“Devi! Get up!” Nina screamed. But the prone body of her sister remained unmoving.

“Devi!” Nina began beating on her sister’s chest to see if that would get her sister to breathe or move.

“She’s gone,” a man stated softly.

“No! No! She can’t leave me. She knows I’m all alone without her. She promised we’d be together and wouldn’t leave like Uma did.” Nina was hysterical.

“We have to get away from here,” another man stated. “Someone will come looking for Pranit soon.”

Nina was clinging to her sister’s body, rubbing her sister’s soft hair over and over again. “Devi, please. Get up.”

Nina felt arms pulling her away. She tried to resist, but the arms, while gentle, were also firm.

Soon the entire room was engulfed in flames.

“Save her! She’s still alive! Please save her!” Nina continued to scream.

 

 

Nina jerked awake.

She was breathing fast, and she was trembling and cold, despite the blankets on her. The sound of her alarm continued to ring next to her. Reaching a hand, she hit the stop button.

When she continued to tremble, she pulled a thick comforter on top of her blanket.

Soon warmth enveloped her, and she closed her eyes to try and calm down.

It took a while for her body to stop shaking. And when it did, she realized that her pillow was drenched in tears. She must have cried during her dream.

Will these dreams ever stop?

Nina knew they probably wouldn’t.

Most of the time, she was able to put up mental shields to stop them. But lately, either due to fatigue or due to her irrational paranoia, the memories of her past snuck in.

Determinedly, Nina shook off the remnants of her dream and put her shields back on again.

She wiped her eyes and stared at the empty space next to her on the bed. Suraj would be back before the maids began their daily cleaning.

She slid out from under the warmth of a cozy comforter and headed to the bathroom to freshen up and get ready for the day. She knew she had to dress in layers since it was the winter season. Even though most of the day was quite warm, it did get quite chilly during the early hours.

 

SHE FINISHED BUTTONING up her dress before wearing a pair of flat, sensible shoes. She then headed down to the kitchens.

The cook was just finishing the packing. Thanking him, Nina picked up one of the large food bags that contained smaller individual containers. The food was made using the previous night’s leftovers and had been modified to make it more wholesome and nutritious.

“Let me help you, madam.” The driver picked up and carried the remaining food bags to the car.

After placing them in the trunk, Nina and the driver waited for the gunman to arrive. She had informed both the driver as well as the gunman of her plans for that morning.

When the gunman didn’t join them, Nina asked the driver to check.

Fifteen minutes later, the driver returned without the gunman. “I think he’s still asleep, madam. I’ve called him on his phone and knocked on the door as well.”

Nina hadn’t bothered to ask any of the other gunmen to accompany her. In fact, the previous night, she passed an order for the rest of them to take off or come in later as they had been working quite late the previous night.

“Should I carry the food back to the kitchen?” the driver asked.

“No, that’s okay. We’ll only be gone for a couple of hours.”

The driver hesitated, but he nodded, not wanting to go against her wishes. “The usual place first, madam?”

“Yes, the usual place.”

The car pulled out of the long driveway. It seemed almost indecent to travel in such luxury to a place where there were people who didn’t have basic necessities. But Suraj didn’t own modest cars since he was always paranoid about her safety.

They passed through the quiet streets. There were barely any vehicles at five-thirty in the morning. Her eyes took in the familiar houses of the neighborhood she had seen during the last ten years.

Each house was bigger and more luxuriously built than the other. Nina knew most of the people who lived in those houses. She had been socializing with them for the good part of her marriage.

The car left the upscale neighborhood and drove deeper into the city. Traffic lined the roads and a lot of people were already up and moving about, either on foot or in their two-wheelers.

The car stopped next to a large abandoned building where a lot of homeless people usually stayed during the winter months. Even though it was early in the morning, most of them were lined up against one of the walls facing the road with the bowls in front of them. The rest were sleeping on the other side of the building.

Nina knew that once the day properly kicked in, most of the homeless would disperse, either to work in very low-paying jobs or to simply beg on the streets.

“Stay here. I’ll be back in a few minutes,” Nina instructed the driver. There was no parking near the building. She didn’t really need the driver to accompany her since she was used to these roads and also used to being around homeless people.

She got out of the car and grabbed one of the food bags she had packed specifically for distributing at this place. She had two more bags that were to be dropped at other locations.

There were close to twenty people lined up against the wall. Nina started from the end.

An old woman smiled in gratitude. “God bless you, my child. May God bless you.”

Nina smiled back and continued distributing. When she almost reached to the end of the line, she paused.

The person sitting did not extend the bowl like the others. In fact, the person stayed completely still. The blankets that covered most of the homeless people at that time in the morning did not allow Nina to know whether the person was a man or a woman. But the large build made her think that the likelihood of it being a man was higher.

“Here,” she said softly and dropped a pouch into the bowl.

For several moments, the pouch remained untouched. The person did not grab it immediately like the others. Nina almost thought that the person might have been sleeping. But then, two large hands came out of the blankets to pick up the food.

A frown marred Nina’s face. She was pretty sure that the hands that grabbed the pouch looked clean. In fact, even the nails on the strong fingers had gleamed healthy pink, rather than the murky grime one usually found on a homeless person.

But before Nina could ask or say something, the person who was next-in-line began to shake his bowl in impatience. Nina resumed with the food distribution.

When she was done, she took the bag with the remaining food pouches inside the building to drop them off near the people who were still asleep.

She had just placed one near the last of the homeless people when she felt the presence of someone at her back.

She whipped around, and her heart almost skipped a beat when she saw the dark, looming shape of a person standing only a few feet away from her.

She couldn’t see the entire face because a hood covered most of it, and it was also slightly dark inside the building. However, she recognized the color of the hood. It was the same person who was sitting very still while she had distributed the food.

A thick stubble on a strong chin that was not visible, confirmed that it was a man.

A man who had followed her inside and was standing eerily still.

“H-hello,” she said, her voice wavering slightly. “Did you want more food? I have a few more pouches remaining.” She drew out one and extended it towards him.

The man continued to stand still.

Nina looked around surreptitiously. This part of the abandoned building was cut off from the busy street and the pedestrians. She shouldn’t have ventured here, but she knew some children would be sleeping under worn blankets until it got warmer outside.

She could feel the man’s gaze sizing her up. He was probably trying to see what valuables she had worn or carried with her currently.

Nina never wore any jewellery or carried any accessories with her while visiting such places. She had firsthand experiences in the past and knew that to do so would tempt a possible mugger.

Even though it was obvious that she had nothing valuable on her currently, every instinct screamed danger and warned Nina to run away.

But she stopped herself.

The man was probably just a poor homeless person who was looking for more food. Based on his size, she figured the food offered to him initially might not have been enough.

Then why was he not asking for more food?

Immediately, she felt guilty of suspecting him. She, of all the people knew how most of the homeless people, after having lived on streets for long and having no social interactions, didn’t communicate much with anyone. What such people needed was compassion, not being treated as an object of fear or disgust.

Even as that reasoning ran through her mind, as soon as the man took a step towards her, her heartbeat increased further. The man did not reach for the food container yet, but he was standing close enough for her to be able to actually smell him.

He smelled of clean soap and a mild, spicy deodorant—not how a typical person living on streets smelled.

Nina quickly moved her eyes lower, only to meet with a broad chest that couldn’t hide the well-packed muscles underneath a worn t-shirt.

The man definitely wasn’t a homeless person.

Alarm bells began to ring louder within her. “What do you want?” she asked.

Her outstretched hand which held the food pouch was visibly shaking. She also knew it was too late to run. He looked strong enough to chase her and get her easily. So the only thing she could do was call for help.

Before she could open her mouth to scream, he was on her.

He pulled her close and placed his hand on her mouth and nose. At the first whiff of the slightly sweet smell from a damp cloth, Nina stayed completely still. She made some token struggles before she slowly let her body slump.

When the man felt the dead weight of her slackened body, he moved the cloth away from her nose and mouth. Immediately, Nina elbowed him hard in the stomach and kicked him even harder on the shin.

She heard a painful exhale from her attacker, and his hold on her loosened.

She barely took a step away and drew in a deep breath to let out a scream when she felt the grip on her tighten once again. She was banged into his hard chest, and then the cloth was placed back on her mouth.

This time, she began struggling for real. She scratched the back of the man’s hands using her nails and tried to twist her head away from the cloth.

If I’m going to be a victim of a senseless crime, I will not go down easily!

She tried to kick the man’s shin again, but he was holding her too close. So, she tried to reach back and push the hood away from the man’s face. At least someone would see the face of her attacker.

But the grip on her remained firm, not allowing her to move much. She felt the hot breath of the man in her ears as she continued to struggle and kick. She was screaming, but the screams sounded way too muffled and not loud enough to get any attention. She knew she shouldn’t be screaming as that would draw in whatever drug he had placed on the cloth to work faster. But there was no other choice. She knew he would place the cloth on her nose and mouth, long enough for her to be unable to hold her breath.

Slowly, and in what felt like forever, her struggles grew weaker. Dark spots which had begun to appear in her vision were taking over completely.

No, this cannot be happening!

That was her last thought before there was complete oblivion.