ArShi SS: The 10 Days Challenge[COMPLETE]

There are certain things in life that you never ever expect, and hence, when they happen, they leave you startled.

Sometimes the shock is so intense that you feel you are either dreaming or have been transported to an alternate universe.

Like writing a terrible, terrible paper in your mid-terms yet getting an A grade as the results are out.

Like anticipating a slap from your mother on failing a responsibility, but then she only tells you in a calm voice to not repeat that again and smiles instead of hitting you.

Like having a gut feeling that you will totally screw up in the viva, not knowing anything, but getting utterly surprised seeing the teacher ask you only three questions, the answers to all of which you knew very well.

Like harboring feelings for a special person since what seems forever, going beyond measures hoping for him to notice you at least once, but thinking you are just stuck with wishful thinking, only to see that very special person sitting right in front of you, taking you by surprise.

.

The same happened with Sapna this morning when she had entered the empty library to prepare well for the upcoming class test. She needed to brush up her skills and books were her best friends as always.

~

She was extremely competitive and had always topped in her academics and co-curricular activities until of course that one fine day when a certain Khushi Gupta had showed up in the college in the middle of the semester, after relocating to Delhi from Mumbai.

Not only had Khushi's enrollment in the college made the guys in her department fall for her pretty instantly, thanks to her good looks and innocent bickering, but it had also taken away all the attention from Sapna when it came to the professors' appreciation and academic rankings.

The final nail in the coffin was the 2016 cabinet elections of Hillridge International wherein Khushi had won the badge of the Class Representative for the whole Psychology Department, after she ranked first in the university in the last semester.

A part of Sapna had shattered giving away the honorable badge to Khushi, the one that she held for all these months. But she couldn't let that jealousy show and had therefore plastered a smile on her face while handing over the honor to Khushi on stage, during the Investiture Ceremony that was held in the beginning of this year.

And the rest had become history after Khushi became the new CR, as she would introduce new policies and ideas to deal with things and college matters, and to her utter shock, the entire class, including the Student Senate followed her like lost puppies.

Sapna had felt her honor, her pride, as well as her happiness jeopardized with Khushi's arrival and with each day at Hillridge, each class, each discussion, each competition, her resentment towards Khushi only soared high.

And if that wasn't enough already, she had seen that very same Khushi in the arms of the man she had secretly loved since the last two years in college. She didn't know what hurt her most? The fact that she had unrequited feelings for a man who was the dream of almost every girl in the college? Or the fact that he was in love with that one girl who had taken away everything from her?

She knew she was very good at everything that she did. But her inferior mind would never let her bend to believe that in life there can be no one who is the best, because there will always be someone better than you, and then someone better then that someone.

It's how the cycle of life works. But our sporadic thoughts that are often negative, cloud our sense of logical judgment, making us do things that are bad, very, very bad.