Suspense Short Story – The Blue Bracelet
Photo credit: xandert from morguefile.com
This is an account of a true story which I have experienced during my sojourn in Bangalore , India. The place of my stay was a girl’s hostel. It is situated in one of the busiest and densely populated areas of the city. The occupants of the hostels are mostly girls who have made their way into the Information Technology sectors. Most of them have finished their under graduation and have found their way into one of the reputed Multi National Information technology firms. Precisely, they are all busy working five days a week and taking off on the weekend. The girls hostels in the city normally function for all the days of the month providing the occupants with food thrice daily. The charges are fixed for every month and the amount has to be paid at the onset of every month.
It was one of those busy days of a week, a Wednesday. I share my room with two of my friends from my college. We all work for the same company and are co-incidentally part of the same project. It was 4th of December 2013. As we all commute to the office through the company provided bus we had to be out there in the bus stop by sharp 8 in the morning. We have finished tidying up ourselves for work and rushed to board the bus. It was a rather busy day at work. Attending calls from the client and finishing the tasks assigned to us has kept us totally engaged till it was 6.30 in the evening. It is the time where all the buses provided by the firm start off to transport the employees back to their residences.
We all boarded the customary bus, C-32 and dozed off for an hour’s sleep. The destination has arrived and we got out of the bus. One of my friends cued that we are yet to pay our dues for the hostel. We all decided that we would pay it readily as we have already delayed the payment by three days. We started moving to our hostel from the bus stop, which normally takes 5 minutes. We have reached our hostel and the person in charge, a man of 40 was unusually busy on a call. He was frantic and looked rather restless. We paid him the dues and moved towards our room. T3.
The third room of the third floor of the construction is the place of our inhabitation. As we started mounting the stairs to the third floor we have seen a huge crowd of girls chatting anxiously. The looked distressed and their conversations troubled. As we are struggling to find our way through the crowd I heard one of the girls call out my name. I turned back to know who it was. It was the girl from the room next door. She was our neighbour. She pressed her way through the crowd. She had seemed disquieted. I enquired the reason for her worry and she replied “Do you know that a girl has killed herself in the afternoon today. She hanged herself by her neck in the first room on the first floor.”
I was flabbergasted. She also informed me that the police are yet to come and clear the body from the room she hanged. I enquired the details of the death and was informed that it was a girl of 19 who has come to Bangalore to pursue her medical education. By then, one of the girls who have overheard the conversation began to narrate the account of the suicide. On listening to the story I felt horrified.
As it was a working day for most of the dwellers of the hostel the mornings would make the construction look rather empty and devoid of human inhabitancy except for a few occurrences of the servant who cleans up the rooms and a girl or two who couldn’t make it to the work or college due to ill-health. During lunch time the girl was found having lunch in the dining room. After finishing her lunch she left for the room of her residence. Around 6, one of her roommates has finished her work and on finding the door locked she opened it with the set of keys provided to her for her access to the room. There was a sudden shriek of a cry and the person in charge of the hostel along with the 2 servants who were watching television in the front portico rushed to the first floor to check on the cry emanated from one of the rooms.
On reaching the room they found a girl’s body hanging from the roof. The girl’s tongue has rolled out and is hanging down from her mouth. Her eyes looked swollen and the neck bruised. There is a deep cut in the girls palm which is bleeding and the red liquid which fills the human body is spilled all over the room. The girl was wearing a bright blue shirt and black jeans which appeared rather old and creased. The girl also wore a Blue Bracelet with the letters beaded to form the name “Anusha” which was uncommonly shiny and peculiar, a custom made. The body looked as if it is fixed in a constant stare at you, hanging by the neck. The room felt cold and unearthly. The doors were closed and the entrance was blocked.
The police were called in and the girls are waiting for the clearance to happen. This knowledge of the happening left me shaken. I wanted to pass on the news of the death to my friends who have already left for our room. I ran to my floor with lighting speed and barged into the room. My friends have settled down on the couch to watch what is aired on TV. They looked at me puzzled for my rather frightened face. I narrated the events of the account and the reason for the crowd in the first floor. On listening to the account of the death they appeared as if they have discovered the body first, terrified. The police has arrived, cleared the room of the body and interrogated a few inhabitants of the same floor. The floor has been vacated by the dwellers and girls moved to the second and third floors to forget the horrifying death.
It was half past 11 in the night and time to sleep. But the eyelids of us all refused to close. We were dubious of the hauntings that take place after a person forcefully kills the body due to some unpleasant incidents of life. It was 1 ‘o’ clock in the night and the hostel and the street fell silent. The grave silence of the hostel that night sent shivers down the spine of every single person present in the house that night. The night was colder than usual. Though everyone lay awake in their beds with wide open eyes none could converse with each other. The fact that a fellow hosteller has forced her soul out of the body into intangible darkness has left us dismayed.
The night seemed longer than ever. The ticking of the clock felt sulkier forever. It felt as if the arms of the clock denied to move forward as the noise would disturb some melancholic soul wandering in the first floor grieving over the hasty decision. The much anticipated morning finally dawned in and we left for work. The event of death has raised many speculations as hauntings, evil spirits, and possessions and as such. Seven days passed after the death and no proof of any existence has calmed our nerves People started occupying the other rooms of the first floor and the actual hustle and bustle of the hostel is restored.
It was a Saturday and one of my roomies, who hails from Chennai left home for the weekend. The other friend of mine and I planned to go out for shopping in the evening. We laughed out on our silliness of the thoughts that frighten us when the mind gets disturbed. We have also vowed to never allege any soul of the silly thoughts that creep up into our minds through different means of superstitious incidents. We locked our room and moved down to catch up with the shopping. We rushed down the stairs and onto the road. We almost bumped into one of the girls who were moving down. After the narrow escape of knocking her down I turned to apologise her and she beckoned a friendly wave. She had the peculiar Blue Bracelet with the name “Anusha”.
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