||THE OUTBREAK||

||Chapter 13 : GoodBye||

Naira's PoV

I was shook. It felt like being uprooted from the soil. I felt void, everything got mute around me. It was like an immense wave of numbness washed me. I didn't move, I couldn't move. I continued looking at Watson with questioning eyes.

"Wh-What?! No...no this can't happen. It cannot happen. Kartik can't leave me. He promised me he'll come back. Watson....Watson you're kidding right? Kartik told you to play this prank upon me right?", I started rambling, stepping back unconsciously as tears made their way out of my eyes.

But Watson lowered his gaze.

"No...No No! Kartik.....", I ran out of the door, searching for Kartik. I knew he must be hiding somewhere behind the walls and messing around.

"Kartik...where ever the hell you are! Come out right now", I yelled searching for him everywhere. Everyone came out of the mansion and rushed towards me. I wasn't in my senses. How could I be? I couldn't find my Kartik.

"Kartik!!!", I shouted at the top of my voice and fell down on the ground with a thud.

"Kartikkkk", I shouted again but he wasn't coming out from wherever the hell he was hiding. He didn't come out to hug me tightly and tell me that it was all a prank. He didn't come out to wipe my tears. I waited for him there.

"Kartik, please come out...please", I sobbed, shuddering with fear and shattering into pieces.

"Naira....", Hannah and Rebecca sat on either sides of me and tried to pacify me down, rubbing my back and hugging me close.

I didn't need their sympathy. I needed my husband....my Kartik.

I raised my head to look at Watson. He was looking at me with guilty eyes. I stood up in rage and caught his collar, glaring into his eyes with my bloodshot red eyes.

"What did you do to my husband? Where is he? Where did you leave him? Why did you leave him? How can you leave him alone?!", I asked him so many questions in one single breath but he didn't answer any of them. He wasn't able to look into my eyes, he wasn't able to make the eye-contact.

I scoffed and moved away from him. I looked at everybody else. They were looking at me sadly, giving me those "sympathetic" and "pituful" looks. How can they accept this so quickly?

"So...you people accepted what he said. You people surrendered that Kartik is dead...(scoffs)...he's not okay. I know that. He's still alive. My instincts are saying this. Nothing can ever happen to my Kartik...you get that? Death can never touch him till I'm alive", I yelled at those people but they still continued giving those those stares.

I looked at them disheartened.

"I didn't accept this from you guys. I'm gonna search for my Kartik and bring him home", I declared in a determined voice that Watson handed me something.

"Naira...", he kept something in my hand. I opened my fist to look at Kartik's wrist watch....it was his favourite watch which was now covered with blood....his blood.

I looked at it shockingly and hopelessly. My heart stopped beating. I shuddered, holding his watch in my hand and caressing it. I whimpered and sobbed as I thought of the worst possibilities but I wanted none of them to be true.

I gathered courage, kept his watch in my jeans pocket and wiped my tears. I started walking towards the steel main gate and started opening it. The biters were hitting hardly on its frame from the other side. I picked up a hammer and started hitting the padlock to open it. It was this close from opening....I could see the snarling, ugly faces of the biters. They were stretching their arms and trying to scratch me. I didn't care about any of it. I needed to rescue my Kartik. I was about to push open the gate that Watson stopped me from doing so, held my arms tightly and looked directly into my eyes.