Avanthika paced up and down her hotel room. The conference throughout the day should have drained her completely but it didn't. She rather grew more anxious as moments ticked away, and she finally settled on the bed to gather some peace. 

How many years had it been since she was taking those sleeping pills? Almost three now. And yet she could hardly sleep. Again. 

Damn. 

She checked her phone.  It was 8 in the night. And yet she hadn't received the call she was desperately waiting for. And though she was desperate enough, she couldn't call time and again. After all he was a big deal. 

Avanthika threw the phone away. She pressed her temple, it was aching bad. And all she could do was take a paracetamol but she hated medicines these days. They so hardly helped. 

Almost three years back, when she used to sleep peacefully at her home in Daman, one night she had a dream which was too distinct to be a dream, and equally horrifying. She could see herself dressed tip-top in a royal attire, and not only that, she was burning someone alive. How gross! How sickening! The typical thing was that, the face of that someone was blurred. The following day Avanthika gagged time and again and felt like feeding on nothing. The doctor prescribed her some low dosed stress relievers when she blamed academics for her illness. Because she herself wasn't sure of what she had exactly visioned and why. 

A few following days offered her some peaceful sleep, which suddenly one day got completely shattered when throughout the night she dreamt of something that turned out to be the complete story of a kingdom named Maahishmathi. She could visualise everyone, everyone except for three people...three people she murdered. And being said that so easily, it wasn't at all easy for her when she repeatedly began visualising the exact story.

She told mom, she told dad, and all they had to offer belonging to a typical middle class mentality was to stop watching idiotic movies and reading horror stories. 

And Avanthika knew, that was not it. Not at all.

She consulted psychiatrists, and they were always the best with therapies, but like everyone else, she couldn't open up everything to them. And whatever little she did, that was absolutely considered a complication of her brain and nothing else. She stopped visiting for therapies when they hardly worked.  

Rather... She began looking for the faces in the story she had by then learnt by heart. She had known, the murders she committed were for her son, who was going to be deprived by his grandmother. And being a mother, she could never afford that. 

However much, she felt no homesickness for the royal character with her face, she was merely an audience. She had also known that her husband was murdered, and though she couldn't believe that his mother killed him, she finally did that too. 

She was called Avanthika, her husband Mahendra...her son Virendra..and her mother-in-law whose face was never clear to her even after so many visions, was called Rajmata Devasena... 

After almost a year of immense discomfort, Avanthika shifted to Bhopal for her studies, and got a room at a PG which was already occupied by a sweet girl. Co-indentally her name too, was Devasena. Initially Avanthika time and again tried to share her story, but backed out. And Devasena seemed a very genuine and cute girl, so much so that with time, sedatives and Devasena worked together and her discomfort totally disappeared. 

Until, she joined White Club few months later, and accidentally read a book she shouldn't have read. And the discomfort totally returned. But, yeah...it disappeared again, that's how was Devasena's companionship. Avanthika wanted and almost could delete everything she had witnessed for a year. She stopped searching for Mahendra too...on social medias.

And then one day almost a year later, Devasena enquired of Maahishmathi. And Avanthika froze. She didn't disappoint her though, she took her to white club and searched for the book, though luckily they didn't find then. Momentarily flowing with emotions she even talked of their namesakes. But who would know...that night itself she would recapitulate the entire story, and the blurred face would take the form of Devasena Sehgal? 

Avanthika knew, what slept inside Devasena was arising, and she couldn't afford that. Devasena was her dearest friend, and past life couldn't crop up between them, in which they were far from friends. 

Avanthika stole the book from the library the following day, and burnt it like a fool in the room itself, anyways...  She couldn't afford to lose Devasena at any cost. 

And just then, a man made his entry into the picture. Those eyes, that face, that smile. She saw him at the White Club's cafeteria the very day Devasena talked of how an Amarendra was stalking her. She sent a message to him too, in vain. 

After that, she started following him. She came to know this was the Amarendra Devasena talked of, and though she knew Amarendra Baahubali looked like Mahendra, she couldn't just believe the extent of similarity. She pacified herself time and again that this was definitely Mahendra, she even followed him to a curio shop and bought a ring. And soon she realised, she was flowing into the skin of former avanthika, which was definitely not something great. But she just couldn't help. One evening after her classes, she decided to break the thing .

Also by then she had known a breathtaking fact . Adway Mathur, the great sculptor, looked exactly like Bhallaldeva...and she now knew that the lookalikes were hardly coincidental. 

Avanthika had already once visited Shreebhumi to take back Devasena from his clutches, because she hardly wanted her to remember anything. But how long could she protect her now?  

Amarendra welcomed her very dearly.

But when she straightaway came to her suspicion of him being Mahendra and not Amarendra, he turned firm. Yet smiled. Avanthika then opened up everything of what she knew of what Rajmata Devasena had done to her son, and how she had no other choice that to kill her, as a mother. Amarendra didn't react to this too. Rather, he calmly said, he didn't know this part of the story and was waiting for Devasena to remember everything. He said he didn't believe that Devasena could do anything drastic. Avanthika had shattered to this. 

He even added, he trusted Avanthika and believed that when he won't be around soon, Avanthika wouldn't harm her dearest friend because of a life that had ended. And Avanthika had cried. She definitely couldn't do anything to this Devasena, because she was not the She. And Avanthika didn't want her to become one. 

Avanthika left the palace with a heart broken to million pieces, but before leaving she said, " if you are Amarendra, you should definitely be aware of the fact that Bhallaldeva is back too. And he won't spare you again. " 

Amarendra had smiled, again. 

That night Devasena behaved strange, she fainted mostly on seeing the ring Avanthika had accidentally left on the table grossly, and she repented later. She knew she couldn't save Devasena anymore...  

**

The phone began ringing and Avanthika shot up from the bed. The much awaited phone call.. 

" Hello! Am I speaking to Avanthika Mohan? Please come down to the lounge ma'am, sir is waiting for you."