Chapter 14: Avi's Flickering Memories

The night was thick, suffocating. Avi twisted under the scratchy cotton bedsheet, a thin film of sweat covering his chest. The ceiling fan whirred overhead, stirring humid air that did nothing to cool his burning skin.

Sleep came in shards, broken and chaotic. And then the dream took hold.

He was standing in a place he'd never seen, yet felt frighteningly familiar — a crumbling old house with blood-red walls, shadows dancing across the corners. A woman was sobbing, her wails echoing through the cavernous hall, the sound slicing straight into his bones.

Avi moved closer, trying to see her face. She was on the floor, hair tangled around her shoulders, tears running down her cheeks. Her bangles jingled with each tremor of her hands, glassy and fragile.

Beyond her, a man lay still on the cold cement, his shirt stained crimson. Avi's heart jolted. The man's face was partly hidden, but something in his jawline, the curve of his cheek, made Avi's stomach lurch.

Papa?

The word formed on his lips, stuck, refused to come out.

Dushyant.

The name burst through his skull, like an axe through glass.

He watched, paralyzed, as the woman crawled forward, cradling the dead man's head against her chest, rocking him like a broken doll. The woman's wails rose to a haunting crescendo, clawing into Avi's soul.

Then the scene fractured — blood blooming like ink in water, the woman's voice distorting until it was a harsh animal cry. Avi tried to step closer, tried to help, but the floor turned to tar, sucking him down, pulling him under.

"Why did you leave me?"

The woman's voice slammed into him, raw, accusing, unbearably familiar.

Ma?

The dream twisted again, shifting without mercy.

He was smaller, suddenly, no older than five or six, peeking through a half-open door. His mother was kneeling on the same cold cement floor, her saree slipping off one shoulder, exposing the curve of her breast as she hugged the lifeless Dushyant. Tears drenched her face. But something else was there too — something dark, almost shameful — a hunger in her eyes, as if part of her was relieved.

Avi shook, fighting to break the vision.

He could smell something heavy — sandalwood, sweat, and the coppery tang of blood. The scent wrapped around him, made him nauseous.

The woman in the dream looked up straight at him.

Shalini.

His own mother.

Her gaze pinned him like a nail through a moth's wings, a gaze torn between agony and strange, twisted desire. She rocked Dushyant's dead body while whispering words Avi couldn't understand, a chant that rose and fell in a sick, hypnotic rhythm.

Then the dream shifted again, impossibly cruel.

He was older now, a teenager, in the same dream — standing above Shalini as she lay sprawled on the floor in her torn blouse, sweat gleaming on her skin, tears still streaming. She reached for him, her arms outstretched, the scent of her body thick and raw and dizzying.

"Avi… don't leave me too…"

He tried to back away. Her hands found his wrist, yanking him closer, pulling his head to her chest, the scent of her sweat flooding his senses until he thought he might choke on it.

"You'll never leave me," she whispered in a voice that was half-mother, half-lover, a voice that made his knees buckle.

He struggled, but he was caught in the sticky warmth of her skin, the softness of her breasts pressing against his face. Shame and a sick thrill twisted in his gut.

Then the blood came back, red and endless, pouring from Dushyant's still form like a river that would never dry.

Avi screamed inside the dream, but the sound never left his throat.

The walls seemed to close in, crushing him with heat, with the metallic smell of death and the heavy, animal scent of a woman who had lost something she could never replace.

His mother.

His mother.

Shalini.

The dream splintered apart, leaving him gasping, flung into darkness.

He shot up in bed, panting so hard his ribs hurt, his hands trembling. The night was silent except for the distant barking of a stray dog and the shrill whine of mosquitoes.

What the fuck was that?

His mind scrambled, trying to pull the threads together. His father, Dushyant, dead — he could see it, taste it, feel it like an old wound ripped open. His mother, Shalini, sobbing in the blood, her saree sticking to her skin, her scent so thick it had burned itself into his memory.

But it wasn't only grief he'd sensed from her. It was something darker — a lonely woman's desperate need, a hunger she'd never admitted. It repulsed and excited him at the same time, making his cock stiffen in the dark under the thin bedsheet.

God, no.

He tried to push the shame down, but images swirled anyway — Shalini's armpits slick with sweat, her soft belly quivering as she wept, her voice begging, Don't leave me.

Avi pressed the heel of his palm to his groin, furious at himself, but the erection refused to go away. The dream had branded itself on him, even in waking.

He stood up on shaking legs and went to splash water on his face, the mirror showing him a pale, haunted boy with eyes too wide, too raw.

Why does this feel so close? So real?

He tried to breathe. He could still hear his mother's broken sobs in his ears, still smell the sticky perfume of sweat and sandalwood. And worst of all, the heat rising through his own veins, twisting with something he dared not name.

As he walked back to bed, he noticed something under the dresser — an old, faded photograph of Dushyant and Shalini, their arms around each other, Shalini's head resting on Dushyant's shoulder, smiling a smile that looked forced even back then.

He picked it up, studying the way her eyes seemed to look right through the camera, distant and afraid.

What are you hiding, Ma?

Avi lay back down, the question gnawing at his mind until he drifted again into uneasy half-sleep.

And in the darkness, his mother's scent came back to him — cloying, intoxicating, impossible to escape.

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