Misc. Erotica The Nine Nights

[shailu4ever]

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Kavya took his hand, cold and trembling, and stepped inside. The interior was dim, lit only by soft amber light filtering through the gaps in the roof. An old lantern hung crooked from a hook, its glass cracked, and a rusted kettle sat abandoned on the bench.
 
“This… this feels like something from another time,” she murmured, her voice echoing softly against the walls.
 
“Maybe that’s good,” Naveen said, a faint edge of hope in his tone. “Another time means another chance.”
 
He knelt and began gathering dry twigs from a corner, careful to avoid the scattered debris. “We’ll make a small fire when it’s dark. The smoke will keep insects away,” he explained, his voice calm, almost ritualistic, as if speaking aloud could anchor them both to reality.
 
Kavya sank against the wall, hugging her knees. The floor was cool against her legs, and she watched him move, precise, methodical, carrying too much unspoken weight. Every motion seemed measured, controlled, like a doctor preserving life even in the face of despair.
 
“Do you think they’ll send help?” she asked after a long silence, her voice barely above the whisper of wind.
 
He paused, the weight of truth heavy in his chest. “They will,” he said slowly. “Maybe not today. Maybe a few days. But someone will notice a missing ferry.”
 
Kavya nodded, doubt lingering like a shadow in her eyes. “My father… he kept saying the sea was calming when we boarded. He thought the storm would pass quickly.”
 
Naveen looked at her, noting the softening of her voice, the tremble at the end of her words. “None of us expected it,” he said quietly, the words carrying the ache of shared grief.
 
Outside, the sunlight thinned to a muted gold, streaking across the clouds. The day seemed to fold quietly into evening, and the shadows inside the hut lengthened like fingers stretching across the walls.
 
Naveen stepped out briefly, returning with a few coconuts and sticks. He cracked one open with a piece of rock and handed it to her.
 
“Drink slowly,” he said.
 
The cool sweetness of the coconut water startled her. For the first time since morning, she closed her eyes, letting herself feel something like relief. “Thank you,” she whispered.
 
Naveen gave a faint nod, then sat near the doorway, gazing out at the fading sea. The silence between them was not uncomfortable, it was the silence of two people too exhausted to fill it, yet aware of each other’s presence like a fragile tether to reality.
 
A light breeze stirred, carrying the faint scent of distant rain. The world felt suspended, a fragile calm after violence.
 
Kavya’s voice came quietly. “Doctor… what about your family?”
 
He didn’t look at her. “My wife. Two kids. We were all on that ferry.”
 
She waited, not daring to ask more, sensing the depth of his grief.
 
“I’ll keep looking tomorrow,” he said finally. “There’s always a chance.”
 
She nodded, though her own eyes began to fill. She didn’t want to cry, not yet. Not in front of someone who seemed to be holding himself together for both of them.
 
The light dimmed further, and Naveen lit the lantern. Its weak flame cast long, trembling shadows on the walls, flickering as if the hut itself were breathing.
 
Kavya watched the glow dance across his damp hair, the small cuts along his arm, the quiet intensity of a man carrying unbearable weight. The strangeness of the situation, being alive, being here, sitting across from a stranger who had lost as much as she had, hit her suddenly, like the aftershock of a wave long passed.
 
Outside, the sea murmured again, softer now, settling into a new rhythm. Somewhere in that sound, for the first time that day, there was a trace of safety.

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