17— Answers are what I seek!

"Hope is a natural feeling because when you have hope; you are never a prisoner to anybody."

— Saumya Tripathi 

How ironic was it to actually understand: why the most dangerous place for humans was their own working minds? 

Wasn't it?

It could do both: soothe you with positive thoughts or mentally crumble you into pieces with its overthinking negative skills. It won't take much but everything out of a person that has to offer before laying them bare and empty and insane with no sense of knowledge about their surroundings.

I blinked at the view before my eyes. With my posture crouched and legs surrounded by hands, head on top of the knees, I sighed, despondently. 

The first ray of sun beamed brightly in the firmament, spreading the dark yet light hues altogether: red, pale and orange, mixed up distantly making it look more beautiful and mesmerising from afar. Enthralling. Just like it was supposed to be early in the morning. Sunrises and sunsets were the perfect scenes to behold because with every new ray of the sun— comes a different experience of nature. Birds were chirping in chorus; their voices so soothing; so melodious— that had me captured into their grasp of the inevitable group. I wanted to listen to them all day, if possible. Better yet I wanted to be one of them.

"I wish I were a bird as free as them in the fresh air in the sky: flying." 

A vase of a lone wilting flower was set on the glass table just beside me by the floor-to-ceiling window. It was a one peace lily as I recalled my mother telling me about some of the plants, one being the Calla lily. 

"Spathiphyllum wallisii," I murmured suddenly, catching the botanical name my mother had uttered when gardening. 

"It is not truly a Lily but the flowers are no less resembling Calla lily. I read about them when researching the plants when I was in school," her sweet voice smoothed my mind when it rang in my head. "Spathe flower and cobra plant are its names which they go by," a slow but sure slight curve of my lips told me I was smiling at the distant memory embellished by my mother. 

But the flower was wilting. 

Just like me— dying but slowly and unsteadily. 

It was the birth of another day of despondence. I shook my head, eyes holding sadness. 

Five days elapsed in a daze with a torturous pace. The time appeared to have slowed down. No one came in for the first five days. Well, not the known faces I had known since I had been brought here. Five whole days went by. No one came. Not even Sabba and Zahar nor Fatima. Not even for a moment, not even for a few seconds. Not even for once. Not even him. Not like I wanted to regard him, but I wanted answers. Answers— those answers which I seemed to seek: desperately and briskly. It would be the sixth day as well if no one comes to visit us, albeit shortly. 

We were left totally alone— all together in a large luxurious— spacious room with just the two of us inside— alone and lonely among ourselves, I felt out of place. Yet, we were provided with every needed kind of stuff. Of different types of food and milk till cleaned fresh clothes and accessories. We were never deprived of any things or any kind of stuff whichever we would have needed. All were provided to us without even asking for our permission— which infuriated me even more as if I wasn't kidnapped. But could you say these luxuries which are being provided to you as kidnapping? Cutting my own thought, my subconsciousness, rebuked me. And, somewhat, I couldn't help but agree with it. They were more like behaving as if we had come on a vacation rather than being taken against our will. That was so peculiar. That even so had me thinking— why would he want us here? We were not being held like a prisoner here even. Not yet that is! Then why? Inadvertently, my mind seemed to concur yet again. Just on the contrary— as I had imagined we should have been kept here: deprived of food and other substances needed kinds of stuff however I had never thought that we would have been given a comfortable life. But what baffled me were:

Why all these comfortable surroundings with an easy life?

What hidden motives did he have by bringing us in here?

Why were we even here in the first place? Who was. . . he?

What did he want from us, anyway?

If we are taken against our wills then aren't we supposed to be kept as a prisoner? How are we being provided with a comfy life here? Aren't we supposed to be suffering in a cellar?

Why on the contrary w—

"I am glad, you both seemed healthy and well-fed." 

I did not acknowledge when the door opened, and when he ambled in. But I jumped all so abruptly from his sudden thick accent of a voice. My head jerked in his direction on its own accord. I stared blankly. Nevertheless, the heart was erratic. As he strolled inside in long strides of his, before closing the room door with a clicking sound, my heart was beating at an inhuman pace. Coming closer to the window by which— I was gazing outside by sitting on the floor with knees tucked beneath my head along with my arms surrounding my legs. He stood there for some time, peering. I did not know where: me or around the room since I faced away. Upon completing his inspection before having a seat on the single sofa, beside me, he sat, profoundly.    

"How are you feeling?" He drawled with a trace of satisfaction in his voice. "I hope well. And how is the little devil doing here?"

"Why are we here?" I asked calmly, rather. "And where is my Uncle?" I demanded, still gazing out of the window at the greenly that adored the beautiful nature just outside the floor-to-ceiling window. The unparalleled beauty was beyond any appreciation.

"He is safe and at home well fed and happy knowing you both are with me," speaking in riddles, he answered which confused me altogether and my head snapped up in his direction. "Safe."

"What?" I asked, bewildered. "Does he know you?" I blinked, turning my face to finally look at him. "How does he know you?"

"You did too," he said and gazed. The black pools of his eyes enlarged. "A time that I can never seem to forget if I want to, even."

"Then, why don't I remember any of it if what you say is true?" My voice came out as a whisper but with hesitation. Tears started to pile up in my eyes. Withal, to keep them at bay, I blinked, instantly straying my eyes away from him to the outside of the enchanting lawn.

He sighed, deeply. "You had an accident when you were little causing the memories to be interlocked in a certain part of your brain letting you form a wall over it," he emphasised, slowly, staring. Observing. His facial expression gave nothing away, though as I sat there confounded at his unseen answers, I felt nothing but numbness spreading in my insides. 

"Tell me more," I trembled then, looking at him. His charcoal eyes darkened even more in the sunlight making them twinkle. His eyes were so large with long lashes that for a moment I found myself to be captured in them. His eyes weren't dangerous but stark soft. The pools; the flecks over the irises enlarged.

"We used to be friends. Quite close friends must I add," breathing, he continued: "We used to go to the same school, although I was your senior— by six years. We had a bond like..." he stopped, twirling his mane by his fingers briskly, and he breathed deep. "How do I explain it," he sighed, again before starting. "We had a unique bond that I just couldn't portray in words," he blinked, gazing away from me to the floor-to-ceiling length glass window; at the scene that held something close to enchantment. There was something about its view that could have anyone bewitched by it. 

I blinked twice at him. Thinking long and hard.

"Okay. Okay. Alright." I blinked and blinked and blinked. Thinking. Thinking hard. Till the conversation between us sank in me, slowly. The impact was something that was making me laugh and cry at the same time. 

Seriously? My mind seemed to mock me.

"If whatever you are saying is truthful," I softly breathed, "Which I don't believe it is," I met his void eyes. "That doesn't give you the right to restrain me from going back home," I added thinking hard. "Kidnapping is still a criminal offence. You had gone against the law!" I said in suspicion, blinking when he sat quietly. I proceeded with caution. "Did my parents know you?" I was dreading the answer. "Did my parents know about you; about us?"

He was quiet for a long time. 

"We were neighbours. Our parents were friends since childhood," cutting me off, "Your father and my brother," he answered when I opened my mouth to ask more questions present at the tip of my tongue. "They bought the houses together just so they could remain closer to each other." Peering straight at me from his dark large orbs that held nothing but pure blackness in them. Even the flecks over his irises appeared to be black. Pure black just like charcoal. "Even before your birth; even before your momma married your father."

Wandering my eyes away, I murmured, "I—I just want to go home. Both of us," jabbing my thumb over the bed where a toddler was sleeping soundly. I ended. It was all so confusing to me to take all of it in one go. Impossible. Why did my uncle never tell me any of this if what he says was true? 

"Radhika, why don't you understand— that you can't. You... both can't," breathing, he said briskly. Brushing off my decision. His answer unnerved me. Standing abruptly from the floor with an inhuman speed, my neck snapped in his direction right away as I yelled: "Why? Why can't we go home? Why do you want us here anyway?"

•~•~••~•~ 

Guys support this story with your votes and comments.