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S H I V A A Y

Shivaay looked at the mirror in front of him. He hated what he saw. His eyes raked over his figure. His hands grazed over the scar that spread down from his neck to his chest. Down till his waistline. The skin was lighter pink in the area, a great contrast to his otherwise pale skin.

It was ghastly.

Unsightly.

Bile rose up in his throat. He swallowed it back. The back of his eyes burned with tears. Tears of what? Anger? Sadness? Despair? He didn't know what he was feeling. All that became now over powered with disgust. His eyes slightly red around the edges, which he partly guessed was because of his rough handling. There were bags hanging down his eyes. He was not best dressed at the moment. His shirt lay open, the scar that tore his chest into two reflecting back on the surface of the mirror.

He wore his shirt. His shaky hands buttoning the shirt. "Bhaiya" he stared into mirror. His eyes watching the red silhouette that entered his field of vision. His fingers were fumbling with the buttons. He tried to focus but it was not working. Soon hands came to his rescue. He hated it. Every bit of it. Being at someone's mercy. Dying was better than this.

All his life was spent with him being in control, and now when he was not able to do a trivial task such as buttoning his own damn shirt. The feeling was shattering him from deep inside.

"I'm sorry." The voice kept saying but his expression didn't relent. "It's time for your medicine." His eyes scanned the different coloured pills he has to gulp down with the glass of water.

"Your hand." The voice instructed. He did as he was told. His movements were robotic as his eyes stared at the front wall. His stare was blank. He tried to raise his hand. It pained him to lift it. And with much difficulty he raised it at the level of his torso.

"Don't clench them." And his hands were pried open. And the shakiness returned. She inserted the needle into his skin and he closed his eyes feeling the familiar sting. He felt other arm being gripped and the dizziness took over and he was pushed to the bed.

"You didn't eat anything?" She asked in disbelief. She rushed to call the servants. They came rushing with the breakfast tray. She fed him the omelette immediately with the glass of juice and he sighed. The world around him became clear and his eyes took in the sight of the tear streaked face of his sister, Priyanka Singh Oberoi.

"Why don't you ever listen to me?" She asked as she checked him over. She rubbed his hands and he leaned back on the bed. He freed her hands away from her hold, his eyes falling on the files which laid forgotten on the table. Priyanka followed his eyes and she got up to retrieve the file.

The file was handed over to him. He scanned through the pages. He gestured for a pen. Priyanka understood and walked towards the table grabbing a paper and a pen. She handed over to him. He made a few modifications on the paper and handed the file over to her. His movements were shaky, his handwriting resembles a hurried scrawl. His handwriting no longer the elegant swipe of his hands.

"The doctor will here after a couple of hours." Priyanka informed. Shivaay scoffed, "Please bhaiya be patient." She could understand his frustration. None of the treatments were working. And she knew he was frustrated beyond the ends.

He signed frustratedly. 'I don't want to see her.' His hands signed.

Priyanka pursed her lips and glared at him. "You're attending all your sessions, bhaiya. Or else I'm stopping my medications." Shivaay's eyes widened at that. His sister always had a way to shut him up. They were all they both had now. She and him. Just them. Both an outcast to their families for entirely different reasons.

<>

"How're you feeling, Mr. Oberoi?" Dr. Aaradhya Anand asked. Shivaay just continued staring blankly ahead. He despised the woman and her patience. He was eager to see how long she could tolerate him.

She patiently waited for him. The two can play a game. He has to be the most difficult patient of hers. She tapped the pen on her notebook, the sound was rhythmic. Her features relaxed.

Shivaay signed with his hands, 'Can you stop that?' his expression was irritated.

The doctor pressed her lips. "Your scans came out clean. The wounds are healing, but not at the pace we have been expecting." She turned to look at him.

"Are you straining the chords?" She asked directly. Shivaay rolled his eyes, what he was supposed to say? That he was screaming every other night except no sound except for that inhumane scream came out of his throat and the blood. His voice came out as a feral animal.

"Listen, Mr. Oberoi I won't be able to help you, when you won't let me." Shivaay smirked. She wasn't doing anything, anyway.

The doctor left after an hour when he refused to respond to any of her questions. Priyanka sighed. She closed her eyes in exasperation.

"There's a meeting, get ready." Priyanka read from the paper that Shivaay had passed her. She cast a worried look over to him.

"Will Arjun accompany you?" Priyanka asked. He nodded looking up from the file.  Shivaay never attended any official meetings, well not directly at least. He stayed behind the screen supervising the whole meeting while Priyanka took the front seat. He patted her head as gesture for appreciation but she only smiled tentatively. Yes, she had been handling the public meetings for years now but she never got used to it.

She looked at the files handed to her by her brother. She looked at them, her interest peaked. Termination letter of three employees.

"What did they do?" Shivaay simply rolled his eyes. His hands pointed to the encircled words. Her eyes weren't watching the texts though but rather his hands which were shaking. Her heart broke. She knew how much the incident had affected her brother.

Shivaay caught her eyes and clenched his jaws. He retrieved his hands and pocketed them, keeping away from her eyes. Her look was pitying. The last thing he needed was pity. Especially from his cousin sister. He glared at her and stormed out the house. She sighed and her eyebrows pinched together in confusion, she could never know what went through her brother's heads sometimes. She didn't know where he went but the most probable place was the headquarters.

She was staring out the window watching as the trees, signals, other motor vehicles. She was being driven to the office. Her mind wondered back to the situation she faced back. Their relationship have changed so much in these years that she sometimes wondered that if he was the same brother of hers or not. The one loved her to death. It was not the case now. The dynamics have changed. For good or for bad? The question still hung unanswered in the air. From cousins to business partners. That is what they have become.

Things were not the best between them either. They did argue, and they did sometimes hate the presence of other in the room but at the end of the day all they have now were them. It was complicated of some sorts. With Shivaay keeping quiet most of the moment, as his vocal chords needed some time to heal. It was her only to do the most talking. They didn't talk like normal siblings but like business partners. They never talked about themselves unless the other was feeling exclusively vulnerable and ready to open. Well, now it only happens when alcohol is involved.

They weren't typical brother and sister. They were cousins, but their bond stretched past that. They were cousins, yes. But at some point they too hated each other. Priyanka sometimes thought that their relationship was limited to the business only. She was the executive head while Shivaay handled the background work. It was his decision only. He was tired of all. And the only thing that kept him sane was this business. The only thing that he remained of his old self, the old Shivaay Singh Oberoi. He didn't use his full name anymore. Just Shivaay.

Shivaay. The real owner of the company. Their company. VOID. He had started the company from the very scratch, even though the company was still in it's growth phase it has shown charting results under his guidance.

Whenever she looked at him, she was reminded of a phoenix. A phoenix rising from the ashes after burning. Trying to regain its reign over the winds and the skies. But the only thing that contrasted him away from those mythical birds were his wings. They had been ripped apart and she could see the scars they had rendered behind.

You would be thinking that who could it be to have The Great Shivaay Singh Oberoi, at his lowest. Well, life does that to people. You never know what's awaiting you at the other end of the corner. Good or for bad? That was happened to them both.

They both were the victims of the circumstances and amthe situations. While they suffered, some people toasted to their defeat.

<>

Shivaay's hands clenched on the glass. His grip on the glass became vise, that even his knuckles turned white. It was impressive that the glass didn't shatter under his unrelenting hold. The night took over the sun.

He walked over to the glass window of the cabin. He peered down. The floor was of glass extending a few steps ahead of the normal wooden flooring of his cabin. He could see the busy city illuminated by the LEDs. His hands pressed against the glass window. He wondered if a person would be alive if he jumped down from the eleventh floor? He stopped back. It was not like he was wondering the answer, or was he?

There was a knock on his door and it was his assistant. Arjun Shrivastav. Shivaay simply rose his eyebrows. Up here, the eleventh floor of the building only three people, to his knowledge and only two, to his employees' knowledge, were accessible. His and Priyanka's cabin was situated at the eleventh floor and anybody who wished to contact them happened through Arjun or either only when Priyanka was present on the floors below.

"The paperwork is done." Arjun informed him. He nodded. "Aren't you going home?" Arjun asked. But Shivaay didn't answer, he sighed and exited the cabin.

There was a buzz of spectaculations around the company. The employees wondered who their real boss was. The lady or the one who stayed a chair above hers. Who owned the company? The media was also unaware of the news.

Wondering who was he? The one who changed the industrial monopoly in only five years of the establishment of the company. Who knew it was him again. The person who had been missing from the face of the earth since past six years.

Everything happens for a reason, he thought. He wondered what could it be?

so, here's the first chapter! The original characters upon their first glimpse will be shown with an italicized and bold font. They will play a huge role in the upcoming chapters! Since this is the rewrite I will not be changing any of the characters that I have used in the Drizzles of fire that means.....Arjun Srivastav......Aditya Sharma....... Neeraj Mehra....they all will be a part of this book too