Chapter 2

Shreya's POV

3 years ago

"Batman sucks"

Don't ask me why I am in the living room with Anu sitting on the sofa with a large tub of ice-cream placed between us with both of us eating from the same tub of ice-cream. We are going about the superheroes and enjoying watching this very much.

"Batman is the best superhero ever", I responded quickly.

"He doesn't have any superpowers", she argued with confusion, twitching her eyes towards me.

"That's why he is the best. He doesn't need superpowers to save lives.", I explained to clear her confusion, since she is only 12 years old now.

"How is he super than when he doesn't have any powers", she exclaimed childishly, to which I laughed.

Let me tell you I am a fan of superheroes and I love watching them, just like for me, my Papa is a superhero for all the 18 years of my life.

Oh, you all must be wondering where they are. My father is a jeweler whereas my mother is a jewelry designer and, together, they make a great pair of unique jewelleries that we used to sell in our store. Though it's not a very large store, it's still enough for us as we come from an upper middle-class family and my parents are famous as Reddy couples.

As we were watching and eating ice-creams while discussing Batman, we heard a car honk and just then, leaving everything, we ran towards the door, racing each other who will reach them first and obviously it's me as am elder than her which always makes her angry as well as a cute pout appears on her lips while whining to our dad who is hugging me now.

"Didi (elder sister) always does so and never lets me win", she is using her pouty face and teary eyes to melt me, which always works, and dad then carries her, kissing her forehead and wiping her tears away which still not fell from her eyes.

Just with him, Mamma too entered, and she hugged both of us, kissing our foreheads, entering the home.

I and Anu looked at each other wide-eyed, realizing our mistakes, then we both looked towards our father with puppy dog eyes asking him to save us.

"No no, Shrey Anu not this time", he told us, shaking his head with a horrid expression on his face.

"Please Papa last time", We made sad teary faces, and you know whenever we call dad, Papa, he surely melts.

"Another night to sleep in the living room", he murmured to himself, pouting, at which we laughed silently.

"Shreya Anu", just then we heard Mumma shouting, and we hid ourselves behind dad.

She rolled her eyes, seeing us hiding behind dad with anger.

"Young Lady", she usually called me in anger, "how many times I asked you both not to have ice-creams during this time, and you both know clearly why"

We know that we usually feel sick after eating ice cream, but what to do with the childish heart 'It always wants what it wants'

"Jaya, they are children... ", Dad slowly tried to defend us, but he knew it was of no use.

"Madhav, you know I am not against their eating ice-reams. We do take them twice a week, but every day it will harm their health, and do you think, Shreya, I don't know of both of you girls eating ice-reams sometimes at nighttime" she asked, raising her eyebrows while folding her hands in front of her chest.

We felt guilty for our deeds and asked her sorry about, which we are forgiven later with a little more of scolding.

Like that, the day went by smoothly unaware of the storm brooding on us.

It was midnight when I heard some noise that disturbed my sleep. I woke up after making sure that Anu was sleeping peacefully, walking towards opening the door and the scene horrified me in front of me.

Some men holding guns are surrounding my parents with a man in the middle. I can't see their faces clearly as still my eyes feel hazy with sleep, but the next thing shook the earth beneath me.

"No, you cannot do this, that's all my hard work." My dad exclaimed in a panicked voice, but the man laughed at him, pointing the gun at my dad's head and then "BOOM".

I saw dad lying there on the floor of the living room lifelessly, then I felt the air within me suck out and I closed the door shivering, not wanting to see the scene as soon as I heard another shot.

I while shaking my legs, ran to the phone beside the bed and called my father's best friend, who is a police officer, Inspector Anil Khatri, whose daughter Ananya Khatri, is my best friend as well as my classmate.

As soon as he picked the call up, without letting him speak, I started, "Hello uncle, am Shreya, some people entered our home, and they shot Papa. After that, I heard another shot. Please please come fast and save us, please save mumma and papa.... "

The hard knock on the door startled me and the phone fell from my hand, thus breaking down and I got rooted in my spot. Then I heard that they shot mom too and now we have just left. Then all the properties and designs are theirs.

Another hard knock pulled me back to reality and soon I took out a small bag out of my cupboard and put all the jewelleries that papa gifted us as well as cash and my mother's design book with our id cards. Anyhow, I put that bag inside and dropped it through the window.

As we only live i 1st floor, it's not very hard for us to jump. Soon I heard their annoying growl and them asking someone to break the door. So, which meant I didn't have much time, so I hurriedly woke Anu up by putting my hand on her mouth and then we jumped through the window, first he, then me, as they started breaking the room door that made my heartbeat race.

Thanks to God I found the key still on my scooty, which is my bad habit about which I always get scolded by mumma and papa, but today it is the only thing that could for led us to safety.

We hovered on my scooty and left the house while finding the noise of the people running behind us, though it's our luck that it is nighttime and at the moment, a police siren was heard which halted them from the chase and thus we were saved until something flashed on our way.

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Present

I snapped my eyes open and saw myself on the hospital bed. That night is always a nightmare for me.

When reality hit me again, I only remembered one person who needed me and whom I needed the most.

"Priya"

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