|the naive rebel|
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iii| a whirlwind of deaths
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word count- 1370

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INAAYAT
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Well, I was kicked out of the agency because I had almost injured the officer who was teaching me how to aim a bullet.

Almost? Ina, the bullet scraped his upper right shoulder.

It wasn't my mistake in all honestly, he was forcing me to hit continuous shots and in the moment of a spur, I tripped on my feet and pressed the trigger of the gun.

Only, this time my aim was perfect.

"Inu you have to be more careful with your stance. You cannot make any grave mistakes there or else it can even put your life in peril." My father tells me as we walk towards the exit of the agency. Today was a very eventful day.

After the shooting session, they took me through a course of strenuous physical training. My health check-up was done and only then I was stamped as a perfect candidate for this job.

Pankaj still isn't sure about my recruitment because when I was leaving the main cabin, he sneered at me. Holding his right shoulder and wincing in pain, he has lost all his hopes for the case.

The drive to the college is cut short when my father stops the car right in front of an old building. It had visible cracks and worn out paint. The name board is hanging to a single nail, the gate is rusty. It is a society with just one small tower of six floors.

No one seemed to be present or living in there, only dried leaves made a sound as they were scrapped by the gushing wind.

My father directs me to get off the car and we walk towards the gate which screeches and makes a blood-curling sound that manages to scare my soul.

There are webs and cobs around, and everything seems to be cocooned in the dust. The air is filthy inside and manages to suffocate me while we stand in front of a black door. The moving of the rusted iron chains suddenly engulfs the silence, and the lift reaches the ground floor.

There is no light inside the small elevator cubicle, and I can feel how slowly the lift moves and a pang of fright grow in my heart.

When we finally reach the sixth floor, the entire scenario seems to change abruptly. The entrance was bad and uncleaned but the passage looks as if it is polished clean every single day. The tiles shine brightly and the air seems scented with musk and roses.

There's only one flat on the floor and my dad hands me the key for it. I was in the pretence that I had to live on the college campus, in the hostel room that will be assigned to me. But if this is where I get to stay for the next upcoming months, I have no regret.

The house is well furnished and equipped with all luxury gadgets and necessities. The home feels sparkling and shining with the excess amount of detergents used to clean and scrub it.

The bubble I was living in pops open with a prick when my father tells me how this flat has been assigned to me for official purposes. I am supposed to come back here every weekend to communicate the entire week's happenings to them.

The building we are in is an official land and belongs to the Government of India. This place was helpfully assigned to those officers who were in need or when their job demanded them to go undercover or underground.

The entire building is completely secured and has all devices fitted for easy and safe communication.

I am given a new sim card and a new phone to erase all my past contacts. To keep my identity a secret, fake documents are provided to me and a new name has been allotted, too. I will be Aayat Mishra instead of Inaayat for the next seven months of my life. A nineteen-year-old girl who will be joining the college mid-semester in the second year of the course.

I have to act like a girl who is four years younger and is still studying for her bachelor's degree. I cannot spell my parent's real name and my real identity in any case. It is meant to be confidential.

My father had left a while ago after preparing a web of lies for me to spew before the students and teachers there. Making me completely ready for all the challenges that are going to be thrown my way in future.

The lives of those students are important and now I have to protect them from any lingering potential threat.

He had handed me a file that contained the details of the five students who had suicided and lost their lives. Though they were projected to be suicides, the police believed them to be murders.

The file mentions the biodata of the students with the way their bodies were founded and some notes about how all these murders could be connected.

I would be starting college tomorrow once I transfer all my necessary belongings to my hostel room. Attending the classes isn't important but I would have to attend some starting classes to prove my sincerity.

I drop the wet towel on the side couch and sigh tiredly of today's hectic travelling. Moving towards the velvet sofa of my new flat's living room, I scan the bundle of pages spiral bound to the file.

It would have been much more interesting if this file was an Agatha Christie novel.

The index of the file contains the name and the page number for every new case. Five cases from 2015-2019. That makes one case, per year.

I flip to the first page-

1

•Name - Tanmay Pillai
Age- 19 year; second-year student.
Cause of death- Drowned at the campus' pool
Date of death- 4.5.2015

I read about his family history, his academic history, ambitions and everything I would require to know the person thoroughly.

I keep on reading about every victim, circling and underling the points that I feel are extremely important.

2

•Name- Radhika Zaveri
Age- 18 year, first-year student.
Cause of death- Falling from the terrace of the college building
Date of death- 10.10.2016
Academic- A+ student

3

•Name- Yash Dubey
Age- 21 year, third-year student
Cause of death- hanging from the ceiling wall.
Date of death- 30.4.2017
Academic- Average- good student

4

•Name- Pallavi Shrivastav
Age- 19 year, second-year student

5

•Name- Ojas Reddy
Age- 20
Cause of death- Drowned at the campus' pool
Date of death- 2.6.19
Academic- Bright, topper.

Though every death was masked as a suicide some points hinted them to be murders. Yet, till the time we do not find any concrete proof, we have to continue keeping the possibility of them being suicides open.

And when I think, what benefit would someone get by killing these youngsters in an Engineering college? All of them had a good academic history which pointed out that it wasn't a case of depression, then how were their fates linked? How were their murders connected? What was the chain that bound them together from earth to heaven?

I keep the file aside, staring at the pale cream wall in front of me. All the words I read keeps appearing in front of my eyes.

Death, suicide, rich, poor, loved, bullied.

Something which connects them. Honestly, being a writer I have a stronghold in understanding the deeper meaning hidden behind the smallest of phrases.

Yeah, even though you cannot understand the straight forward meaning behind physics numerical, but yes words count too.

I stretch my arms and then stand on my feet. Tumbling towards my bedroom I fall on the bed and let the darkness relief me of my tiredness.

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till the next time,
keep dodging the bullets
and also love me :-),
ऊ.