She kept walking straight on the road , having no idea where the road led her to. The Darkness of the street was engulfing her , slowly messing with her brain. Blood was trickling down her hands heavily, the only thing that made it more terrifying was 'there's no cut, no wound on her hand yet her hand kept getting more bloody each time she wiped it.. '
She was trembling terribly not knowing how she ended up like this , on the unknown street which was guiding her to God knows where .
She felt as if she had lost control over her body, her eyes scanned the surroundings and nothing was familiar to her , yet she felt as if she had been there before and still couldn't process anything . Her eyes darted to her hands which were covered all in blood till now , letting out a loud cry she wiped her hands on the dress she was wearing, that too was messed up by the time with the blood that gave no signs of stopping .
She kept sobbing , crying messily as she walked further having no energy left inside anymore. She couldn't understand why this was happening only with her. As the darkness consumed her eyes more and more she could hear someone screaming her name...Vio! Vio?! Vionaaa!!!
My eyes jerked open as I sensed someone shouting my name .I pressed my hand against my forehead trying to breathe properly
It was just a nightmare, just a nightmare...
" If you are going to sleep again like a sloth while sitting on your desk early in the morning and do not send me those drafts in the next five minutes, I'm replacing the previous draft or yours with the idiotic to do list that u write everyday just for showpiece, and you won't get to submit this draft if u delay this nonsense again"
Shailey's voice cut through my apartment with the accuracy of a knife.
I sighed and focused my eyes back on the laptop screen , where I was writing my draft just twelve minutes before I slept .
"Joke's on you. My to do list is more thrilling than the plots you suggest for my book" I answered to her
She gasped noisily. " Are you questioning my publishing standards??"
I rolled my eyes and typed another useless sentence before deleting it for the 10th time now.
Shailey is the COO of the company to whom I give my books for publishing and apparently my 'closest friend ' also. She eats my brain every week like this for these drafts so nothing new for me anymore.
Across the living room, Akshat stretched one arm over the back of my sofa and took an unhurried sip of coffee, like he hadn't just walked into a war zone that Shailey had just started.
My fiance hasn't been at home since yesterday due to his surgery schedule and these two almost gave me a jumpscare just an hour back , by almost knocking off my doorbell to bring me breakfast and a special latte early in the morning at 6:30 A.M
Jeez
"I'd help," he said lazily, " but I heard two wild cats fighting before noon. So I would like to preserve my energy instead for the surgery later." His words interrupted Shailey who was murmuring stupid things to herself
"Besides, I'm a doctor. We're trained not to interfere in unstable situations as there's no hope of surviving , and not to mention I deal with mentally unstable patients daily so not in mood to handle two more right now" he took another sip of his coffee before finishing it finally.
Shailey turned to glare at him. " Unstable situations? Really?? For god sake you cut open people's skulls for a living Aksh , you make situations unstable yourself."
"And yet getting involved between two women who fight like wild cats, it was never on my list." Sarcasm dripped from his tone
I laughed despite myself.
That was the problem with the two of them. Even when they were unbearable, they were impossible not to admire.
Shailey and Akshat had become constants in my life so naturally that I sometimes forgot there had been years before them. Years that had felt heavier, lonelier, more difficult than I knew how to admit.
Then they arrived, one loud and impossible to ignore, while the other annoyingly calm, and somewhere in the middle of deadlines, sleepless nights, visiting a weird cafe near my clinic too often having no other choice either, and too many arguments over bad decisions, at the end life had rearranged itself after .. my bestest friend's unsolved murder case.
It was years ago and I have no guts to think about it again but , one thing that changed my life after her death was ..hallucinations and creepiest nightmares about those things which I don't remember anymore, but still my gut feeling tries to tell me everytime that it's something about my best friend, Siya Shekhawat.
Police said they couldn't figure it out if it was a murder or suicide , but I can't accept the fact that she would commit sucide , she was never like this...not until I solve this mystery one day myself.
But anyways now these two were simply there for us. They've helped me and Vihaan more than I could express.
They were always here.
Like oxygen.
Like noise.
Like home
My family
"Stop smiling," Shailey said suspiciously. "People smile like that right before disappointing me."
"I disappoint you everyday," I reminded her. "Today I'm trying something new." I added flashing my teeth enough to irritate her more
I love it
She crossed her arms. Even irritated, she looked polished enough to be photographed. She has been a breathtaking beauty ever since her teens , her perfect chocolate brown eyes and caramel- hazel like hairs are enough to captivate anyone in her beauty alone. Shailey had the sort of presence that made other people sit straighter without realizing why.She defines Dominance and Aura.
She looked exactly the way she always did when her life was on fire,.. expensive, composed, and somehow brighter than everyone else in the room, more like she was a ringing fire alarm dressed in designer heels that displayed danger from far .. She had built her career the same way she did everything else to manage her whole life without her parents support, by refusing to believe the word impossible exists for her.
We had met years ago in university when she had publicly fought with a professor over the rage of a patriarchal comment and then, two minutes later, she walked confidently towards my seat, asked if she could sit beside me as if she wasn't told to get out of the lecture and report to the principal's office. We'd been inseparable ever since.
Akshat, on the other hand, had drifted into my life more quietly as he married Shailey. He had been in the same university circle, all dry humor and dangerous intelligence, the kind of person who looked half asleep like a pure backbencher while being smarter than everyone else in the room.
But his devilishly handsome face, height of six feet one inch and charming aura was no joke , girls were head over heels for a sleepyhead like him in university. Later he became a neurosurgeon with a more intense glow up that makes him impossible to resist.
He could make you laugh with his lame dad jokes when you're having biggest heartbreak of your life or even in an earthquake..yeah
"I need chapter seventeen," Shailey said, dragging me back to the present. "The revised version. Today."
"You'll get it." I replied
"You said that yesterday."
"And I meant it sincerely."
" Seriously..Do you even agree with your own statement??"
"Hmm well...I guess I don't" I shrugged
Shailey took one of the novel resting on my table ready to attack at me getting totally pissed off with my behaviour
Akshat choked on his coffee.
Shailey pressed both hands onto my desk and leaned in. "Listen carefully. I have investors breathing down my neck calling me repeatedly, a board meeting in three hours, and a book deal with an author who thinks deadlines are meant to be ignored"
"I'm curious by the mystery of that author."
"Jesus woman, you are the mystery yourself."
I was opening my mouth to answer when Akshat's phone vibrated on the coffee table.
He glanced at the screen and straightened almost instantly.
"Vihaan? "
I glanced at him and walked towards the kitchen to grab some sandwiches they bought earlier while Shailey followed me still eating up my brain speaking nonstop like a parrot
Akshat answered by turning on the speaker. "What happened Vihaan?"
As I returned back to the hall I could sense , it was some serious issue by looking at Akshat's face
Then Vihaan's voice came through the speaker sharp and low, carrying the familiar calm of someone in the middle of pressure.
"Aksh, I need you back at the hospital. Now. We've got an unusual case and I want you to report further on it , I am tired already." A pause. Then, "And tell Vio, we'll be needing her help too ... probably later."
I frowned. "My help?"
"What happened?" Shailey and I asked together.
There was movement in the background on his end. Doors. Voices. Footsteps. Sound of stretcher
"Half an hour ago," Vihaan said, "a patient walked into Neurology complaining of repeated memory loss everyday
He says he loses memories of his day, wakes up disoriented , and remembers almost nothing."
Akshat was already standing straight.
"Possible seizure activity?"
"We're checking. But that's not why I called."
A cold wind brushed the back of my neck.
"He says one thing repeats every time , everyday..." Vihaan continued.
"No matter what else he forgets, he always remembers this part of his memory."
"What part?" Akshat asked.
Vihaan exhaled.
"He's an artist."
Shailey muttered, "That already sounds traumatically exhausting. I get it why he remembers this"
Normally I would have laughed. Instead, I found myself listening too carefully as I resumed my work
"He says whenever he sits in front of a canvas to paint, he freezes."
Akshat's voice sharpened. "Motor freeze?"
"No. He says he just... stops."
Vihaan hesitated, and that hesitation did more to unsettle me than the words themselves.
"Then he looks at the canvas and sees himself already painted there in some kind of nature's scenario or something."
Silence settled across the room.
I blinked. "A self-portrait?"
"No," Vihaan said quietly. "He says it isn't normal."
My fingers stilled above the keyboard.
"He says the painted version of himself looks back staring at him deeply , somewhat smiling slowly in a unnatural way, as if it is trying to tell him something."
Shailey's mouth parted. "Pardon??
He must be drunk afterall drunkards act no less than psychopaths , as an example you can consider Akshat on special occasions"
Aksh was no longer interested in her blabbering , focusing on the case instead
"Oh please Shail, Shut up!" I snapped at her
"Whatever"
This girl
"He claims his eyes move in that painting." Vihaan said. "That they follow him. That he can feel himself being watched by... himself."
Akshat rubbed a hand over his jaw, already thinking clinically. "Hallucinations."
"That was my first thought too," I said, though something in me resisted how quickly the word came out.
"I thought so as well," Vihaan replied. "Until yesterday."
No one spoke yet.
"He says when it happens, he panics. Then faints.
"And after?" Akshat asked.
"He wakes up in his own bed. Severe headache. Nausea. Partial memory of the canvas incident. Nothing else . But according to him , he feels as if ... as if his own portrait is trying to stop him from painting again"
Akshat began pacing the length of my rug.
"Temporal lobe involvement," he muttered. "Possibly dissociative episodes. Or Could be linked seizures."
Vihaan continued. "But..yesterday was something unusual for him"
Something tightened in my chest.
"And?"
"The painting was complete. The nature's scenario was there just like always but he wasn't in that painting"
A beat passed
"He doesn't remember making it."
I looked down at my desk.
At the unfinished pages.
At words I had written and rewritten so many times they no longer felt mine.
For a strange second, I remembered waking some mornings with the sense that time had moved around me while I slept as if some unusual activities took place in my room. Notes in my own handwriting that I didn't remember making. A misplaced object. A sentence already typed. Sentence that seemed off to read , I would never write something like that in my thriller book no matter how creepy I'm making it. The words didn't felt mine at any cost ... I couldn't get over those words yet.
Still I shrugged it off with the thought that I'm being exhausted these days due to the nightmares ever since I've starting writing this book so I might've written those sentences , otherwise who would even write it ? , Vihaan isn't into such thriller he couldn't even think something like that.
Nothing worth mentioning I guess.
My pulse had quickened remembering all those nightmares.
"Vio?"
Vihaan's voice brought me back.
"Y-Yeah?."
"If you can think of any psychological angle beyond the obvious nonsense case , I want it because I don't see any neurological issue it's more like something is wrong with the guy."
Akshat grabbed his keys. "Im coming."
Before I could think much the words slipped off my tongue
"I will be coming aswell"
"Yeah suree"
The call ended.
For a second, none of us moved.
"I am going to get dressed" I informed Aksh receiving a nod in return
Then Shailey pointed at me. "This better not become an excuse to ignore my manuscript. Besides this case already sounds like a storytelling competition childish thriller story" She scrunched her nose
"Someone is being stalked by his own painting." I reminded her rolling my eyes
"And I am being haunted by your laziness."
" Okay I know you love me baby"
She sighed. "Unfortunately."
I smiled at her and moved towards my bedroom which is shared by me and Vihaan. Our photos from engagement and random trips and dates were perfectly shining bright through the glass frame on the wall. Life feels calmer with him even after so many things happened , he handled me so carefully with patience that I stopped looking back to my traumas and past memories.
I walked to the closet area and picked out a burgundy off shoulder top pairing it with beige coloured straight pants with golden studs giving a chic and sophisticated look together.
Adjusting my hairs styling them according to the shape of the neck line I gave a final touch of gloss on my lips before picking up my purse and walking out of the house towards the parking area of the apartment. Shailey had already settled herself into the backseat with her laptop as Aksh will be dropping her off by the company before heading to the hospital with me.
The drive to the hospital was quieter than usual.
Akshat drove with one hand on the wheel, the other tapping lightly against his thigh.. a sign he was thinking hard. Shailey scrolled through emails in the back seat, cursing publishers and investors under her breath every few minutes.
I watched the big apartments and trees pass by the window and tried to shake the feeling lodged beneath my ribs.
It was only an unusual case.
People mistook fear for ghosts or maybe something abnormal.
There was nothing personal about any of it.
So why did it feel personal?
I've been feeling like a weirdo since the past few days , I don't know what is wrong with me. Vihaan was already concerned about me being sleepless again, waking up in the middle of night around 3 A.M having a strong feeling of strange activities happening in our apartment.
These things aren't new for me. I've faced this for two years straight after my best friend Siya died. Her death had a big impact on my life like everything turning upside down for me leaving me in deep trauma , still somehow life got back on track after years now and this shit is happening again god knows why.
Shrugging off my thoughts I focused on the road , because remembering the past still gives me chills down my spine.
__________________________________
Vihaan was waiting outside Neurology
department when we arrived, one hand in the pocket of his coat, the other holding a tablet against his side.
His tie had loosened during the day, the top button of his shirt undone, dark chestnut brown hair slightly disordered in the way that only happened when he had been running from one emergency to another. On anyone else it would have looked careless. On Vihaan, it looked unfairly composed. He was ruggedly handsome since university and still nothing changed , his chiseled jawline , chocolaty eyes , long natural lashes that girls are dying for to have the same , including me apparently , he has an earthy scent swirling around him.
And I love the fact that he is mine
Some people learn how to be authoritative , but he didn't have to. Vihaan had been carrying the same authoritativeness ever since I met him.
There is something steady about him that has always irritated and comforted me in equal terms. He is my peace, like the calmness felt after first rain in the atmosphere. Even in university, while the rest of us were busy being disasters, he had carried himself like a man who expected life to challenge him and intended to always win.
Somewhere along the years, friendship had sharpened into something softer, confusing, beautiful yet harder to name. Then one day he slid a ring on my finger of his name and it became the future we've both imagined together.
"Earth to Viona!" Aksh snapped his finger in front of my face dragging me back to present
Vihaan looked at Akshat first.
Then at me.
His gaze paused for half a second longer than necessary.
"You look pale."
"You look arrogant."
"So that means I'm normal then." He grinned at me
I gave him a sheepish smile "Stop messing around or you'll have to cook the dinner tonight"
With Vihaan and me, concern and worry had always came in playfulness.
"Where is he?" Akshat asked.
"Observation room three."
Vihaan lifted the tablet.
"Before that, look at this."
He turned the screen toward us.
A painting.
Dark water under a bruised sky. Trees gathered around the edges like witnesses. The surface of the lake was still in a way that felt wrong, as if something beneath it had chosen patience and silence.
No person could be seen like the patient had mentioned.
No movement.
Nothing impossible.
Just a lake.
And yet the moment I saw it, the air left my lungs.
A pulse of dread struck somewhere old and buried.
Wait a second..
A Lake?
The word formed before I could stop it.
Why does it reminds me of the place where Siya died
Siya
My throat closed.
No.
I stepped back so quickly the tablet nearly slipped from Vihaan's hand.
"Viona?"
But I wasn't looking at them anymore.
Only the black water.
Only the silence inside it.
Lake...
Siya..
No..no..No Way, It can't be the same.
.
.
.
.
.
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