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drama, entertainment, fiction, Horror, Short Fiction, Short Story, Stories, story, Supernatural, writing
It was one of the worst summers of her life as Kavya maneuvered her car down the hot, blazing street. The sun was just above her head and burning with full intensity forcing her to lower the temperature of the air-conditioning of her car as far as possible. She had a 12.30 appointment with her dietician and even though it was scorching outside, she had decided to keep the appointment.
There weren’t that many cars on the road that day as she pushed the accelerator down as far as the speed limit would permit when her eyes fell on the middle of the junction looming ahead. Her eyes couldn’t believe what she was seeing. Her old classmate Agni stood there still as a mannequin, her eyes on her and the car. And then a faint smile lit her face.
“What the heck is she doing?” Kavya asked herself as she continued to drive at full speed right at her. “Get out of the way,” she yelled at Agni who completely ignored her warning and continued her silent protest, the smile still glued on her face.
Without a warning, Kavya’s car came to a complete standstill just inches away from Agni who stood rooted to the spot, with no fear on her face. “What the heck are you trying to do?” She demanded. “Trying to kill both of us, you bitch?”
She then tried to open the door but to her surprise, Kavya found the doors locked. She realized with alarm that the central locking system of the car had got jammed. She tried everything possible to get the door opened but it wouldn’t budge. To her horror, Kavya further realized that the car’s engine too had died down and the air-conditioning no longer functioned.
“What is happening? Somebody help me. Help me Agni.” Kavya screamed at the girl standing facing her car. But Agni stood her ground, simply smiling at her through the front windshield. It was a matter of minutes before the blazing sun took its toll on the car and its sole occupant and before long, Kavya let out a last gasp for air and collapsed. The led clock on the dashboard read 12:00. Agni had disappeared.
A year later, on the same day and at the same time, young Jigna hiked through the barren mountains far located far from civilization in the middle of a high desert. She had parked her car at the foothills of the mountain and had decided to do a solo hike up the lonely mountain wearing a black top and shorts, a thrill which she always enjoyed in the company of herself. But she wasn’t prepared as she had hoped to. As she climbed gingerly up the steep mountain, her eyes fell on her. She looked across at her unbelievingly.
“What are you doing here Agni?” She yelled out to her. But Agni who was perched on the side of the mountain delicately simply smiled back at her.
“Damn, this girl.” Jigna thought. “Of all the girls in the world, I should come across this sissy in the middle of nowhere.”
She ignored her and continued her climbing, her breath now coming in shorts gasps. “I need to rest,” she thought to herself, her body completely covered in sweats and wanting a sip of water. The sun was now directly overhead. She took a break to rest on the sides and pulled off the water bottle from her waist. As she did so, she once again looked across at Agni who was still smiling back at her. At that very moment, the bottle slipped from her hand and went crashing down the mountain.
“Oh god, now what did I do?” She moaned aloud. “I’ll have to go back down. All of a sudden, the sun has become terribly unbearable.”
She stood up and this time gingerly tried to make her way back to the base. She felt giddy and tired. Her body ached immensely and her breathing too was slow and unsteady. She felt dizzy. She looked across towards Agni for help but Agni had disappeared. Without any warning, her knees buckled beneath her and she went flying down the mountainside. Moments later, a few fellow hikers found her body lying in a heap at the base of the mountain. Time had stood still for Jigna at noon as the hikers confirmed later to the police.
There was still another girl awaiting a similar fate. Shaily was 1/3 part of the trio of Kavya, Jigna, and herself. They were an inseparable team who had been close friends with each other through their college life but foes to the others. They were known as the three racketeers who preyed on the weaklings of the college. Bullies, they wouldn’t even spare the boys at times. One of their victims was Agni. But Agni, a down-to-earth and ever-smiling girl was not someone to keep grudges and she had forgiven them for bullying her. Almost.
Shaily saw in the comforts of her room going through the college pictures on her laptop. Her eyes fell on the ever-smiling Agni in one of the images. She wondered where Agni was in the present. Soon after that fateful day, they had simply lost contact with her. They had no idea where she had disappeared.
As she reminisced over the good old days with her two pals, the power blacked out. Suddenly, there was a deafening silence in the empty house. Her parents were traveling leaving her all by herself. “Damn,” she exclaimed aloud. “This power outage had to happen today itself when the weather was all blazing outside.”
Shaily opened the windows of the house to let some air in. But unfortunately, even the breeze that blew in was scorching her skin. She had always been susceptible to summers and had taken care to stay away from the heat that the summer brought with it. But today was different. It was as if the weather was seeking revenge on her. Her eyes fell on Agni’s picture on the laptop screen. It was taken on their college terrace in the blazing hot sun.
The trio had dragged her on the terrace and had forced her to stand on one leg in the blazing hot sun. And as time dragged on, Agni stood patiently with the sun in full flow. She knew not when she got dizzy and her knees buckled under her. She fell unconscious on the terrace and her head busted open. The three racketeers had disappeared after seeing her fall. The college authorities rushed her to the hospital but she never came out of the coma.
Shaily wondered how Agni was doing today. But it was too late to think of the poor girl. She decided to go to the terrace of her house where some trees on the pheriphery of the house offered the house some bit of respite from the sun. Unfortunately, in a rush to rest under the shades of the trees, Shaily twisted her ankle and fell to the floor. She was in deep pain under the blazing sun, unable to move. She screamed for help but she knew the next house for hundreds of meters away and nobody would hear her.
Three days later, her parents on their return, found her partly sunburned body lying on the terrace, dead due to acute dehydration and heatwave.
Agni, on the other hand, was still lying in the hospital in a coma experiencing an out-of-body experience. Her spirit had left her body thrice to witness the three racketeers’ death. She felt sorry for them as she came out of the coma after 3 long years and remembered her out-of-body experiences…