Trembling Shadows
A romantic, psychological thriller
Kotra Siva Rama Krishna
“Oh, you are here?” Sunanda opened her eyes when she had heard Aravind’s voice. “So you too liked this room to come and stay like this.” Aravind said as his charming smile playing its part again on his lips.
“Who doesn’t? It is quite a neat room to come and stay.” Observing him minutely Sunanda said. She felt a flash of current gone through her while observing him so. Aravind was indeed a handsome boy. He was not too tall but having enough height. His small eyes in his round face were quite active. He cut his hair short and she liked anyone who kept their hair short like that. It might be sinful but she had got a sexual urge while seeing him so.
“Why you are looking at me so?” as her looks were embarrassing to him Aravind asked her.
“Oh, nothing” Sunanda was confused when he asked like that. “Please sit on the bed. Don’t stand like that. If you stand so for long, your legs start paining”
“No problem I am accustomed to stand like this” Aravind said. He really felt to go and sit on the bed but could not do so as she sat on that then.
“Don’t think too much. This bed is very big. I am considering you as my close friend. Please come and sit on the bed.” Looking at him straightly she said.
Aravind did not know what to do. In fact he was not having that much friendship with her. He had talked to her occasionally on one or two times when she had come to Rajesh’s house. For that much itself she was saying that he was her close friend. She appeared overactive to him.
“I too stand up if you don’t come and sit on the bed” As he was still hesitating Sunanda said. “There is nothing to feel otherwise. Please come and be seated on the bed.”
As he could not escape Aravind went near to the bed and sat on that. But he could not be comfortable at all. After he seated so he looked at her with a frown in his face. He was surprised. She was indeed beautiful! She might not appear beautiful when she was beside that Sameera but she was really beautiful when she was not with her.
“What you are thinking? Am I appearing a little different to you?” Sunanda asked him.
“Not at all” he quickly said.
“I have seen that you are talking with my husband. What you both have talked?” Sunanda asked him.
He felt embarrassed on hearing that. He did not think at all that she would ask him so.
“We just have a friendly chit-chat. Nothing more than that” Aravind replied to her. He averted his gaze from her and started looking somewhere else.
“Is it is just like that?” she asked him again. He looked at her surprisingly. He could not understand why she was thinking it was more than that.
“Yes of course, we have just been acquainted a little more to each other. What there would be more than a friendly talk between us?” with a smile and surprise in his face Aravind said.
Sunanda got up herself from the bed and went middle of the room. “I cannot say why but you are appearing quite close to me. I mean you are appearing as a close friend to me.”
Aravind did not say anything to her. He did not feel any surprise either hearing her words. In fact, most of the people felt like that in the presence of Aravind. Some of them expressed their feeling so to him as Sunanda did now. Anand as well expressed his feeling just like that.
“Thank you” he did not know what to say more than that then.
“I am in trouble. He is not liking me.” Looking on to the floor Sunanda said.
“He means who?” Arvind understood but asked her. He wanted to hear his name from her mouth. Anyhow he could not understand why she was saying all that to him then.
“Don’t act like a child. I know that you know whom I meant. It is my husband Mr.Anand” she said a little angrily.
“It is your wife and husband problem. How can I help in this?” Aravind really confused on hearing that.
“We cannot solve this problem ourselves. I am feeling fear that what would happen to my life in future.” Without moving her gaze from the floor she said.
“Are you thinking that I can solve this problem?” he could not come out of his surprise at all.
“Certainly you can. I have got that confidence in you.” She said. “When I have seen you something in me told me that you are the person who can save me from this problem. So I have told you about it.” Now she looked into his face and there was a small smile on her lips now.
“You did not tell me what that problem is.” Adjusting himself on the bed more comfortably Aravind said.
“I cannot say about that problem myself. Ask him, he will say that to you.” This time looking at her nails which were beautifully polished in red she said.
“Why you cannot say about that problem? As it is you who want a solution to it, I want to hear it from you rather than from Anand” Aravind said again.
“No please. Only he would tell you about that. Do not press me to say anything about that.” Coming near to the bed and sat on that again Sunanda said.
“He may feel otherwise if I try to interfere between your wife and husband” he doubted.
“Even he feels otherwise you have to do that” Sunanda said firmly. “But he is having good opinion on you. He would not feel otherwise at all for your interference in this matter.”
“I cannot give any guarantee. But I certainly try my level best to solve your wife and husband problem” even without knowing what the problem was Aravind promised to her.
Sunanda nodded her head. She looked into his eyes again. There was no particular expression in them.
“Why do you want to ask me this help I cannot understand and how do you have got confidence only in me only you know but I shall try my level best, I shall try all my level best to solve your problem whatever it may be” he wholeheartedly promised to her once again.
“Thank you, thank you very much Aravind. I am feeling quite happy.”
There was some silence in between them then. The small drizzle turned into a big rain.
“How Sameera is behaving with you now?” Sunanda asked him suddenly.
“Why you are asking so?” he surprisingly asked her. Then he said “In whichever manner she behaves with me I am not going to take that seriously. I know that she is still very young and have to learn the lessons of manners a little more.” ‘Why this girl had taken the topic of Sameera’ he irritatingly and surprisingly thought in himself.
“She needs some right handling Aravind. I know she is not behaving properly with you. But it is not direct anger or dislike on you. She hates anything, whatever that is, her parents like. You are a very favorite one to her parents so she hates you too.” She said that so as if she was telling a great secret to him.
“Why it is so?” he was not completely unaware of Sameera’s dislike towards her parents but he did not know the reason.
“It is a big story. Some day she herself would tell you about that” looking at somewhere else she said
Aravind did not say anything. Then she looked into his face.
“No girl dislikes you for long. She soon would become a good friend to you. Whether you know it or not, you have such handsomeness in you.” A small smile parted and widened her lips. What she did not know by that time was Sameera already started getting attracted towards him.
&&&
Sameera was in the downstairs middle room. In that room there were no windows. So it was little suffocating in it. At the same time it was not as big as the other rooms in that house. Anyhow, as it was winter, the sky was cloudy and was raining, it was not that much uncomfortable in that room. Aravind put his big suitcase in this room and for few seconds she looked at it interestingly. What he would have put in that big suitcase she could not understand. She remembered her talking with Aravind in this room and a small smile crossed her lips. There were two more rooms bigger than this in downstairs either side to that room and in the left side room the old woman was laying on the bed and used by her and her parents while the right side room was used by Vinod, Malathi, Sunanda and her husband Anand. Aravind put his luggage in this room along with other people and spending most of his time in the hall and upstairs rooms.
There were no chairs in that room but a carpet like thing spreaded on the floor. She sat on that and started looking in four directions. Now she did not want to go into the upstairs room. It seemed Aravind and Sunanda were in it for a long time. She was surprising what they both were talking in that room then.
She did not know why her interest towards Aravind was increasing now. She was trying to keep her mind away from his thoughts but she could not. It seemed quite foolishness to her to hate him just because her parents were loving him. She could not resist the feeling to be friendly with Aravind. Even it would please her parents she did not want to bother now.
As she was staring around the room so, Aravind’s big suitcase came into her notice again. She went near to that and to her surprise she found the keys of the suitcase to it itself. Once again she felt curious thinking what he had brought with him in it to there. As the keys were also with it she wanted to open it and look inside. She knew it was not a good thing and she would be put in trouble if Aravind or anyone suddenly came into the room and found her searching in the suitcase which was not her’s. But there was no other work to her to do then. This thought was giving her a little thrill. So she had decided to open it and see what was in it.
With little shivering in her hands she unlocked the suitcase, opened the lid and looked inside. Mostly clothes along with some toiletries. Just like those he was wearing and using then. Aravind was not interested in dressing fashionably. He liked to appear as an ordinary boy. That was one more thing which must be changed in him, she thought in herself. She got a little disappointed as she could not find anything except dresses and toiletries in that suitcase as she was looking so. While she was taking out one after one those dresses and toiletries, she got something hard to her hand. She quickly threw aside the dresses, held it with her fingers strongly and took it out. Her eyes became wide with surprise when she looked at that. It was a book. But it appears as a very old book. It was musty and stale. If it was not handled carefully the pages of it would be torn off.
(I hope that you enjoyed upto here. I shall publish the next chapter as soon as possible. Please don’t forget to rate and review.)
