As Sashi went to the camera, turned it off and proceeded to pack up the tripod set, Mitra went into a frenzy thinking about the consequences of whatever Sashi was planning.
It would prove to be too much to handle.
"You don't... you don't seriously... m-mean to..." Mitra failed to speak up, stuttering with every word and phrase.
Sashi was smiling in amusement as he picked up his camera set up, all packed. "What do I mean to do, Mitra?"
"DON'T!" Mitra's voice boomed through the room. It was all she could manage in the horror she was in.
The cruel smile still playing on his lips, shadows dancing on him as he shifted on his feet in the dim light in the room, Sashi looked monstrous as he said, "Why should I not? I love being entertained and I have missed it for so long now that I can't this give up just because you told me to. Besides, I told you already that if you don't speak up, I will find the answers on my own."
"SPEAK UP WHAT SASHI?" Mitra screamed at him.
Sashi, in his riled-up demeanour, bent forward and hurled the words at her, "Why are the others still waiting instead of coming in?"
Mitra was desperate. "Fine," she hurled back. "No one's going to come because no one knows anything about what transpired with me, between us. No one knows. No's one coming."
Sashi guffawed. "I knew you would say that. Had you told that before the video was shot, I would have believed you. But now, it makes sense that you would lie and hide about your plan. You wouldn't want anyone to come rushing in before you get more intel on my activities, before you can get me to confess everything I have ever done. You would want to continue your acting and lead me on without anyone interrupting. And so, you wouldn't want anyone to think you are being murdered."
Despite the tension she was in, Mitra understood where he was coming from with his paranoia.
"Trust me. No one else is there," she tried again to reason, her eyes turning red with hint of tears creeping up in them. Her eyebrows knotted in fervor as she opened her mouth as if to say something but unable to continue.
"KEEP LYING!" Sashi's shout echoed in the room. He turned away and strode out of the room, shutting his mind from falling for the earnestness that was on Mitra's face.
He knew she was lying to him, and he wouldn't let the innocence on her face deceive him. He wanted the insecurities he felt to end once and for all, and for that, the 'others' had to come to him as soon as possible.
Vishal had just walked back to Mitra's home after a day-long fruitless investigation. The police had not found anything substantial. The videos released were still untraceable, the tracks getting muddled.
They had traced Mitra's phone, but it was found at a small mobile store in a suburban region where the shopkeeper said someone had sold it to him for a small price. The man who sold it turned out to be a day labourer who had found the phone on a road in Mitra's neighbourhood. Just so he could make a few bucks on it, he sold it off without enquiring on who that phone belonged to. The shopkeepeer hadn't asked him for more details either.
No matter in whatever way they investigated it, the two men were innocent, and they couldn't trace where the person who dropped the phone on the road could have gone to.
Vishal was losing hope, yet he was pushing himself forward with the sole goal of rescuing his girl. The thought that Mitra was out there somewhere, bound, gagged and getting hurt everyday chewed him from inside. He felt frustrated with his helplessness.
Tougher than dealing with his own suffering was his role of playing the pillar of moral support to Mitra's parents. He was updating them consistently with whatever he and the police were trying to do to find their daughter, and he was pacifying their anxious hearts. It wasn't much helpful, yet that was the least he could do.
There were times when he wished someone could placate him too by telling him that everything will be okay, that they would be able to find Mitra before it is too late. But, he only had himself consoling his roiling mind.
Vishal was turning on the lights in the house when he got a notification from his team at VTN news who were keeping track of all things concerning Mitra's videos and updates. He opened it to find the line, "Vishal, you need to check this video."
The video was on a webpage that had been circulated everywhere, titled, 'Kidnapped Woman Murdered In Cold Blood'.
His heart pounding terribly, he opened the webpage. He skipped the written passage that was styled as a news report and went to the video embedded in the article.
And he watched his hope being killed the most brutally.
His eyes looked on transfixed, his heart stopped, the sounds around him dissolved into a void, the thoughts in his mind froze and he lost consciousness of his surroundings. He went into a shock.
A scream rang through the house, a scream of agony, a scream of heartbreak, a scream of unexplainable pain, a scream of helplessness and failure.
The phone slipped out of Vishal's hand in the helplessness he was in and he went berserk through the house, throwing the things he could lay his hands on down in anger, hitting the wall with balled up fists in frustration, tears streaming down his face in grief and fury.
The visual of Mitra's last moments played over in his mind repeatedly, incapacitating him mentally and wreaking the last strand of strength he had. He collapsed to the floor, his last resistance to suffering broken completely, his wailing of utter pain making him lose control of his breathing.
He couldn't breathe, the air getting stuck in his chest, palpitations breaking in. It was unbearable, yet nonfatal.
The worst hit was to Mitra's parents. They were in a taxi on their way to the railway station to catch the train to Bangalore. After a lengthy discussion with Vishal and the police earlier, they had decided to stay in their daughter's home, awaiting her release from the clutches of the psychopath who had kidnapped her.
They had been sitting silently in the moving taxi when their phones started buzzing with phone calls from many of their relatives.
They had been ignoring phone calls from their relatives and acquaintances to have a little breathing space, to escape the passive toxicity being thrown their way in the form of sarcastic jabs masked as concern. But the sheer volume of calls they were getting at that moment made them uncomfortable.