‘Say your prayers. Hope you are born a better man in your next life,’ said Kailash, pointing his gun at the back of Bairav’s head.

Tears streamed down Bairav’s face as he struggled to even cry properly. Words choked in his throat as fear gripped his heart. He sat on the edge of the roof on his knees with his hands tied behind his back. He felt the muzzle of the pistol poke the back of his head as his kidnapper asked him to say his prayers. ‘Are you fucking mad?! God save me!’ he prayed.

‘Waste of a prayer,’ Kailash replied as he readied himself to pull the trigger, when suddenly a hand gripped his forearm. Instinct kicked in and Kailash involuntarily pulled the trigger, but his arm flung up into the air, sending the bullet whizzing into the night sky.

Bairav screamed out loud in sheer panic, but his expression dropped dead once he realized he was still breathing. He turned around to see a woman in a white costume holding Kailash’s arm up. She squeezed it hard enough for him to scream out loud and drop the pistol onto the ground.

Arora pulled him down by his arm, causing Kailash to crash onto the ground with a dull thud. He groaned dully before rolling over and gripping his arm to ease the pain.

‘Quick! Untie me!’ Bairav asked.

Kailash looked at Arora with furious eyes. ‘What are you doing?’ he screamed at the woman.

‘I should be asking you that,’ Arora replied.

Her voice had an unnatural echo that instilled fear in his heart. ‘I am doing what you do every day,’ he replied.

‘And what is that supposed to be?’ she asked.

He fell silent for a moment, for he wanted to make sure he answered this right. But even that moment of silence wore thin on Bairav’s patience. ‘Enough already. Untie me!’ he ordered her.

‘Best for you to stay silent. You aren’t in the best position to make demands right now,’ Arora replied calmly.

Bairav turned front and cursed under his breath.

‘Go on. Tell me what that is you planned to do,’ Arora asked Kailash.

‘Deliver justice,’ he replied, his face red with rage.

‘Is it justice you were trying to deliver? Or judgement?’ Arora asked again.

‘You cannot have one without the other,’ Kailash answered.

‘Very good,’ she replied with a hint of sarcasm. ‘So what exactly did this man do?’

‘Oh, for god’s sake, enough of this chatter and let me go!’ Bairav interrupted.

‘Someone is hasty. Afraid you will be judged for your crimes?’ Arora said.

‘I didn’t do anything wrong,’ Bairav replied.

‘Liar! He is lying!’ Kailash shouted.

‘Yeah. I can see that. Will you get to the point already?’ Arora said to Kailash.

‘This man, Bairav, is a real estate dealer. He stole the land on which we built our homes,’ Kailash said.

‘Lies. You people have been occupying that land illegally!’ Bairav countered.

‘Bullshit! Our grandfathers have been living on that land for ages. You cannot come with a piece of paper and claim it as yours!’ Kailash said. He grit his teeth to contain his anger.

‘He can do that. Assuming those documents are legal,’ Arora said.

‘See! I was right! I didn’t do anything wrong!’ Bairav declared.

‘Assuming they were legal. Who owned them and how did you get them?’ Arora asked.

‘The state government allotted the land to me. I was supposed to build new homes on that land. Told them that, but they refused to budge. Held protest. And now they even plan on murdering me!’

Something smelt fishy in his statement and Arora caught a whiff of it immediately. ‘Why would the government allocate land to a real estate businessman? You don’t own a construction company.’

‘I am an intermediary. I connect constructors to ones who need them!’ Bairav replied in a flash.

Arora could sense the tremble in his voice as he lied through his teeth. ‘Which minster did you bribe and how much?’ Arora asked, grinning.

Kailash, who sat on the floor silent as he watched the situation turn against him, found new life in his breath. His face lit up seeing his idol ask the right questions.

‘Don’t take me for a fool. You own that land. You hired a construction crew to build houses for you. I am certain your name is written on those deeds,’ Arora said.

Bairav remained silent. He slouched forward and began to weep silently. Kailash, on the other hand, stood up before bending over to pick up the pistol. Just as he grabbed it, Arora nailed it to the ground with her right foot. ‘What are you doing?’ Kailash asked.

‘Again, what are you doing?’ Arora replied.

‘Killing him,’ he said bluntly. A cold shiver travelled up Bairav’s spine on hearing those words.

‘Yeah. You will be doing no such thing,’ Arora said.

‘You got to be kidding me! Are you going to let him go after hearing his crime?’ Kailash asked, his voice was loud and booming.

‘Listen. Killing him is not going to get you on your land back. Someone else will just pick up where he left off,’ Arora replied.

‘Killing him will send a message to anyone who will try to do such a thing,’ Kailash said.

‘In hell, that is going to happen. What is going to happen is you’re going to go to jail, your family will be on the roads, and all your efforts will be in ruins as they inevitably destroy your homes,’ Arora said.

‘So, what do you want me to do?’ he shouted on top of his lung, ‘how are we to live when people like him come and steal our livelihoods? It is just not me; this happens every day if not here, somewhere else. What do you want someone like me to do!?’

Arora’s gaze softened. She felt his frustration, she truly did, but she wasn’t the kind of person who could solve such problems. ‘I get your anger. But the sad truth is we still live in a time where the powerful rule over the weak. I cannot tell you how many times I wished I could solve the world’s problem with my fist. But the truth is, I can’t.’

‘Then let me kill him. Let me get the satisfaction of sending a vile human to hell,’ Kailash pleaded.

‘And then what? Ruin your life for good?’ she asked. ‘Go home. You are more useful to your family than this society.’

Kailash fell on his knees before bowing down and weeping. Arora walked over to Bairav before pulling him up onto his feet. She quietly untied his knots when he began to speak, ‘you truly are a hero. Oh god! Everyone called you the devil. But I will tell them that you are truly fair and just.’ He turned around to face her before broadening his lips into a wide smile. Arora closed her palm into a fist before driving it into his stomach. He squealed like a little child and fell to the ground, grabbing his stomach.

‘You got no other plot of land to build on? You had to go and buy some on which there were people already living,’ Arora replied.

‘The government has been trying to get rid of these people for ages,’ Bairav said, squirming in pain. ‘It is a prime piece of land, right in the middle of a developing region. Do you have any idea how much of a hinderance their old rotting building is doing to the area?’

‘And so, they sent you to do the dirty work,’ Arora replied.

‘At the end of the day, it is all business.’

‘People are not numbers. You won’t understand that until you become a number on someone else’s sheet.’

‘What? You think I grew up in rich havelis (mansion)? I too grew up on the streets and work hard to get where I am.’

‘Then why would you screw us like this?’ Kailash asked. His cold gaze didn’t frighten Bairav anymore.

‘It is a dog-eat-dog world out here and I am not going to pretend like I am a saint. I will always put myself above others and you will do the same,’ Bairav said with a stern face.

‘There are two kinds of people in this world. One who wishes for others to feel their pain and the other who wishes to save others from it. I think you know which kind you are,’ Arora said with a snarky smile.

Bairav’s heart seemed to melt, if only for a moment. ‘And you think you can save the world from its misery?’

‘I know I can’t. But I also know I can save one person at a time,’ she replied. ‘It is okay to do something good once in a while. It won’t kill you. Not immediately, anyway.’

Arora proceeded to walk over to the pistol on the ground. ‘I hope you didn’t waste too much on this, because you are not getting it back,’ she said as she picked it up.

‘That is mine!’ Bairav said.

‘Yeah… I am not leaving it here with you two. File a case with police. Hopefully they will find it. And your two bodyguards… I think… tell them to run the other way if they see me. Or else I will make sure they find a prison room suitable for them.’ Arora proceeded to leap over the parapet and disappear into the darkness below.

***

‘You just left them there? What if one pushed the other off the building?’ Sam asked.

‘I didn’t leave them like that. I watched them leave the place. They exchanged some words, mostly abuses, but they kind of went their separate ways from there,’ Monica replied.

‘Damn. And a year later, here we are. One runs a charity hospital, and another donates land to its owner.’

‘Who would have thought? Though I do wish to know what happened in the meantime. How did Kailash end up with the money for a hospital?’ Monica wondered.

‘You can ask him.’

‘Nah. He doesn’t know me.’

‘That is true.’

‘I wonder what else he has been up to?’ Monica said as she pulled out her phone.

‘Who?’

‘Bairav.’ She began tapping away on her phone and a list of search results appeared. She took a while to browse through them, leaving Sam to sip quietly on his coffee.

‘Anything interesting?’ Sam asked after having patiently waited for some time. He observed Monica’s expression change, as though she had an eureka moment.

She put the phone onto the table and spun it around. ‘Read this,’ she said.

‘23-10-2018. Something ended and something began. A person was saved from this lifetime. Memory of the old person still rests in the place where a new life began, waiting to be heard,’ it read.

‘I am guessing that was the day of the incident?’ Sam asked.

‘I do not remember, actually. But it is the last line that interests me. Memory still rests in the place… waiting to be heard,’ she read out.

‘You think something is there?’

‘Don’t know. He posted these months ago and he might have meant it literally.’

Sam looked at her curious eyes and knew what was going through her mind. ‘You are going there, aren’t you?’

Monica looked down at the table in shame.

Sam simply smiled and got up from his chair. ‘You got time till tomorrow morning. Just be careful… You will be anyway.’

***

Monica waited patiently. Every ticking minute felt like an eternity. Soon darkness enveloped the town and one by one the residents retreated into their homes. The town fell quiet, allowing her to move about in the darkness like a mouse.

She reached the old building in time. It was standing there, old and decaying, just as she remembered. There was no door to it unlike before, making her task of reaching the top much easier. Cool wind blew across the rooftop making Monica shiver. She shuddered a little, but it was unclear if it was because of the wind or the old memories. She looked around the near empty place and saw nothing more than a few bricks and a broken stool. Her sight was sharp, so nothing could slip past it. Perhaps it was hidden. She placed her hands on the floor and a burst of dull blue light radiated out from underneath them. She felt a cavity on the edge of the roof. Looking at it, there was nothing resembling a hatch or a loose opening. She walked over to it and felt the floor. Pressing on the corner caused the panel to tilt, revealing the hole beneath.

‘Cheeky,’ Monica commented.

Inside was a wooden box which she took before returning the panel to its original position. The wooden box looked brand new. It was in a shade of deep brown and had a layer of enamel covering it. On one side there was a hatch with a tiny lock guarding it. She looked around in the dark, wondering if there was a key hidden there but her senses did not pick up anything.

She touched the lock with her thumb and index finger, sensing the inside of the lock. Blue mist flowed around the lock and in just a second, it clicked open, and the hatch came loose. She lifted up the hatch, revealing a piece of paper sitting inside. She took the paper out and set the box aside as she began to read the letter.

‘Dear lady in white. I do not know if you are still alive, or if you are, you will find this letter. But I am writing this to satisfy myself. After the night you saved me, I returned home angry and distressed, wanting to burn down everything around me. I plotted all possible ways to exact revenge on my kidnapper. But the bastard managed to slip away, fled the town. By the time I caught him, things in the city had changed. The riots happened, and the news that you died was everywhere. Things went bad. All that I built seemed to fall apart. But more importantly, everything you built was falling apart. Those words you told me, I believed them. I did think you would change the world, and I didn’t want to be a part of it. I wanted the world to suffer the way I did. But when it happened, I got no happiness from it. You did something good, and it did eventually kill you. But a part of me wanted to see how true it was. So, I decide to do something. I paid off the tenants of the homes I bought, including my kidnapper whom I, from the bottom of my heart, forgave. Did it satisfy me? No. The bastard took the money and left without a word. But then they came back to me and asked me to build them a home. It did feel a little better this time and so I accepted. I tried to do some more good, and it felt a little better. So, I tried again. I found myself getting addicted to it and finally saw what you meant. I may have not changed the world, but I did change one man’s world. I never got to repay you for saving my life. So, take this. It is for you and if you ever use it, I know only good will come of it.’

Monica felt a strange feeling fill her stomach. She exhaled as her eyes got misty. She quickly stopped herself from crying with a loud sniffle. She picked up the box and looked inside. A thin black plate covered the bottom of it. It took some effort, but she was able to pry it open. Beneath it was a large gold coin encased in a transparent casing. Her pupils widened seeing it shine under the moonlight. She covered her mouth with her palm, trying to hide her euphoria as she wondered how much it was worth.

***

Sunlight flooded the room through the windows, lighting it in a bright yellow hue. All gloomy feelings that Monica was harbouring slowly faded away. She sat on her bed, quiet as a mouse, staring into the letter she held in her hand.

Sam walked into the room and noticed that Monica hadn’t moved an inch even though they were to leave in another few minutes. ‘Have you packed everything you need?’ he asked.

‘Yes?’ Monica replied without turning her head.

‘All your clothes and accessories?’

‘Yes.’

‘Offer letter?’

‘Yup.’

‘Tickets?’

‘Right here.’

‘You sure you got everything?’ he asked again, folding up his arms.

Monica bursted into laughter before turning to him and saying, ‘I did. Don’t be so… meticulous about it.’

‘Just making sure. You seemed to be lost ever since you found that letter.’

She looked back at the letter as melancholy filled her heart. ‘I thought nothing but pain was left from back then. But this letter gives me hope that maybe I did something good in the end.’

Sam walked over to her before taking a seat beside her. ‘You did good. Just sometimes we remember our failures more than our victories.’

Monica smiled softly, ‘I guess you are right. But that time is long gone. My days as superhero is over. Now… I am an accountant with a nine-to-five job.’

Sam nodded silently in approval.

‘Here, I want you to hold on to this,’ she said as she folded the letter and placed it back in the box.

‘Why?’

‘Because of this.’ She held up the gold coin. Sam’s eyes widened looking at the shin of pure gold in the sunlight.

‘Maybe it is not the brightest idea to take a traceable item like that,’ he said.

‘Don’t worry. It is unmarked. I checked. It is worth a lot though.’

‘And you are okay keeping it?’

‘Debated it all night. I read about him more. It is true that he really has changed. I thought it was okay to take it as a token for saving his life. What do you think?’

‘Well, when you put it like that…’

‘Besides, there is nothing stopping us from doing good with it,’ Monica said. She closed the box and locked it before handing it over to Sam. ‘Time to go.’

The mood seemed to change as they prepared to leave. Emotions overwhelmed Monica who took a look at her home one last time, but she kept them at bay with all her might.

‘Ready?’ Sam asked.

‘Yup,’ she replied and proceeded to pick up her luggage. They walked out the door, closing it as they left. The sound of the lock clicking echoed through the empty house one last time.