur blanket that covered her entirely. But to his surprise, it was only a pile of stuffed pillows. They were puffed and placed in such a way that it looked like she was actually sleeping there. Armaan was shocked. He wondered where could she have gone, fooling him in the middle of the night. "Nishuuu", he called for her. But there was no response. He took a deep breath and called for her again, "Nishu!", took another deep breath, "Nishu!!", he shouted, but in vain, there was no response at all.

All of a sudden, it started to pour heavily outside. Thud!!! Armaan shut the wooden windows tight with great force. He walked to the switchboard beside the bed and turned on the lights of the room. The bed was in its righteous position and so was every other stuff in the room except for Nishanthi. He saw that the bathroom door was half-open and knocked on it, thinking she would be in. Since he didn't hear back from her, he opened the bathroom door and checked for her. The tub was empty. She was not inside the bathroom. Plop, plop, water was dripping from the tap. Without even turning it off, he turned about and looked at the bedroom door. Lab-dub, lab-dup, his heart pounded when he saw that the latch of the door was locked from the inside. His palms and forehead started to sweat. He bent down and checked under the bed. She wasn't there. He thought that she might be playing a prank on him. "Nishu, it's not time to play. Please come out. I'm getting scared now", he said out aloud. He didn't hear back from her even yet. He sighed and opened the cupboard, hoping she would hiding in there. Nope, she wasn't inside the cupboard too. He was scared. He was hyperventilating. He rushed toward the window, opened it and peeped out. Well, there was nothing on the ground. The street was calm except for the heavy rains that had made some puddles here and there. He wasn't able to look much farther as the streetlights were not functioning. "Nishuuu! Nishuuu!!", he shouted. She was nowhere to be found.

*****

Armaan struggled his way down the stairs. He couldn't tolerate the bad thoughts that were constantly running through his mind. He took more than a step at a time grasping the cast iron railings as he descended. He was about to reach the ground when, clank, his shivering hands pushed down the adorable red vase with beautiful white roses that stood elegantly on the circular newel post. It shattered to pieces instantly. He slipped and fell to the ground trying to save it as it was Nishu's favourite vase. A piece of the broken vase pierced the centre of his right palm making it bleed heavily. "Aaaaahhhh!", he wailed in pain and pulled out the ceramic piece that got stuck in his palm and threw it away. "Toink" a sound it made. A few drops of blood smeared on the white roses making them look obnoxiously red-veined.

He got up immediately, rubbed the blood off in his pyjamas and continued to run outside, skipping the broken vase pieces and dripping some blood along the way. "Tick-tock, tick-tock", the tall walnut antique grandfather clock in the hall was clicking noisily as he ran past it. It was 12:20 AM. Then suddenly, "Tring-tring, tring-tring", the telephone rang from behind him. With no second thoughts, Armaan changed his direction and sped towards the phone. Once he reached the phone, he puffed and struggled to pick up the handset with his bleeding hands. He rested his other hand on the wooden circular stand on which the phone was kept and drew the handset close to his ears. He couldn't say a word, nor did the caller utter anything. He heard "beep-beep" a second or two afterwards. The call had got cut. He got disappointed and dropped the handset. He bent down mechanically to pick it up. But he felt heavy inside and couldn't even touch it. Everything seemed dull to him. He sat down weakly on the shining black marble floor in dismay. He rested his elbows on his knees and pressed his fingers on his forehead. He was having a massive headache. A strange feeling of having lost his dear wife struck him deeply in the heart. Looking around he cried feebly, "Nishu, Nishu. Where did you go leaving me alone!?"

Armaan looked at the magnificent red sofa that stood in the centre of the hall, looking sombre without Nishanthi sitting atop. Just then, his eyes spotted a dark thick liquid gleaming in the partial darkness under the sofa.