As the images of the warmth in Vishal's eyes clouded her mind, Mitra relaxed and unwittingly started humming a song he had created for her. Slowly, she picked up the tune and hummed it, occasionally muttering the words of the soft lyrics that soothed her.
She heard Vishal's voice in her head, humming the song in his low, musical tone. It transferred her back to her room in her penthouse.
Vishal had taken a break for a long weekend and come down to Bangalore to recharge himself. He had looked worn out and disheartened from all the investigative work he had been doing for months on an education scam, yet he smiled brightly as soon as Mitra opened the door of her penthouse to greet him and let him in.
He didn't dump his worries on her, nor did she trouble him with her fears. They had a healthy discussion on how things were going, advised and cheered on each other, cooked and had dinner together while watching a sitcom.
In the folds of late night, as Vishal sat at one edge of the bed working on a news article, Mitra tussled a little in her sleep on the other end, lying straight instead of her usual curled up posture.
A low moan from the depths of her quiet voice called Vishal's attention. She twitched a little, making it look like nothing. Vishal didn't bother about it much and went about his work. He was almost done when he heard Mitra whimpering.
He turned sideways to look at her, and found her lying straight and trembling, her eyes painfully open.
Her whimpers grew louder as her mouth twitched between wanting to scream aloud and keeping shut. Her whole body struggled to break free from an invisible restraint tying her down in chokehold and tight ropes.
Vishal figuratively threw his laptop away and flung himself fast to Mitra's side, calling her name as urgently as he could, taking hold of her shoulders and trying to shake her awake.
Mitra shivered, eyes open and still against her will, tears streaming down her face uncontrollably. Though she looked like she might start screaming at the top of her voice, her mouth was somehow opened soundlessly, as if something was mentally restraining her.
She cried for a couple more minutes before Vishal's vehement call broke her free from the nightmare she was having.
Mitra gasped, fluttering her eyes, tears still streaming down them, screaming, "No, no, no...."
A string of "no-s" followed interspersed with Vishal's attempts of toning her down with a continuous assurance of, "It's okay."
As he helped her into a sitting posture, Mitra uttered, "I... I keep seeing her face." Vishal looked at her in horror as she continued in strong sobs, "She keeps looking at me angrily, she keeps whispering to me that she would kill me if I turn back. I don't want to turn back. I won't turn back. But she isn't leaving me. I keep seeing her..."
It took her half-an-hour to calm down as Vishal held her tightly in his arms, patting her shoulders to make her relax.
When she finally went back to being normal, Vishal queried as softly as he could, "When did this relapse?"
Mitra studied his worried face and slowly answered, "Since last week, after I returned from my weekend trip to our hometown."
"You went to the lake?" he asked quietly, knowing the answer before she could say it.
"Yes."
There was a pause as he hugged her and advised, "Next time don't go there without me."
After much struggle, she finally fell asleep. At some unknown hour, as her sleep faintly broke for a few moments, she heard Vishal humming something. He was pausing in between, picking it up again with a different note, as if he were composing it then.
It was incoherent for a while, but then developed into a hauntingly beautiful tune. He hummed it to perfection as she fell asleep again, this time with a smile on her face.
Vishal stayed over the weekend with much caution. Even though his head was full of concern for Mitra's mental health, he didn't expose it in his demeanour. He made her laugh, entertained her idea to re-watch a sitcom they had seen a zillion times, took her out on long drives in a rented car and distracted her to other non-worldly, insignificant thoughts as much as he could.
Mitra had another episode of sleep paralysis, albeit for a shorter time as compared to her previous episode. The last night of Vishal's stay with her, she slept without any episode.
A week after Vishal left Bangalore for his own work place, Mitra received a voice recording from him.
"Listen to this once in a while. I really loved making this one. " He had texted along with the recording. It was an acoustic song he created, sung with his deep voice and accompanied by his faithful guitar strings, with the tune he had hummed that night of her disturbed sleep.
As she listened to the song, she shed tears of pity for herself, although it wasn't the intention of the musician.
As Mitra now lay in the prison of Sashi's home, the memories of the song came back to comfort her. Someday, she thought to herself, she would be free from the prison of both the physical confinement and mental agony. Till then, she would fight.
She closed her eyes and hummed the tune.
Sashi stood outside the basement room, looking at Mitra through the see-through glass window. Her passionate voice filled the void of the dark corridor and his own greyed mind. He had never heard this tune before.
It must be something they both composed.
Like the times before, when they slid into a quiet corner of their small town and hung out, just the two of them.
Those thoughts turned dark. He didn't like being a silent spectator, an invisible third person. Ever since the first time he had seen them together - Mitra and Vishal.