Author note: 500-word story on a news article or story I read or saw ( contest entry for ArtoonsInn Writers room) This was a story from 2012 December that took the country by storm and was named Nirbhaya’s story.

Here is the link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_Delhi_gang_rape_and_murder

Disclaimer: Contains disturbing news on sexual assault. Read at your discretion.

I have attempted the SOC (Stream of consciousness) narrative design.

Title: Her fault…

She had to take the bus that night, the municipal bus with a broken headlight, paint peeled off, exposing rusted body parts—all in cahoots with the cracked number plate.
For it was Sunday night, and Delhi metro was shut for repairs. So the authorities claimed, unmindful of lesser mortals like her.
Yet she loved the metro night’s misty serenity, how fresh how lively. The gentle night breeze patting her like Amma’s calloused yet soft palms (for she was only nineteen). Amma’s courage and sorrow, tears and endurance holding up in their sleepy town, pea-stick hands adorning her forehead with the ridiculous sindoor for an absentee husband….
She sighed at her silver ring gleaming under the streetlight.
“Stop digging a hole into it…?” Rohit mused in the college cafeteria last evening amidst the cacophony of students and cutlery alike. “… internship’s only for a few weeks.”
Rohit would be back soon; she forgot when, for she was overwhelmed with his sudden proposal, the dull-grey eyes piercing her soul every time he looked, his shy smile lighting up her universe.

She stiffened; horn blared, announcing the bus’s arrival, screeching angrily, halting. These guys sure know to maintain their wheels (she chuckled inwardly). Boarding the creaking stairs in the seemingly-empty-dark-bus, she took a seat that had seen better days, like the corner-most battered library seat. But she loved it (actually, she loved moments spent with Rohit, away from the prying librarian).
She would remember the moment she fell in love with Rohit, not the head-over-heels type, yet endearing.
She loved Delhi streets, loud psychedelic honking mixing with the cranky bus trajectory…  But she missed her town-rickshaws groaning on the roads, if one called them; roads receiving touch-ups only before elections!
Suddenly, hands bore down before the raunchy-hooch-breath stormed her olfactories. She gasped, shocked, bus staff rode on. ‘Don’t travel alone at night.’ One of Amma’s interminable warnings screamed out.
Dragged behind, painfully bumping her head somewhere en route…. the stench unbearable, her fear clouding every other sensation, she saw more. Ghost-like forms emerged out of shaking darkness. Her screams logged in her throat, for a rough hand clamped on her mouth.
Bile rose, fabric ripped (that was Rohit’s birthday gift), her thighs forced apart; Somewhere, Rohit stared above his reading glasses, Amma sobbed…
The painful intrusion into her secret apex shocked her beyond words; wails muted, flailing limbs held down. Numbness seeped in.
‘Don’t wear revealing clothes…’ Amma bizarrely warned.
She was dragged before the sudden flight in the cold air, finally landing with a thud.
Everything had come to a black standstill; the throb of the motor engine as the bus moved away irregularly drummed through her entirety, an Infernus halo engulfing her. The world wavered and quivered as cold wetness clouded her vision; blurring, she saw him above her holding… a rod?
People must notice; people must help. People… she thought.

Darkness raging further; engulfing… was she crossing over? His hand rose; intense cracking excruciation, then darkness…

… silently forever.