Laughter in Darkness
A suspense, romantic and psychological thriller
By
Kotra Siva Rama Krishna
Sunanda frowned and thought for sometime. “I don’t remember but I cannot say for sure. I think not recently but sometime in the past on one or two occasions I have heard while you both were talking about that Sasank. How much I have heard, what I have heard I cannot say now.” There came a guilty expression on her face while saying that. In fact on one occasion she heard a lot about that Sasank while Rajesh and Tanuja talking about Sasank without their knowledge. On that day Tanuja told Rajesh every characteristic of Sasank.
While Sunanda was saying that Rajesh looked into her face and the sudden change of expression in it did not go unnoticed by him. He remembered a particular time when he and his wife talked in their room and his making her tell about Sasank in full. He did not know why but he used to have a sort of thrill while she was telling about him and how he used to behave with him. She told him how he interested in kissing on her left year many a time.
Slowly it came into his knowledge that Sunanda was in his home then. Both Sameera and Sunanda have full freedom to enter into their room and stay any length of time there. Moreover it was such a big room with several big articles that one could stay inconspicuous behind them to others. What was the guarantee that Sunanda was not in it and heard his conversation with Tanuja about that Sasank? Then Neeraja’s explanation would be quite applicable. Anyhow what Tanuja said was right. There was no wrong in Sunanda’s feeling like that.
“Alright, alright. Don’t worry yourself much about that.” Rajesh said.
“I am feeling very much sleepy. I cannot stay awaken anymore.” Neeraja yawned heavily, got off from the chair she sat and moved towards her room.
“If you excuse, both of us also want to sleep now.” Rose said and took Emily from there with her.
“Sunanda, Sameera, Tanuja, Arjun and Madhuri sleep in the grandmother’s room. Viond and I sleep in the upstairs first room and Aravind and Anand in the upstairs middle room. I hope that this night would pass anymore incidents.” Rajesh said.
“That bed is not that much big enough to accommodate all of us.” Tanuja said. “I cannot say why but I don’t want anyone sleep in the upstairs room for this night. Even we have not find any dead bodies in it, I am feeling fear to that last room upstairs.”
“Then what you do suggest us to do?” with an irritating expression in his face, Rajesh asked her.
“We are going to remove the chairs here and lay blankets on this place. Vinod and you sleep in the grandmother’s room. The rest of us adjust ourselves in this verandah on the blankets.”
“What mom said is true. I am also not liking that much to sleep in the upstairs room. I am also feeling in the same way like mom with the last room upstairs. It is appearing more ominous than the rest of the house.” Sameera said.
“It is the best thing in my opinion also.” Sunanda said.
“But if there is a downpour again and air waved towards us we shall be drenched.” Looking at the small drizzle then, Rajesh said.
“There is no loss whatsoever if we become wet a little.” Anand said. “It is quite better to do in the way women folk feeling.”
“Alright, alright. I have no objection.” Rajesh nodded his head.
“Then why late? Both of you go into grandma’s room.” Looking into the faces of Rajesh and Vinod, Tanuja said.
“I don’t want a bed. I want to sleep in the verandah itself. Let Rajesh sleep on the bed.” Vinod said.
“Alright.” Rajesh nodded his head and moved into the grandmother’s room.
“Madhuri and Arjun are going to sleep with their respective mothers. Next me and next Aravind and Anand and next Vinod. We all sleep with enough distance between us as the verandah is big enough.”
The people there nodded their heads and Sunanda and Sameera put the blankets and pillows with them out while Anand and Aravind put the chairs there in the middle room. It took fifteen minutes or so to them to make all arrangements and laid their back in verandah to sleep.
&&&
Suddenly there was an earsplitting thunder disturbing all of them in the verandah from their sleep and a heavy downpour started. It was just like Rajesh said as whenever heavy air waved towards them, rain water was making them drenched enough. But none of them wanted to move away from that place. Because of the heavy clouding there was pitch darkness in that place. The sound of heavy rain and the darkness made the fear in their hearts reached its peak.
Sameera disturbed by that thunder clap, opened her eyes. There was pitch darkness around her and she could not see anything at all. As the uneasiness became more she could not lay like that anymore and sat up. Suddenly there came an eyes-blinding lightening and in the fraction of the lightening she saw two figures going on the staircase towards upstairs room. Before she digested what she has seen, once again there was an earsplitting thunderstorm.
“My god! Who are they?” Sameera yelled immediately.
Beside her Sunanda also was struggling just like her as she could not sleep again after disturbed by the thunderstorm. The another thunder clap made her even more disturbed.
“What Samee…what happened?” Sunanda heard Sameera, sat up and asked her. She too could not see anything in that darkness.
“I saw two people going into upstairs.” Sameera’s voice shivered while saying that.
“How you can see anything in this darkness? I cannot see even my hand even I put it before my face.” Sunanda irritatingly said.
“Just now there was a lightening. In that lightening I saw them.”
“Just try to sleep. There is nothing like that. If you talk anymore…what is that those psychiatrists are quite often saying…visual hallucination…I have to say that.” Sunanda said laying herself again to sleep.
“Have you got your smart phone with you? We switch onto the light and see what is happening.” Sameera asked Sunanda.
“I left it in my luggage in the middle room. As there is no signal at all I did not like to keep it with me.” Sunanda said.
“I also did the same thing. Now it is not easy to go into the middle room and retrieve our cell phone from our luggage.” Sighing heavily Sameera said.
They have to raise their voices to be heard to each other in the sound of that heavy rain.
“There is nothing to feel fear now. You have imagined all that. Just try to sleep.” Yawning heavily, Sunanda said.
“May be you are right.” Sameera said and about to lay herself again to sleep. Then she heard laughing sound from the upstairs room. “Just hear….just hear….” Sameera yelled.
“What I have to hear? I cannot hear anything except the sound of this rain.” Sunanda said irritatingly without bothering to sit again.
“Someone is laughing…..someone is laughing from the upstairs room.” Sameera said. “Listen carefully, you too can hear that.”
Sunanda sat again and tried to hear if there were any sounds from the upstairs room.
“Are you not hearing any sounds?” Sameera asked her.
“I am not hearing any sounds Samee.” Sunanda said. “Even there is someone in the upstairs and laughing or doing something else, we cannot do anything. No one can do anything to us while we are together. Anyhow, I forgot…Come near to me and clutch me strongly. Otherwise either that spirit or Mukinni may try to enter into you.”
“Arjun is just beside me and I am not feeling fear to that.” By then Sameera’s fear eased. She began to think that she was just imagining all that. Once she started thinking like that the sounds from the upstairs room were stopped. She yawned heavily and laid herself on the blanket there and adjusted her head on the pillow to sleep. She did not know when she fell asleep.
&&&
The first thunderclap disturbed Rose and the second thunderclap disturbed Neeraja from their sleep and both of them sat. Before going into sleep they switched onto the bed bulb but there was no lighting then. It meant only one thing, that is, power was off.
“Neeraja, are you awake now?” Rose asked. She also could not see anything in that darkness.
“Yes, I am Rose. The thunderclap is too much disturbing. I don’t think I can sleep again.” Neeraja said.
“It is the second one in fact. I woke up by the first thunderclap and suffering myself just like you. I too don’t think I can sleep again.” Then she found her cell phone under the pillow and switched on the torch light. It to some extent filled that room with light and eased their uneasiness a little.
Rose was about to say something then they both heard Emily’s talking in her sleep.
“I never have expected that I could have this much fun.” She was saying. “Yes, Lilly. I really made all those people feel fear including my mom. They did not know I just acted like that. I am a wonderful actress I must say.”
Rose and Neeraja looked into each other’s faces. There were shocking expressions in their faces.
“They thought I talked like that without knowing what I am talking. But all the time I talked like that only to make them feel fear. What a thrill! When I can get a chance like this again?” Emily was saying.
“Scoundrel! So she behaved like that intentionally only to get fun.” There came an intense angry expression in the face of Rose. “She is with her classmate Lilly in her dream and thinking it is real and saying the truth to her.”
“I too understood Rose.” There came a smile on the lips of Neeraja. “Anyhow it solved a very big problem. You need not worry anymore thinking that she may be suffering from another psychological disorder.”
“You are right.” Rose said but there came a very serious expression in her face. “Now I have got another doubt.”
“What that is Rose?” Neeraja knitted her brows together.
“Her split-personality also might be her acting. She behaved like that only to make me and Williams feel fear and get fun.”
“It could not be so.” Neeraja nodded her head in negation. “She could not hoodwink a famous psychiatrist Rose like that.”
“She hoodwinked both of us in this house like this. Why could not she behave like she was suffering from split-personality?”
Neeraja clipped her lower lip between her teeth frames and released it slowly before saying. “Then it is even better. Your daughter is always perfect and she never suffered from any psychological disorder.”
“I don’t leave this rascal easily. I skin her alive as soon as she wakes up in the morning.” Rose angrily said.
“Oh, Rose. Please don’t do anything like that.” Placing her right hand on the right shoulder of Rose and squeezing there Neeraja said. “Don’t even let her know now that you came to know about it. But in future if she behaves odd, you say to her that you came to know about her trick and how you came to know.”
(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.)
