Richa Chadha

I was standing at one corner of the open ground. I was glaring at the bed of thick wooden sticks which was kept inside the shelter of the small ground. I was wearing my normal clothes, and so did Prakash, who was standing in front of me. Everyone else was wearing a black kurta-pajama. “It’s the first time I’m witnessing the funeral of a partner.”

“Me too,” I replied. “May his soul rest in peace.” I looked at the woman, probably her wife, who was crying in front of her husband’s corpse. The corpse was covered in white cloth upon the wooden bed. She raised a hand at him while crying like her tears won’t stop. There was a pair of siblings beside her who looked at her and asked, “Mummy, what is this?”

The woman covered her mouth in pain and said, “T-This is your papa’s funeral.”

“What’s a funeral, mumma?” The little girl asked. “We were never taught about this in school.”

A woman came from behind and said, “You two, come back. Let mumma--”

“It’s fine,” The mother replied. She looked at the pair of siblings, held the face of the girl and said, “A-A funeral is a ritual where we send a person’s body to G-God.”

“So, is papa going to God?”

“Yes…”

“So when will he come back? I want him to carry me on his back and give me a horse ride.”

The boy, at this, said, “No! He will give the ride to me!”

“No, me!”

“Stop, you two…” Tears came out of her red eyes again as he hugged them and said, “M-Maybe, he’ll never come back.”

“I feel sorry for the family,” I told Prakash. “He was all of thirty or thirty-five, and had a family to feed and children to raise. He did nothing wrong in his whole life, not even with any criminal. Even in our group, he was the most experienced one and the calmest personality.”

“Bad things always happen to good people,” Prakash cited. “I would have liked to have a glass of wine with y’all when we win this case. But, we’ve already lost some members.”

I looked at him, and tilted my head down. “I hope his soul rests in peace.”

“Me too,” Prakash replied. “Moreover, I’d like to dedicate this case to these men.”

“Yes, they deserve this the most.”

Naina Sharma

Kavita was inside the warehouse in front of me. I had my head tilted down, and she had just left the cell. Suddenly, she came in again and said, “I’ve seen upon the matter. So, you may continue.”

“What else should I say?” I asked.

“Your family dies, Shekhar’s family dies, you both marry--don’t you think something is awkward in this?”

“I don’t care about awkwardness in here,” I replied. “That’s the truth, however you take it.”

“No,” She stood up and started brainstorming. “Something’s off the mark. Can it be… the marriage? Can it be…” She looked at me, gave a smile and said, “… the connection between the murders?”

“What do you mean?”

“Firstly, tell me why you didn’t report your family’s murder to the police?”

“They always kept me in the shadow that the disappearance case of Shekhar was going on, and the file of my family’s murder case is made and the investigation would happen soon. Six years, and no case file about how my family ended.”

“Do you know the reason?”

“Nah,” I replied. “Maybe they were too lazy, maybe they were corrupted. Whatever the reason, I soon found out that the whole system is corrupted, and I can do nothing but stare at it continue to turn black.”

Manish Murthy

“Now listen to me,” The driver said while pointing his revolver at me. “There’s a man wearing a black outfit at the right corner of the restaurant. You just have to walk in and sit in front of the man. The rest will be told to you by him.”

“B-But why is he--”

“Do as I say, dumbass,” He replied. I stepped down the car and stood up on the street full of people walking here and there. I noticed that it was an intersection of three lanes, making a ‘T’ position, and the ‘Happy Meals’ was a red building on the corner in front of me. “One more thing,” He said as I was looking on the building. He pointed his gun at me and said, “Don’t even think of running away. We got something like twenty men around here.”

“Y-Y-Yes, sir,” I replied, gulped, and walked past him towards the building. MY legs were trembling and I was very afraid about what was going to happen to me. I walked slowly because of my fright, and was constantly thinking, “May the world ends before I reach that place.” I half-knew that it was not gonna happen. I kept walking towards the building and soon reached its entrance. I opened the gate of the building and entered inside the fast-food restaurant. I scanned the location and tilted my head from left to right. I looked at families eating burgers, friends munching on French-fries and what not. I then noticed a man wearing black sweatshirt and black pair of pants on the right side of me. He was using his phone and had two glasses of cold-drink on the table. “That’s the ‘right corner’ he must have been talking about,” I thought. I walked towards him, and stood in front of him. I gulped as I held the table and stood on the empty chair in front of me. He also had black sunglasses, and he had quite a muscular body. He even had a black winter beanie cap on, with black gloves which had half fingers. “E-Excuse me, sir,” I said.

That man looked at me and kept his phone on the table. “Manish Murthy, right?” I nodded shyly. He took out his sunglasses, breathed and then looked at me. “Sorry for the scary invitation, man. He then took out his beanie cap and said, “I’m Shekhar Sharma, and I wanna talk to you on a very urgent matter.”