Anita took another step forward, her eyes drawn to the corner where the shadows seemed darkest. Suddenly, the light flickered, and she caught a glimpse of the figure standing there, its eyes glowing like orbs. Her breath caught in her throat, and she stumbled backward, her heart now pounding in her chest.
The door shut with a bang, sucking out any lingering air in the room.
She staggered backward, trying to get away from the revolting figure, a figure which had grown to be as loathsome in life as in death. It didn’t move, just kept watching her, while she took quickened breaths in a futile attempt to calm herself.
With the breaths came the memories… of Nitesh, her handsome Nitesh, who had been conferred the title of Mr. Fresher at university. She had gasped at his chiseled features and his husky voice as he thanked the organizers. He was so charming; right then, she had found herself falling for him as did the majority of the girls in her batch, and some from the senior batches as well, she’d learned quickly. She had smiled to herself knowing he would come to her, they always did, like moths to a flame.
‘Amor Fati’, he used to say, on the days he wasn’t abusive towards her, encouraging her to accept his rough edges as readily as his love. She would grimace but end up smiling at him, hoping for it to stay, but it never stayed the same.
Snatching herself away from the memories, she once again forced herself to look at the figure, so grotesque with its rotting flesh and bulging eyes, gasping for breaths like it did when she had held the pillow to his face, her beautiful Nitesh…
Killing him had been a little discomforting for her, the only killing that mattered, and therefore, she had ensured he suffered little pain.
“Anita,” his raspy voice echoing in the surreal space, “You cannot run from what you are.”
“No”, she shrieked as the room dissolved into a swirling vortex of colors and memories. She found herself standing in the courtyard of her childhood home in Anantapur. The air was thick with the scent of something metallic as she found herself standing beside her uncle’s lifeless body, surrounded by snarling dogs. Her mother stood in the doorway, her face a mask of horror.
“Kanna, what have you done?” her mother howled.
The terror in her mother’s eyes when she discovered what Anita had done, the brutal “exorcisms” that followed, meant to drive out the supposed demon within her.
But the true demon had never left. It had grown with her, fed by every act of vengeance she exacted on those who hurt women. Each kill had been a triumph, until Nitesh.
Her love for Nitesh had been real, a rare light in her dark world. But even he had turned into a tormentor, gaslighting and controlling her. She had tried to ignore it, to hold onto the man she fell in love with. But the day he raised his hand against her was the day the demon within her rose, this time within the very walls of her home.
As the scene shifted again, Anita was back in the study, but it was no longer the study she knew. This was where she got them, sedated them and keep them alive to torment. She would record the voices of the pleading men before she finally dismembered them and fed them to the wild animals.
“Did it help,” Nitesh said, his voice struggling to come out, “Did the pills help you to forget? Forget me?“
“I’m sorry, Nitesh,” she whispered, tears streaming down her face. “I’m so sorry.”
The figure remained, silent and unmoving, as if waiting for her to fully comprehend her sins. The room grew colder, the air thick with sorrow and regret.
In that moment, Anita cried and begged, begged Nitesh for mercy, to free her from this purgatory. Killing him had broken the silent treaty with the demon inside her, she had given it a leeway but his death had been the day she had vowed to stop. But the balance of scales had tipped and she was imprisoned forever in this purgatory with the man she had loved, loathed and killed.
She wept and wept, finding it easier to breathe with every drop of tear, this was her way of repenting. Come morning, she would go back to being the woman whose husband had deserted her, she would be the face of innocence while her heart gasped for breaths reeling under the weight of her demon.
She had become the very monster she feared, trapped in an endless cycle of denial and grief.
The End
Fingers in symphony 