[FOREWORD: This is another of my episodic science fiction stories, the first one being 'Stunted'. It's not inspired by any ONE story or idea in particular, but a lot of writing that I've been healthily exposed to over the past few years of my life. It's more 'spec-fic' (speculative fiction) than science fiction, primarily because it is set in a highly unlikely universe. It is not grounded in any scientifically-sound principle or explanation, instead being based on mere fantastical speculation of the future. Also, it's bilingual (Hindi and English); my apologies to my English-only readers (if you exist, that is). So yes, hope you like it. I'll be adding chapters every once a while, so keep reading!]
1. There’s always a first time
Abject darkness, a violent jerk, and a cold riveting slap on
her left cheek awoke her. She lay still, resting her weight on her cheek,
sensing that it wasn’t the surface that hit her but she who’d toppled to the
ground. She opened her eyes and braved sitting upright.
Her head pained from the shock of a nasty blow. Her vision
was blurry, and the world floated around her, puddled and dreamlike. She rubbed
her eyes and everything slid into clarity. She opened them to their maximum
extent, surveying her whereabouts…
मैं…कहाँ हूँ?
She looked down frantically to her body, her arms and legs,
her body, her clothes and ran her fingers through her hair, the topography of
her face and the trenches of her collarbones. She was wearing jeans (मुझे इस garment का नाम कैसे पता?) and a plain
yellowing t-shirt with the words ‘I am Sherlocked’ plastered over its length. She
did not have any memory of any of it. The last thing she knew, she had been…
मैं क्या कर
रही
थी?
Nothing came through; no epiphany, no brainwave. No
recollection whatsoever. The room she was presently in was a spacious, bare
bedroom with minimal fixtures and frills. Many framed black and white
photographs of a young woman and two cherubic infants hung on the mahogany bedroom
wall to her left. The walls were also adorned by many a gory hangings of a
crucified man on a cross-shaped wooden altar. The windows on her right opened
into direct sunlight, emanating from a setting sun (she could make it out from
the long shadows the trees in the distance cast across an overlooking pond). A
four poster bed occupied the centre space of the room.
She tried recalling her name, her nationality, her
occupation, anything that’d rid her
of the lack of self-identity, but failed.
She spun around to face the half-open bedroom door that
revealed part of a hallway, at the sound of approaching footsteps. They were
muffled, slightly hurried for some odd reason – feminine. She stood rooted to
her spot, awkwardly waiting for the person on the other side of the door to
arrive and confront her.
The door opened with a creak, and a young woman (दीवार
पे
टंगी
photos में
से
एक)
dressed in an elaborate gown faced her. Before she could explain anything, the
woman shuddered and stepped back in apparent shock. The woman’s face became
pallid and contorted in surprise as she asked in a stuttering voice, “Wer bist du, Frau? Was mach-machst du hier?”
Unable to understand a word she had been addressed to in, she
managed a cough in reply, surprised at her own low-pitched voice, watching the
woman retreat slowly.
“I-I don’t understand, ma’am. मुझे खुद कुछ
समझ
नहीं
आ
रहा…”
she struggled to find the right words; gesturing at the place she had gained
consciousness. The woman didn’t seem to understand. Visibly taken aback at the
sight of a stranger in her house (was it hers?), shouted to call someone from
inside the house.
“Onkel Elois! Wir
haben einer…unbekannten Frau in unserem Schlafzimmer!”
The woman grew frantic, speaking unintelligibly under her breath,
awaiting company. Her youthful face seemed flushed and spoilt by the sudden
perturbation. An inquisitive, masculine growl echoed from behind her, probably
from one of the other rooms in the house. The woman responded in the foreign
tongue, still eyeing her with suspicion and caution. She no longer made any
attempts to communicate with her, and neither did she. She could now hear
another pair of footsteps, heavy and slow, coming her way at the woman’s
call.
And that was when it hit her. She had momentarily spun
behind to see the spot where she had found herself awake. She was taken by
surprise by an oddly out-of-place contraption lying in a narrow corner against
the wall. It was the size and shape of a small cupboard. In contrast to the
stately walls and the dark hues of everything in the room, its surface was squalid
and soiled in a greyish tint. Its metallic surface was uneven and dented, and a
network of wire-ends and coils jutted out at odd angles. It had a small – panel – inside it, with a few keys and a
screen dotting its surface.
It’s ominous appearance notwithstanding, it seemed a safer
haven to her (again, for no explicable reason) than a shocked young woman
speaking in an alien tongue and an unseen man growling back in an equally
unknown language.
The approaching sound of boots falling on carpeted floor
seemed closer by the moment. Gripped by a sudden fear of the unknown, she made
a run for the cupboard-shaped ‘पता-नहीं-क्या’.
She didn't know what she’d do once inside, but that was the only place she had
a chance of hiding in from whoever was coming to confront her. The last thing
she saw from the corner of her eye was the woman panicking and speaking loudly
to herself, before she lunged inside.
She regained her bearings quickly, knowing she had no time
to lose. Strangely, she didn't quite know what her fault was and why she had
had the desire to scram; but somehow, she knew she would be in deep shit if she didn't make herself scarce.
The woman had disappeared from the doorway. The panel of
buttons and keys protruded from the back end, at the level of half the height
of the ‘यंत्र’. There
appeared the numbers ‘2013’ on a black screen on the panel. A metallic key
loudly announcing ‘GO’ was etched out of it, making it quite obvious to her to
press it without delay. She did so and – BOOM.
Her body was thrown forward with a sudden, invisible shove, knocking her right
off her feet.
She heard the final shrieks of the woman, this time
accompanied by a masculine voice, but they seemed very far away already, fading
away, going farther…
-
Chapter 2
-
Chapter 2
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