Trembling Shadows
A romantic, psychological thriller
Kotra Siva Rama Krishna
Malathi immediately took her hand off from the shoulder of Sunanda as the intensity of the voice of her daughter shocked her. She did not know what to do. She dumbfounded and remained staring at her daughter blankly. She did not notice even that Vinod woke up and came near to them both.
“Why you both are being seated like this?” looking surprisingly at both of them he asked.
“Your daughter is talking very strangely” Malathi said with a shivering tone. “It appears she is not herself.”
He immediately placed his right hand under her face and clutched it and then tried to turn it towards him. Then suddenly, she slapped him with her right hand with all her strength behind it. “My God” shrieking so he fell back at once. There came a thumping sound as well.
Hearing that sound all the other people as well woke up. They were all started staring surprisingly at them.
“She slapped me with all her might” Vinod said. There was fear in his voice. “I fell back”
“Just come back” Aravind said. “I can deal with her now.”
Sunanda staring into the emptiness before her without bothering what the people were talking around. Aravind came in front of Sunanda.
“Leave our girl and go away from here” he said with a firm voice looking into the eyes of Sunanda even they were not focused on him.
“Who are you to say so?” Sunanda yelled with that different voice and started laughing. Even then too she was not trying to look into his face. All the others around feared a lot. They looked into each other’s eyes. “Remain calm” he said in low voice to all those around.
“You have no authority to stay in the body of our girl. Leave it” Aravind said again while looking into her eyes.
“I would not leave it. What the hell you can do?” after saying so she suddenly spat on the face of Aravind. Everyone around there stunned seeing her doing so. Sunanda never had behaved in such a way before.
“My god! What is happening to her I cannot understand.” With a shivering tone, Anand said.
“You are not behaving in a proper way at all, you know. If you don’t leave this body all by yourself, I can kick you out of it. I can see that you will have no place on the earth to stay. Just get out” Aravind said in small but firm voice.
“No one on the earth can get me out of ….” Sunanda stopped in the middle and clutched the hair on Aravind’s head with both her hands and tried to throw him away.
Then Aravind said “Look into my eyes” there was a sudden change in the voice of Aravind as well. “Yes you are looking into my eyes. See so. Don’t alter your gaze.”
“No.” Sunanda immediately left the head of Aravind. “I am not going to look into your eyes”
“You will see. I have the power to make you see into my eyes. Now come on, look. Look into my eyes” Aravind commanded.
“No, I would not” Sunanda turned her head to other side.
“You just look into my eyes and answer my questions. There is no other way at all to you” he roughly took her face into his hands and turned it towards him.
“How dare you…” Sunanda tried to wriggle her head free from his hands.
“You are seeing a sea in my eyes. You see it. You see it.” Aravind said.
There was some mesmarizing power in his voice and Sunanda started seeing into his eyes.
“You are seeing a sea in my eyes. I do freeze you and threw you in the middle of that sea. I do make you non-existent. I destroy you.” Aravind’s voice heard quite strange to all of them. It had a certain peculiarity in it then. “You are looking into my eyes and into that sea. You just obey whatever I say.”
It was a surprise to all of them that Sunanda obeyed. She just continued looking into the eyes of Aravind. It appeared that she subdued to him.
“Who … Who are you? Tell me now?”
“Leave me. I shall go away” Sunanda’s voice became quite feeble.
“Tell me who are you? Then I will leave you” Aravind commanded.
“No, I cannot tell you. Leave me. I shall go away. Never return to this place again.” It seemed that Sunanda lost all of her power suddenly.
“You must give an answer to me. Otherwise I would not let you go. You are in the sea of me. You cannot swim in it without my consent. First tell me who are you”
There was only silence. No answer came from Sunanda.
“You must obey. Otherwise I shall make the sea freeze. You are already in it. I have the power. You would have realized it by now”
“Yes, I did.” Sunanda said in that weak voice. “Please don’t freeze the sea. I cannot go away from here then”
“Then tell me who you are?” he asked her again.
There was no answer from her. “You are the same person who possessed this girl in the afternoon, are not you?” Aravind asked her.
“No” the voice of Sunanda was shivered.
“Tell me. Who are you then?”
“Sasank”
The air around there was stilled at once. As they were dumbfounded so, their ears were shattered again with a heavy thunderbolt nearby followed by a heavy downpour.
Aravind took away his hands from her.
“Sasank means, who?” even he knew who he was Arvind asked.
“Tanuja knows who I am” without turning her head Sunanda said.
Tanuja’s heart never beat that faster before. She could not believe what was happening in front of her eyes at all. She was hearing with all her attention what they both were talking.
“Why did you have come into the body of this girl?” Aravind asked.
“I want to take my woman with me.” Sunanda said.
“Who is your woman then?”
“Tanuja”
“Why should she come with you now?” Aravind asked again.
“We both are lovers. We were engaged too. Then she married to someone else.”
“Why had she married someone else?”
There was no answer from it.
“You must answer my question. After the engagement with you, why had she married someone else?”
“I was died with a heart attack”
“Is there any mistake of her in marrying someone else then?” Aravind asked again.
There was no answer.
“You must answer my question. I am not going to leave you remain in silence. I would not let you go if you don’t give me the answers straight” Aravind curtly said.
“I would this time” the answer came from Sunanda
Aravind repeated his question.
“There is no wrong in Tanuja marrying someone else” the answer came.
“Is your love true towards that woman?” Aravind asked her again.
“It is as pure as moon’s light and rose’s smell” the answer came.
“Are not you wishing her to live in happiness and peace?”
There was no answer again. “First tell me. You cannot escape from answering the questions.”
“I wish with all my heart so to her”
“Then why did you come for her? Can she live in happiness if you haunt her like this?” Aravind’s voice was sharp.
“I loved her. I loved her whole heartedly. My love is quite true towards her” Sunanda wailed.
“But you were dead, are not you?”
“Yes I am. I died with a heart attack”
“Then how a living woman loves and lives with a dead person?”
There was no answer again.
“You must give me an answer”
“Yes, it is not possible.”
“What you did all these years?”
There was no answer immediately. “I cannot say. I don’t remember.”
“Why did you come here now?”
“I have already said. I want to take my woman with me.”
“It is not possible, you know. She is married to someone else and having a daughter too. She cannot come with you”
There was no answer from Sunanda.
“You must go away from this place leaving this girl and leaving this woman. If you come again for Tanuja I shall see that you would be no more. I shall throw you into the sea of my eyes and freeze the sea. I do make you non-existent. I destroy you. Have you got confirmed about my power?” still maintaining the firmness in his voice Aravind asked.
“Yes I have.” that thing in Sunanda said “You are powerful”.
“I let you go now. You must go out at once and remember you never should come for Tanuja”
“I never will come for Tanuja. Just a moment” then Sunanda turned towards Tanuja and looked into her eyes “I love you Tanu… dear.” Then kissed on her left year strongly and fall back in an unnatural way.
“Sunanda … wake up. What happened?” going near to her and clutching her shoulder and jerking it violently Malathi said frantically.
“Don’t worry. She would wake up soon. Nothing happened to her.” Aravind said.
Then Sunanda opened her eyes and looked around. She sat up slowly and looked into the faces of all those around her. “What happened?” she asked.
“So you don’t know anything happened up to now” Sameera asked her.
“Not even a little bit. Tell me what happened” Sunanda’s voice became quite normal again.
“My mother’s lover got into your body. You have talked a lot upto now” Sameera said giggling. “It is all very good to see. If you don’t know anything about it, you missed a lot”
“Aravind, is there would be any problem to my daughter?” Malathi asked Aravind. Now Aravind was appearing like a hero to her and to all those around.
“There would be no problem to your daughter now or in future” Aravind said.
“Yes, if that Sasank returns he will freeze the sea getting him in it” Anand laughed.
“I know some about the shadow world but I don’t know about this freezing and unfreezing the sea.” Vinod said.
Aravind smiled and remained silent.
“You are an exorcist indeed” Rajesh said. “You got the devil go away from Sunanda”
“I am not an excorcist and there was no devil at any time in Sunanda.” Aravind said. “I cannot say the reasons for specific but her subconscious forced her behave like that.”
“I cannot understand what you are saying. Is there no devil in Sunanda now?” looking surprisingly into his face, Anand asked him.
“There is no devil in Sunanda either now or in the after noon. She got disturbed too much by that dream and the devil in it and imposed a character like that in the upstairs room. I don’t know how she came to know but she came to know about Sasank. She heard Tanuja’s saying that he came here for her. I cannot say the reasons but she imposed the character of Sasank on herself so. In both the situations it is just like split-personality. Nothing more than that.” Aravind said.
“Then why did you have asked all those unnecessary questions.” With an irritating expression in his face, Anand asked him.
“It is necessary to understand the depth of psychological disorder to ask such type of questions. I just wanted to see why and how she imposed Sasank on her and ask such questions.”
“I cannot understand whether you are a psychologist or para-psychologist. You are not connecting anything to paranormal but giving a scientific explanation to everything.” Anand said again.
“I believe in paranormal and have lot of knowledge and experience in it. But I don’t believe in every nonsense as paranormal.” Aravind laughed and said.
Then they all suddenly remembered about Tanuja and looked at her. Her mouth opened a little and she sat dumbfounded. She was looking but not at anything in particular.
“What happened Tanuja? Why you are looking so?” going near to her Rajesh asked placing his right hand firmly on her shoulder and squeezing it.
“It is he.” Tanuja said. “No one else but it is he. He used to behave just like that” her voice shivered while saying that.
(I hope that you enjoyed upto here. I shall publish the next chapter as soon as possible. Please don’t forget to rate and review.)
