" Get me out of this place right now! " , the walls shook with Devasena's command.
Amarendra stood still, his smile intact. He slowly took a few steps forward, which immediately drove Devasena a few steps backward.
" Don't, just don't come near me. How dare you bring me here? How dare you play pranks on me this way? "
Amarendra stopped. Devasena too. She noticed that his smile slowly got replaced by a curtain of despair and darkness. And his eyes... his eyes...portrayed something illegible, yet immensely captivating.
Another feat of vertigo struck her. She almost fainted again, but a chair lay nearby and she managed to sink on it.
Amarendra wouldn't move. Rather he kept watching her.
She felt nauseating, and a pain rose from the back.
Devasena was afraid suddenly. Terribly.
" Why...why do I feel so uneasy? I bet you made me drink something! Or injected into me some drug! "
Devasena got up struggling, her feet swayed.
" I know you'll find yourself. " , Amarendra didn't really answer her, nor did he help her anyway. He rather slowly left the room. And Devasena couldn't stop him because she wasn't in a position to. She held her head and sat back. Worlds swirled around her.
Devasena had been running down the corridors to rooms, locked or never opened, screaming out loud, for the last half an hour.
The palace was an unending maze. After she was done with her phase of vertigo and nausea, after she felt a bit better, she knew she was all alone again. She walked in the direction she had entered the hall from, and found the door shut as if... it had never opened for a hundred years now.
She cursed her direction senses, but to her surprise the only door that led her out of the hall,' wasn't to the corridors that were illuminated. Rather a blinding darkness welcomed her.
Devasena wasn't afraid of the dark. Most importantly she had to get out of the hall. The massive oil painting almost swallowed her now and then, and the devastating part was that, she herself being a painter knew extremely well at just a glance that the picture was at least five hundred years old.
And therefore, though he cursed the man in question for playing pranks on her, she had doubts of the best kind that he was not, at least the painting didn't vibe being painted any recent..
" Where are you? "
Devasena judged her way through the darkness, because she typically remembered the previous corridor.
A faint light illuminated the end. And the end seemed real far. Like real real far.
Devasena didn't know everyone exactly from her art college. But somehow somewhere she felt she had definitely seen the man in question. Maybe the man was a painter too, an expert who could make things appear real old. Maybe the man followed her, and ...and... just is playing pranks to frighten her up. What is he cooking? Last life stories? Long lost love stories? Meh!?
Devasena pursed her lips as she walked on...making the light at the end her guide. She remebered though, the courtroom didn't house pictures of the Kings!
She wasn't particularly aware of any dynasty in Bhopal, her history was real weak.
Devasena had reached the light source. It was a half closed door, and as she pushed it, it made such a screeching sound as if it hadn't been opened for centuries.
The room was pretty large. A table stood against a wall, on which flickered a lantern, the light that guided her.
Devasena slowly picked up the lantern. She was thankful because the corridors could only lead her to some exit, but they were dismally dark, and the man who wanted her to find herself was nowhere to be seen.
Just as she picked the lantern up, she knew the wall held another portrait. Her throat felt dry. Shaking, she slowly moved the lantern upto the face of the person painted.
She herself didn't know why a scream left her lung. The same man in question sat on a 'singhasana', just that he had long hairs and a thick beard and was dressed like a king. Apart from that... it was the same smile, the same eyes...
With the sudden jerk the lantern had fallen from her hands, and the room was pitch dark again.
Crap! She expected only this! But why did this portrait hit her harder than the last one? Why did she feel for a second, why did a vision strike her that she had really seen the person dressed like a king, alive, awake, and moving, in this very attire?
Devasena almost ran out of the room, only to be utterly devastated to find, the corridors carefully lit, just as she had seen earlier.
An eeriness ran down her spine for the first time.
Was the man who brought her here, REAL??
The chill numbed her for almost ten seconds, and then evoked a massive push. Devasena started running in a different direction, along a different corridor, but every corridor now seemed lit, guiding her steps as she ran for life, her eyes bursting and her heart pounding in a breathtaking fear.
Since then she had been running around a honeycomb maze, down corridors lit and dark, doors that never opened,shouting and screaming on top of her lungs... until, her tired mind and body, fell on the ground with a thud.
***
When Devasena regained consciousness, she found herself lying on an empty road. She got up, estranged as to how she had found her way out of the palace...
Or did the man in question put her on the road and leave?
Devasena couldn't think of anything. She didn't even know where she was, just when an autorickshaw happened to be approaching her. She showed hands.
" Bhaiyaa... what is this place? "
The driver stared strangely ...so did the passengers.
" Laalmaati road."
Extremely relieved, sh got up. Because she knew her way home from here.
Throughout the short journey, Devasena just couldn't find any possible explanation to whatever happened with her. She only knew she had left college at 7:30, faced the goons at around the same time, and then... was like in a trance of being at a palace for almost two hours.
9:20. Her watch showed.
She didn't know if she had to be dumbfounded, or frightened, or just forget the palace, and the man...
But...
Just as she got down and was about to pay for the ride, a chit fell from the purse.
Devasena picked it up.
" I KNOW YOU'LL FIND YOUR WAY BACK. I'LL WAIT TILL THEN. "
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