The Endearing Affliction

Anna walked briskly through the forest, the only audible sound, apart from the occasional

croaking of frogs was that of the ground squishing beneath her feet. It clearly had rained the

previous day, for the ground was really wet. Every now and then she would trip over the fallen

branches of trees, the aftermath of a storm. A geographical storm had hit the city, but along

with it, a storm, a metaphorical one, had hit Anna’s life that rainy month of July...

It was a sunny day, July, The 1st. quite short for her age and with shoulder length dark

brown hair, Anna helped her parents get the luggage out of the car. They proceeded

Towards the platform no.1 of the railway station with the entire luggage. 3 bags were

All her mother needed for her 1-week stay at Surat. “Be sure to get something for me, mumma”,

chirped in her younger sister Darla. “Of course! How can I forget to bring something for my li’l angel!” said her mother, Alice. “Bring something for me too, a book or something.” added Anna; her mother pulled her and her sister in a tight hug,

“So, sweeties, I need you two to take care of yourselves and don’t try to do any big mischief “, she said with a smile. “But I’d miss you momma”, Darla said with tears in her eyes. “I’d only be gone for a week, now don’t you cry and show me that bright smile of yours. Here, take care of this when I’m gone” saying this, she handed her a small basket which she had just taken out from her bag. Darla cheered up after looking inside the basket“It’s a tiny li’l bunny! Where did you get this?” she

asked, her voice filled with joy. “I bought it from the pet shop we had gone a few

days back.”, her mother answered with a twinkle in her eye. Just then they heard the whistle of the train and in a few minutes the train arrived at the platform. “Goodbye kids, goodbye

Frank”, she said and started walking towards her coach. “Goodbye momma”, Anna

shouted along with her sister. Their mother waved back from the window when she reached

her berth. The train blew another whistle, billowed a lot of smoke and then started to move, slowly at first, but picked up speed after some time until

it was nothing but a blue dot visible at a distance. “Okay, so I think we should go home now

or I’ll definitely miss my tuition class”, Anna said after her mother’s train had moved out of

sight. “Yes, you’re right, we must go now. So, who wants a li’l ice-cream treat?” her father said with

a bright smile. “Me! Me! I want ice-cream!!” Darla said, jumping up and down with

excitement, ice-creams were her favourite thing. Her father smiled and started walking after

them.

After reaching home Anna left for her tuition and Darla settled down to play with the bunny

when her father left for work. “I can’t keep you calling li’l thing forever, so I’d call you bugs

bunny from now ”, she said and giggled, ”but you’re so tiny and bugs bunny is so tall. I’d

rather call you fluffy”, she said, taking pride in her selection of the name. After an hour or so

of chasing the bunny around the house, she finally crashed on the sofa, “enough play for a

day. I’m gonna watch TV now, so you could scamper around the house if you want to”, she

said to the bunny and switched on the TV. The bunny decided to enjoy its freedom by

running around the house, knocking small things like lipsticks, empty water bottles down with

its tiny feet and trying to climb the curtains. After some time, when Anna came back home,

she found the house in a complete mess, small things atop tables and racks were all

knocked down , Darla was sitting on the sofa ,lost in the world of Disney and the bunny was

nowhere to be seen , but the weirdest thing was the presence of bloody paw prints. Tiny,

bloody paw prints. “Darla! Come here at once!” Anna shouted, her voice shaky. ”Why should I

come? You come here, I want to watch my favourite show”, Darla shouted back and glued her

eyes to the TV with even more intensity. “Darla, this serious! You can watch that show’s

Re-run tomorrow!”, Anna was getting frustrated. “Ah! Alright, I’m coming. This better be a

legit reason for me missing my favourite sho- aah!! What’s with all the bloody prints on the

floor?”, Darla asked in a squeaky voice while trying to tip-toe to a clean place where there

weren’t any blood prints. “Well, that is something I should be asking you.” Anna

crossed her arms. “What? Do you think that I did this?” Darla questioned while pointing to

the prints. “You were the one at home. you must know how this happened if it wasn’t your

fault”. “I do not have any idea, I was playing with the bunny and then I sat down to watch TV

while the li’l one ran around the house”, Darla answered with an innocent expression. Just

then the bunny came running, took one look at them at turned back towards Anna’s room,

running and leaving behind a trail of bloody paw prints. The sisters took one look at each

other and ran after the bunny.

They chased the bunny all the way to Anna’s room where it was trying to climb a curtain. Darla let out a small squeal and Anna stood there spell bound. “Well, that’s weird”, she said pointing towards the bunny trying to climb the curtain. “How?” asked Darla, “’cause, bunnies don’t try to climb anything, let alone curtains”, Anna said as she moved forward, towards the bunny and saw blood stains on the bottom of the curtain where the bunny was trying to climb. She picked up the bunny, removed the curtain from its paws. It had injured its paw, indeed. “Oh, you silly little bunny! Injured your paw now, haven’t you?”, Anna said as she cradled the bunny in her arms. “Looks like we have a bit of nursing to do. Right, doctor?” she teasingly asked Darla who beamed at the thought, she loved playing a doctor. They took it to the bathroom where Anna took its injured paw in her hand, observed it and asked Darla to bring some antiseptic liquid and band-aid. Meanwhile, she tried to clean the wound with water and some of the blood got on her hands.She washed her hands with soap and water, the blood got away but left behind a pale yellow stain in its place. When Darla came back with the first aid kit, they dressed its wound and put it to sleep in its basket and cleaned the mess it had caused. “Phew, what a day, eh Darla?” Anna said in the end, when the doorbell rang and they rushed to the door to their father who had brought pizza for dinner.

The next day, after coming back from school, Darla suggested that they should watch a movie named “frozen”. It was about two sisters, the elder one, Elsa had magical powers and she froze everything she touched. Darla got extremely terrified when she accidentally froze her younger sister’s heart. She got up from her seat and sat beside Anna and made her promise that if she ever gets any sort of magical powers, she won’t hurt her using them. Anna laughed and gave her word that she won’t and suggested that they could go out and play with the bunny when the movie gets over. While they were playing, a beautiful butterfly sat on one of the flowers, Anna tried to catch it, but just as her fingertips touched its wings, it disappeared. She didn’t give much thought to it and joined her sister in making tiaras out of flowers. After some time, clouds took the place of the warm sunshine and the sky turned ink black. Loud thunders replaced the chirping of the birds and suddenly it started raining torrentially.

The next morning, she woke up, got ready, ate her breakfast and then rushed to her bus-stop. Darla had already left for school. “Anna! You left your water bottle!” her father came running towards her. “Oh, I’m so sorry. I’d take care from tomorrow” Anna hastily took the water bottle from her father’s hands as she climbed the bus, her fingers slightly brushed her father’s palm and next, she didn’t see her father’s face as the bus started moving. She tried to find him near the place where they were standing but he was not there. Horrified, she started to move towards an empty seat. A prankster tried to trip her by outstretching his leg, seeing that she was dazed, but just as she tripped, she tried to grip the shoulder of a girl who was sitting in front of him and she vanished after a short shriek. Anna fell down with a loud thud and it was like time froze. She got up to the terrified faces of the people around her, the girl who was sitting beside the one who vanished, stared at her with bloodshot eyes. The silence was finally broken by the staring girl when she muttered “she’s a witch” at first and then yelled it out loud. Everybody got up from their seats and started closing in on her. This made her feel jittery and she stood there, petrified. The bus reached the school by that time but the crowd won’t budge. Anna pushed her way out of the bus, making everyone disappear by her cursed touch, she didn’t think about it then; all she wanted was to get out and away from the crowd. After getting reasonably away from the bus, she looked back and saw people running out of the bus, but there were only 5-6 people who came out , whereas about 20-25 people were on the bus when she last had her senses. She couldn’t believe what she had just done “I’ve made people, including my father, disappear” she mumbled to herself as she brought her wretched hands in front of her face. That pale yellow stain was still there. Her worst fear had come true; the bunny had something strange, really strange about it. Its blood was cursed.

The bell indicating the commencing of classes rang and Anna ran to her classroom. She found her best friend, Khloe waiting for her at the door, who came forward to hug her and cried in delight “we won the quiz competition Anna!!!” Finally, something good had happened. Khloe released her from her hug and took her hand to congratulate her. But before Anna could alarm her, she had disappeared too. She let out a faint yell and burst into tears as her knees gave in. She felt guilty and full of remorse. She never wanted this to happen; she never wanted her father, all those people in the bus and her best friend to disappear. A few minutes had passed which felt like long agonizing hours to her when she heard a girl’s voice saying “there she is!” hearing this, she stood up and within moments, she was surrounded by people congratulating her. She clutched her hands tightly behind her back; she didn’t want any more people to disappear until one of them pulled out her right hand and he disappeared. Nobody noticed him disappearing as the crowd was very thick but soon every person who shook hands with her started to disappear and the people realized that something was wrong. All the voices congratulating her stopped and the hands desperate to shake with hers were no longer protruding. They looked at her with smiling faces. She looked back with a slight smile. A boy came running and shouting “congratulations!", his fingers touched her hand and he disappeared. This time, there was no turning back, everybody had seen what happened and now they were staring at her with disbelief.

“Did you make him disappear?” one of them asked in shaky voice. “Tell us it’s a bad joke Anna; tell us he’s hiding somewhere!” bawled another. “Stop drawing conclusions now! Let’s ask her what the problem is!” shouted a girl standing behind the wall of crowd, pushing her way through. She was one of Anna’s good friends, Mia. “You don’t have any superpowers, do you? Anyways, where is Khloe? Why isn’t she here with you?” she said and gave a comforting smile. Anna hung her head down “I do have some weird powers; I made my father, people on my bus and Khloe disappear.” Everybody gasped at her confession and Mia moved back to merge with the crowd. “She’s got evil powers!” “Take her to the principal!” everybody started yelling and Anna felt more terrified than ever. They tried to drag her to the principal’s office and she tried to push them away, two or three people disappeared at each of her pushes and soon the crowd which comprised of thirty people, give or take a few, now ha 6 people. “Anna please, we don’t hate you or anything and we’re trying to help you. Please go meet the principal, please” one of the girls said and put her arm across Anna’s shoulder, “I’ll go and tell ma’am what has happened and then you can meet her” saying this she went inside the principal’s cabin and came out after a minute and signalled Anna to go inside. She managed to gather some courage and took several gulps of air. She greeted the principal as she entered the cabin and stood by the door, seeing that she was engrossed in a newspaper. The principal, Mrs. Snow looked up and signalled her to sit on one of the chairs at her table. Anna sat down nervously, there was a tiny pest on the armrest and she tried to flick it away but made it disappear instead. She narrated the whole incident to Mrs. Gupta and she listened to it with apt attention, she didn’t quite believe the tale about the bunny’s blood and thought Anna was doing some sort of sorcery; she actually believed in superstitions, ghosts and stuff. After some time of awkward silence, Anna got up to leave. “where are you going, young lady?” she stopped dead in her tracks and looked back at Mrs. Snow, who was giving an eerie smile. “you aren’t leaving just as yet, are you?” she said as she got up and walked towards Anna, “I’ve got a better place for you to go” her voice filled with malice as she grabbed Anna’s arm. o! Let me go!” Anna tried to break free, but none of her efforts worked so she pushed her away and the evil woman disappeared after a sharp cry.

Anna rushed out of the school building and ran straight to her home. The door was unlocked so she rushed in and went to her room and buried her face in a pillow and started crying. She didn’t realize how much time had passed as she had fallen asleep and was woken up after she felt something soft brush against her feet; it was the bunny. She instinctively picked up the bunny and then dropped it after it hit her that her touch was cursed. “but the bunny should’ve disappeared, everything disappears just as I touch it” saying this, she picked it up and it did not disappear. She felt relieved that her touch was no longer cursed. Meanwhile, Darla arrived home and ran straight to Anna, she didn’t feel anything weird as Anna’s school got over an hour before hers, she hugged her and tried to waltz with her, but to Anna’s terror, just as their hands touched, Darla disappeared. “Darla!” she hollered and then collapsed on the floor, shocked. “not Darla. no! what have I done?” she remembered the promise she had made the other day and it hit her hard that she broke it. She hurt her li’l sister with evil powers. She ran out of the house towards her favourite place in the world, the forest. It had rained the previous day so the ground was still wet and it squished beneath her feet, the only audible sound. She sat down in a clearing, absorbing the events of the day when she felt a light tap on her shoulder. Looking back, she saw it was her mother. “Mom! You weren’t to come until after two days!” Anna gazed at her. “I know, but I decided to come early. I arrived an hour ago by plane. I reached home and I followed you here. Anyways, what happened? Why are you crying?” her mother said as she sat down beside her. Anna narrated the events and when she finished, her mother suggested that they should go check with the pet shop. After they reached the shop, they learnt that the batch of those bunnies had been brought up in a research centre. They took the address of the research centre and hurried away, reaching the research centre after about ten minutes. They met the head researcher who confirmed that an experiment had been done on that bunny. “What was it?” inquired Anna. “I had formulated a chemical which could make living beings invisible. it needed some additional enhancers which were found in a rabbit’s blood, so I injected it in one of the bunnies and it accidentally shipped to the pet store and looks like you bought it” he answered. “It makes people invisible! So they don’t exactly disappear, do they?” Asked Anna, excitedly; maybe she didn’t kill people, after all. “Of course, not! This concoction only makes them invisible and after a few weeks, the body finds a way to shed the effects off, by sweat, that is. I also happen to have an antidote with me, if you want it.” “ Yes please, sir.” Anna took a few drops of the antidote on her palms and rubbed them together, the pale yellow stain vanished. “But how could we make the invisible people visible again?” she asked. “It’s quite easy, we only have to put the bottle inside this launcher and launch it into the clouds. When it rains, it’ll wash off the chemical from the affected people’s bodies, making them visible again” the man answered as he inserted the bottle and gestured Anna and her mother to come outside. They followed him out and saw him press a button on the launcher. The launcher shuddered and shot into the sky. “Hopefully, it’s gonna rain now, too” he said smilingly. He then offered tea, but they declined; after all, they had people to see.

Indeed, it started raining the moment they reached home. After some time, when they were waiting in the verandah of their home, they saw two figures running towards them in the heavy rain; it was Darla and her father, coming back home after a strange day.