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Thriller: The Ultimate Choice

Discussion in 'Stories (Fiction)' started by Tamrakshar, Jan 25, 2020.

  1. katchibinanda

    katchibinanda New IL'ite

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    From the vivid description it looks like you have good experience in EMA?
     
  2. Tamrakshar

    Tamrakshar Platinum IL'ite

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  3. Riverstream

    Riverstream Bronze IL'ite

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    So Rajan survived. But who saved him and who put him in jail?:anguished::openmouth:
     
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  4. Tamrakshar

    Tamrakshar Platinum IL'ite

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    Thanks Riverstream for your feedback. Who incarcerated Rajan will be be revealed after a few more episodes, but you will get the answer to your second question pretty soon. Just wait for a couple of hours.
     
    Last edited: Feb 15, 2020
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  5. Tamrakshar

    Tamrakshar Platinum IL'ite

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    Episode 9

    Rajan might have lost interest in his wife, but in his entire 48 years of life, no one could accuse him of having any homosexual tendencies! So, he was in utter surprise to find himself on the stretched arms of another man. It didn't take too long for him to come back to his senses, and Boy! Didn't he blush?

    "What is this Rajan Anna, what were you doing? Have you gone insane?" Putting the entire 65 kg weight of short-stature Rajan on a wooden bench, Sid asked the question angrily. He was huffing and puffing like a steam engine.

    As Rajan didn't answer, it appeared to Sid that Rajan still could not come out of his stupor. So, Sid sprinkled cold water on his face. That made Rajan shriek, "Stop! What are you doing? Do you want me to die of pneumonia?"

    At last, a hint of smile could be seen on Sid's face for a second. But, he asked the same question again.

    Sid was very close to Rajan. He had always considered Sid as his "sodarudu". So, Rajan broke down in tears. Sid hugged him, and gave him plenty of time to recover. When Rajan stopped crying, he said, "Let's get out from here, otherwise the stupid watchman will barge into here. I had to bribe him heavily for only 10 minutes."

    This time Rajan had a hearty laugh, and said, " Okay, let's have a cup of coffee at ridgeport Coffeehouse."

    ------------------------------------------------------------------------


    Having born and brought up in a Hindu family, Archana had heard a lot of stories about heaven and hell. Archana's grandmother was a master story teller. In her childhood, she told the children a lot of scary stories about hell. Archana's childhood passed by listening myriad stories of "yamdoot" torturing the sinners. Despite living in the USA for many years, a country well known for her liberal values, Archana still had plenty of qualms about her relationship with Sid. So, she knew when she would die, she would land in hell, where the yamdoots would be waiting for her to put her in the hellfire.

    She didn't know that the hell was so dark. The darkness was so severe that it appeared to her that it would swallow her like a blackhole. Just when she comforted herself from the fact that there were no yamdoots to torture her, she found someone was coming towards her.

    "Who are you?" She shouted, as she couldn't see the face of the intruder.

    "Yamdoot!" Someone replied with a gruff voice followed by a hysterical laughter.

    "Oh my God!" Archana shrank, as her worst fear was turning out to be true.

    "What did I do? Why have you come?" Archana could utter somewhat audible after putting tremendous amount of work, as her voice was not cooperating with her in fear.

    Again the yamdoot guffawed and said, "But let me see your face first, and then I will decide whether to fry you in my giant wok or put you in the tandoor."

    He followed up by directing red lights that came from his fearsome eyes on Archana's face. Archana couldn't withstand the light, as it seemed to her that she had been kept in darkness since time immemorial.

    She screamed, "Please take off the light! My eyes are burning."

    But, the yamdoot was unrelenting. He advanced towards Archana, and the brightness of the light seemed to have increased manifold. It appeared to Archana that someone was piercing her eyes with needle, and she cried, "Kill me. But for God's sake, stop the light."

    At that moment, her dream was broken, and she was astonished to see bright light in the room. It took some times for her eyes to adjust to the bright blue light. After few minutes, for the first time, she could see the place where she had been incarcerated.

    It was a grotty, small room, hardly 8'x8'x10' in dimension. There was no furniture in the room. There was a door, which seemed to be closed from outside, but no windows in the room. Archana wondered how she was breathing in this suffocating environment! See looked up, and got the answer. There was only one, small air vent on the top of one wall. There was a LED blue light bulb on the same wall. There was a ceiling fan on top.

    Now, Archana looked at her own condition. Voila! She got a sense of relief to find herself out of bondage. She couldn't see the chains anywhere on the bare, dull, cement floor of the room. Archana was in turquoise kurti and ochre leggings. She remembered this was the dress she had worn when she boarded the New Delhi bound plane with Sidhharth on Saturday at 6 PM in evening from Chicago.

    "New Delhi", "Siddharth", these two words struck a flash in her mind. But, she couldn't remember how she came here.

    "What's the time now?" She frantically searched her mobile, the device that made the wrist watch a redundant thing. But, it was no where to be seen. The azure Apple iPhone 6 was perhaps the best friend of her in her boredom. She always kept it with her, whether she was in toilet, or she was doing her half-an-hour of workout on the treadmill. She kept it on the side of her pillow, even though it was switched off, during her sleeping hours.

    Flabbergasted, Archana now looked minutely at herself to know which parts of her body were hurt. She checked her hands, legs, ribs, chest etc, but there seemed to no injury. At last, she touched her head, and she immediately screamed in extreme pain. There was a huge bump, of the size of a large potato, on her head. It seemed that she was hit by some blunt object on her head. Blunt, because she found no evidence of blood.

    To be continued on Wednesday night
     
    Last edited: Feb 15, 2020
  6. Mistt

    Mistt IL Hall of Fame

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    An intriguing episode! I thought of Rob or Fred would save Rajan from suicide attempt but you surprised me with sudden appearance of Siddharth on roof garden. Good twist and I will wait to read more unexpected turns in the story.:thumbsup:
     
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  7. Tamrakshar

    Tamrakshar Platinum IL'ite

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    Thanks for your encouraging comment. Twist and turns? Yes, there will be plenty of them.
     
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  8. Tamrakshar

    Tamrakshar Platinum IL'ite

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    Episode 10

    Archana waited there for another 6 hours. Despite the injury on her head, Archana got a sense of hope from the fact of being freed from the chain. She used her brain power to the hilt to guess how she got entangled into this mess! Who could be her captors, and what could be the motive? She tried her best to find out what happened after she boarded the New Delhi bound plane! But despite her brain storming, she could not remember anything. "Is this memory loss because of the head injury?" She apprehended.

    Sometimes walking can freshen the mind. Archana stood up after some effort, and started to walk, after a few unsteady steps, to and fro inside the small room. She looked minutely at the door. Rat tat tat! She knocked it with her fist.

    "Ouch!" She exclaimed, as it hurt. But, she didn't mind. From the sound of the knock, it appeared to her that the door was not made up of a thick wood. She thought she could break it, if she got a rod or any hard object. But, all she could see on the floor was thick dust.

    Archana shook her head in disgust. She hadn't have the luxury of having any domestic help in her house in Chicago. She had to do all the household chores, be it washing or be it cleaning, herself. Even gardening was imposed on her by Rajan. However, this workload had a positive impact on her body. It made her so strong that she had never fallen ill in the last ten years.

    "Why don't I try my bare hands", she thought. It didn't take even a second to implement her plans into action. Bang, bang, bang! She used all the force she possessed to break the door which she thought was ramshackle. But, within 10 minutes she became so exhausted that she fell on the ground. Her reflex prevented her from getting another injury.

    Her head was spinning. She could barely open her eyes. Very quickly she realised that she was sapped of all the energy. It appeared to her that she hadn't eaten anything for eons, and she had the thirst of a desert.

    "Help me! Please give some water!" She garnered all the power to say something audible.

    "Feeling thirsty? Ha ha ha!" A voice, slightly nasal in tone, asked the question in a sarcastic manner.

    Archana felt slightly better by then. She looked up to check whose voice was that. But she could not find anyone in that room. She, slowly, sat up with the help of her hands. Her head was spinning.

    "Looking for me? You can't see me." Again, the nasal voice spoke.

    "Who are you? Give me some food. I can't bear it any more." Archana almost cried.

    "Ha ha ha ha", the nasal voice laughed as if Archana had cracked a super joke!

    "Who am I will be revealed to you in due course of time. But, food should be your first concern. Ain't It?"

    Archana was almost dying of thirst and hunger. That argument seemed very logical to her. She instantly agreed, and said, "Ok, give me some food."

    "You will get it. But, you have to make a deal with me." This time the voice was very economical with his words.

    Archana's brain was still functioning, in spite of her empty stomach.

    "Condition? What condition?"

    "You have to obey my orders. You don't have much choices, though. You are completely under my control. I can take your life any moment, if I wish so. But, I don't want to take any harsh measures. That's why I want you to cooperate."

    Archana realized that without food and water she would not last long. The blue light was on, but light was fading in her eyes. The dizziness in her head was increasing manifold with the passage of each minute.

    "What are you thinking? Your pulse has gone down to 50. You don't have much time to waste. Agree, you will get food. Else...."

    "How the hell does he know my pulse rate?" Archana didn't have too much time to ponder over the question. She said, "I agree."

    "No, no! Not like this! I know you Hindu women are very God fearing. Take an oath in the name of your deity."

    "In the name of Lord Shiva, I agree." Archana could hardly finish the sentence, as she collapsed on the ground.
    -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

    Rajan remembered that it was Siddharth, who after a staggering hours of discussion convinced him to drop the idea of suicide. It was Sid who told him to start life afresh in India. Rajan was hesitant thinking about the kids and Archana. Sid convinced him that Indian institutions were no inferior. When Rajan opened the matter with Archana, he was taken aback by no resistance from her. She said it didn't matter to her.

    So, Rajan finalised all the plans, and no doubt he was master at that, to start life from scratch in his hometown in Andhra Pradesh. But, he got a huge setback just a day before his bidding farewell to America. Archana left the house leaving a note. The note said that she was leaving him for ever, and he should make no efforts to find her.

    When someone gets a huge shock in life, his life gets upside down. But after due course of time, he becomes accustomed to his new situation. He doesn't feel the same impact of another shock. Exactly, the same thing happened to Rajan when he read that note. He never imagined that Archana, a docile wife who obeyed every decision of him with earnest dedication, could resort to such drastic step. She never gave a hint that she was getting estranged from him.

    But this turn of events didn't make Rajan abandon his plans. In his heart, he realized that everything was not normal between him and his wife. Archana wrote that she would be happy to leave him. Rajan, also, wanted to see her happy. So, with a heavy heart, Rajan let it go, and gave final touches to his plan. The fact that his two children were firmly on his side gave him the necessary encouragement.

    To be continued on Saturday night
     
    Last edited: Feb 19, 2020
  9. Mistt

    Mistt IL Hall of Fame

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    Gripping update on kidnapper !. I'm trying to guess who that abductor is and his plans behind abduction .:confundio1:
    I wish that I could get at least one clue in coming episodes.:grinning:
     
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  10. Riverstream

    Riverstream Bronze IL'ite

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    This is scary. Is the nasal voice coming from a ghost?
     
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