By Vimal Kapoor
I woke up to the shrill echo of my phone buzzing on the bedside table. It was 3:17 a.m. I almost let it ring out, but something gnawed at me – I answered.
“Raj?” a whisper hissed through the line. “They’re coming for me. Please, don’t—don’t trust anyone.” And then, silence.
It took me a few seconds to recognise the voice—Varun, my closest friend, my brother in every way except blood. He had gone off the grid for the last few weeks, vanished without explanation. The last time we met, he had disclosed that he was working on something and would soon expose some major scandal within his company. Now he was reaching out at an hour when the call feels sharper, more dangerous.
I sat up, every nerve clawing for sense. “Varun? Where are you?”
Click. The line went dead.
I didn’t sleep after that. Sleep was useless with thoughts like blades, carving open questions. By morning, I’d packed a bag and left for Rishikesh — Varun’s hometown. My gut feeling said Varun was somewhere out there, waiting, maybe suffering.
The address he had once scribbled in my notebook, a place he had called “the last option”, led me to an abandoned cement factory on the outskirts of the city, though not too far from the majestic river Ganga. I parked two streets away; heart galloping, but my face was calm, controlled.
Inside the factory, shadows sprawled across walls like silent witnesses. I moved slowly, the crunch of gravel under my feet loud in the choking stillness.
“Raj?” Varun’s voice trembled out of the darkness. Then he stepped into the faint slice of light. Bruised, thinner, desperate.
I rushed to him. “What the hell is going on?”
“They found out what I have,” he said in a broken rush. “The files—that prove everything. Corruption, murders, people disappearing. They’ll kill me for it. They’ll kill you too now that you’re here.”
His eyes locked on mine, pleading.
“Then let’s finish this together,” I said before I’d even processed the danger.
The screech of tires outside sliced through the air. Varun’s face went pale. We didn’t waste time; we just moved. Out through the back, hiding in the shadows, running until my lungs burned like fire. Footsteps chased us—hard, ruthless, and unrelenting.
Finally, we squeezed inside a drainage tunnel, damp and foul, but alive. Sitting in the pitch dark, chest heaving, Varun clutched the hard disc wrapped in waterproof cover to his chest.
“You don’t have to do this,” he whispered. “You could still walk away.”
I laughed, breathless and sharp. “If our lives are measured by what we walk away from, then what’s left to stand for?”
The silence that followed wasn’t fear anymore—it was resolve.
Hours blurred as we dodged them, it was a cat and mouse game, we were like hunted animals. But at dawn, we reached the edge of the city bridge—the famous ‘Laxman Jhula’ high and roaring with river mist. Men in jeans and T shirts, closed in from both sides. No escape.
“They’ll take us alive,” Varun said, despair and anxiety cracking his voice.
“Not if we choose to jump,” I whispered, gripping his hand.
“They’ll kill us,” Varun muttered.
“Maybe,” I said, tightening my grip. “But fear only wins if we let it cage us.” And before doubt could eat me, I pulled him with me and jumped into the swollen Ganga’s chilling embrace. The rapid water current immediately and swiftly took us away from the predators.
When I resurfaced, coughing river water, the sun was breaking golden across the sky. Varun was beside me, clutching the hard disc, alive. Not safe yet, not victorious—but alive.
Totally drenched and shivering we hauled ourselves on the muddy bank, our hunters were nowhere in sight, we hailed an auto and asked him to rush to the nearest police station.
For the first time, I realised survival isn’t just about escape; it’s about choosing to keep running for the truth, no matter how many times the dark corners swallow you.
Varun turned to me, teeth chattering, and eyes fierce. “Thank you for not leaving.”
I smiled, though my body trembled. “We don’t leave the people we love at the edge of silence.”
The hunt wasn’t over. But in that moment, with the golden dawn rising over us, I knew—we were no longer victims. We were warriors. We scrambled out, totally drenched, took an auto and headed for the nearest police station.
(Vimal Kapoor a Dehradun resident, is passionate about literature, creative writing, cricket and exploration through travel)
