Night Riser

TITLE: 

Night Riser

AUTHOR:  

Apoorva Patrikar

CHAPTER 1

My name is Lunette Shakhri. And I believe that there are four types of morning risers: early risers, late risers, lazy risersand then there's me. I still don't know why my lifestyle was so weird. Mom and dad, my friends, my cousins, everyone was like the others. They felt tired as the day drowned, and slept at night. But I was different. I felt more and more energetic as the night came nearer. I'd rarely slept at night. I didn't like or feel the necessity to sleep. The night was so beautiful. When I was a child, mom and dad forced me to sleep, and I'd act very well. But now that I'm nineteen, well nothing's changed, I still do the same. Act to sleep. I think I was named just right. 'Lunette' in French means 'little moon'. 

"Lune, come down, breakfast is ready!" mom called. My stomach growled. I'd been so engrossed in my project; I'd forgotten to eat the whole night. So I closed my project and ran downstairs. "Eww!" I exclaimed, "not the veggies again". Dad had suddenly decided to go vegetarian, but we had no idea why he forced us to do the same. I hated vegetarian food. It never really satisfied me. To top it off, dad held the 'go green' board high. If he really wanted to go green, I don't really know why he was a vegetarian... "Aren't the two things contradictory??" I always asked him; as usual he just changed the topic. 

"Mom, I'll be going out for some research work this Saturday. I'll be out the whole day" I informed her. On seeing the concern on her face, I immediately added, "I won't be going alone, chill. My project members, all three of them are with me." She still wore the over-concerned look on her face. The last week, I had gone out of town, I'd come home covered in blood. I'd tried to tell everyone the truth, but Marsella covered it all up with "it was just a car accident. She hit her head hard, and now she is imagining things" line which everyone seemed to believe. She was the one who saved me, and then she was the one who lied. Since that very day, I've hated her. Why had I been so unfortunate? Why did she have to be in my project group? No matter what I said or did to her, she always hovered. She always pretends to take care of me, to be on my side, to assure me, to trust me. But I know this is all a lie, otherwise why would she cover up such a deadly incident. She didn't even let my parents believe me. I was gonna think of something to get rid of her soon. I could hardly believe she was my best buddy before last week. 

I was getting late. Abhimanyu picked me up as usual, and we drove to college. "How's the project at your part going?" he asked me, "did the night help you?" Abhi was the only person apart from Marsella who knew my little 'night' secret. He was the only person who trusted me when I told him about how the night always gave me answers to the questions I've always wanted. Neither my parents nor did my brother believe me, when I told them about it. Abhi and I had been friends since pre-school. Both our parents had seen our strong friendship and mistaken it with love. But both of us always laughed at the idea of getting romantically involved with each other. Both of us had way different sights about what kind of a person we would fall in love with. 

"The project is going good. I definitely had help, but we need to make the project more interesting. I think our Saturday trip will be worth it" we both agreed. I had a strong feeling the trip was going to make a huge difference. Our project was about the outer universe. We had done a lot of research, made models, visited planet-museums and taken some interviews. We had named our project 'multiverse' and it was going in full swing. "Hey guys", Marsella said. She always looked beautiful, almost as short as me, and Abhi had a huge crush on her. That was the only part of him I disliked. He could fall for any girl in the universe, but Marsella? After what she had done to me? That was least expected of him.