Living in a Mirage

Chapter One

"A casual stroll through the lunatic asylum shows that faith does not prove anything."

- Friedrich Nietzsche

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"Open the door." A female voice yelled.

"Somebody, please open this door," she yelled before starting to bang the door again with whatever strength she had left in her. 

"I am not crazy, I saw him. Why won't anyone believe me? I saw him. He was there," she cried out.

The girl has been shouting out loud for hours, for someone to listen to her, to believe her. But no one did. And why would they? They have heard the same voice, repeating the same words, again and again, from the past two hours. She had called out almost all the names she knew of the household help, but no one dared to open the door.

"Can't we do something to help her out?" A voice whispered helplessly to Ramchand, the head of household.

"Don't worry, Janki betiya, I have called her friends, they are on their way," Ramchand assured the gentle girl who was relatively new to the doings of the mansion he has been working in ever since he was in his late twenties.

In the past four decades that Ramchand has worked in the almost deserted mansion, he had seen everything that has happened there. He has seen his Bade saheb marrying a very young girl and the birth of a child with the innocent smile and twinkling eyes.

As the time past, he has seen that child becoming aware of his surroundings and then he has seen those eyes hardening and that innocent smile disappearing. He has seen how that child was mistreated by his parents. But more than anything else he has seen how the only child of two parents grew up without one. 

The father who was supposed to hold the small hands of the child when he was learning to walk had started to push him away before he could stand on his small feet, so he had to learn it on his own, falling and hurting himself and crying but stand up again on his own. And then the child was completely abandoned by the father when he was barely a teen, he was left there is the deserted mansion with expensive toys but no one to play with. 

The mother who was supposed to nurture the child, to protect him from the evil world, was the biggest curse of his life. Ramchand had never once seen the mother hug the child even when he was a toddler but at the same time, she never left him alone in peace, like a dark shadow of pure evil, till the very last second of that dark night... 

That night which changed everything...

More than anyone else, it was Ramchand knew the past of the mansion, as he knew its present. The mansion was the envy of many who didn't know that it was just walls of cold stones, just like the hearts of its owners. He knew, and that's why he felt more guilty than anyone else for not responding to the calls of help from the girl locked in the room. 

And why would not he? After all, she was the reason why he has seen the glimpse of that innocent smile of the child on the face of a teenage boy. He had seen the hardening of those eyes, melting, till they looked nothing but a warm fusion of brown chocolate. She was the one, and the only who has saved not only the boy but also the child who still lived, somewhere, in the body of the teenage boy. And now she was the only one who was actually trying to find him, even though it has been four years since that night... 

Earlier today, when Raju, the watchman, has told Ramchand that she was here, he had been shocked because the last time she had stepped in the mansion was four years ago. He had run at once, leaving whatever he had been doing to her one call.