Nivita Sabarwal bad day

Nivita Sabarwal shut down her desktop on her work desk, got up, hung her purse on her shoulders, picked up the briefcase, mobile phone, and walked out of her office after digitally signing off. The time was 7.17 p.m.

This late Saturday winter evening in Meerut's suburban office complex, she found that she was the last to leave her office. That was not unusual as her duties generally made her stay late on almost all working day; another reason was that her residential flat was located not too far away, requiring about thirty-five minutes' walk to reach; so, she could afford to stay those extra hours. She also preferred to stay in shape as she walked at every opportunity.

As she stepped out of the office building onto the main road and turned left, she found that some of the streetlights at a distance were not working, thus throwing patches of lights and shadows on the road winding ahead.

The area opposite the office building, covering the other side of the road, was expansive and empty till eyes could fathom, with some half-constructed buildings barely visible afar due to the sporadic lit bulbs in those places.

Her office was situated at the end of a row of buildings on the right end, and so she had to walk about a kilometer on the road towards the left side to reach the next chain of buildings. The intermediate area had no office, with an enormous public park with bushes, flowers, large trees, and well-manicured lawns.

This evening, aggravating the partial darkness, the roads were utterly deserted since all the offices in this area had closed a long time ago, and the people had gone home.

In any case, all these neither posed any problems for her nor was she scared of any known or unknown dangers, which she thought were very unlikely.

She knew that Vikram, her fiancé, would disagree with her risk-taking attitude, but that was who she was.

Apart from being courageous, Nivita was a pretty woman in a conventional sense. She was without any makeup, had long black hair tied tightly in a bun, wore black-rimmed glasses that partially hid her lotus-shaped eyes and had a petite nose and thin shapely pale pink lips. Her slim figure was attired in a simple cotton blue saree with a woollen shawl thrown over her shoulders. With black utility sandals encasing her feet, she walked briskly after glancing at the wristwatch strapped to her right wrist.

Since this walk was a routine, always uneventful, her mind was more preoccupied with the work she had to plan for the next week than about her security or any other danger.

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However, she had an unexpected experience that evening.

While walking briskly when her attention was more on her mobile phone, she perceived something was amiss.