It Lives Within

Not every monster you fear is unknown. Some are more familiar than everything you hold close. Meet Azalea Hazel, the complete opposite of a girl with whom you feel like something weird would happen. An ordinary high school student with a ordinary circle of acquaintances, see how the world seems to mutate around her incorporating anything and everything sinister. Who is the victim? The journey of an ordinary girl in the midst of an fantastic reality, and her struggle to get out of the clutches of surrealism that binds her. Excerpt: It has been two days and my hands are still shivering; blue veins racing through the papery white folds in the pink skin, blurred, of the cold seeping into the marrow and spreading out seismic waves through the whole of me. My vision is foggy, just the same that has been for years, maybe decades, who knows. And it might be this, or the cold- I wouldn't know- that everything seems blurred to my eyesight. Only one picture on the mantle piece is devoid of the haze that has settled on my lens, or it could be because my mind has memorised it so good that I no longer need to look at it. Or is it simply because the picture itself is of a foggy morning, the evening I remember so clearly that even the smudged lines of the lamp post and the invisible mold of the bus is easily discernible?

Soumi_Sarkar_2612 · Fantasy

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41 Chs

Chapter 8

Aunt Sayani is fuming when she gets off the call with mother. Kaitlyn and I look at her, concerned. She is generally a very mild woman. I have spent most of my younger days at their house, playing with Kaitlyn and sipping my favourite rice bowl with tender lamb stew, with Aunt Sayani prepares with her exotic spices mix. Sayani would never hurt Kaitlyn, I know. I've spent so many lazy days at this house trying to ignore the envy I used to feel for Kaitlyn, but at times like these, I couldn't help it. I have often looked out of the window and prayed to the stars to get a mother like Sayani. But of course, all I ever heard was mother, shrieking from downstairs to do some work or the other.

Now I see Aunt Sayani coming out of her room, the phone clutched in her hand and red in the face. She comes straight at me and almost shout at me, "Why the hell did you never tell me you were being bullied? Not just by your classmates or peers, but by your mother!"

Kaitlyn is on her feet, trying to calm her down. Sayani shoves her away, and Kaitlyn looks at her, horrified. It's quite a scenario to look at Aunt Sayani so angry, she looks like an angry cat. But my face is blank with confusion.

"I'm not being... bullied," I stammer. "She is my mother, she can't bully me. She is perhaps a little, um, strict, and..."

"And she calls you an ugly bastard, good-for-nothing and tells me that you're used to hearing this? What sort of mother does that, Az?"

I'm still reeling over the absurdity of the situation. Mother has always been like this, so why is Aunt Sayani treating the matter like it was something big? Of course, she doesn't mean any of this? She is my mother, she couldn't mean all these, right? She's strict, that's all.

I take a deep breathe and proceed to explain this to her. But before I can utter a single word, she cuts me off.

"Az, I need to go out of the town. Soon. Right now, in fact. I need some of your documents if you've brought them with you." WIth that, she spins on her heels and stalk out of the room.

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