SENT YOU A FRIEND REQUEST

"What's it Rahul"?

Rahul and Manisha left Priyanka sleeping in the tent as they trotted lazily through boulders, wary of slipping pebbles made smooth by gushing waters of the mighty Beas.

It was past midnight and so freezing that Rahul wondered if clouds were to appear now, it might start snowing. He and Manisha were from the plains where it never snowed, but Priyanka was a mountain girl from Spiti valley where it snowed till April end.

Wind was plenty; it stung to their faces like honey bees and Rahul could see Manisha cheeks turn red as ripe tomatoes. Beautiful, he thought. A good half mile away, the village of Marhi glittered in the dark. Beas roared. Encircled by boulders, the pair of tents resembled two ill-fated kids stuck in the company of a thousand monsters.

"Damn you Rahul. I really thought you were speaking to Pulkit"

He scratched his chin. "So I was."

"Come on, you shouldn't have done that. You saw her face? Poor she......"

"Of course I saw her face. Ask her tomorrow and she will laugh at it. Good thing is that you enjoyed and that's a gain"

"Not that much maybe"

A brief pause.

A grin appeared on Rahul's face "I'd never known I had his number, Pulkit's I mean. I'm calling him." He winked. "Not a trick this time."

Manisha didn't see him winking. She was lost in thoughts. It had come to her mind yet again. She opened her mouth to tell but Rahul was on the call already.

Someone picked from the other end.

Rahul asked if he could talk to his old friend, and as he listened and as Manisha watched, his face twisted into a near zombie and eyes grew as large as cannonballs. Trembling hands, he put the phone down.

"What's it Rahul?"

"Pulkit is dead"

"You do it quite well" Manisha bulged out her eyes as much as she could "How's that?"

"Pulkit is dead"

"Stop it yaar. Listen. It comes to my mind again and again and every time I forget to tell you; we met today and what a coincidence dear, Pulkit sent me a friend request this morning"

"Pulkit died a month back........"

It must have taken some time and a lot of heart to believe- anyway she had to - what else could she - the writing was on the wall - stamped on Rahul's face, drenched in Rahul's eyes -crystal clear and terrifying.

"Pulkit is dead. He killed himself"

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They walked back to the tents, their hearts engulfed in strange melancholy. A gust of wind caught up, they trembled and saw a lone cloud swallow the full moon.

They wouldn't tell Priyanka until the trip was over, they had decided.

As Rahul reached his tent (the other belonged to the girls), he turned to Manisha with a worrisome face "Pulkit's friend request! You sure it was today?"

"Yes.... Maybe....."

"It must've been today I'm sure. I received it too"

Manisha couldn't believe her ears "Rahul, that's weird"

"Weird, yes........." He took a pause to study her face. She was scared, trembling, her cheeks were pink from cold; tears in her eyes glittered like diamonds; and she looked at Rahul with that-one-gaze capable of making the boldest of men go weak. At that moment, she could well have been the cutest girl Rahul had met in a hundred lives.

Rahul smiled "Weird ha! You think the dead use Facebook too" He laughed "It must be someone of his family, dear, people do such stuff now-a-days, saving memories and stuff. Anyhow Manisha, I strongly urge you to spare me your cell phone whenever you happen to die, you don't have Jio-towers up there"

Manisha laughed and wept at the same time.

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Priyanka pea-size must have been deep in dreams when she heard laughter. She pulled the sleeping bag over her ears. Another guffaw, so vivid that it might have been a scream, forced her to open her eyes. Manisha wasn't in the tent, she noticed. The sun was up and viewed from here, the tent's roof bathed the floor in colour of warm blood.

Now she heard her name. She jumped up. Damn Manisha, she groaned, hell bent to spoil my mornings.

As she emerged from slumber, she realised those were no shouts of laughter, but screams full of terror. In a bare second, she was running to the spot where Rahul's tent lay in shambles, and where Manisha stood breathless, hands over her face, screaming. There, in the dilapidated remains of what was once a tent, lay a dead body. Dead eyed and frozen faced, Rahul stared into the sky.