Varuni Villa Part -3

It was twilight and Rohit was staring idly at the ceiling while lying on his bed as his thoughts swirled like a hurricane inside her mind.

‘What was it that he had seen last night…. an apparition?’ Rohit thought, ‘Or was she really here last night?’

Rohit had goose - bumps as the thought crossed his mind.

“But why was she here? For what?” Rohit asked himself as he sat upon the bed and faced the mirror.

He went to the kitchen and made himself a cup of coffee while trying to find out a suitable logic behind the incident. As he couldn’t find any he sat down to type the story of Varuni Villa. It was already midnight when he finished writing the scene in which Avani brutally murders her husband and flees. Rohit celebrated his accomplishment by having a few pegs and finally hit the bed.

“No …leave me alone.” Avani’s voice rang in Rohit’s ears. He clearly heard her screaming out of fear.

He tried his level best to open his eyelids but he just could not and the nightmare continued.

“Let me go…” She screamed and ran out of the corridor with a man running close behind her. He grasps her by wrist as she approaches the well.

“No… for God’s sake … don’t do this to me.” Avani begs him for mercy as tears drench her beautiful face.

The man pulls out a hammer from the pocket of his long overcoat and hits her on the head. Blood spurts out from her head. She loses her balance and falls down into the well.

Rohit opened his eyes and runs into the garden as if to save her. There was dead silence outside.

Suddenly a voice echoes in his ears, “Get me out of here, Rohit.”

The voice seems to come from the well. Rohit walks toward the well with a slow pace and peeps into it. He could see a vague reflection of moon in the water.

The next morning Pawar and his men fished a skeleton out of the well. Rohit was standing with his back turned towards it.

Pawar took a close look at it and muttered, “We have to find out two things – who was it and how was it – suicide or murder?”

“Murder” Rohit said with his back still turned towards the skeleton.

“How can you be so sure?”

“The skull is fractured.”

Pawar turned the skeleton’s head sideways and located the fracture. He looked at Rohit in utter disbelief and asked, “How could you say that without even looking at it?”

“She told me?”

“Who?”

“Avni…”

“You mean Avnita Mehra.”

Rohit nodded with his stony eyes fixed on the far horizon.

“How could that be?” Pawar asked in utter disbelief, “she is dead.”

Pawar threw a frightened glance at Rohit and ordered his men to take the skeleton for forensic analysis.