~I Wish I Was Invisible~

Was it a left that he said.. Or a right? I wonder as I stand in the middle of two diverging corridors.

I don't even remember what he said.

Maybe I should call him up.

No. Absolutely not. Do you not realize what he has caused, N? All this is because of him. Just... give him the cold shoulder.

The voice in my head commands.

"Um, excuse me!" I call out to a girl who just walked past me.

She stops and turns around, "Yeah?"

I jog up to her, "Hey, I'm kind of lost.. can you guide me to the dance auditorium?" I ask.

For a second she says nothing but keeps staring at me.

"Excuse me?"

She scrutinizes my face, "You're that girl, right?"

Oh no.

"No."

"Yes. You're her." Her eyes widen.

"I guess I'll be fine finding the directions on my own." I fake smile at her and walk back to where I was standing earlier.

"No wait!" She shouts.

I stop, breath in, breath out, roll my eyes and turn around to face her.

"You're that girl who-"

"Listen, I'm in a middle of taking a very important decision and that is to either walk this way," I point my thumb back, towards the right, "or that way," I point it towards the left now, "So it would be really nice if you could just tell me where the goddamn dance auditorium is or just move your face out of my sight because I don't want to know your opinion about whether or not should I have let Manik kiss me. So please..." I release a breath.

The girl stares at me for a second, her forehead covered in frowns before she moves her eyes away from my face and just walks away without a word.

That was so rude.

Ugh, why are some girls so fucking dumb?!

Why am I so fucking dumb? I needed her help. Oh God, someone please help me.

Ever since the catastrophic event from two days ago, life hasn't been quite like it was before that. Not that it was any fun then either- courtesy the one and only Manik Malhotra- but at least I wasn't the latest hot topic of this college.

After the much publisized and extravagant brawl that took place between two stupid boys two days ago in the student filled hallway, the entire student body has had their eyes on me.

Like bees to the hive, I have been attracting attention all day long.

Wherever I go, whatever I do, the eyes follow.

Not even a single human inhabiting these premises has left their eyes off me since that unfortunate moment.

Okay, I am exaggerating but, something of this sort is definitely happening with me.

After I escaped the scene with Karan, I left that guy on his own, hurting and bleeding, and made my way towards my class.

I know that was brutal of me to do so but it was just a small cut on his face and a few prominent bruises that I'm sure will turn into beauty spots in sometime for a few days to come. And also because I had asked him to not make an issue out of whatever I had told him that day but I don't know why he just decided on doing the opposite.

So I left, ignoring him while he kept on calling my name, and reached to my class a good twenty minutes late.

It was clearly evident from the professor's facial expressions that she was downright annoyed when I had to intervene while she explained to the class that how should one study literature.

In her words, Literature is an art that only a person who understands the beauty and the depths of the human emotions and heart, can master.

She looked like someone's granny to me. The angry one. She, I assume, is strict, sincere and a deep believer of punctuality. Because the look on her face, when I came in late, told me that I'm ought to be marked in the bad books of hers.

But leaving that alone, she seemed like a woman of class. In the way she had draped her saree around her, it was absolutely fine. Not an inch gone wrong. Damn classy. She was not overly sized but just fine for how a woman her age should be. But, I realize that piece of information is just not needed here.

So when I raised my voice, stepped a foot in, and asked her to let me in, the professor jerked her head in my direction, piercing through my body as her daggery eyes peeked from behind her round, rimmed glasses. She studied me from head to heel in a dramatic manner, and then nodded once, finally granting me the access to this lecture.

I quickly walked in, stumbling a little on my feet, and found a place to sit at.

The professor then resumed her lecture, and it was so that she had been explaining the importance of literature to a boy seated a few seats behind me because he wasn't much attentive. More like dramatising.

For whatever less time that the first lecture continued, things were fine. Besides some murmuring that I heard from behind me, something that I couldn't quite decipher, everything was normal.

As soon as the class got dismissed and the professor left the room, the entire ambience of the room changed. And well that is ought to happen, not that I mind that a bit. The room was filled with forty or more different voices, while I on the other hand decided to dig my head into the book in front of me.

But when I heard the murmuring turn into loud discussion and when I heard Karan's and Manik's name being said a loud by different people at different corners of this classroom, I leaned my ear in to hear it all.

Every single human in that classroom was discussing about the fight.

And that just shook me.

Or not.

These students had been sitting in this room since way before that fight happened. For a moment I really thought they wouldn't know anything about that fight this early, but who am I kidding? Word spreads faster than fire, I know that very well.

No matter how much I wish it didn't, it still did.

I could feel forty pairs of eyes right at me from all four directions. I could hear them talk, wondering who I was. They were all looking at me as if I was some kind of a specie from Pluto.

Everyone was talking about it, everyone had their opinion about it.

I just prayed and prayed that no one should come to ask me about that fiasco.

That entire day, whenever the professor left, the chattering started. And when any professor walked in, the loud chatter turned into soft murmurs.

It never stopped.

And two days later, as the word spread, the facts changed and it was now a completely different story of what happened in the hallway that morning.

From it being a baseless arguement between me and Manik, it was now said to be a dare that Manik had been given to kiss me and I rejected him. And then when he didn't stop, Karan came in to the rescue.

And all day long, this continued.

The story kept changing and I kept hearing from girls every now and then about how much of a fool I am to not let Manik kiss me.

I don't know where the kiss came in between? I mean, I could have ripped his head apart if he wasn't standing so close to me to rip me off my senses for a few minutes.

As I walked down the hallways of this college, at very end of the college hours, I was still being looked at by passerby students, as if they don't know what species I belong to.

Some are fascinated by how I stood up to Manik, while some called me an attention skeeing whore right at my face.

Yeah. Those, I assume, were the hypocritic girls of this college. Because who gave you the right to judge, huh girls?

"You're a nobody! God knows why those two hot chocolates were fighting over you, ew!" remarked a girl.

Hot chocolates?! Excuse me girl?

Chocolates and boys are not to be compared. I never heard of a chocolate making you cry, but I'm damn sure a boy has had you in oceans of tears.

I heard a guy warn other guys that they've gotta stay away from me before they too get their faces smacked. The poor fellow got laughed at.

Then another girl came up to me telling me what an idiot I was to not let Manik kiss me and that she'd die for him to kiss her even once, or even look at her.

Had she saw what he did to me, I highly doubt if she'd still be dying to get noticed by that jerk.

I hid myself in the library during the lunch. I had received innumerous texts from Karan asking where I was and if I was fine or not. But I wasn't much in the favor of talking to him. So I just sent him a short text saying:

Not hungry. Studying.

I had no interest in having him around me. All that has been happening with me is majorly because of him. Him and douchebag #1. If he hadn't just listened to some random stranger and lunged at Manik like that, I would've been spared the extra extra extra strange looks from people around.

After that he texted no more. Maybe he got the hint, or maybe he believed what I said.

Whatever it was, I don't care right now because I am awfully engaged in trying to find a way towards the dance auditorium.

Without me asking, Karan had called me the up to direct me towards that room so it isn't much of a trouble but still. It is.

I don't even know the directions to the directions that he told me.

After fifteen minutes of searching around the place, I declare myself lost.

I huff out loud in frustration.

I have been searching around for a stupid dance auditorium in this stupid college for the past fifteen stupid minutes and here I stand in the middle of another stupid hallway!

I can't just go anywhere. It's past college hours and I can't even see a single soul around me.

I don't know which hallway did I come from.

"Was it the left or the right one?" I ask myself again.

Damn! I can't remember!

Panic strikes at me and my palms get sweaty.

It's almost 4.30 pm. The college ends at 4 pm and shuts down at 5 pm and here I am lost in some secluded area of this college and it creeps the living soul out of me.

This is such a huge place and I know nothing about what I am going to do.

I don't even know why I had to pass on the offer of Karan coming to my class to take me along.

Why do you have to be so stupid, N?

Why can't your head just calm the fuck down and behave like a good girl sometimes?

Because the damn ego won't approve of you being a good girl!

But not anymore.

Drop the ego, N.

Yeah, I've got to ask Karan for help.

I have to call up Karan and ask for help because I don't think I can ever reach to the dance room in time for my audition. I know I could have asked someone from my class or anyone who I saw in the corridors but that seemed like a risky decision in my opinion. Because everytime someone sees me, they've got to ask what I did to start that fight and then they want to know my entire biodata, just like that girl.

I don't even know if they really saw what happened because I did nothing to start that fight. It was all Karan.

I take my phone out from my backpack to call Karan. I dial his number and wait for the line to get connected but it doesn't.

I look at my phone and there is zero connectivity in this area.

I walk a few steps ahead, my eyes into my phone, and I see just one line in the connectivity bar. So I keep walking ahead and the connection keeps getting better.

When I see a fair amount of lines on that bar, I call Karan once again and thank God it connects. The phone rings once, he doesn't pick up. I try again and he doesn't pick up again. I try one more time but the result is the same.

I don't know why he'd not pick my call up.

Is he on with the ignorning game as well? Because last I checked that was my department.

But I wouldn't know because he won't pick my call.

Having no other choice at all, I drop him a text.

"I need help, I'm lost. Call me ASAP."

Having done that, I look around myself for the first time since I walked to here.

I see a door over which, Gymnasium is written in bold and then a few meters away in the same line, there is the Basketball Court. Opposite to that is another room, Tennis Court.

I should maybe check in there if I find someone to help me.

I make my way towards the door of the gym, and try to push it open but it looks like it's locked. So I try my luck at the Tennis court but even that door turns locked. Then I move onto the basketball court, my last stop and my last hope.

Shouldn't this place be much more crowded? Like a living soul or two atleast? There is a tennis court, a basket ball court and gymnasium for God's sake! Aren't a lot of people supposed to be here and play and practice?

Even though it's late?!

Even though it's past college hours?

When I said I like being alone I actually meant that I like being alone in a known place where I know that nothing can go wrong or with maybe a human or two or three around me so that I don't get the Conjuring movie feels.

Speaking of which...

Every horrible scene from that movie starts to slideshow in my brain.

Dammit, N! You had to think of it just now?!

I've never been a fan of such movies but there's different kind of a thrill in watching horror movies. The only thing is that I always regret watching them because I have a hard time sleeping for months after that.

All that courage I have in me is only for the people of the actual world, not for the one's who have migrated to another dimension.

I'm just.. I'm a downright scaredy-cat when it comes to things like such.

And right now being alone in this much aloof part of the college is just too harmful for that over-thinker sitting right inside my head.

I stand in front of the basketball court and push the door. And thank goodness it is open.

I've never felt so happy in my entire life as I do right now. I had been freaking out bad. Now I just hope this happiness isn't short lived and I actually find help in here.

I enter inside the basketball court, hoping for my hopes not come crashing down. "Hello?" I say.

My voice echoes inside the large, empty and dark room. There's just a little light falling onto one of the many sections of this court.

"Is anyone here?" I walk a little further into the court.

My voice reaches back to my ears as an echo and I feel deflated to find no one here as well.

With my head lowered down in defeat, I turn around to walk outside and just then my phone pings in my hand and the screen lights up. I check the screen and it shows a text from Karan.

"Where are you? My call won't connect. If this reaches you just tell me where you are, I'll come."

A wave of relief rushes through me when I see that text from him. Maybe now I will finally escape the creepiness of this place.

I unlock my phone to tell him where I am and I type in a text to him.

"I'm in the basketball court."

Then I hit send.

---------

Finally, I post.

Do tell me how you feel about this one since it's only Nandini and her inner voice in this chapter.

Please ignore the typos.

Next chapter will be up in a few days.

Please do VOTE and COMMENT!

Thank you!