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Blood. Tears. Agony.

A grin spread across Aliya's face as she settled into her cab and disconnected Ankit's call. They had been engaged for seven months now, and marriage was on the cards. The cab's driver, Ravi, greeted her as she sat, and she greeted him back--she had known him for two years, he'd worked at her company for quite some time and had often dropped her home when she worked late nights.

Aliya slumped into the back seat of the car, and re-read Ankit's last message. Smiling to herself, she thought of the day when, a few months later, she would be his bride. It was to be a big, fat Punjabi wedding. Lots of food, stunning clothes, flowers, music, and too many pujas. The pujas, ah. The smoke from the havan always hurt Aliya's eyes and they watered. Just like now..

*
Aliya awoke with a start. Looking out the window, she realised that the drive home was another 45 minutes, and it was already 10:30 PM. Aliya told Ravi to hurry up and drive a little faster, and he nodded slugggishly. It was then that she noticed that he was, in fact, slowing down.
Aliya stiffened as the car screeched to a halt and the driver stepped out. The road was absolutely isolated-not a soul in sight. Her shouts would be unheard. Her fist clenched around her cellphone as Ravi appeared at her door and wrenched it open. She thought of resisting and fighting back, but just then, she noticed the knife in his hand. He grasped her arm roughly, pulling her out of the car with a jerk. Panic gripped Aliya as she fell to the ground, her cellphone bouncing off and landing a little distance away.

Ravi looked at her greedily and inched closer as she crawled back, her shrill cries punctualted with gentle sobs. Her body convulsed at his disgusting first touch on her arm, and she screamed her loudest. The hand with the knife deviously reached up to her neck and tore her sleeve apart. Aliya screamed no more...

*

Three hours later, Aliya rang the doorbell of her house, bruised and soiled. Her parents, worried sick, opened up almost immediately-Aliya hadn't been taking their calls all this time. As his eyes fell on his daughter, her father fell into the armchair, even as her mother let out a chilling shriek. Aliya, however, stared blankly ahead, unaffected by the extreme reactions around her. The walk to her room seemed shorter than ever, she was losing all track of time. It was only when she locked the door and turned to face herself in the mirror that the first traces of emotion began to show.
Aliya slumped to the floor, as if her two legs could no longer carry the weight of all the pain in her. And then, she cried. Hot, angry tears flowed down her dirt stained cheeks as she began to realise what had become of her. As she tried to coerce herself to believe that she wasn't guilty at all. Tried to persuade herself that the society's acceptance mattered no more-that she was answerable to noone but her own conscience.
Would Ankit still stay by her though? How could she possibly go on without him? Assurance wasn't easy to come, and the traitor tears flowed on. And then, the disbelief hit, and Aliya screamed her loudest, her cry drowning her mother's frantic sobbing and her father's continuous banging at the door and requests to open up. How could this happen? Her life had turned upside down in a matter of hours-the phonecall made to Ankit seemed a distant dream. And now her parents were at the door, knocking, banging, expecting a surge of insanity in their daughter, hoping it never comes. Troubled, concerned, terrified.

The crime shows they followed so religiously had fed them with plenty of examples of rape victims committing suicide in a sudden flash of hysteria and inexplicable guilt. Little did they know that the hysteria had long come and gone.
That their daughter wasn't one to take the humiliation lying down-she never was.

She'd felt his vile touch on her arm, ripping off the sleeve of her shirt and coming closer still. His foul stench had repulsed her, but her mind had refused to give up. In a swift move she'd rolled over on top of him, catching him unaware in the midst of his lust, and snatching the knife from his filthy hands. There had been a shriekh and a pair of blank eyes had looked at her, shock etched across Ravi's blanched face as he grasped the side of his chest and lay down, limp.
She hadn't meant to kill, only save her own skin. As she'd realised what she'd done, though, a strange calm had wiped over her, extinguishing all traces of guilt or shame.
It had gone too far.

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