Kartik was driving home from the office, just like every other day, but there was something different about today. The air felt heavier, the roads a little darker. The fading orange of the streetlights cast an eerie glow on his surroundings, like the world itself was waiting for something. As routine dictated, he pulled over at Raghu-da's tea stall, craving that familiar warmth of a cutting chai. The steam from the cup seemed to comfort him, its scent grounding him in a reality he often struggled to hold onto.
He'd barely taken a sip when a sudden, impatient honk shattered the calm. Kartik flinched, jolted from the fleeting peace, his heart hammering in his chest.
Turning around, his eyes widened in panic. He had parked right in the middle of the road, cars honking, people swerving around him. His mind scrambled, flustered, as he quickly shifted the car into gear. A quick movement, a simple task - yet the fog in his brain slowed his body, and it was only after several long seconds that he managed to start the engine and drive off. The tea, still warm, still half-finished, sat forgotten on the stall.
Raghu-da watched him go. He was used to this.
Kartik had dissociative amnesia - a psychological condition where periods of memory could be lost, especially linked to trauma or stress. It wasn't the typical "movie amnesia" where someone forgets everything; rather, it was like his mind could lock away memories, sometimes entire days or weeks, leaving him adrift in the present, disconnected from the past, only to resurface in moments of terrifying clarity.
It wasn't a simple forgetfulness. It was like waking up in a room you didn't recognize, with pieces of a life that didn't quite fit together, scattered around you.
He drove on, the road stretching out in front of him, the headlights slicing through the gathering darkness. His destination was the same - Park Square, the place where he picked up his wife, Ritu, every day after work. The silence in the car was thick, like a blanket, wrapping around him, holding him captive. Ritu slid into the passenger seat, offering no words, as she always did. Both of them wore headphones, their eyes hollow from the exhaustion of the day, yet they were in sync, two souls tethered by a bond they both couldn't quite understand.
But tonight was different. As they neared Downing Street, a sudden crack opened up in Kartik's mind, like the sound of a door creaking open in the dark. A flash of light, a flicker of memory, too vivid to ignore.
Last night.
A sharp image stabbed through his thoughts - his fist slamming down on the kitchen counter, Ritu's pleading voice drowned out by his own fury. A bottle shattered, the sharp glass digging into his skin. He remembered her face - wide-eyed, frozen, a single scream that split the air, so high-pitched it seemed to rip through the very fabric of reality. The sickening thud of glass against bone. The blood - pooling across the floor, staining the rug, the walls.
Ritu was gone.
The realization hit him like a tidal wave. In his panic, in his mindless terror, he had done something unspeakable. He had hidden her body in the trunk of the car.
Kartik's hands tightened on the wheel, his palms slick with sweat, his heart racing. The silence in the car felt suffocating, almost unnatural. His breath came in ragged gasps, his chest constricting, his thoughts spiraling. He turned to look at her.
She was there.
Smiling.
Her face was serene, calm, almost... too calm. The smile was too wide, too perfect, and yet, the darkness in her eyes... it didn't match the image of the woman he once knew. It was the smile of a person who knew something he didn't.
His grip on the wheel slipped. His breath caught in his throat.
And then - everything shattered.
Metal screamed as the car veered off course, the tires screeching against the asphalt. The truck came out of nowhere, its headlights blinding, its horn deafening, and then the crash - a brutal collision of metal and flesh.
Glass exploded into the air. The world spun out of control, time stretching, warping, as though the universe itself had unraveled in that single moment. And in that final, terrifying second, Kartik realized he was no longer driving.
The car, now twisted and bent beyond recognition, lay in a mangled heap on the side of the road. But Kartik wasn't there.
Kartik was somewhere else. Somewhere darker. A place where his memories, his guilt, and the terror of what he had done would never leave him.
He hovered, unseen, disconnected, but fully aware. He could feel the cold bite of the night air, the screeching of tires, the thudding of his heart slowing. But more than anything, he felt the unbearable weight of what had come before. The crash had stolen him from the world, and now his soul was left to watch, to witness what had become of his final moments.
The wreckage of the car lay before him, its frame twisted like a broken toy. The boot was wide open, exposing the gruesome secret it had been hiding. And there, in the cold, lifeless darkness of the car's trunk, Ritu's body lay, eyes wide open, staring at him.
Her gaze pierced through the emptiness, locked onto him, unblinking. It wasn't the look of a person who was alive, not the gaze of someone who had known love, joy, or even fear. It was the stare of someone who had seen too much, too far beyond what anyone should.
And as Kartik's soul hung there, suspended in his eternal torment, her eyes seemed to ask a question that had no answer. The question of how he could have done this.
How could he have done this to her?