"It wasn't me," Riddick said, looking at Fathima.

I shook my head sideways and kneed down beside Chandni. 

"I am taking her to the hospital," Chandni said as she slid her hand under Fathima's knees. She lifted her, glaring at Riddick. "You should call the police, apparently murdering a trespasser could end me up in jail,"  She said, looking at me.

I took the phone and started following her. Suddenly, I felt tug at my sleeve and I turned back.

"Trust me," He pleaded.

"How can I? the room, the blood" I looked around the room and huffed. 

"It wasn't me, it was a woman. I barged in only when I heard a scream" He raised his T-shirt to show a wound. It was fresh with blood oozing out of it. His hand touched it when he pointed at it and he flinched. "She did this. The blood, it's mine. The girl wasn't bleeding"

He was breathing heavily and he looked extremely weak. His blue eyes looked tired and they looked at me with hope. The pain was evident on his face. 

It was true that Fathima said Chandni about a woman when she called, not a man. Fathima wasn't bleeding either but was that enough to prove his innocence?

"I used the rod to attack the woman and she jumped out of the window, I am sure that the shattered glass is still there" He grabbed my hand and pulled me to the bedroom. His leg was also injured and he was limping but he was determined. He pointed at the window.

I could see a lot of people outside the broken glass.

"Do you live here?" A chubby man asked me, raising his hand.

"No, my friend does..."

"Oh...do not worry, we called the police, she wouldn't be far away," He said and he laughed. His whole body shook as he looked at everyone around him, the intensity of his laughter ceased due to other's glares until it stopped.

"Is he injured?" A lanky woman wearing a silk saree and lot, lot, lot of makeup asked as she lifted her cooling glass.

I looked beside me to see him covering his wound with his palm. Blood flowed in between his fingers as he groaned in pain. I ran to support him and held him by his shoulders.

***

"Hey you asleep," I opened my eyes when I heard Riddick's voice.

I was almost asleep on the chair outside the doctor's room. I was reading my own works in the book that Arjun gave to me when tiredness took over me. The AC coolness of the private hospital, the silence of a not so busy evening and the events of the day was a mother's lullaby. The smell of Dettol always had a sleepy effect on me.

"Can you walk?" I asked while looking at the bandage on his stomach. He had a lot of bandaids covering his face too. One on his forehead, one on his lower lip and one on his cheek. He wasn't wearing a shirt and it made me feel a little uncomfortable when he sat beside me.

"Seems so," He said, bending and straightening his legs.

"Did you call Chandni?"

"She is not recieving the call,"

My attention was grabbed by the television as soon as I heard the word Kaalan but I lost it in an impulse when I realized that it was some Indian TV serial and the mother-in-law was asking when Kaalan (the lord of death) would visit her daughter-in-law.

I heard a light chuckle beside me and turned to see my book in Riddick's hand.

"You are one depressed, girl"

I felt heat rush on to my face. Nobody had ever read my poems before, not even Arjun. I always knew that my poems weren't praiseworthy, they were just helping me in emotionally coping up. I needed them to forget my childhood, my past relations, my stresses, my problems, the cases, Kaalan...in short, everything.

He started reading aloud. Reading my poems was like reading me. It was like knowing me from the deepest. Reading it would let one know about the 'me', I never spoke of. There were a lot of things that I did not even discuss with Riddick, when he was my boyfriend. I never found the courage to open myself to anyone but Arjun. Arjun knew about it, I did not know that why did I.

The shattered childhood,

like a shattered glass,

looks shiny...

but touch it and you will bleed.

touch it again and again and you will die...

"Is this even a poem? it doesn't even rhyme"

"Rhyming is not compulsory for poems and I did not ever say that it was a poem," I tried to snatch the book but he pushed me by my face. I huffed and folded my arms.

He did not speak anything for a while. He was frowning at the book while shifting uncomfortably on his chair. He looked at me and opened and closed his mouth a few times. I took the opportunity to snatch back my book.

My eyes widened as I read the words in the book, Everything around seemed to blur as the words fused into my being.

"You next,  -Kaalan"

It was written in Kaalan's handwriting. The handwriting was by heart for me. I could recognize it amidst a dictionary.

Kaalan was near me, it wasn't even Onam. He was around me but I did not see him. He took my book but I did not know. He wrote in it but I did not notice. He was in the hospital. He could have been still in the hospital. He could be the doctor who walked in front of us or Kaalan could be a female and she could be the nurse who was sitting in front of me.

I could not listen or hear anything around me. I felt heat spread across my body and hands started to shiver. Everything around me seemed to conflate into one single confusing mist that blocked me from knowing anything beyond it. I was trapped in the mist with him. No matter, how much I tried to run away I wasn't going to escape his grasp. It's been years since he started haunting our lives and it wasn't even a year since I started hunting for him. I always knew that it was a futile attempt but I thought that I could make a difference, I was mistaken.

I was clearly mistaken.