Time is the killer

The lab looked no different from a warehouse. Papers, journals, heavy books, cables, bottles and monitors lay everywhere in the room. The digital calendar flashed the date '5 OCT 2047' in an ominous fluorescent glow. Dr.Chabra was deeply monitoring Dr. Swamy's vital signs.
This was a dangerous experiment the duo had indulged in. To conquer mortality.

Dr. Swamy started perspiring clearly out of last minute nervousness. He was to be injected with a small dose of a chemical composed just for the experiment, to simulate death. Simulating death amounted to being devoid of heart beat for a small period of 15 seconds. In those 15 seconds Dr. Chabra was to test the magic of the experimental serum that was meant to resurrect the dead man. If everything went as per the theoretical results, Dr. Swamy's heart was to start beating again between the 10th and the 13th seconds. They had tested this multiple times on small animals and reptiles. For human testing, they did not have any one but themselves, for the government did not approve of lab experiments meddling with human life. The experiment was as illegal as it was lethal.

Dr. Chabra took a deep breath and instructed Dr. Swamy to relax.
"It will take only 30 seconds for me to completely inject this as you must already know. But the most important point is- don't breathe too fast. I know you know this, but I am just reiterating. If your heart rate increases, the whole experiment would fail."
Dr. Swamy knew really well what it meant. If his heart rate increased during the process of injecting the death simulator, the difference in Oxygen intake could make fundamental changes to the chemical composition of the liquid and he could lose his life. It was inexplicably important to stay calm and breathe slow.

Dr. Chabra started the process.

10 seconds.
"Things will be OK. We have tested this multiple times", Dr. Swamy's thoughts ran.
15 seconds.
"Dont think. Dont think. Stay calm", he told himself.
20 seconds.
"I never said goodbye to my son."
At that thought his heart rate increased a tiny little bit.
"Please stay calm." warned Dr. Chabra.
25 seconds.
"This is not done. I should have bid goodbye."
26 seconds.
"This is irresponsible. I am a bad father."
27 seconds.
"I don't want to die."

Dr. Swamy's heart rate rocketed with all those stressful thoughts and Dr. Chabra went frantic trying to reverse the procedure because he knew it was all downhill from here.

Despite all attempts to stop the circulation of the deadly liquid in Dr. Swamy's blood stream, the inevitable end was looming ahead. Dr. Swamy's eyes rolled within their sockets and he seemed to be entering a trance.

The monitors showed a blank beacon indicating the horrifying truth in a matter of seconds. Dr. Swamy was no more.




Harish stared at the digital clock ahead. It had a bright ominous glow. It flashed the date '5-OCT-2067'. This lab was his home. He had heard stories about the infamous experiment of a genius duo-Dr. Swamy and Dr. Chabra. His respect for the place and the people who once occupied it had increased manifold after he had read through the details of their experiment. He felt honored and privileged to have procured the permit to acquire the lab for his own experiments.

He felt that he was no great scientist himself. But the place had made a tremendous physiological difference to the success of his experiments. His work had progressed at the speed of light from the moment he had stepped into his new lab.

People talked. There were umpteen stories about Dr. Swamy's spirit haunting the lab for the past 20 years. He did not care. For a scientific person like him, stories such as this were only mildly amusing if anything. He was a big fan of the scientist duo. To commemorate the day the duo had tried their most ambitious experiment, he had chosen the very day to venture into his own big one.

He had invented a time machine. A partial one so to speak. It could travel only into the future. The day had come to test it out.

The experiment was low key and top secret. Only his closest friends of the science fraternity knew about it. His phone rang that morning as he was fine tuning his instruments one last time before the big afternoon ahead.
"Hello Harish" his friend spoke into the camera-phone. Harish looked up at the video screen. His friend looked nervous.
"What's up Prakash?" asked Harish, looking down again continuing his touch ups.
"Why did you have to choose this date? You know what my lab mate says? That Dr. Swamy's spirit will ensure the experiment fails."
Harish felt annoyed immediately.
"Thanks for the negative energy, but tell your lab mate to mind his or her own business."
"Look, the lab is the negative energy. First you chose the sinister lab. Now you choose the very date the big disaster occurred."
"I dont believe in these things. Neither should you. You should be ashamed to call yourself a scientist." snapped Harish without looking up again.
"Well, I just wanted to persuade you one last time. Goodluck anyway...." said Prakash and hung up.

Harish's blood was boiling. He hated diversions like this on a big day.

Luckily he had found his subject for the experiment. Neeta- his girlfriend.

Like a typical scientist he wanted to keep his experiments and studies within his close circle for the fear of leaking his research ideas.

His lab door rang. He checked the digital viewfinder synched into his wrist watch to see Neeta standing  outside the door.

He pressed a button in the wrist watch to open the door and let her in. Neeta walked in looking confident. Harish beamed at her. "Good morning, sweetie! All set?" he asked, like this was nothing more than a dental visit.

"Yeah" she said casually. Harish beamed at her again. She was a scientist's daughter herself. No wonder she was used to the lab atmosphere.

"I will walk you through the equipment and concepts." said Harish and took her hand to walk her upto the main equipment.
They stood before a gigantic capsule, just large enough to hold a person. It was hardly visible due to its transparency. Inside the capsule was a standing space suit armor, white in color. There was hardly an inch between the suit and the capsule. Neeta stretched her hand to touch it, looking inquiringly at Harish for his consent.
Harish nodded with a "Go ahead" and she touched the capsule. It felt like a light fibre, like the softest, thinnest satin ever made.

Harish cleared his throat to begin the lecture. Neeta was not a scientist herself. She was an adventure traveler. Harish had to explain things in layman terms for her to understand.

"Many decades ago, a hypothetical particle called the Tachyon was theorized. It can travel faster than light. A decade ago, it was successfully generated in lab. This gave time machine scientists a new direction."

Neeta looked on with utmost concentration.
"A Tachyon can travel faster than light. So technically it can reach a point in space before light could reach it. Now when you look at a building across the street, what you are seeing is light rays that were reflected from the building. If a Tachyon particle reached the building before light reached it, then the particle is actually in the future."

Neeta nodded partly understanding what he meant.

"Now, this capsule I created can hold Tachyons. I will charge it up with Tachyon particles using my generator here. The moment it is all charged up, I will select the time I want it traveling for. If the Tachyons travel for say 6 minutes, then you would have reached upto an hour into the future. So, If I want you traveling 1 day into the future, I would keep the Tachyons traveling for 144 minutes or close to 2.5 hours. Got it?"

"Yes" said Neeta looking a little nervous for the first time.
"Any questions?" asked Harish.
"Yes, would it hurt coz I'd be traveling real fast?"
"No, thats what the suit is for. It would protect you against forces from inertia and pressure changes. It also has a built in oxygen cylinder in case you have difficulty breathing"
"What if I have to contact you?"
"There's a built in satellite phone. You can call me. There is also a GPS tracker so we know where you are after you reach."
"Where are you sending me?"
"I won't be sending you very far. The direction and time settings should take you to an abandoned air field in Sri Lanka."
"I hope I won't be tresspassing." quipped Neeta
"Dont worry about it, it's not a military base or anything" smiled Harish.

Neeta smiled for the first time. For some reason her instinct was warning her about something she could not understand. Her gut feeling told her to back out. But she did not.
"Did you hear about the ghost stories?" she asked, opening her mind for once.
"Atleast you dont believe in them."snapped Harish.

"Alright, get in." continued Harish sensing her troubled mind.
"But its only noon. We scheduled it for 2.30" said Neeta nervous again.
"It doesnt make a difference."said Harish casually shepherding her into the capsule before she changed her mind.

Neeta got in and stood clumsily in the tiny suit. Harish pressed a button on one of the panels and the suit started locking itself in place. An earphone set over Neeta's ears and she could see a blank screen in front of her eyes that just flashed the current time and showed her current location on the globe.

Neeta jumped when Harish's voice boomed in through the earphones.
"I will be talking to you as and when needed. The screen in front of you will flash messages necessary for you to understand and follow."

Neeta nodded.

Harish pointed at a pouch in front of the suit.
"This has the satellite phone and GPS tracker device"
"OK"mouthed Neeta.
Harish hit another button on the console and the capsule and suit started moving across the room. A door was sliding open at the far end. It was then that Neeta realized that the capsule was meant to be in the open before it launched.
A huge balcony loomed into view. A long track projected from it and the capsule rode and stopped at the end of it. Neeta looked around. It felt like hanging in mid-air.

"Ready to launch?"came Harish's voice.
Neeta shuddered. She was doing this all for the adventure freak in her. She did not quite understand how she had become ready to enter this dangerous agreement. But there was no turning back now. Harish had started the countdown.


10 - 9 - 8 - 7 - 6 - 5 - 4 - 3 - 2 ....

Neeta closed her eyes.

She felt a jerk before she passed out.

She opened her eyes after an indefinite time. She looked around breathing in from the oxygen cylinder.
She could not recognize where she was and how long had it been.The screen in front of her showed a random time-11.30 p.m. The entire globe was gone from the view.  '10-OCT-2067' flashed at one end. It looked like the experiment had succeeded. She had come 5 days into the future. But she had no clue as to where she was. The land and terrain looked different from her home country. This must be Sri Lanka, she thought. There were just rocks around and the horizon could be seen all around her.

The capsule was completely missing. She was just in the suit and sprawled on the ground. She got up and took a step, fishing out her phone as she tried walking. She completely lost her balance. That's when she realized she was perched atop a steep slope. Before she knew it her cell phone went rolling by and she gasped. She tried running after it and rolled and slid behind coming to a halt on a huge rock.

She took the phone and grasped it in her hand. She looked into it and her heart froze. There was no signal whatsoever. The GPS tracker wasn't working either. Hitting "Track Me" was doing nothing. She tried again and again, fighting tears.

Finally she gave up. It was dark by then. Night sky loomed over her. She sat under the rock crying her eyes out. She slightly lifted her digital screen and looked up at the sky. She stilled, gripped with panic. All hopes of ever surviving were lost. She knew she was dying soon.

The unmistakeable view in the sky told her where she was. The earth was shining above the horizon. A beautiful clear view of blue and white. She had left her home planet completely. Her eyes hovered over the bottom right of her digital view. The oxygen cylinder was almost exhausted, 5% remaining. She closed her eyes ready to bid goodbye to her life, counting her minutes.

The oxygen kept reducing. At 1% she opened her eyes to see a message flash before her.
"Neeta, this is how Dr. Swamy felt. Goodbye, Neeta Chabra..."

Neeta closed her eyes knowing why she had to face this. This was Dr. Swamy's revenge on her for her father Dr. Chabra's mistake. Although Dr. Chabra had not intended the fiasco, he had been selfish and not opted to be the subject of the experiment. She actually felt better knowing why she was dying. And she felt strange thinking the ghost stories had been true.

Her oxygen was down to 0% now. She remembered her father. She breathed her last.

Back in the lab Harish held a photograph in his hand. His eyes were still wet from crying.
"This was for you Dad. Your son Harish Swamy succeeded in his experiment. And his revenge."

Peace of Mind

A dark cloud of envy

enveloped the young girl,

when she witnessed the silks, the jewelry

and beautiful hair in curls,

Her friend looked stunning, She pondered,

"Why can I not be more like her?

Oh lord, I just need peace of mind.

So what if I have no beauty, diamonds or pearls."

A dark tunnel of anger

invaded the young girl,

when she watched success, prosperity

and a pompous show unfurled

by the inept and unintelligent, She wondered,

"Why can I too not be a pretender?

Oh lord I just need peace of mind,

So what if I am not a desperate winner."

A dark smoke of sorrow

engulfed the young girl,

when she beheld death, pain and suffering

of soldiers battling the world.

"While people didn't care to save each other", She wondered,

"Why can I not be unbothered?

Oh lord I just need peace of mind,

So I can be different from the others."

A white light of divinity

surrounded the young girl

when she dreamt of the Lord Himself

towering over her

"What is it that you really need?"

softly asked the Creator

The young girl tried to think over

But felt a change of mind

"I need a pretty face

So I don't feel jealous", she sighed

"I need wit and some cunning

So I can beat this world's pride,

I need to possess apathy

So I can live, knowing that people died."

A light gentle breeze

touched the young girl,

when she heard the Lord's answer,

As He smiled at her

"Are these what you really need?",

gently asked the Creator.

"You don't need a pretty face

For it is an illusion of the eye

You don't need wit and cunning

For you can defeat dishonesty if you tried

You can forever be kind hearted

And always help the mankind

All you need my child,

Is just some peace of mind."

Dream Chronicles: The mystery of the coffin

In yet another occurrence of a bizarre dream, I realized how deep some thoughts could be. I fail to understand what I could be imagining in my subconscious state to get such dreams that baffle even the most insensible side of me.

I realized this dream deserved being logged owing to its uniqueness and completeness. So here I am, writing down the second piece in the series of my dream chronicles before the memories of the dream get drained away.

I was with a bunch of childhood friends from the great 'BARC Colony'. We were on an 'industrial visit' to a place that had no industry in sight. It was a vast barren land with pieces of rocks lying around. The rocks in themselves were humungous in size, almost as big as us or even bigger. One of us had apparently been to this place before. So, she guided us as to how the rocks 'worked'.

We were to touch any rock and stand still and the rock could take us back in time.  It was a time machine rock. Within no time we were trying it out. I touched a big rock and stood there with my hand on it. Within a couple of seconds I was in kindergarten, remembering and seeing things I did not even know I had experienced- Playing hide and seek with friends, all of us pretending to be woodcutters while one friend pretended to be the ghost, ready to pounce from behind the tree. I had almost forgotten this game. It was like playing a sophisticated version of hide and seek, with a tinge of masala. The woodcutters had to run and hide while the ghost tried to catch.

My friends in the dream agreed that they could see kindergarten too, although we all had our eyes wide open (while in reality I was dreaming with my eyes closed).

As we went ahead marveling the time machine rocks, we saw something that made our hearts freeze. There was a big water body in front of us. A large ship was anchored in it. We were engulfed in a weird fog that had come out of nowhere and through which we could hardly see. A 'thing' started emerging from the ship. It took us a while to figure out what it was. It looked like a fellow human being but as the creature came forward, we heard him letting out a roar. We screamed and realized it was something evil. It was a zombie but nothing like what I had seen in movies before. It was mere skeleton and nothing else. But its bones were red in color and its face was ghastly. He was no skeleton. He was a 'Mummy'- without the wraps.

We turned around and ran and ran until we reached a graveyard. There we saw the most unearthly sight. Another bigger zombie-mummy walking towards us. As expected, he came towards me. I was petrified and stood rooted to the spot, ready to lose my life. My friends in the dream had mysteriously disappeared. The creature walked towards me steadily. As I prepared to scream again, all of a sudden he stilled and fell back to the ground with great force. I looked around to see who killed him, when a man came forward. He was no mummy, he was normal and looked like a priest of some sort.

He explained to me that these mummies have existed on earth forever. Only we humans never knew about them. He explained to me that "A zombie-mummy is born after some years of a human's death. They break out of the coffin and come out to lead a life again. However since they are devoid of any flesh or supporting organs they fail to live long and die within a day."

And I realized in my dream with supposed enlightenment that this was why some religions buried and not burned the dead, so as to give them a second chance to live. I was touched.

The man then told me that some of the zombie-mummies could kill humans out of envy for the normal life we led; and I suddenly forgot my enlightenment and sympathy, to wonder if it was better to burn the dead. No worries about zombie-mummies being re-born.

When I thought of this and smiled I heard another roar and turned around. A zombie-mummy was on its way towards me. I stood smiling waiting for it to fall behind and die, but that was not happening. I waited and waited as the mummy got closer and closer. I looked around to ask for the priest's help and saw that he had disappeared too, just like my friends. I heard the roar of the zombie-mummy close to my ear as I dreadfully understood its proximity to me.

That was the end of my dream. My fried brain probably cursed me for dreaming nonsense and woke me up.

I lay in my bed once again wondering "What was all that about?".

And I idly wondered what in the world I did to deserve such dreams. Well, the passion for horror is probably embedded deep within me, so when I dont watch scary movies my mind produces one of its own. Complete with script, screenplay and direction. The only thing missing is a title. So here I give that in my blog - "The mystery of the coffin" :)

Long live scary movies!!

Who is blind?

To some, darkness is a fear
An unbearable fright
In the absence of light
While to some others
Darkness is all there is
In the depth of their eyes
Where light and dark are much the same


To some, elevation is a fear
Trembling on a cliff they climbed
Atop the summit after a hike
While to some others
No elevation hints
Any meaning to their eyes
Where sky and ground are much the same


To some, fire is a fear
Whining to go where the flames rage
Fearing the heat they'd face
While to some others
Unseen is what fire is
While dancing in front of their eyes
Where fire and ice are much the same


And again to some, death is a fear
Dreading the dark that follows
When eyes close tomorrow
While to some others, liberation it is
Like a new journey on the same ride
Carrying ahead the eternity for the blind
Whose life and death are much the same

Dream Chronicles: Beaten by a Bat

Weird dreams are not uncommon with me. I am probably not a sound sleeper, so I get some very interesting and movie-like dreams. I can very well believe how James Cameron got his entire concept of 'Avatar' from a dream, because my dreams are sometimes that way too, if not an Avatar then at least an 'Independence Day', a funny version of it so to speak.

So I decided to start recording my most interesting dreams on paper. And this is the first in the series of my 'Dream Chronicles' as I call it.

As I drifted into the REM stage of my sleep yesterday night, my weird dream began. I was somewhere on the 'West Coast' of the United States. It was a lovely tourist spot that I was visiting with a couple of friends. The place was supposedly famous for its magical effect. It was like the top of a small hill, sloping on all sides. I was on the top. The beauty of the place was its view. If I turned the angle at which I stood by a few degrees, I could see a new view in the sky, a new colorful view. This was like a large-scale 3D hologram. I stood straight and I could see tall buildings right up in the sky. The moment I turned, I saw a huge desert in the sky. Then I saw some colorful pillars. I was mesmerized by this magic that I had never known of before.

We proceeded to the next interesting location in this magic land. It was a series of caves. Now, the scariness started. The caves were full of bats, ferocious huge bats whose bites were apparently fatal. We were instructed by the tour guide to run for our lives whenever we heard bats coming our way. And we were told that in case we realized the bats were too near, we were to sit down in the 'brace position' (I'm sure I have watched too many episodes of Air Crash Investigations). So we braced ourselves to simply enter the scary and dark cave. We started feeling our way inside and then we heard them- the flutterings of bats. We turned around and ran for our lives, everyone braced, so did I. But as luck would have it, a bat swooped down right on me and bit me hard on my hand. :(

I was stumped. I was shattered. Why me? Everyone else escaped except me. I was quickly guided out of the cave into the attending physician's office,where she told me that if I had indeed been bitten and injected with the poisonous venom, then I would have lost sensation in my hand. She then proceeded to test me. She took a pin and pricked my skin, but, I felt nothing. The ugly truth dawned on me, I had been bitten after all. :(

Now the most ridiculous part of my dream arrived, the kind of thing that makes you cry in the dream but makes you laugh hard after you wake up. So, after concluding that I had indeed lost sensation in my hand, I was immediately put on a stretcher and rushed to the operating room to.......no, not to operate on me but to take samples of my tissues!! They simply took a sample of my tissues and rushed the samples-instead of me- for testing!!

The samples of my tissues were put in an enclosed testtube, put in a box, sealed, marked with 'Most Urgent' and couriered away through Express Delivery. And (the hilarious part) the 'special' delivery van was attached with flashing lights and sirens and flew out of the place at top speed blaring its sirens and flashing its lights, carrying my tissue samples.

And I sat in my own car and followed the van carrying my tissue samples. On the way everyone gave way to the tissue van seeing its flashing lights but seeing that my car was not stopping for the van and instead was following it, the people on the roads thought I was a mean, cheap girl taking advantage of the clear traffic and they stopped my car (you might think they stopped to pull me out in pure Indian style) but all they did was stopped my car and everyone started honking at me. :P I was humiliated by this incident and lost my poor van too. (Although I can't figure out why a big van couldn't carry the owner of the tissues as well.)

Then after a long wait at my friend's place, I got a phone call from the hospital that they had prescribed me some really strong drugs that I needed to take immediately if I wanted to survive. But they were shipping the drugs to my friend's place since it was the closest. And I then started tracking the courier that was bringing my drugs and I realized that the drugs weren't reaching my friend's place until the next day. I was surely going to die by then.

Then I just happened to look down at my hand and I realized that it was white and peeling. I immediately went on wikipedia (good old wiki)  and found that peeling white skin is an indication that bat poison is reaching the heart. I had to take the drugs immediately. I rushed to the drug store and remembered that I did not know the names of the drugs. By then the day ended. And I remembered the last thing I wanted, to add to my troubles. That I was supposed to be flying to India that night and I would not be able to receive the drugs on time. I was going to die after all.

That's when I (gladly) opened my eyes and realized the height of absurdity in the dream. But I still had the image of my white and peeling hand stuck in me. I  thought to myself "This is not going to be a good day" when I remembered the ambulance carrying my tissues. And I burst out laughing. Even the big scare around my death started seeming funny.

I guess this is how dreams are- funny, weird, absurd and....downright pointless. :)

Return To Innocence...

This is the story of a young girl called Parvati. She was 4 when she first realized she loves animals and would grow up to be an ardent animal lover. Her mom would sing animal songs to her as she braided her hair and Parvati would listen with utmost attention, imagining every single animal in her mind...craving to touch the rabbit, cat, dog, kitten, pup, sparrow, parrot. "The world is after all a beautiful place, There must be God somewhere who created these wonderfully cute creatures", she always thought.

Soon she wanted to go out and play every evening because all the other children played!! She joined them and was the youngest in the group of 7 and was pampered a lot. Parvati's mom had instructed the eldest girl in the group- Pallavi -to make sure Parvati comes home safely everyday. Religiously Pallavi would come ring the doorbell for Parvati (since Parvati was too short to ring it herself) and wait until someone opened the door for her and then bid goodbye.

The children would wait to go out every evening and never got bored of playing hide and seek, catch-catch, ringa roses, help-help, lock and key, poison-medicine…until one day that is. One fine day everyone was bored to play these same old silly games. "Lets try something adventurous", they thought. Savita - the leader - suggested that the kids build a kennel for the new born stray pup in the vicinity. Everyone was enthusiastic and the tiny ones were running away to go look for the poor pup. They could only hear the pup whining in the distance and the kids imagined themselves to be detectives looking for it. 

There it was....in the corner of a warehouse. The group pounced on it and the pup was bewildered with all the sudden attention it got. Soon a fight broke out as to who should carry the pup and the gang leader Savita very peacefully reached a negotiated decision. Everyone gets to carry him for 1 minute, she said, until they reached back the playground that is. 

Parvati was thrilled to hold the pup when she got her chance. Her first encounter with a real animal!! "How cuuuute!!", she thought. She didnt want to put him down but they'd reached by then and her 1 minute was up. The kids collected bricks lying around and started building a 'kennel' - it should have probably been called a fortress. With limited number of bricks, the kids simply stacked up the bricks to form a tiny square and put the pup in middle. The claustrophobic pup felt suffocated and tried jumping out of it but Parvati was so concerned that she held him tight into it. The poor pup started wailing and soon people shouted at Parvati that she is hurting him. Terrified at the prospect , she released the pup who in an instant flew with a silent scream translating into 'Help me' and vanished in an instant.

The bored children couldnt think of anything better to do and lacking patience, they had had enough of the kennel business too. Soon it was dark. All the kids had been instructed by their parents to come back home before it is dark. And to make the kids obey, their parents had resorted to the age old golden rule of inducing some fear that automatically compelled the children to do as the parents wished. In other words, it amounted to taking advantage of their innocence. So while Parvati believed that there would be ghosts in the dark (although this wasn't told by her parents), Savita knew about dangerous people who kidnap children and Pallavi thought of snakes, Others thought of ants, mosquitoes, demons and all the most disagreeable creatures in the world. But very soon the baccha-party overcame all fears and were adamant to NOT go home so soon. They came up with the next adventure, a night-time one. Let's visit the top storey of a tall building,they decided. Soon they were chattering away on their way to the top floor of a 6-storeyed building. 

The staircase was eerily silent and Parvati's imagination was running away in the scary direction. She was thrilled at the prospect of seeing ghosts!! Savita thought of the dangerous psycho child-lifter who could be lurking somewhere. Pallavi was calm, quite sure to not see snakes in there. They reached the top floor and admired the view from there, whatever little was visible that is. But soon Savita noticed the little Parvati's scared facial expressions and decided to have some fun. She started telling the story of one of the apartments nearest to where they stood. About an old lady that once lived there. 

The story went-

"That lady died when she saw a ghost in her bedroom. It was a pitch dark night just like this one. She was in bed but awake. But she saw that moving shadow, and died immediately of a heart attack. She soon became a ghost herself. Now there are people who say that if you go near that apartment you can hear her screams. Once a couple of kids tried to knock on the apartment door and the door knob turned on its own. And every once in a while you can hear the sound of anklets and see a woman with a candle in her hand."

She was a good story-teller and within no time, all 7 girls were engrossed in her story. She enjoyed every minute of her terrifying story, watching the scared bunch of kids around her getting more and more scared. But Parvati was defiant. She found loop holes in her story and was soon getting very magnificent doubts. "But, Savita. Why would she carry a candle? If she is a ghost she should be able to see in dark. And Savita, why should she scream now? She is a ghost, so we should scream when we see her. And she should have screamed when SHE had seen the ghost, but instead she chose to die immediately. And if she is a ghost she should have red eyes and be wearing white clothes. I would want to see her. Lets go knock at the apartment.. ". Now it was Savita's turn to be scared. She knew that the apartment had been empty since many years, but she was worried for some reason. "Come, lets go home", she said. But Parvati was adamant and the others were too scared to speak.

Off went Parvati to knock at the apartment door while the others held on to each other in fear and shouted "No, Parvati , nooo". But brave Parvati was more interested in seeing the ghost than reassuring her friends. Within no time she reached the door and...there it was, right in front of her, the door knob was turning on its own!!! Bewildered and thrilled as she was, she still thought she had imagined it. Turning around she saw her friends pale as ghosts themselves, frozen by fear and utterly quiet. She realized that they must have seen it too. She was rooted to the spot in fear. Finally all of them heard it, the sound of anklets. They looked towards the entrance to the roof top,a flickering light that looked like a candle was appearing out of nowhere. That broke all the paralysis that had set in and they screamed in unison (Parvati included) and they flew down the stairs, taking multiple stairs at a time and a couple of them went sliding down the stair-railings, screaming at the same time. And then another scream (of the 'ghost') drowned their screams, as if there was a screaming competition. Savita was petrified to imagine her invented story had taken shape. Within seconds they were out of the building in the dark and running away at top speed. After running non-stop for what seemed like an hour, they all reached the playground again and fell down on the soft damp grass. Panting and gulping fresh air for breath. 

Pallavi spoke first and said...."Savita, you must be so brave, to tell that whole story without fear, when you knew all the time that all of it was true. I had not believed one word of it until I saw the whole thing happening in front of me". Parvati spoke next, "Savita, You really pretended like you were just telling a story, when all the time you knew it had actually happened sometime. Even I had not believed you for a second, but now I do". Savita was sheepish and scared as ever. She felt guilty, and strangely felt like she was being watched by the ghost, like the ghost had taught her a lesson. The others were too shaken and tired from the running, not to mention the event that had caused the running.

It was decided that they had better gone home. But since all were equally scared to take off alone, a plan was made to make sure each one of them had company. Parvati and Pallavi lived close by, so they had each other's company for sure. They ended up escorting everyone else till their homes and finally walked back together at top speed. 

Back in the building some things were happening. There was huge laughter. Deepak and Anil- Savita's elder brothers- were laughing their hearts out. "That was wonderful…getting into the apartment and turning the knob. And hiding on the roof and then coming down with a candle!! We ruined Savi's age-old story!! Hahaha…".

Back at home, Parvati got the scolding of her lifetime for coming home late, which came close enough in its terror-element to the evening's episode. But she carefully hid her fears and listened obediently and apologized like a good girl.As she sat down for dinner, she looked at her mother and said "Amma, I will never go and play after dark again. I promise". "Well, you are a good girl after all" smiled her mother, secretly congratulating herself on her own scolding skills. Parvati on the other hand thought "I suppose good girls also don't tell their parents the most dangerous adventures they indulge in, so that the parents don't get tensed". She promised herself not to ever disobey her parents, and yes not to be 'adventurous' for sure. 

Just as she finished eating, the phone rang. Her Dad called out "Parvati, it's for you." 

She picked up the receiver, "Hello."

"Hey, it's me Savita. Listen, tomorrow come early to the playground, by around 5 p.m. We are going to the old abandoned bungalow by the forest, my Dad was warning me NOT to go there because supposedly the psycho child lifter hides the kidnapped children there. "

"Wow, really?" asked Parvati.

"Yes, and that's why I have decided that tomorrow we MUST go there and give a shot at getting him apprehended. Imagine, we are 7 of us. It should be pretty easy. We can even take help from those kidnapped children. And the police would give us a reward."

"Sounds too good. I'll be at the playground at 5 sharp." said Parvati.

She kept the phone and turned around.

Her parents were busy making the bed. She looked at them and remembered the promise she had made to herself. 

Then she looked at the mirror and smiled sheepishly, "One last adventure…I promise." :)