Chapter 35

The moment Sabari confirmed that it was his car, panic gripped Ananya. She placed her hands on either side of his shoulders and held it tight.

Ananya said, “Sabari!!! Our situation is getting worse as days pass. Who is this guy, Prasanna?”

As usual, tears began flooding her eyes.

“Ananya!!! Unfortunately, we did a mistake. There is proverb that every mistake we do would give birth to 10 different problems. Prasanna is one among the ten. Let us wait and watch what he is trying to convey”

 The DVD continued to play and the voice was heard once again.

“Mr and Mrs Sabari!!! By now, you would have come to a conclusion that the car in the video is yours. Keep watching and I will continue to speak whenever necessary”

The video played everything that happened in real, from the moment they pulled Vasudharini’s body and destroyed it with the help of the microorganisms. Every scene was perfectly shot with a night vision camera. There were noise of whispers and breathing as the video played.

The audio continued.

“Mr. Sabari!! Hope you have watched the video. How was it? Gripping?? I forgot to tell you the title. This short movie is titled ‘Revelations in the dark’. And you know something? I’m planning to promote this movie worldwide and as part of it, I’m going to nominate this movie in the International short film festival. I would like to have your permission. Please call me on the number provided in my letter. You may be wondering still on how to call the number with zeros. Why don’t you give it a try.. May be, you can reach me”

The movie ended with that audio. Sweat droplets emerged on Sabari’s forehead and he turned to Ananya.

“What shall we do now?”

“His instruction is clear. Let us call the given number and check what he is up to”

Sabari took his mobile number and hesitantly typed ten zeros in the dialer. He pressed the ‘Dial’ button. After a couple of beep, the phone ring was heard on the other side. The call was attended in the third ring. At the same time, Sabari switched on the speaker in the phone.

“Hello?”

It was a voice of a female.

“Prasanna??”

After a second of silence, she answered, “Hmm.. Prasanna is my brother… Who is speaking?”

“This is Sabari”

“Are you his friend?”

“Hmm.. Ya…”

The lady giggled hearing that.

“Why do want to lie Sabari? You cannot be his friend… If I’m not wrong you called him to talk about the short film… right?”

Sabari was slightly shocked and replied, “Yes…”

“Ok fine.. He asked me to take your call”

Sabari stayed silent for a few seconds and continued.

“What does your brother want from me?”

“I didn’t get your question”

“Come on… Don’t act like an innocent. I can clearly understand that you both want to blackmail me.”

The lady giggled once again and said, “We didn’t send the video to blackmail you Mr. Sabari”

“So… answer me why?”

“We wanted you and your wife to visit our home as our guest. Let us talk for thirty minutes over a cup of coffee..Shall we?”

“What do you want to talk about?”

“Come on.. We have lot of stuffs to talk like COVID-19, world economy, oil prices, movies and what not”

Sabari was annoyed at the answer.

“Where should we come?”

“Here is the address” and the lady gave the address.

Sabari noted the address in a piece of paper.

“Time?”

“Anytime between 5 PM to 6 PM”

“Ok.. “

“Don’t be too casual about this… We will wait for you. If you are not here, it would result in unimaginable consequences”

“We will be there”

“And I wanted to tell you this.. Forget everything about the DVD and come here with a clear mind. We will talk for half an hour. As I said earlier, we are not blackmailers. Everything will be alright“

The call was disconnected. Ananya and Sabari looked at each other with lots of questions in their mind.

Ananya asked, “Are we going there?”

“Do we have a choice?”

“My instinct says that there is danger awaiting us …”

“We would be in the same situation even if we don’t go”

After a pause, Ananya said, “Can you dial the number again?”

“But.. why?”

“I have my own doubts”

Sabari redialed the number. He got a response to check the number.

Ananya said, “I expected this”

“What do you mean?”

“This guy seems to be a geek, not sure what kind of sim card he has. Seems like an imported one-time sim card from China. You will get a fancy number that can be used once.”

Sabari looked dejected.

“I need to go and take care of the rituals of Prathap. MD Sidharth will be looking for me. So, I need to leave now. If you get any calls from Abilash, don’t be scared. Just keep repeating what you talked earlier. A lie, when repeated, will be taken as truth.”

“Ya.. I’m not worried about the call right now.. Let me destroy Vasu’s simcard right away and”

Ananya stopped speaking abruptly as she noticed something outside the window. Sabari was surprised by her reaction.

“Ananya!! What happened?”

“Look who is coming..”

Sabari turned around and peeped through the window. Inspector Mahadev got out of the police SUV and was walking towards the entrance.