A Normal Day

" Khalid ! Are you looking for something?", Someone asks him, he turns his face and sees his mother grabbing a glass.

" No, but are we out of apple's.", Khalid asks. He loves apples the most out of all the fruits.

" Vania ate the last apple this morning. I've told your father, he'll bring in more apples by tonight.", his mother explains as she fills her glass with water.

" Ok, thank you mother. I'll be going to the roof ", he says getting out of the kitchen.

" Alright but make sure you come back before lunch", his mother says as she puts the glass back to where she had taken it from.

" ok mother.", he says with a slightly louder voice, climbing the stairs.

Two weeks later.

"Bhai, do you want to play with me?", Vania asks Khalid , hoping that he won't reject because Khalid didn't play with his ever since his exams had started, but it's different now. his exams are over now and his holidays have started.

He's currently waiting for his result, once it's out, he'll get busy again because his college will start.

" Sure. Come on, let's go to your room.", Khalid suggests.

Vania jumps with joy and leads her brother to her room. She quickly opens her game trunk. She finds something for a while inside the trunk and then she turns with a ludo board in her hand. She runs towards Khalid and places the ludo board on her bed. Khalid climbs the bed and sits down in front of the blue side of the board. Vania runs back to the game trunk. This time her hands carry a transparent box. She closes the trunk and runs towards Khalid .

She takes out the ludo tokens and dice.

Both of them start playing turn by turn.

" Vania you can't take this token out yet, you need to score a six first.", Khalid tells Vania.

Vania throws the dice once again. She scores 2 on one dice and 5 on another.

" hey ! It's my turn.", Khalid says with a smile.

" Haha, no! Bhai it's mine ", she throws the dice once again.

" ohh! Wow, Bhai look. Two six ", Vania says with joy. She jumps in excitement.

" You little cheater.", Khalid says tickling his little sister. He stops and pouts. " That's unfair."

" Bhai look, you're token's dying by mine. See it's six blocks away from mine.", Vania says capturing Khalid 's token.

"Well, that just means, I can never win against you. Huh?"

Both of them continue playing.

After a while.

" yeah, I won again.", Vania says throwing herself on the bed.

Khalid smiles looking at his little sister. He gets up from the bed, gathers the tokens and dice, puts them in their box.

" Bhai, what are we going to do next?", Vania asks as she sits straight.

" I'm tired now and it's late too. So, how about I tell you a story and then both of us go to sleep.", Khalid suggests, putting the box and ludo board back into the trunk.

He closes the trunk and then gets into the bed with his sister

He starts telling the story as,

Once, there lived a boy. He was different. Different from everyone around him.

" How was he different from everyone else?", Vania asks with curiosity.

" you'll know if you listen. If you continue to speak, then I'll start feeling sleepy and you won't be able to listen to the complete story.", Khalid tells his sister to remain silent.

" Ok Bhai, but I know you'll still start feeling sleepy and you will leave without telling me the complete story, Even if I remain silent.", Vania pouts.

" hey, you little ", Khalid says while hugging Vania." I'll try my best to tell you the complete story but still I can't promise."

Khalid continues telling the story

The boy was different because, something strange had caught his attention. Unlike most of the children of his age, he studied nor played. Instead, he kept himself busy. Busy thinking about what had caught his attention.