The Last Stop.

Part 2

The waiting became unbearable and it scared her a bit more each second like the background music of a horror film. So who arrived first? The bus. None of them turned up and she was tensed as hell now. The bus usually waited for 5 minutes at the stop and she used those 5 minutes to run down the street, look in and around her office complex but she couldn't find Samar. She went down to the post office just around the corner but there was no sign of Raghav. None of them were picking her calls so she chose the only option left. She hopped on the bus.

While she stared out of the window with the hope of spotting any one of them or both, she got a call from her mother. She picked it up and heard her mother sobbing. "Why are you crying, ma?" , Neha asked, desperately. "I'm really sorry, Nehu. It's him. We just got a call right now...." was the reply she received.

Rushed steps. Running feet. The pavement was not used to these hurried footsteps in the evening. She opened the door and found her parents sitting there, waiting for her and controlling their tears. They hugged her and consoled her. For them, this was the largest misfortune that could befall their daughter - the death of her husband to be.

Everything felt numb. She didn't know how to feel and and waves of questions hit her mind like those hitting the shore during a high tide. What happened to Raghav? Were the stories of both of them not turning up even related to one another? She found out from the investigation that a glass pane had crashed on his head and the glass pieces lead to the trickling blood. The reason of the glass pane falling were still uncertain as it was quite strange that a glass pane was present in a restaurant's washroom where he had gone to have his lunch. Something wasn't quite adding up in Neha 's mind.

Rushed steps. Running feet. Neha reached the bus stop a little earlier with the hope of meeting Raghav and talking to him. But just like the previous evening, the bus made it and Raghav didn't. His phone couldn't be reached and was out of the coverage area. She got down at the stop and went straight to the post office. She showed his picture around to all the office goers but all of them gave her a blank look and refused to have ever seen him. The worlds around her shook its head as if he had never existed.

She reached the office to work till the lunch break as she had asked for a half day. At noon, during the awaited lunch time, she got out of the office and took a bus to the area of his previous office. On reaching the front desk, she showed his picture to the receptionist. She recognised him and so did everyone else as he had worked there for 7 years. As soon as they thought of him, their mouths uttered prayers and their faces filled with a deep sadness. Neha asked if he had called them up or had come there after he resigned. One of the employees said, " No, umm I don't know how to say this...but...he never resigned." The receptionist decided to take one for the team and took Neha aside and said, " I'm really sorry. I don't want to be the one to break this to you, but he passed away two days back...We were told that he want to a restaurant and a glass pane or something fell on his head..I'm sorry...". Neha struggled to breathe. No. Not this time. But she was helpless. She was informed by the others that his body was found in the washroom of a cafe and a burnt firecracker was found near the body. His phone had not been found and it was suspected to be stolen by somebody who had escaped from the window and had left it open.

Neha walked out of that office, lifeless and feeling betrayed. The reality had left her astound and broken. But the makers of the silent movie couldn't stop the voices in her head from echoing. 'Two days back' 'Yesterday' 'Glass pane' ' It's just those firecrackers' ' lunch break' 'recordings ' ' phone calls' ' restaurant ' 'bus stops.' Her thoughts ran over blurred lines and infinite spirals. Did anything make sense?

'Two days ago'. But she met him the previous morning, didn't she? He was talking about his new job-A job where there was no sign of him. He took the bus with her to a stop where there was no sign of him as if his shadow never fell there. ' Phone was not found'. She never saw him using his phone the previous morning. He went and never came to take the bus back home. ' A burnt firecracker'. The explosion. He left the job that he hated. He never resigned. She met him yesterday, didn't she? Did she?

Slowly, the little pieces of the puzzle joined and the picture became clearer while she stared in horror at particularly nothing. The similarity. The facts not adding up. He had been forced to leave from her life by someone. She knew that 'someone'. But he didn't let that stop him. He came back for her. He came back to take that journey with her which he always wanted to. He came back to love her for one last time and left and disappeared to another world. Most importantly, her warrior came back to save her from a demon and make one last sacrifice. Maybe it wasn't so difficult to understand; she was the only one who got on the bus that evening.

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