The house

When Shreya came home with bunch of bulky, soporific books, she was dead tired. After supper, she directly went to her room. Lying on the bed, she remembered her visit to the National Museum-- the portrait of the crying girl, how she had engrossed deeply into it. Everything started fleshing in front of her eyes. How grim and terrible place she had imagined and the mysterious cottage, emptied and instilled with the divine brightness-- thinking about it, she fell asleep.

At mid Night, she felt thirsty, opened her eyes, it was all dark. She switched on the night lamp and went in the kitchen. Drinking water, she heard some low noises, which were hardly audible, if it were day time. she concentrated to listen the noises clearly and came out of the kitchen, where the noises were a little audible. She noticed, the noises came from mom's bed room. she trod softly towards the bed room.

The door was closed, she looked down, on the ground, light came through the door base. Standing there, she could clearly listen to the noises, coming out of the room. It was her mom's fumbling voice, she was whimpering and sobbing. Shreya sat down silently to peep through the key hole. she saw her mom, tied with ropes, on the chair. She looked frightened, tears running through her face. She pleaded for mercy to a man, standing in front of her, he was none other than the man, whom shreya called “Dad”.

Shreya’s heart pounded like a horse running on race track. She felt a tremor of fear, hardly able to understand, what was happening inside.Her father looked rude and obnoxious. She noticed a peculiar sense of cruelty in his reddish eyes. He stood there holding a rusted iron rod in his hands, which was about two feet long. He held it such a way as if he were about to strike her with it. The thought of striking mom, instilled shreya with a feeling of horror and disgust.

In another moment, she saw, her dad struck the rod, right in the middle of mom’s head.  Mom gave a vehement , dreadful shriek, blood streams started running through her face. Dad’s face was too stained with blood.

Shreya put her hand around mouth to muffle her scream, her eyes filled with tears.

She saw him striking her again, this time with greater intensity, the rod penetrated deep in her skull. The floor stained with dark red bloody spots.

She saw, her mom, unable to shriek, whimpering, breathing noisely, shuddering with pain. Her dim  eyes reflected terror, which shreya had never seen.

Then, she saw, her dad stabbed the bloodstained rusty rod, penetrating the throat, right through her neck.  With this last strike, all whimpering, shuddering, sobbing stopped. The last strike, halted all the living movements, only blood remained dripping through the stabbed rod’s edges. Mom’s mouth remained open, her still eyes still filled with terror.

Shreya could not stop her scream and got up from her bed, all perspiring and shuddering. She looked around, it was all dark. Rubbing her eyes, she switched on the lights. She was in her room, sitting on her bed. She tugged a  pillow near her heart and started sobbing. How terrible nightmare was it!

When she was over, she went out of her room, straight towards mom’s bed room. The door was closed, she looked down on the ground, no light came through the door base. She sat down and peeped in the key hole, it was all dark inside. She thanked her fortune for it was only a nightmare and went back to her room, lay back in her had, but could not sleep. Whole night, she continued to think of the horrific nightmare.