Fatal

Akanksha Ayantika

I push through the mob of people that have gathered after the shot was fired. It is suffocating, I need air. I am shivering from the cold and from fear. The drink I had had some twenty minutes ago is not helping at all, I feel the cold in my bones. Or perhaps, the drink has only worsened my condition.

The sight of her lying on her face flashes in my mind. I am weighing down on myself, my

hand is clutching anything it can find to support me out of the crowds. I am hunting for fresh air. I push past an elderly man and pull at the sleeve of a girl. I turn around to apologize but forming words is impossible. And they don’t look offended at all, they are too busy trying to catch a glimpse of the victim. They rush towards what I am running from. I keep pushing and shoving others until I am out of the human haze.

Grabbing onto the side rail, I try to breathe. But the air won’t reach my lungs somehow.

I can see a vivid image of the blood oozing out of her still body, her blonde hair soaking in

the fluid. She was shot from the back. One of the hundreds that visit the pub on a Saturday,

she had come with her friends and walked out laughing and chatting, not noticing whether a

stranger was watching her from the corner of the street. Then, all of a sudden, the fatal blow

of fate fell on her and the stranger shot her while she was looking the other way. She fell flat

forward, hitting her head on the unpaved ground. Slowly, the blood sprung out of her

wounds.

While everyone is focused on the victim, the murderer is loose. He could be hiding in the

crowd right now, enjoying the menace that he caused and no one would know. He can blend

in easily, no blood on his hands, no sign of murder on his face. The police roam around

without any such sign and so do murderers. I think of it because I know the man was a cop. I

saw him as he disappeared into the crowd. I remember the look of horror on his face as he

saw me watching him. He was intoxicated with hatred. I had seen that face before.

The ambulance has arrived. Her body is being carried on a stretcher to the van while the

reporters flock around for pictures and people continue to haul each other for a glance. The

noise is too much for me. I feel like I have not breathed air in months and the last time I did is long past. My lungs feel ruptured with heavy blows. And I am shivering without my scarf. I placed it on the back rail of my chair inside the pub. She did the same and took the chair behind me. When she got up, she placed her hand on the chair behind her own in

unawareness and took the scarf. The liquor made her unable to distinguish between the two.

She put it on and walked out of the pub with her friends. I picked up her scarf and went after her to return it and take mine back. I opened the door and spotted her outside. Then the bullet was shot to penetrate her body. She fell with the ghost of her last laugh printed on her face. I saw the murderer. His composed self disintegrated as he saw me and the glimmer in his victorious eyes turned to deadly horror.

The realization of what had happened struck both of us at the same time. He was aghast to see me alive. He had shot the wrong person. I was the one who was to be shot, the one wearing the scarf. I was followed to the pub. He knew what I was wearing. When he saw a blonde wearing a black coat with the same scarf, he shot her dead. Thinking he had shot the young journalist who beat the entire police force in investigating a missing person’s case, he

triumphed until he spotted me. The people inside the pub rushed outside pushing me out of

the way. Crowds thickened in front of me, and he disappeared.