Reborn to love

Eternal Friendships

So dearies! Sorry for the long wait. I was away for a cousin's wedding and now am not in good health. But still have to deal with a ton of workload. So please bear with my delayed updates till I get myself together in a few days.

Part 13

Flashback:

Naina was about 13 years old and had just hit puberty when she and Preeti were heading to school in the BST bus at the peak hour. The crowd increased after every stop and there was no free seat available. They were young and naive and so didn't know they could demand a ladies seat to be vacated if a male was occupying it. They both stood holding the overhead hangars when the driver breaked suddenly and the crowd pressed into them. However, a certain guy pressed into her back more than the reflex action to save oneself from falling and though young, Naina didn't like it and felt odd. The stops passed and the bus hoarded more crowd than it could optimally carry. But that was how it was every single working day in the big metro city of dreams.

The incident had repeated after a few more stops and Naina gave a I-am-not-comfortable look to Preeti, who though standing close to her was herself surrounded by another circle of crowd. Meanwhile, the guy had managed to squeeze himself in the seat close to where Naina was leaning holding the back rail of the seat and grabbed the perfect opportunity while getting up from his seat. His stop was approaching and to not miss it, he had to penetrate the crowd in advance. While doing so, he cast a lecherous glance towards the girl and grabbed her forearm inappropriately. Before Naina could understand or react, he had immediately let it go as he felt jolted as if accidentally touching a live wire. He was confused but had no time to react or analyse as the crowd behind him pushed naturally, all of them trying to get off.

While Naina hardly registered his vile intentions, both girls had known that her body had sent out some unusual reaction on its own. Later in evening, they had discussed this event, whispering in their bed and Naina had confessed that it was the first time some such thing had happened. She had an instant flash of that man beating some woman. And that he was locked behind bars and then there were a multitude of visions but it was like a swirl of color and only this she could remember. A couple of days later, they had read in the newspaper that a man had accidentally killed his wife during domestic violence and the piece of news had his picture.

This had riled Naina up and she was flustered for days. It had been extremely difficult for Preeti to make her look normal and sane and also keep the secret from her mother. She was a huge support in making Naina come to terms with this newfound skill. Once Naina had accepted it, they ventured out to confirm and try it out on other people in case someone might ever need help voz she couldn't help feeling that she could have saved that woman's life.

Over a period of next few months, Naina had tried the same with several classmates or random neighbours just to make sure that it was for real. And to her surprise, each time she got better at reading the images in a flash, she could see and read several images. The only unanswerable concern was why couldn't she do the same with Preeti or Chachi. Everytime she tried it with them, she came empty handed and had no clue why. So, both sisters had spent several hours digging in as many libraries as they could until one day Chachi started getting suspicious about the longest hours that even Preeti spent with books. So, they decided to stop but not before one tiny piece of information that such skill was equated to a heightened sixth sense or some psychic abilities which might be tied to family ancestry, and so, might not work on them. Both sisters had made several attempts to extract any family information from Bela but each time she had a different story to tell or some lame excuse. They both had even gone to the length of searching the household and going through Chachi's personal belongings to finding any clue about their family ties but nothing came up, not even a single family photo which had anyone else except the three of them. So, they had no clue of why it was happening and only to Naina and why not Preeti if they were related by blood and why not Chachi.