365 DAYS 365 TALES

When Time Stops

Aarvi suddenly opened her eyes and felt something wrong. Her head was hurting, as Aarvi gasped falling down, her eyes watering. She was sweating and it was feeling like she had run a mile. And then there was the feeling that something was wrong. The feeling if any was accentuated right now. She ignored her burning head as she looked around.

Beyond the blurred eyesight, Aarvi stared and saw that it was her classroom. Her classroom. The one where she and the others were practicing something..... Aarvi winced as her head started hurting real bad. She was taking deep breaths trying to control herself. And then again she was feeling something. She did not know what. It was....Unable to understand, Aarvi stumbled as she walked towards the classroom window. Carefully she peered down and was shocked slightly.

And it was not because of the view. The view of the Institute from the classroom was always the same. She could see the rest of the Institute from here.

But what she was feeling was worse than anything that Aarvi could imagine. It was silent. That was the whole thing. It was too silent.

Aarvi's heart was thudding painfully and the blood rushing to her ears was making it impossible for her to listen, as she collapsed. Slowly calming herself, Aarvi pushed herself up and stumbled out of the classroom. And Aarvi gasped.

The Institute was empty. The entire Institute, which had at least a hundred rowdy teenage students was empty. The empty classrooms...the huge place....It was almost making Aarvi claustrophobic and she was hyperventilating. Her headache was threatening to overpower her as even without realizing it, her hands glowed as Aarvi formed a shield around her. If Airan was after her, Aarvi realized that right now, she was really not going to offer any defences. She was too badly freaked. Really badly freaked ....

She looked around and there was no one there. Not one soul.

"Where is everyone?" Aarvi yelled and stopped immediately. The echo of her own voice through the empty Institute sounded....almost like a death knell. It was so loud...So unimaginably loud.

Her legs were feeling like jelly as she was whimpering, and stumbled towards the ground floor. She saw no one in the corridor. She was pushing open the other rooms. No one.

"Guys?" Aarvi whispered as she ran down the steps. No one. Aarvi's shield collapsed as she could no longer keep it up. She was already feeling real bad and the shield was draining her.

Aarvi ran towards the office in the ground floor and almost yelled hoarsely as she heard noises coming from there. She nearly collapsed as she pushed the office door open and unceremoniously collapsed there as she saw Mono there sitting in her usual chair, looking smug and boring as usual.

There was a small part of her telling her that she and Mono were sworn enemies from the time Aarvi joined the Institute. Mono was that perfect, strict, boring, following the rules...blah blah blah and everything else as the warden of the Institute and Mono was everything that Aarvi was not. They had hit it off the first time they had met. Literally. She and Mono had had a furious mind shield exercise and the entire thing would have ended with both of them killing each other. Only Aarush's interference prevented the matter from going any further.

And right now Aarvi just did not care. Aarvi made a weird gurgling voice as she saw the warden sitting in her usual chair, looking imperiously at her and she could not stop smiling, breathing in short gasps. And Aarvi was appalled to find that she was very close to weeping...

"What are you doing here? Why the shield?" the warden demanded looking at her slightly stunned. Probably, Mrs. Marika Mona, the warden of the Institute, realized that something was really wrong and forgot the usual tone that she usually used when talking with Aarvi.