"You okay?" Meredith asked as she saw Ali just sitting outside their office alone.
"Yeah, fine. Just waiting for Shiva to come back. You _ did Aarvi send you?" Ali asked back.
Hearing him Meredith hesitated for a second before nodding her head and agreeing to it. Getting the approval Ali gave a heartfelt smile with a brightened face and said "Guess she saw me leaving in a hurry and couldn't help but worry."
"Yeah _ maybe." Meredith shook her head and sighed. "I'm going back in. The shift's almost over, so see you tomorrow." saying this she turned back and started walking towards their office building.
"Yeah, sure." hearing her Ali just gave a nonchalant reply as he saw Shiva coming his way from across the road and raised his hand to signal him.
Ali was waiting for the traffic on the road to clear and then go there, when he saw his friend getting into some scuffle on the roadside with someone. Shiva was holding someone by the neck and banging their back along the wall in anger.
"Oye, why you fighting now dude?" Ali sighed and shook his head in displeasure while thinking 'This guy's anger management methods are getting weirder and weirder.'
He didn't worry about Shiva getting beaten as he knew what his friend was capable of. But still to stop any extra trouble he shouted again to stop them.
"Cut it out man. If you wanna beat someone we'll go to one of your little fight clubs tonight."
But his voice was probably drowned in the noise of vehicles coming and going, as no one responded to it.
"What're you guys doing standing there, go and drag him away." seeing no other way he called his bodyguards who were probably hiding or waiting here and there around him. After all
"Just keep your anger down bro. No need to be so hyper." He said with a smile as he saw Shiva stopped the fight and turned back to look at him.
But seeing something his expression instantly turned hideous as he waved his hands and started shouting. "Look back. He's_ Stop. Hey stop."
When Shiva turned back to look at him, Ali noticed how the guy he was fighting with stood up and slowly started walking behind Shiva. Taking advantage of the fact that Shiva hadn't noticed him, he just raised his hands and pushed him onto the open road. Where a speeding truck came and crashed into him.
-Crash _ honk - honk - screeeesh _ Jrrrsss_ arhhhh
Before Ali could understand anything, a loud sound of crash and screeching of tires rang out in the area. He watched with open eyes as the truck hit Shiva and his body flew over with the collision and rolled a few times on the road, spraying blood everywhere.
'Wh_what'
Ali thought unable to understand anything, his brain frozen with shock from what he saw, while his body moved on its own towards the place where that accident happened. The closer he got to Shiva, the heavier his steps seemed to become, while his eyes started to get a little moist seeing him in that bloody condition.
'No, it can't be happening, please God no.' He prayed with all his heart as he forced his stupid frozen body to move a little more faster.
'Please be alive. Please be okay. Why did it happen? Who was that bastard? Don't run you bastard, come back here and help him? Why is he not moving? Damn it, his head's bleeding too.'
So many thoughts, questions and curses ran through Ali's mind, as his brain felt numb. He wanted to speak but he didn't know why words didn't come out of his mouth.
His guards were running alongside him too, as one of them even went towards where the man who pushed Shiva ran off to, after seeing them. But Ali's eyes were fixed on Shiva's body.
Finally he reached where Shiva was lying, and seeing a slight movement in his arms and his eyes still moving, he breathed a sigh of relief. He bent down and helped him on his knees. While taking out his handkerchief, to try and stop the bleeding from his hand. His hands were shaking as they all got covered in blood, but he tried to control them and gently put enough pressure to hold it over his wound. Afraid that he'd hurt him more in his nervousness instead.
"You're alive. Y_you'll be fine." Ali muttered slowly, not clear if he was telling that to Shiva or for himself.
Shiva tried to speak but only blood came out of his mouth and nothing else. Ali could see a little relief in his eyes, a small smile on his face. But Ali, who saw his friend's condition where one of his hands was broken, with blood dripping constantly from his head and stomach, with a large bone sticking out from his thigh - a tear fell from his eyes as he didn't know what to do or say. So he could just whisper again "You'll be fine."
"The ambulance would be here in 15 minutes, young master." One of his guards came forward and told him.
Only then did Ali remember he didn't even call for help. He cursed himself for being stupid. Taking off his coat he placed it below Shiva's head, while asking his guard to keep pressure on his wound and stop the bleeding.
He stood up and checked all his pockets for his phone in a hurry, when he finally found it, he called for his personal doctor and informed him about the accident and his location, and asked him to come here as soon as possible.
"I'll be there with my team in 10 minutes, young master." The sound from the other end of the phone came.
But Ali cut him off and shouted loudly "What? He doesn't have 10 minutes. Just come here right now. If anything happens to him, I'll end all of you."
Ali screamed and cut the call. He wiped his tears. Marking his face with the blood which was still on his hands. He came near Shiva and said "I called the doctor buddy. He's the best in the capital, you'll be fine, I_I promise. Ju_ just hold on, okay."
Ali said, but this time he saw no movement in his friend's body. There was no more light in his eyes or no more breathing from his mouth, Shiva's body was still as statue with just blood still flowing out.
"He's gone, young master." His guard said, as he checked Shiva's and shook his head.
-slap- A loud slap echoed on the empty road.
Ali pulled his hand back and glared at his guard in anger "He's alive. And he'll be fine. Call that doctor and ask him where he is?"
The guard, who was slapped on his cheek didn't know what to say, so he could just reassure his master again "I'm sorry, young master. But it's no use_."
"Just shut the fuck up." Ali shouted loudly over his lungs. "We'll just give him some oxygen or that electric shock thingy, and he'll be fine." Ali said in desperation, as he pushed the guard aside and sat on his knees, while pressing Shiva's chest. "He'll be fine, He has to be." Ali said, as he shook Shiva's body, which showed no reaction to anything.
"Just wake up, damn it." He shouted as he grabbed shiva's shoulder and started to shake him heavily. Tears were streaming down his eyes constantly at this time, yet he didn't care.
-scretsh-
The sound of a car and an ambulance behind it came to the road, as doctors and nurses came out of them in a hurry. His guards pulled Ali away, as the doctors surrounded Shiva's body and started to check everything.
Ali watched everything with bated breath, his heart holding on to that last glimmer of hope that everything would be fine, that he'd be fine. Yet fate had other plans, and death didn't play jokes.
Soon the doctors gave their answer and apologies too, and that final ray of hope was drowned in darkness of despair too.
Ali grabbed the collar of the doctor in front of him and punched him with all his strength. Making him stumble and fall on the ground.
–Ahhhhhhhh–
Ali bent down too and screamed over his lungs. His tears had stopped some time ago, so this was the only way he knew to let out all his pain and frustration.
His handsome face looked like a mess now, with streaks of tears and stains of dried blood covering it. His styled hair were disheveled and in a mess now. His white shirt dyed red in Shiva's blood. His hands were shaking and clenched tightly. With a few blood drops still trickling down, not sure if it was Shiva's blood or his own, due to how tightly he dug his nails inside his fists.
His mind reminded him of all the time he spent with Shiva, of all the memories he had, the conversations, the jokes and banter they had - it all came to him, bit by bit.
He looked at Shiva's dead body, and then at everyone around him, his teary eyes glanced over everything, at the people who had surrounded the area now. His eyes stopped at a certain girl in a school dress who was looking at this scene from a corner.
The young girl shivered as she met Ali's gaze and ran away in fear, making him confused. But then he remembered.
Remembered about the man who pushed his best friend on that oncoming truck, to his death.
"Psychos like you deserve to be killed. I just did this world a favor."
Ali remembered what that guy who pushed Shiva said before running away, and then an insatiable anger rose in his heart.
He turned around and started walking towards his car. Opening the front door, he took a gun out of the glove compartment and unlocked it's safety.
He had just turned around when he bumped into Meredith, who came back to see what's happening here, after hearing the loud commotion outside.
"Ali _ what?"
#####
Just some dump-
Someone once said to me that the friendship between girls is brittle like charcoal, and the brotherhood between boys is as hard as stone.
Yet if a seedling of a girl appears in that stone, cracks start to form even in that hard stone, and with time - it'll break apart in pieces too.
Whoever said that was right, maybe.
The friendship between Ali and Shiva was like this too. Hard as stone.
And since both of them were unable to love any other girl then the one they had their hearts set upon, no one could even come between them.
It wouldn't be an exaggeration to say that their friendship would've lasted forever.
But there was one more thing the man who said that saying forgot, it's not only the girl between brothers which can separate them. An entity like death could do it too.
And that's exactly what happened here too.