Knock.Knock.
I sighed as I put my cup of coffee to see who it was.
KNOCK.KNOCK.
“Okay!Okay!I’m coming!”I shouted at the top of my lungs.
Who could it be? It was the blessed day of the week when I didn’t have to go to the office or interact with the outside world. My parents,siblings or any other relatives didn’t live in Karachi. My friends usually informed me an hour before coming to my place. Because I was the sort of person who would be ready to kill anyone who gave me a call at 3 am . The blissful mornings in the balcony as the breeze hit my face was what I enjoyed most. I enjoyed being single. I was still trying to find the ‘greater perhaps’ in my life at the moment.
I hurriedly opened the door without looking through the eye-hole because I did not want to miss a single second of the t.v series “Two Broke Girls”. I later realized that i should have checked the eye-hole before opening the door to a complete stranger who stood before me;also because of the high crime rate in Karachi.
Seconds after I opened the door, the girl with huge brown eyes embraced me in a warm hug. Confused,I shook her off of me.
“Who are you?”I asked in desperation.
“Oh!”the stranger exclaimed. Her eyes turned to a darker shade of brown as the sunlight bounced off her jet black hair.A thick lock of her hair was tucked behind her ear.
“I am Hamna from 2019 batch,A levels.”
I nodded my head as nostalgia washed over me. Those carefree days in my A levels were amazing. We were so caught up in achieving good grades and thinking about how we might ruin our future. I smiled.
“You remember me then,”said Hamna as she stared onto my face. Her eyes seemed to be searching for something. I dismissed this thought and offered her to come inside and have a cup of tea, to which she agreed.
“What brings you here?And how did you manage to find me?”
She smiled but i could sense that she was hiding something from me.
She told how she had to call a few friends and ask for my address.
Two hours passed.
I had already missed two episodes of “Two Broke Girls”. How come I never found her on any social media site?I thought to myself.
After countless discussions on various topics and catching upon what we had missed out on all 7 years , she fell silent. She gave me the same look that she had before coming in.Now I was scared or perhaps anxious about what was on her mind.
She rubbed her hands together and said,” Kaynat two days ago I saw you in my dream. You might be wondering how stupid this is. Well it’s not! Let me explain it to you.”She must have read my bizarre facial expressions because I was not known for hiding my emotions very well.
“Before I saw you in that dream, i saw my mother in my dream! That precise day my mother died because of a severe heart attack. I saw my dog,Weenie, cry for help. The very next day some wild dogs ripped my innocent puppy apart.”
Her gaze fell to the ground. Her hands closed into tight balls,I could see her knuckles whitening.
“Then I saw my car which crashed into a pole but no one was in that!Weird ,huh?”
I was still shocked, making sure this was not part of a Final Destination movie,i pinched myself.I winced but this was the reality.
“I checked my watch and on it was written 96 hours left. I then saw what happened in the upcoming hours .The very next night i saw you standing beside my bed while i was sleeping in my dream.”Tears rolled down her velvet soft skin and red cherry cheeks.
“Save me ,please!”She whisper -shouted.
“Save me!”I tried to calm her down but she kept crying.
I promised to help her in every possible way I could.
….
That night i tossed and turned,thinking about Hamna.Was she really telling me the truth?
Where was she all this time?I thought and stared at the blank wall in the moonlight that seeped in through my window. I was sure that there was someone watching me. I just couldn’t get over this feeling. I put a blanket over my head and closed my eyes real tight like i used to do when i was kid;hoping to find a way out of this madness.
…….
The next morning at 9am I got a call from an unknown number. Reluctantly, I picked it up and heard an officer speak on the other end as the remnants of last night came back to my mind.
“Hamna Malik is dead,”he said with a blank expression.”She had a piece of paper in her hand which turns out to be your number.Her car crashed into a pole and she died on spot.”
I got goosebumps as my phone hit the floor and I wrapped my arms around myself.
How was this possible?
–END–
