Victor's Home

Chapter 1

17th December 2019

Zoya's POV:

"Where am I?" I screamed through my sore throat, which burned like crazy. I sucked in a deep breath and tried to swallow some saliva to wet my dry throat, but in vain. I felt like I was deprived of water for years. "Is anyone here at all? Hello? Help?" My voice squeaked and broke echoing very quickly. Probably a tiny room?

My eyes were blindfolded and my hands were tied above my head to a rope, which probably hung from the ceiling. I was kneeling on a freezing cold floor and my legs felt limp, refusing to move. A dull pain rested on my shoulders as I swayed from side to side, trying to pull my wrists off the knot. The place where I am held now stunk like corpses, making me want to throw up. I tried not to breathe deeply but that didn't seem to help.

My head throbbed in mild pain as millions of questions circled my head. Why was I here? How was I here? How was I abducted? How long was I here? Who did this to me? Where was I?

I shook my head trying to recollect the most recent memory of where and with whom I was before all this happened. I squeezed my already shut eyes behind the blindfold and strained for pieces of information.

A faint picture of me applying mascara to my eyelashes appeared. That happened in the evening in my hostel room. I was getting ready to go out. But where? I shook my head harder and pushed on my thoughts. Where? Where? Where?

Another picture of me in a shopping mall appeared. Renita was beside me. She shoved a small teddy bear on the shopping trolley, which was already overflowing with so many items that we had been listing for the past week.

Yes! We were shopping for things, to decorate our new hostel room. We were shifted to a newly built hostel block within the college campus. Two students per non-ac-room with an attached washroom. Ac rooms were too expensive for either of us to afford.

Renita was my roommate for the new hostel room, though my best friend for a year now. My previous roommate was a nerd, she would wake up at midnight to study though it didn't mean that she annoyed or disturbed me in any way. Renita and I always wanted to share a room and waited for a shuffle so badly. We literally freaked out when we received the circulars via the mail, about the new hostel building and claiming new roommates.

Oh, how excited were we to share the same room from there on! It's only been two days since we moved into our new hostel and we were out to purchase all that we had listed, to turn our newly painted room into a small fairy world.

Then, what happened? Did we bill the items we had purchased? Yes, we did. We divided the final price by half and paid. Rupees 5237 each and I remember how she complained about the expensive dreamcatchers that I had selected, which turned out to be the ultimate reason for the expensive bill.

I chuckled silently and quickly stopped, realizing the situation I was actually stuck in. Where were you when I was abducted, Reni? Or even were you abducted and were here with me? I threw my head back and thought again. Next, where did we go?

Us walking out of the mall flashed in my mind like broken clips. Then? The same thing kept reappearing. Oh no! Where did we go next? How much ever I strained, I couldn't recollect what happened next. It seemed like a dead end. No no no! This can't be happening! Why wasn't I remembering anything that happened after that?

Was I dreaming? Maybe I was sleeping on our way back to the hostel, on a public bus. But I thought we wouldn't feel pain in dreams! I cursed under my breath, wriggling my wrists as the rope burned into my skin. A faint pain radiated through my arms, down to my shoulder, every time I made a move.

"Someone help me!" I shouted into nowhere frantically and waited. There was no other noise except the echo, that didn't fail to hit me back in the room or wherever I was held in. It was pin-drop silent.

"Can someone hear me? Is anyone here? Help!" I waited again, only to be answered by the stillness. I broke into tears, unable to make sense of what was happening around me. What was happening?

Memories of my parents warning me over the phone, about how they always came across a kidnap or rape case at least once every day, followed by the memories of how I had laughed them off saying they were being silly and I was far better than the other girls in my college played like a movie in front of my eyes.

Usually, the victims get killed at the end. I have never come across any news columns talking about the police retrieving the victims safely, it's all about the corpses and the date and time they were spotted. A sudden panic raced into my nerves and my eyes burned with tears. Was I going to die here? How would my parents react if I do? That's all? That's all was my life on earth?

I could feel the heat invading my body, as my stomach started churning with fear and desperation. I was going to die! Suddenly thoughts of what would happen to me after my death started pooling in my head, making me feel dizzy and weak.

I mustered as much as energy I could and quickly pushed the thoughts away. I raised my head before inhaling deeply with hope. What we think is what happens next. It's probably the fear that made other victims weak and got them killed. No! I was not dying this young. Not here at least. I made myself a promise to stay alive and make it out very soon.

"What will you do if I go missing?"

Renita's eyes sprang open before it sent daggers at me. "I am praying, Zoe. You can't say things like that now. Take your words back!"

"I won't!" I grinned.

She stared at me for two more seconds and then went back to prayer.

I felt my head slowly losing its senses and falling forward, pulling down more weight on my sore wrists.

Maybe she was right after all. That was the last thing I remembered before my thoughts swivelled into a circle and vanished into the dark.



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