Was She..?

The hair clip fell down from the terrace of her apartment as she let her knotted hair lose while drying her clothes. Looking down, she exclaimed "Oops! It would be broken by now". Shakshi graduated last year and now she is working with an MNC. She has recently moved to a rented apartment near to her office.

Shakshi usually spent time by playing her guitar and with her pet dog for which she is receiving a lot of complaints from her neighbours recently. "Oh God, these days it's so hectic in office, I badly need an off tomorrow" she murmured to herself as she came to her room. While resting on her bed, she got an idea to herself "Why not go for the new movie tomorrow? I did hear it's really a scary one."

The next day, she came up to the terrace to dry her clothes. Getting tired of the complaints, she locked her dog in her room. "Hey, good morning! Have you shifted here recently?" A lady approached her as she was drying her clothes. "Yeah, I'm on the 6th floor to the corner D" Shakshi replied as she greeted her back. "Great, nice to meet you. I own a flat on the same floor. Welcome to the neighbourhood" the lady replied. "That's great, well it's a lovely neighbourhood". They both had an interaction and now Shakshi had someone to talk to. Although she loved her dog, but due to the complaints she is receving, she planned to leave the dog back to her home. Now apart from playing the guitar and with her dog, she developed good terms with her flat mate as well with whom she regularly chats after she returns from her office.

Next day, once she is back from office, Shakshi saw police cars and ambulance had gathered in front of her apartment. She asked one of the security guards about the incident, they replied "A dead body has been found on the 6th floor. The police is investigating, please avoid going towards that flat." She took the lift to avoid the rush. She reached her floor and found the police had gathered outside the flat next to her with barricades. 

While she was opening the door, one of policemen saw and asked her "Madam, do you live in this flat?" "Yes Sir, I'm staying here since last week" she responded, "May I ask what has happened here?". "The security in charge of this apartment complained about finding a dead body in this apartment this afternoon" answered the policemen and questioned her back "Do you know this person who resides here or have you heard anything suspicious?" "Sorry Sir, but I have never seen anyone resides here as no one came out or went in till I was here". Suddenly, another officer came and informed, "Sir, looking at the body, the doctor has suggested that the person has been dead for about a week or so as the body has started to decompose. It might be a case of heart attack as there is no physical injury which is visible."

In the meanwhile, as she was entering her room the security guard came up to her stating, "Madam, here is your dog". She got surprised and asked "How did you get her? I locked her in the room when I left". The security person replied, "Madam, your dog might have broken your lock. After you left, she was constantly barking near the door. One of the residents called the security complaining about it. We thought, there may be an emergency, we knocked on the door and then eventually opened it with a spare key that you have kept with us. She jumped and started barking and scratching on this door. We broke in and got shocked to see the dead body." 

Shakshi thought, maybe, this was the reason she was barking all this while. After a shower, she went to the terrace. While drying her clothes, she explained this scenario to her flat mate. "Can you believe this!" Shakshi exclaimed after she narrated the incident. "Yeah, even I heard it" the flatmate responded, "have you seen the person who died?" Shakshi got confused for a bit but replied, "I have never seen that person yet but I heard the police identified the person was a middle-aged lady named Veena Routh". To this, the lady commented, "It's not Veena, it's Beena Routh and she was 42 years old. She had been really sick for over 2 months with no one to look after her."

"I see, it seems that you knew her well" Shakshi replied. "Was she your neighbour too?" she asked. "Not really, but being a neighbour she was aware of you the day you moved in here" the lady confirmed. "What! How is that possible? We haven't even met" Shakshi asked the lady in confusion.

The lady smiled and replied, "Because I'm Beena!"

After scene - Never did she see the lady again as she vanished off after saying her last words.