Humdard | ✔

Chapter one - Darkness

Arnav drove briskly on the road, luckily keeping in mind to avoid any accidents, to be safe, so when he reach her, she gets the full comfort she needs at this moment, from him.

He blew out a shaky breath and pressed the accelerator, his mind unsettled with so many thoughts. 

He knew that she will not be okay right now. Her dilemma, her sadness, her pain, nothing was hidden from him and he cursed himself umpteen times for not doing this before. For not just rushing to her and hold her in his arms, and for once finally say that sab theek hogayega. (everything will be alright.)

But alas!

He was caught off guard by the sudden turn of events, to such a point where he was just numb and didn't know how to function. Consoling someone else with words was out of question.

But now, as he is driving to her, he can just pray she would listen, and understand.

His already pounding heart, however, increased its pace as he entered the lane and noticed the commotion outside Khushi's house. The murmurs were so many that it reached him and he got out, confused and somehow, scared.

As he took his calculative steps forward, he noted that everyone standing there was crying, some trying to wipe something red off their hands. 

He swallowed hard as dread settled in his stomach, filling his mouth with a bitter taste.

"Are you Payaliya's jethji?" 

He jumped out of his reverie, turning around in a swift motion to meet a lady, around the same age of Khushi's Buaji, standing and looking at him with her saddened eyes. 

He swallowed again. "Ye-yes?"

The lady bobbed her head, wiping her dampened cheeks. "But they already left. They must have already reached the hospital by now."

"Who left? And-and why the hospital?"

The questions escaped his throat hastily, as the hammering against his chest increased ten folds. He was already in half tremors as he waited with bated breaths, for the woman to continue, to reveal.

The lady frowned, then looked around and lastly, deepened her frown.

"Payal hasn't been informed yet?"

"In-informed about what?" He asked feeling on the brink of losing it.

Something was not right.

His sixth sense hinted and it was proven right, dead right the very next minute.

The lady glanced at her red hands, shaking her head in pity.

"That Khushi attempted suicide. She jumped, off the terrace. They just took her to the hospital."

Words left Arnav at that second, and he no longer knew how to react, how to function. 

He was numb.

Literally.

The confusion he had on his face didn't even get the time to fade into horror or pain, this was how fast he went frozen.