Chapter 1
"I write to soothe myself." Naina wrote and deleted the draft several times.
Tears slithering down her cheek sang the tale of her pain. She wanted to shove that pain into her cellphone through writing. But the words were evasive.
Meanwhile, two pairs of feet shuffled in deliberation outside her house.
"We have to kill her," Hriday said, finally determined. His eyes were bloodshot with hatred.
"Are you sure she is a bloodsucker?" Vani, Hriday's cousin, rubbed her sweaty palms in apprehension.
"I am sure. It has been a week since we came here. Have you ever seen her step out in the morning? She is a bloodsucker. And we both saw her mouth smeared in blood tonight."
"I don't know what I saw."
Inside the house, Naina had started whimpering. There was no one in the house that night. Still, she tried muffling her sound of agony.
It had been a particularly abysmal day. And she could feel it all too deeply. Her morning was ruined by the rejection mail from the company she had applied for. Then, her parents informed her about their delay in returning from the village. Naina had gone out to the music festival in the evening to raise her spirit, which instead got dampened when she was shoved aside to make way for the singer swaggering to the stage.
"She was standing in the singer's way. The employees had no time to pause and ask Naina to move. They were trying to do their job. The push was probably involuntary or unintentional." Naina knew it and still couldn't help but feel hurt. To top this unsavory day with a cherry, the neighborhood boys splattered blood on her face as a prank on her way back home. They said that it wasn't meant for her while giggling and jeering. She just came in the way. What crappy luck!
The crappy luck wasn't yet over with its gimmicks.
"Even if she were a bloodsucker, she looks like a beginner. That means she feels fear. She feels pain. I don't want to be in this," Vani said, trotting away.
"I can do it alone," Hriday said to himself, growing his nails an inch in a second. The nails he grew this time protruded out of fury. Hence, they were sharp, they were pointy, and they were deadly.
He advanced towards the door to Naina's house.
"Where is the locker?" Naina heard a gravelly voice ask.
A shriek of terror escaped her mouth when she saw a burglar brandishing a knife at her. She cowered back to the wall. The man wore a mask, as any thief would.
"Where is the locker?" Naina wondered. "Do we even have a locker?"
She couldn't remember ever seeing a locker in the house. Her memory was shrouded in wreaths of haze. She felt trembles and frozen limbs at the same time.
"Tell me where the locker is, or I'll kill you," the burglar hollered.
Hriday followed the burglar's coarse voice and landed in the room shortly.
He saw the burglar threatening Naina. Naina was perspiring. The fear was etched all over her face.
Maybe it was the helplessness she exuded at that moment that sprouted a bud of sympathy for her in Hriday's heart. All he could think about was saving her somehow. His instincts instigated him to protect her.
Before he knew it, he raised his hand and drew a long scratch along the burglar's back. The burglar went numb out of shock for a moment, and then, turning back, he tried swinging the knife at Hriday. But the wound inflicted on him had paralyzed his hands to some extent.
He fled the scene at once while his legs were still usable.
Hriday chased the burglar down to the living room, and then a realization struck him. Hence, he stopped his pursuit of the burglar at the threshold of the house.
Hriday was not there to save Naina; rather, he was there to wipe at least one bloodsucker from the face of the earth.
A few days ago, one of those bloody monsters had killed one of Hriday's closest friends. The murder scene was so brutal and gory that Hriday hadn't been able to express his grief for the whole day. The scene of the mutiliated body had choked his senses. Earlier, when he used to hear stories of those monsters, called Nisrak, he would feel a sense of disgust. Now he felt anger; anger swirled into tornadoes of wrath.
Hriday closed the door, took a long breath of determination, and turned back for his initial mission.
Naina stood right in front of him. She looked at Hriday. She didn't care at all that he was a stranger. In her eyes, he was the most trustworthy person at that moment. Before she could think more, she was hugging him in gratitude.
His chest felt warm and safe. His breath whispered assurance. The stress of the day slowly started ebbing away as she closed her eyes in that embrace.
Hriday stood still.
