Situation improved little by little for Mitra after that. Her parents moved to Delhi majorly because she got admission in a university there for studying computer sciences. Vishal joined a different college in Delhi to study mass communications and journalism.
Somewhere along the way, during the years of Mitra's absence post Lekha's death, Vishal had invested his time in trying to find the way the murder case was being handled, investigating on his own for any news that might help find the culprits, all in an attempt to ease Mitra's guilt and make her come back to the town.
In the process, he found his passion for journalism.
He had mentioned it in a few of his letters to Mitra during high school. However, it took a lot of effort on his part to clear the entrance exams with minimal help and tutoring. There were times during their college years when Vishal used to stay over at Mitra's house over the weekends and part of his vacations while he did part-time gigs for the local media outlets.
Neither Vishal nor Mitra ever particularly, verbally affirmed their feelings for each other. It was somehow a silent vow that they were in a relationship. They never counted the years or marked a date as their anniversary, for neither of them was sure about when it all began. It evolved in the most natural way possible.
Mitra, who had had a dream during her high school years of becoming a white hacker, lost the will for it over years. No matter what reason she attributed it to, she knew deep in her heart that it was all because of the book she had lost the evening Lekha abused her.
She had forgotten about her lost book due to the subsequent incidents of horror that had erupted back then, and by the time she started searching for it, she remembered when and how she had lost it.
And she kept remembering Lekha's face every time she thought of the book. She remembered Lekha scoffing at her every time she was reminded of her dream. Gradually, it became the sole reason for Mitra's weakened purpose. She simply did her baccalaureate in computer science engineering to get into an IT job that would give her a steady income and remove her from the risks of any of the dangerous situations she often had nightmares about.
Vishal progressed at a much faster pace in his career as a journalist and moved to Hyderabad upon completing his post-graduation. Mitra tried following him, but her job and project situations placed her in Bangalore, a much closer location to Hyderabad than Delhi.
In retrospect, Mitra achieved the life she had wanted: a stable job, a cosy home which was rented to her at a discount (credits to being acquainted with the landlord since she was fourteen), a regular workout session where she could keep herself fit, the man she loved visiting her whenever possible and staying over to keep her in good spirits, and her budding social media pages where she often posted pictures and videos of improper things happening in the society.
She wasn't moral policing people, rather pointing out the way the actions of select few power-hungry and morally corrupt people were leading the society to crumble from the roots.
She had finally gotten out of her mental binds that restrained her will to breathe, yet she was occasionally tormented by recurring nightmares and sleep paralysis episodes, especially when she made brief visits to her grandparents in the town that haunted her.
Whenever she had a relapse, she would call up Vishal and say just four words, "I saw her again."
It was a like a code line that got Vishal to flex his counselling and humour skills to make Mitra forget her pain.
Still, things were going well.
Till the night she witnessed a woman being held in a fatal headlock in the shadows of a dark street by a man in black clothes.
Again.
###
2019-11-20, 22:53 PM (2 weeks before Mitra's kidnap)
Bangalore
Work was keeping her late in office and Mitra was frowning as she walked back home from the bus stop in her neighbourhood. She was distracted with the thoughts of all the code review that needed to be completed the following day. Hungry and tired, she was walking at a pace slower than her usual briskness.
The streets were darker than usual with most of the houses along the streets having lights of their living rooms and balconies turned off. As Mitra turned a corner into a narrower lane, she noticed a scuffle ahead in the darkness, the silhouettes of two people struggling in what appeared to be a power fight.
Mitra felt her heartbeat so hard that it hurt her. It was déjà vu all over her mind. She stopped for a moment in her tracks as she processed the tussle.
Taking a step slowly and moving forward, she tried controlling her ragged breath and cautiously treaded towards the commotion.
It wasn't too loud and Mitra could make out that one of the two was a woman.
The two scufflers moved as they fought each other and stepped into the dim light of a streetlamp.
Mitra froze, blood draining out of her face.
A man in black clothes and a hat was holding a struggling woman in a fatal headlock.
The woman was grappling for breath and breakaway. The man didn't seem even the least bit inclined to let her go. He was intent on going for the kill.
As Mitra stood rooted to the ground, petrified with the all the memories of Lekha flooding in, unable to differentiate between the past and present, stuck in a limbo which blurred the lines between the reality and her nightmares, the woman in the headlock slowly went limp.
Mitra audibly gasped.
The man looked up from the prey in his arms to Mitra.
In the dim light amalgamating with the darkness of the lane, Mitra's eyes locked with those of the criminal.
They were unreadable, intense with surprise, accomplishment and devotion looming in them.
Mitra wasn't sure anymore about what she was watching. She had made countless simulations in her mind over the past twelve years on what to do if she was put in a similar situation again. In all the versions, she had pictured herself attacking the assailant and saving the girl in the headlock, fighting for the victim's life and her own freedom from guilt.
Yet, when it was happening in reality, all she could do was stand rooted to the ground in surprise and weakness.
She was reliving her nightmare in flesh.