Fate is a karma itself. The more you hurt people, it gets back to you with more magnitude, impacts your life so intensely that you get stuck in a slotless loop, it becomes your fate and manipulates your destiny.

Weird, isn't it?

I am Commelina Ray, and I'm no saint, neither I'm perfect. I've got issues, and I too have hurt people, way too many people.

I have hurt my best friend and my father way too many times; I've avoided people who had crushes on me or liked me genuinely, only because it made me feel uneasy around them; even I made them cry.

And they say, it's okay to be selfish when things are hard; and I just simply followed it.

It sounds like I'm heartless and inconsiderate, right?

But I had my own reasons, my plate was already filled with way too many scars that I didn't let other people see, and I was unable to deal with anymore unwanted sitches, so I ended up hurting them, though I never wanted to.

And then karma played its own dices. It doesn't care whether you did something bad intentionally or not, it just only stomps its way through people to execute its vengeance in the name of egalitarianism.

Never in my wildest dream, had I ever thought of hurting the person I came to love to the extent that I was ready to negotiate with myself...only for him. But it happened eventually, and it hurts me more to know that I can't do anything else to make things better for him.

I don't know whether it's a sinister scheme of karma itself, or it's just me who is ill-fated.

Last Saturday evening, when I was with my friends near the Birmingham University South campus, I got a few missed calls on my LINE account at around seven. I was at this bar, taking shots after shots, getting wasted, and celebrating my 23rd birthday.

For last 3 years, I've been getting these calls, at the same date, at the same time, and they made me both thrilled and miserable at the same time.

But this year, I forgot to receive them, or to be precise, I didn't take them up. I noticed once, but I ignored it, because I thought, having received the call, I might have ended up saying things that I would've regretted nightly. And maybe, it was the worst decision of my life.

I have this incredible capacity to hold up my liquor for too long, but that day, I don't know what happened, but after the dance-floor, when I got another shot of sex on the beach, I passed out instantly. My dormmate had the privilege of carrying me back to our dorm, and putting up with my nonsensical slurred talks.

Next day I tried the number several times, it ringed, but no one picked it up. It felt weird, but I dismissed the hunch.

Then at night, something queer held my entire attention on my google feed.

An accident happened to take place on the night on my birthday, on the highway, from New Delhi to Kanpur, and the driver got fatal injuries on his head, so he was latching on to his last straws against death. The battle was uneven, but it's a must.

I was leisurely going through it, until the moment a picture of the driver popped up. Instantly I felt something piercing through me, tearing my soul apart, and a sudden rush of variety of emotions stumbles over me all at once.

I haven't looked at that face properly for last three years, and now when I finally saw it, he was all over the news, but not as a successful entrepreneur, but a hit-and-run victim.

The emotions were much stronger than ever, an intense gravity revolved around me, persistently pulling me to go back to India, but I was so tied up with those grim ruthless chains of responsibilities and a dream of a bright future, that I'm not even allowed to think of the unthinkable.

But I couldn't just sit back and play vulnerable, so at that moment, I decided what I was going to do.

****

"You really sure, like cent percent sure, that you really, really wanna do this?", Jackie, my dormmate, frets over me, as she initiates the IV lock discreetly on the back of my hand.

I spare an empathetic look over to her, as I lie down on my bed.

It has been raining for hours since this evening, so the wind is quite frenzy and piercing. A musty grassy smell reaches up to me, as I stare out of the window, into a dark nothingness, and that mundane pattern of water dripping down the sill tires me to bones. The rest of the world is perhaps on a standstill, but the beast inside me is howling in agony and heartache, screaming to get out of the leash.

'Just hang on a little more,' I muse to myself.

"Yes, I need to," I reply calmly as I close my eyes. "You know, I've done this before."

"Yes, but...you never stepped out of this room in that state. And to be honest, it's kinda scary," she exclaims, as she sits beside me.

"Don't underestimate the resolution of a human girl, that's what scary is," I chuckle.

She sighs deeply. "You know, you don't have to be cool...all the freaking time! Even despite being friends with me for past three years, you didn't mention this even for once. I don't know, how you're still holding up. If I'd be in your shoes, I, uh...I don't know what I would have done."

I open my eyes and look up to her. "I know, you're just worried, but trust on me, I can do this, I need to do this, to get rid of this only regret...for the last time," I assure her, as I pat her hand slowly.

"But it's too risky, and what if you couldn't come back within 2 days? You'll be stuck in there...forever."

"Life is all 'bout taking risks, no? And if we already get scared of the unseen and don't even try it out, how will we grow? And you know, times like this brings out the very best of you, so you got this strange courage to do whatever it takes...to reach the unseen," I explain calmly, and loosen up a bit, as she looks somehow convinced, but I know, she's still struggling.

"Then why this? There's more alternatives. Why don't you ask your parents?"

I breathe heavily before replying. "You know, I can't. The expanses, arrangements--it'll take a lot of time. Plus, finals are coming, so they won't agree, and I too don't wanna burden them with my problems...I'm not a child anymore, and I should own up to my mistakes, like an adult."

"You know, it's not your fault, so stop beating up yourself," she tells me off.

"Yes, I know, right? But still, you know, this, uh, conscience...I need to get rid of it," I clarify myself, as I sit up.

Suddenly she hugs me, taking me by surprise, and holds on to me for a moment. "I'm so proud of you. Just know that...there's other people, who cares for you, and you need to get back...for them."

"Okay," I assure, not exactly getting what she's trying to say. "But wait! What is it? It's not your style. You usually tell me off."

She lets go of me, and places both of her hands on my shoulders. "Just know that, you have to come back safely, okay?"

I hum in response as I nod my head, and for a moment, it seems like I catch a glimpse of tears prickling at the corners of her eyes.

Seriously, what's wrong with her?

"Let's get it started," I tell her, ignoring the slight discomfort, and lie down slowly.

I close my eyes, and start to meditate slowly yet intensely. I put my entire focus on the small tiny dot that begins to appear before my mind, and gradually start to feel like every single hint of burden, strain and anxiety leaving out of my body, making me lighter in the process.

I faintly hear Jackie inducing this bizarre trance inside me with her extremely intense, deep, delusional voice by reading the verbal cues mentioned on the old tattered book of hypnotism, which I happened to discover last year at the library of our campus.

At first, we just tried it out for fun, and surprisingly it worked just fine.

But who knew that a time would come when this thing would get handy?

After a few moments, I find myself sitting on my own, and there's this zero gravity around me and I can barely feel my mass.

I watch Jackie closing the book, and heaving a sigh off defeatedly.

"Just remember, you must return within two days...by anyhow. I'll be waiting for you," she whispers to my slumped still body while caressing my cheek, and I realize that I have temporarily left my physical body.

"Yes, I will," I assure her, though she can't hear me now.