MELINOE

Realisation

Chapter – 6
I was badly waiting for our 2nd boring lecture to get over, but with no watch on wrist, couldn’t guess the time. And I too didn’t mingle much with anyone that day. F i n a l l y, the bell rang for lunch. Professor Mr. Stuart left the hall. The classroom clattered with voices and laughs of distinct pitches in no time. I took my bag and came out. The building was designed in a laudable way, I was just awestruck by the infrastructure and interiors. With a height of 158cm, I probably looked like a tiny Alice in Wonderland. Staying out of home made me feel so much better.
I scanned past a few noticeboards, displaying the different Committee Members, Contests and Winners, Sports championships etc. I stopped by the last one, the Sports board. It had few medals hanging neatly, photographs of the players, winners with the trophies. The picture of the basketball team caught my attention. A bunch of eleven tall guys in yellow T-shirt and shorts, black socks and different kinds of shoes, holding high the huge trophy and showing the victory sign looked the brightest picture on the board. Inter-college basketball championship 2005. Three years have passed by. The guy standing second from the right side grabbed my focus. He looked so familiar. Have I seen him before? But where!? It didn’t take me much of a time to recollect “where” it was.
The hand that tried to choke me to death, the lips that reassured me of its very existence, the structure that smiled at me this morning has this face. This is the damn face and I can NOT be mistaken. I’ve got to see this face so close that, it had made me feel my soul losing control over my body and yearning for life. The entire scene is registered in my mind, more vivid than anything can ever be. He looked so humane in this picture, equanimous yet cheerful. How can it be the same guy? Am I out of my mind, or am I possessed by the evil? I was clueless! Everything else blurred out, only thing my eyes could see was this guy. My scrutinizing eyes didn’t have it all, it got me into a straight dismay when I got to see the tiny chain that he had around his neck, peeping out from the collar of his tee. It took me seconds to realize that this is the pendant that I’ve found in my shelf, dropped accidentally, stepped on and kept back in place.
The petrified Nadiya was now outwitted by the wiser Nadiya. All that happened in the last few days ran in a flashback on my head. The shadow at the broken window, the mirror, the torn posters, the pendant, the evil that tried to kill me straightaway, and lastly, this guy on the board, in a picture taken 3years ago were all pieces of the same story and I had to find out the matter of this story. This picture now convinced me that “HE IS REAL”.