500-word flash fiction for Artoons Writer’s Room.
Prompt: ‘The number you reached was wrong. The person who answered wasn’t”
KAHIN DEEP JALE KAHIN DIL…
‘Kahin Deep Jale Kahin Dil…’
The melody wafted through the bedroom.
Sarita moved towards the charging phone, pain shooting through her right knee.
Wait… When had she hurt it?
She patted her chest, steadying her racing heart.
The goddamn ringtone.
The phone screen glowed.
14:13
UNKNOWN NUMBER
“Hello?”
“Please don’t hang up.” A strange voice spoke.
“Who is this?”
“He’s… in your house.”
Sarita frowned.
“You’ve got the wrong number.”
“NO.” The voice was urgent. “Check the heavy blue curtain behind your bed. The one with the hole in the corner that you hate.”
She turned.
The ceiling fan stirred the curtain, showing the tear.
“How do you know that?”
“I can see it.”
“Wh-where are you?”
“Your house.”
“You’re lying.”
“There’s a cracked dressing-table mirror with a peacock motif,” the stranger continued. “Your favourite.”
Sarita glanced at it.
“And a photograph of you and…”
…your husband.”
Sarita looked at the photograph.
Arjun was smiling, his greying French beard framing the dimple in his right cheek.
Except… Arjun was dead.
Three hours ago… she remembered the struggle.
The blood.
His body hitting the carpet…
Her dragging him towards the bathroom.
Her knee twisting painfully.
Yes… she must have hurt it then.
She had cleaned the blood.
Lots of bleach.
“There’s blood on the carpet,” the stranger whispered.
She looked down, startled.
A dark stain was spreading beneath the bed.
Her injured knee buckled.
“How? But Arjun is dea…DEAD.”
Silence.
“Not yet.”
Sarita stared at the screen.
14:17
“What do you mean?”
“Four minutes from now, he will come through your bedroom door.”
Sarita laughed.
“Arjun—is—dead.”
“YOU MUST REMEMBER.”
Silence.
14:21
BANG!
The bedroom door burst open.
Sarita screamed.
Arjun stood there… in his blood-stained white shirt, the greying beard gone…
“You…”
Arjun smiled. “You really shouldn’t have answered that call, Sariii.”
Sarita stumbled backwards.
Arjun smirked as he spoke into his phone. “It’s done. She believed everything.”
The voice on Sarita’s phone returned.
“Subject has reached the final stage.”
Sarita’s stomach churned.
“Subject?”
“Your husband wasn’t the experiment.”
Arjun stepped closer.
“YOU were, dear Sari.”
Sarita dropped her phone.
“NO.”
Her knee exploded with pain. She collapsed, clutching it.
“Why… does… my knee hurt?”
‘Kahin Deep Jale…’ The melody came from beneath the bed.
“Please don’t hang up.”
Sarita froze.
It was her voice.
The recording continued. “My knee… I can’t feel it…”
She stared at Arjun.
“I never said that.”
Or had she?
Flashes of memory stormed her head.
Straps holding her legs down.
A blinding surgical light.
A needle entering the knee.
Pain.
Darkness.
Then the other flashes arrived.
The struggle.
Blood.
Carpet.
Bleach.
All of it.
Fragments.
Not a memory. A story.
Her knee hadn’t been injured during a struggle.
Arjun’s death had been planted… inside her.
‘Kahin Deep Jale…’
Her phone screen flickered on the floor.
14:13
UNKNOWN NUMBER
Sarita was numb.
Arjun leaned towards her.
“Let’s see if you remember this time.” He whispered
Her recorded voice began again.
“Please don’t hang up.”
