SHE stood at the water’s edge, her torn dress swirling around her legs, a lone figure shrouded in the shadows of the night. A foreboding silence hung over the beach as the tamed wind gently lifted the dark tresses of hair falling over her face. A pretty face it was, streaked with sand and dry tears.

A young girl in pain, alone, at the beach in the dead of the night.
What happened to her?
The deep, haunting look in her eyes, the ashen face and colourless lips told a story of something cold.

Hushed were the wind and water as something bad unfolded the night before on the sandy beach. No one heard her cries, her pleas on the deserted beach and when they were gone, a young body was left on the sand, helpless and broken.

She turned and walked back to the mangrove trees, no footprints in the sand, for late that night the pain had ebbed away like the tide, and one last tear trickled from her eyes as she took her last breath.
“How did this happen?” she cried, “They were my friends, whom I trusted to take me home.”

Her heart beat no more, and the coal-black eyes shed no more tears, but she was not going into the light, not now. It was not her time. She did not have to die, not that way. Not for someone who revered God and had good values. She was a classical dancer and a teacher, recognised for her talent and as an educator, it was all wrong, her death.

She was supposed to have ridden home with her two friends, Aruna and Preity, that night after the cultural programme, but a late change of plans by them to go out with their boyfriends caused her to ride home instead with two male friends she knew very well. The other two boys she had met only once at a wedding reception, but they seemed like nice guys. On the way home, she had a bottle of fruit drink, and a slight drowsiness overcame her, which she thought was tiredness, but it must have been something else. She became dazed and did not notice the detour on the lonely road to the beach that would be deserted at that hour.

Betrayed by those who masqueraded as friends.
“Why? Where is my wrong?” were her soundless, agonising cries.
She looked up at the heavens and continued to cry, “You are my God. I believed in you. Where were you when I cried for help?”
The beach was silent as the lone figure sat with her head bent. There was no place in the world for her anymore.

“I died,” she moaned, “My mother and father have lost their little girl.”
A fisherman had discovered her body lying on the sand early the next morning. She stood there, unseen in her spiritual form, watching as the police cordoned off the area and canvassed the scene for clues. Word spread, and a crowd gathered, shocked and angry that such a horrible thing had happened to a decent young girl.

She had watched helplessly as her father, shocked beyond words, sank to his knees and broke down, crying as he looked at her lifeless body.
He had looked up at the heavens, his hands clasped, his voice breaking, “Why…why God? Why, my little girl?”

When the hours had gotten late last night, and she hadn’t yet come home, her phone turned off, and her mother experienced a deep feeling of dread, her father, brother and cousins had begun searching until daylight.

No one could console her father. What should she tell her mother, who was waiting at home battling her fears?
Even the heavens trembled that day at the mother’s cries for the child she had brought into this world, a blessing from God.

How, then, did evil interrupt her life?
No one had an answer.
All the media houses carried the story, and shock rippled through her community and the nation. The boys who had given her a ride home were held for questioning, but they all stated that they knew nothing.
Their story was that she had received a phone call on the way home and asked them to stop for someone else to pick her up.

She raised her head slowly and stood up, looking at the heavens, a burning passion of pain and anger in her voice, “I will not come home, not until I have destroyed the monsters who took my honour and my life.”

She stretched her arms out, and from the abyss of death and darkness, she screamed, unleashing fury and agony.
“I call on dark forces to lend me the evil power to destroy those spawned from evil, and for that, I will give you my soul.”

The sky rumbled, the water became restless, and the wind howled as she waited under the mangrove trees.
One night, two nights passed, then on the third morning, just before the break of dawn, as the high tide rushed across the sand and the wind whistled shrilly, four black crows appeared from the far horizon. She stood up, her coal-black eyes watching as the crows drew closer and closer and alighted on the mangrove trees. Her wait was over.

The dark abyss had answered her call to fight evil with evil.
“For each new day, now,” she vowed, “stones will bleed.”
A wake had been going on at her home, and friends, family and people from everywhere had been attending to express their sympathies. There was no comfort, though, to her deeply grieving family, who just couldn’t process the fact that she was no more in their lives.

On the day of her funeral, she went back home in her spiritual form to comfort her family and to confront her killers. They would be in attendance, she knew, amongst the huge turnout of mourners.

All her friends were there, those who were true, who had regrets. She saw their tears, heard their shocked whispers as prayers and songs eulogized her life. She stood amongst her family, holding her mother’s and father’s hands, hugging her brother and sister, wiping their tears.
But they were not aware of her presence. Her mother, though, seemed to sense something and whispered, “Aryana?”

The family turned to look at her mother, and she broke down crying, “She’s here with us. My baby is here.”
The father hugged her, helping her to stay strong as the highly emotional services paid tribute to their young daughter’s life and honouring her departed soul to guide her on her final journey.

A cynical smile played on Aryana’s lips as the viewing began, and she whispered, “It’s showtime.”
Aruna and Preity just couldn’t stop crying. Such were their regrets for leaving her that night, but the fury burning in Aryana could not forgive them, so she threw out the fresh roses they brought for her. There were loud gasps from those close enough to see what happened, and the two friends stepped back, scared. Her killers were also approaching her coffin bearing red roses, and she called upon her emissaries of the dark world, “It’s time.”

The sight of the black crows, their loud cawing and wild fluttering wings, created a frightening scene as they flew circles around her coffin, then among the mourners who scattered to avoid the vicious birds. The birds were gone as fast as they came, but left in their wake were fear and shock. Never had anything of that nature happened at a funeral service. What could have triggered something so ominous was the burning question.
Aryana watched her killers hurriedly leave and smiled, cold fury in her eyes, “It’s just the beginning.”

To be continued…