57 A New Ability (1)

"Another nightmare?" Aditya asked softly with a smile as he patted Hamsa's delicate back gently. When you wake every morning been hugged continuously for a week, these small touches are not a big deal anymore.

Hamsa smiled when she felt Aditya's care. She got up while tying up her loose hair into a bun and walked into the kitchen, "Get up and drink some warm water, I will go prepare breakfast."

Given Aditya's age and energy, he would definitely experience a boner if he woke up with such a woman like Hamsa embracing him firmly. But, that was not the case for Aditya because whenever he saw the tears rolling down her cheeks and drenching his shirt, his fiery heart along with his shirt also cooled down.

Aditya did not pay much attention to Hamsa's problems or issues in the beginning. He confined his care only to providing shelter and some protection. Aditya did not have the time nor the heart to go any deeper as he was already neck deep with his own concerns that he did not contact his elder sisters or his friends.

He was now doing freelancing programming jobs and worked as a mechanic till the evening. As for the evening, that was where most of his energies were been invested right now with the underworld of Bangalore heating up.

With all these matters, he spent very little time with Hamsa. Usually, they would have time to talk when they woke up in the morning as Aditya did his programming. Afterwards, she would go to buy some groceries or visit Saanvi for lessons. Sometimes, Saanvi would come visiting. Aditya would only come back late in the night.

Also, Aditya started spending more time in Tya's world during the night since last week. He discovered that his body was not affected by him spending prolonged time in Tya's world. In that way, though it looked like Aditya was sleeping for barely six hours, he was actually spending 15 days. He had ample time to rest while his body also recharged quickly with slight tweaking from Tya.

Aditya discovered a new phenomenon when he slept in Tya's world i.e. he did not dream of an alternate world when he slept in that world. Though Aditya was really curious about the 'other' Aditya's future in that world, now was not the time fooling around with this non-consequential information.

So, since the past week, Aditya's alternate world story basically paused. The 'other' Aditya had stopped fooling around with women and started concentrating in his aeronautical engineering while pretty much everything else was normal. The only thing he missed about these dreams was that he got to see his parents. He really missed them.

But, despite his busy schedule and limited interaction with Hamsa, he had begun to like her. Who wouldn't like a gentle and good woman like Hamsa? She had started to look after his diet, she would cook for him, go out and buy the necessary groceries.

She was the one who kept the penthouse neat and tidy. She would even wash his t-shirts and pants. Aditya experienced no troubles with her, she never raised any ruckus. Aditya sometimes felt that he was not providing a temporary asylum to her by he had hired her as a maid or a housekeeper whose only salary was the daily supply of food. This train of thought ended up making him feel a little guilty but he did not stop her or force her to do anything on Saanvi's suggestion. Saanvi said that it was good that she was keeping herself busy.

Both Aditya and Hamsa had also become accustomed to Saanvi. Both of them always felt a calm and peaceful atmosphere around Saanvi and quite enjoyed her company as she conversed about all kinds of topics. She had also started tutoring Hamsa seriously. Hamsa also spent most of her time studying for the final year exams due in three months. Except when she cried in her sleep, Aditya or Saanvi never saw her show a hint of sadness or trauma in her daily life. Even Saanvi was shocked at Hamsa's mental stability but only Aditya knew the real reason.

"Tya, are you sure that your treatment is working?" Aditya asked when he saw Hamsa working in the kitchen.

"Adi, believe me, I can feel that she is already 80% cured of her trauma, the energy which was supposed to be absorbed by you is being absorbed by her when she hugs you. This energy is useful to her both mentally and psychologically." Tya's cute voice rang out. The past week Aditya had been practically spending the whole night i.e. 15 days with Tya, so, they both became even more familiar to each other.

"It's a pity that elder sister Hamsa is taking away your energy otherwise you would have got a new ability by now, Adi you don't know what you are missing on, with this ability, you don't have to worry about the surveillance of 'that' organization which took away Ma and Pa. Without that concern, you could finally flex all of your abilities without any fear." Tya spoke with some regret.

"Well, as long as it helps her, I don't mind waiting for a few weeks," Aditya said when he remembered the pitiful picture of Hamsa crying bitterly. His feelings about Hamsa was not the same as the past week. She had become his friend now after living together for some time. One had to know how Aditya felt about Hamsa when she was just an unknown stranger. He even risked himself getting hurt to save her just because of the feeling she gave to him. Now that they both lived and slept under the same roof for a few days and he practically saw her suffering every night, Aditya would not feel good about himself if he didn't help her when he had the capacity.

"Also, I am already satisfied with the new ability that you created recently," Aditya smiled as he sat in a cross-legged position and closed his eyes. Meditation was his ruse whenever he visited Tya for a considerable time during morning hours.

When Hamsa saw Aditya meditating, a small smile formed on her face as she looked at Aditya without the fear of been caught. She did not know from when she started feeling this way, but whenever she saw Aditya, her heart would feel calm and her soul peaceful. Though she did not want to agree, she knew in her inner mind that Aditya was the main reason for her recovery in such a short time which even shocked elder sister Saanvi.

Ever since she started sleeping along with Aditya, she realized a visible reduction of psychological stress and traumatic depression. She felt more invigorated both physically and mentally day by day.

Every morning she would wake up feeling more and more happy as if some weight had been removed from her heart. She had stopped manifesting physical reaction like jerking, jolting, trembling when she remembered the tragic night.

Though people like Aditya and elder sister did not know how she felt due to her introvert nature and tight mouth, she knew about her condition. So how could she not notice that she was getting better very rapidly without much of medical intervention? And, most important of all, she had the same dream every night for the past week.

She would first dream of that birthday night, then the event with Reyansh, then she would walk into a maze and suffer. When she thought that there was no way she could walk out of this despair, she would always find the beam of light and then the soft sphere radiating multiple beams of myriad coloured light filled with warmth and strength. She would then cry giving vent to her grief and sleep peacefully while snuggling onto the sphere. She would always wake up discovering that she was hugging Aditya actually, drenching his shirt with her tears. He would not get angry or irritated or make any unwanted advances taking advantage of her.

It was not only that, Hamsa had recently discovered that some people were following her wherever she went. At first, she thought these people were sent by Reyansh or her parents and tried her best to escape. After some time they would disappear and she would relax and go home. But yesterday, some other goons actually came to forcefully take her away blatantly when she was returning home at night from elder sister Saanvi's place after lessons. To her surprise, before she could call for help, the gang from previous day actually appeared and beat up these guys mercilessly until there faces were swollen and bleeding.

After the beating, they turned towards Hamsa and smiled while bowing courteously and went away. Hamsa was shocked when she saw this event and then suddenly her eyes lit up when she remembered the reason that elder sister Saanvi had asked her to stay with Aditya in the first place. Wasn't it because that elder sister Saanvi felt that Aditya had the power to protect her?

Hamsa was shocked when she discovered that elder sister Saanvi was right. Aditya was not as simple as he looked. She was puzzled why such a person would work as a mechanic instead of going to school to study properly. She had also noticed that Aditya was proficient in programming, her eyes would always become blurred and feel dizzy whenever she saw him typing. The speed was the fastest she had ever seen but she could not judge his talent based on this as she was not trained in programming herself. Also, the money was getting piled into a heap in the kitchen every day and when she asked Aditya about saving it in a bank account, he would smile and ignore her suggestion. She could only go along with the flow as she knew her limits.

Another aspect of Aditya that caused even the depressed her to burst into a fit of laughter was that this teenager seemed to have a habit of singing cute children songs while keeping a lollipop in his mouth. Who would sing children songs so passionately in this age? She was amused when she saw Aditya's embarrassed expression.

Elder sister Saanvi had asked if she wanted to shift to her place when she heard that Aditya had somehow got some people to protect her. Elder sister felt that since Aditya was not staying in that place at all times and he had already had her protected, Hamsa could move into her place as that would be convenient to both of them and can visit Aditya from time to time. But, Hamsa instinctively and decisively rejected this proposition even before Saanvi could complete the suggestion.

When elder sister Saanvi saw Hamsa reject immediately, she looked at Hamsa with narrowed eyes with a strange smile which caused Hamsa to blush fiercely and lower her head not daring to look into Elder sister's eyes as she fiddled with her delicate fingers restlessly.

Actually, Hamsa did not know the shock Saanvi was experiencing when she saw how 'normal' Hamsa was now in comparison to her state of mind when she saw her a week ago. It was like Hamsa was completely cured even psychologically which is not a normal thing as Saanvi had seen many such victims who failed to recover during their whole life. How did Aditya achieve this?

While Hamsa continued to look at Aditya, Aditya, on the other hand, appeared in midst of a small library filled with hundreds of books.

Yes, this was Tya's world, it was no longer filled with spheres of dazzling colours and fogs of myriad brilliance. This was the new ability of Tya, it was not exactly a new one per se. Tya could basically manipulate this world to mimic the real world. Anything Aditya saw, felt, smelled, heard, tasted could be created in this world.

So Tya along with Aditya spent many days designing and creating new structures in this place. No energy was wasted as according to Tya, this world followed the conservation of energy laws. So as long as there were spheres or fog, Tya could have them transform into something else. But there was a limitation to this ability. Only information that Aditya could 'clearly' and 'perfectly' understand was able to be created here. For example, Aditya did not understand the functioning of a mobile phone, how a processor works? How the LED screen works or how a battery is made? So, neither Aditya nor Tya could create a real mobile phone in this world. Tya could create an image of a mobile phone but can't make it function like a real one.

Aditya was also not able to create a car engine as although he knew it's design and functions, he did not know the alloy composition of the metal used or other complex material used in manufacturing a car. So, this ability is pretty useless to Aditya unless he starts studying right from the basics of elements and their properties. This was not something he could achieve now.

So the library, filled with wooden furniture, in which Aditya was standing was a little illusory in nature as he did not know much about types of wood and their internal structures. So, presently Aditya could only use this ability, for one thing, i.e. storing knowledge. Yes, Aditya figured out this use when he visited a bookstore once. When Aditya was flipping the pages of a 'hacking for dummies' book, Tya was able to create a copy of this book in his world easily as words are pretty easy to copy.

Not much information or knowledge was required when creating words. But Tya could not create the exact book as that would need knowledge of paper material, ink material etc. so the copy was a lookalike but that was enough for Aditya to 'rob' the book store. In the matter of a few hours, with the help of 'Slow Timing' and 'Sensifull', Aditya 'copied' hundreds of books pertaining to programming and hacking.

Actually, it was not a matter of money to Aditya but rather the ability to carry a manifold amount of knowledge along with him at all times. At present, even if he bought all these books, his place did not have enough place to store them. Also one had to know that the time is skewed in Tya's world, he could study these books at his leisure in that world with 60 times more efficiency.

As Aditya felt guilty for taking all the knowledge for free, he bought a book worth 50 bugs ($ 0.72) and left with his head held high under the frustrated eyes of the storekeeper.