2 New Group

(Last chapter's end: I put my right hand at my back and took out the blade. Somehow, I could feel the knife's blade's shape in my hand but I couldn't see it. And in all that time, I could feel the hole in me too.)

I ignored that due to a sudden stimulus and snapped out of it.

I changed my dress and settled down, before my mother scolded me. I live in a house of four; my mother, my brother, my father and obviously me. My mother teaches at my school and my brother is in the same school as well. I am in grade 10 and my brother is in grade 12. Now if my mother and brother are in same school, where were they when all that happened.

We all come and go to school together. So, I was actually the first one to reach home and they were following behind. That is what the sudden stimulus was, their voice. Even though this thing was first activated when I was surrounded and sometimes still activates with people around, it has come to my notice, if someone calls me everything vanishes. Point to be noted I guess.

I was breathing heavily due to what happened to me. It probably set my adrenaline loose. I focused my mind, closed my eyes and...

"Why are your clothes spread all around?" mom said.

"I'll just collect them." I replied getting up.

"When you were younger you always used to be tidy. You never did this. You returned home and properly arranged your school uniform." Mom announced to I don't know whom. I know what I used to do and why I do what I do now. So, who are you talking to?

"After you are done with this, wash your hands and come to eat." She said leaving the room.

"OK!" I said cheerfully picking up my socks.

I carefully packed all of my uniform and arranged them in my cupboard. Then went to eat. I sat on the sofa with table in front of me.

"Where is food?" I asked mom.

"DID YOU WASH YOUR HANDS?" Mom shouted from the kitchen.

"What calculus do you apply to conclude that we won't be here before you make food? Can't you just call when you are done making chapatti and not before?"

"Did you wash your hands though?"

"I am washing." I said walking towards the bathroom. I washed my hands and picked up a towel and soaked them. Then I went to kitchen and took out a plate and a bowl. Mom placed the chapatti on my plate and took my bowl and put dal in it.

I had my lunch and sat on my bed staring at my wrist watch (I love wrist watches) for it to strike five. It was 4:44. In my books, 5:00 p.m. was the time after which I can get out of my house to go anywhere I want. And I needed to go to Monica ma'am to share what had happened to get a solution.

5:00 p.m. Pants up, shirt down, face washed and soaked, slippers on, I left for my destination to unlock the secrets. BEHOLD ME DESTINY!

"So, after that weird force I felt in school, when I came home, I felt a knife inside me. I couldn't see it but I could feel it, its exact shape. After that I have been feeling like someone is always beside me, even now. And I have been feeling lot of super negative energy in me, it hits me for a moment but then it disappears. The moment it happens, I am unable to stand or hold myself, but I was thinking something. If I can feel this negative energy and we know everyone has this negative energy, does that mean, there is a way I could take in others negativity?" I asked with curious sparkling eyes.

We were sitting in her new house to which she recently shifted. We were in the hall with the entrance gate in front of me. There were two small dark greenish sofas and one big one. She was sitting on the big one and I was on the small one with a small brown tint marble table adjacent to us.

The room had orange walls and it was a square room with two ends open, one lead to next blue room, the other had a small rectangular space which then had the entrance gate.

No one even offered me a glass of water.

"But why do you need to do so, just fix yourself, that is enough." Monica ma'am said. I call her ma'am because she used to teach me tuitions and now it is a tongue habit.

"But I can help people."

"Why do you need to?"

I sighed, I didn't have an answer to that. I just felt that what I felt, everyone feels it during many events in their life. I felt I can take that pain away. It sounds foolish and imaginary, I know, but when something like this is happening with me, I can't say that.

"Yeah maybe I'll just drop the idea of helping others, I'll just focus on building myself and ending this, whatever it is." I said, and do I need to mention it? I don't think I need to mention this. I'll just specify this. I LIED, obviously and left after she gave me a 'healthy' diet routine for my recovery.

Why does everyone feel like just hygiene and healthy food can fix everything? It is important but you can't fix a cut by eating salad as first-aid. Can you?

I stood up from the sofa and she stood up too. Still no one has brought a glass of water, anyway not like I'm thirsty. I walked to the gate and pushed it open and took a one eighty-degree turn walked down the stairs, which also had a one eighty-degree turn at half length.

I unlocked my cycle and chained the lock on the seat of cycle. Monica ma'am waved at me from the first floor. I waved her back.

Now I didn't tell her this but as I was leaving her house, as I pedaled my cycle, I felt a spear right through the center of my chest, a huge one about six feet long. It hurt my chest, but I couldn't let myself fall on the ground. I just kept cycling ignoring it and returned home. I quickly parked the cycle under the stairs and climbed three floors and stopped at the gate. I opened the gate, went inside, closed it and pulled out the spear slowly and threw it away. I felt a small zap in doing so.

I went inside my house. Mom was scrolling on her phone, so was my brother.

"I am going upstairs." I told my mother and went upstairs.

This is where I carry out all my missions, my lovely terrace. My mission is to understand this thing and also sometimes figure out what routine I must follow and what should I do when I am confused about something. Here in the peace I can think about everything at my full potential with the air calming me down and no noise or person interrupting me.

I starting speaking to myself, "So today two new things have happened, until now I used to feel waves of negativity in me, which was confused by my family to be chest pain and ignored. Now it is more than even that. I felt blades in me and I also felt those weird resistive forces like my body is directing me towards something or someone. What can it be? And why is this even happening? Everything happens with a stimulus, so what makes me act like that? At first I used to think that my over-consciousness is acting when I am on road and there are noises but being alone and silent hurts too which concludes that surroundings are not a stimulus."

I kept walking thinking what it could be. I revised all the moments when it has happened to me. First, when walking through traffic; second, when visiting Vishu; after that sometimes at random moments usually when I am coming back home or near my family. And lastly a big moment today, the weird force and blades and spears.

There is no pattern in all these events.

"ARYAN!! Mom's calling you." My brother shouted from the door of terrace.

"COMING!!" I responded from the other end of the terrace.

I walked downstairs disappointed, 'I couldn't find any clue, maybe I'll have to wait for something to happen, maybe then things will connect.' I thought.

"Go wash your hands." Mom said.

"And once again you called me before you prepared anything." I said walking towards the bathroom.

"It is almost done."

"You are literally arranging the utensils to cook."

"So, what? It hardly takes 5 minutes to cook."

"Ok."

I think my habit of giving excuses is now justified.

I had dinner on my usual spot, the sofa and the brown table shaped like a capsule, a rectangle with semi-circles at its ends.

I slept after having dinner. I used to sleep beside my mother but with the thing that is developing in me, I can't do that anymore. I sleep alone as I get weird and terrifying dreams.

I laid down on the bed and covered myself with blanket and closed my eyes.

"WAKE UP!!!" My mom was shouting at me from far away, I woke up.

'Where did my blanket go?' I thought and looked around. It was on the ground. I picked up my specs and put them on and also wore my wrist watch.

These are my special accessories. My kada, my specs and my wrist watch. I value all these a lot, I can't stay without them. Obviously I need my specs, I got a power of 4. I need my wrist watch, it just comforts me. I don't know why. And my mother told me once when I was young, to never remove my kada, so wearing it has been another comfort for me.

And don't think I will pick up the blanket. Until I need it, it doesn't exist for me. Just kidding, I picked it up, I love my blanket (if I am using something, I will protect it till my last breath).

I got ready for school. My mother was late for school, but I was early because our school had different times for teachers and students. My brother is taking an off today. So my mother and I left for school.

I reached school, another day another journey. I sat behind Akshita and Kanika. You might think I lied to you when I said I didn't have any friends but I have a tale for you.

Back when I was in 9th, I used to be with Ujjwal always. But one person intruded our group, the new admission, Dheeraj. Ujjwal took many leaves so autonomously I used to sit with Dheeraj. But he wasn't like me. He wasn't stuck at one place, he was of all groups. He used to just walk to different groups and begin talking to them.

That was something I lowkey admired. So I began sticking with Dheeraj when he shifted near other groups, this helped me make conversations with students I had studied with for 2 years yet never talked personally.

At that time of many students I talked to, one of them was Akshita. A simple girl who didn't talk to anyone at all. I know what you are thinking. If I didn't talk to anyone and she didn't talk to anyone so how is it that we talk now?

Well the answer is mon amigo, Dheeraj. Akshita broke up with Vikas in those days or more like Vikas broke with her which was a big news because in the days when everyone was looking for a gf, Vikas dumped a girl and she didn't look bad at all. She was good in studies too.

So Dheeraj along with some other students started taunting her one day questioning about the mystery of break up and I took part in it to make a social group finally. I couldn't make any group back then, but after that...

After that, we were promoted to 10th, at that time I saw that Akshita had a new partner and she was a blessing in disguise. Even though I tried sometimes to use her break up as an excuse to talk to her, there wasn't anything else to talk about and something in me always told me I should talk to her. Her partner, Kanika, was a little more kind in conversations and I started talking to her. After our extra classes in March, in the beginning of our 10th class, I had developed somewhat connection to both.

Ujjwal kept shipping me with Kanika but I had no such intention. I wanted to know the silent guardian of self-secrets, instead.

I sat behind Kanika and Akshita, waving to both. A few students had arrived. I took out a book and started reading it. I kept looking at the door waiting for Ujjwal or Sam.

Ujjwal entered the class and sat beside me when I was talking with Kanika. Sam also entered the class and sat behind us. I turned towards him. The kid was still sitting at the last desk. I may have walked up to him and talked to him but I was kind of caught in between Kanika, Ujjwal and Sam.

Before this, only once, I had experienced such gathering where everyone was talking to me, in my previous school, when I was in 6th. My brother and I studied in that school together too. Unfortunately, he wasn't a good first impression of mine, as soon as any teacher knew that I was his brother, I was prejudiced.

And a teacher's impression of a kid sets a kid's standards for other students. And for me, a child who didn't talk to anyone, all there was about me was what the teacher said about me.

I was caught in a loop. When I was younger, I wasn't so shy. I used to be q-q-q-quite mischievous. I too played a lot, even though I wasn't good at sports much (below an average kid). I was good in studies though (above an average kid). And this one is a confession, I used to fight with kids too.

When I was promoted to class 3, in my previous school, we had completely new teachers as they had a separate building for kids in and above class 3. They didn't know about us. To my previous teachers I had left no impact or impression, but to my classmates... ohhh they were affected by me a lot.

The hammer hit me one day. Our class was introduced to meditation. Our P.E. teacher told us to close our eyes and imagine a scene...

"ARYAN!! ARYAN!!" our class teacher was calling my name.

"Aryan!" Ujjwal said shaking my shoulders, "Mam is calling you."

"Did you bring newspapers?" our class teacher asked.

I looked at her desk. If there are no newspapers there what sense does that question make? And maybe I would have accepted it if it was rhetoric but she asked again.

"Did you bring newspapers?"

"Yes, I brought them but then I burnt them and burnt their ash till there was nothing." I wish I could have said that.

"I'll bring them, how many should I bring?"

"40"

"Ok ma'am." I said and got out of my seat. This time I was sitting in the middle left row (left for someone who enters the class and faces the rows), so I got out myself instead of disturbing Ujjwal.

I walked downstairs. Back to flashback— our teacher started narrating us a scene and with my closed eyes I began imagining it. I could see the mountain, the flowers, myself there, just as she described. There was a warmth, the warmth after you wake up and you are ready for the day, in me.

Bell rang (in the flashback, do I really need to clear up everything?). Our teacher left her chair and called my name. I opened my eyes and looked at her.

"He was the best, everyone kept opening their eyes and giggling but he was meditating properly." As she said that, a smile extended on my face but...

"But ma'am he isn't a good student, he fights a lot and beats everyone." Someone said, I can't remember his face, but do I even need to when I remember many agreeing to him. I bent down my head.

"I don't care about that..." Abha ma'am said, I raised my head, she continued, "He is good in my class, you were not, I don't care how he is in other classes. Come here."

I walked to her and she gave me a candy and instructed me to sit back and walked out of the class. While I quietly sat down and stared at the candy, it changed...

For anyone this might be just a simple incident, but for me it changed me... it changed my life (and something I never knew, it will change me even further, to the extent where I start thinking, what happens... when I die?)

"Good morning Aryan!" Preeti ma'am said (my current librarian).

"Good morning ma'am." I said sincerely.

"How many newspapers?"

"40"

"Ok, one...two...three...fovur...fiyve...seize..." her words starting fading in my senses, the gravity increased, I felt a concentrated energy at the center of my chest. But with all of that is it weird that I realized that I can't fall here.

She raised her left hand with newspapers in it, my hand that felt already heavy, I raised it. 'Control yourself, not here, not here, not HERE, NOT HERE!!' I told myself and took newspapers.

The effect vanished as I walked out of the library. But just then, I felt a rope out of me, unlike last time I could see it more this time.

A yellow rope with orange tinted edges floating in the air extending out of my stomach and for some reason walking with it felt like my body was in a flow, I could speed up more. It felt as if the viscosity of air had vanished, as if my body was in vacuum and the rope was pulling me.

It ended at my class door.

I pushed the door, it didn't open (and that is why we never close that door, the school has many such unattended problems). I took a deep breath.

I know you are thinking what is so hard about opening a door? Lately I have been applying more strength to things than I actually want to. I kept my left hand at the door and applied some force. It didn't open. 'Maybe a little more wouldn't hurt.' I thought and slammed my hand at the door and it opened and slammed itself at the wall.

Everyone looked at me, I grinned and shook my head in apology and quietly kept the newspapers at the teacher's table taking out three newspapers (mine, Ujjwal's, Sam's).

I sat down at my desk swiftly keeping their newspapers in front of them and turning mine to page no. 5. I started solving sudoku. Ujjwal and I race for sudoku and the race begins as soon as the newspaper is in front of us, no one waits for the other to open the page and then fold the newspaper. So, I have become an expert at folding the newspaper.

Periods went by. If you are wondering who won the sudoku race, it was me followed by Ujjwal and I don't know why Sam joined but he lost pretty badly with not being able to finish sudoku. Ujjwal won the find the word section (random letters, find the words given) and the mathematics section (numbers are provided and we need to use the four basic operators to somehow get the answer given). And then I finished reading all the other sections before him (they have some facts and current affairs and stuff) and completing the quiz section so you can say I won.

Now there was someone new to talk to among us. Beside Sam was sitting... Jatin, with the other new kid sitting at the left row, last desk, quietly scribbling something.

I looked at the quiet kid for a moment, before Sam shook me and asked-

"What happened?"

"Nothing, just... nothing." I said getting back my senses together.

"Where are you today? You weren't listening to ma'am when she called you." Ujjwal taunted me.

"Looking at my bright future, I guess, where I beat you at everything and become the best." I replied as savagely as I could.

Everyone laughed politely. But I had something in mind. There is something about him, the kid. He is just so quiet, I see myself. No one helped me but maybe I can help him.

Thank You

- Anshuman Khanna