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The Silent Crowd

The Silent Crowd

The Narrator is back to the place which still haunts himself and he is walking to the house of his nightmares, each step finds him back to his early years and live back those days.

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Crime / Suspense / Mystery / Thriller


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Atiyab Zafar (India)


12th June 2005
It’s a fine Sunday afternoon, Sun glaring above me mocking me and seeming to challenge me to take another step, but I keep on going, I am walking at this deserted road, going on and on. I don’t know what time it is? I have been walking at this road for a lot of time now, I look back and there she is still standing leaning to the convertible waiting for me, her brown hair glowing, with sun’s bright shine, making a Halo appear around her head as if she is an angel. Technically she actually is an angel for me. She is waiting for me to finish what I came here to do. It seems as if I have been walking for hours on this perilous road still I have just crossed a few meters.
I don’t know when this will end. I am sure about one thing though, that I will be a different man when I end this once and for all.
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It was early morning when we took the convertible across the town from the motel to this place, she had insisted to accompany me to the end. But I told her that it’s something I need to do alone.
We drove in silence, the whole town still probably asleep and dreaming their perfect world or their worst fears. Wandering in a world that they create themselves thinking that nothing can happen, it’s just a dream!
That is not the case.
I drove past the GrimTown Secondary School, this is where it all started. This is the place where my life changed. I drove across the back alley of the school, the skyscrapers shooting out from the surface of the Earth all around the school, somehow enveloping the grounds and making the school seem like an ant in the middle of a parade of Elephants.
I heard a soothing voice calling my name, this beautiful voice is the only reason I am alive today. This voice served a purpose of calming me and keeping me sane, the only island in a huge sea storm.
I turned my head and saw her, she was looking at me with those eyes; that worried look I have come to recognize. I instantly gave a small smile and told her that I am fine. She nodded while still looking at me as if exploring if I am saying truth or not.
We drove and drove till we reached the outskirts of the town aptly named as the Grim, it was not that the town was ugly, the town was actually Beautiful, built in a valley with green mountains on two sides of the town and Austen, the river cutting the town in two parts, one bigger part known as Bigtown for obvious reasons which had all the skyscrapers and important buildings such as police station, courts, etc. And the other part known as the Crossriver which had some housing complex and a few abandoned houses. The place where we were headed, this was the place where it all started and it all ended.
I drove to the t-point where on one side the road took to the top of the Rover Hill-one of the two hills adjoining the city. There we parked our convertible and I embarked on my journey to redemption.
I looked at her face as bright as the glaring sun above me, as beautiful as an Aurora which was (not by a coincidence) her name. She nodded towards me, no words needed.
I have to finish this, I started walking towards the other road the road which had abandonment written all over it.

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This is the place where I find myself walking in the present, just walking towards the end of the road, the shabby, old and gloomy house, with the front showing the Gable with the attic window.
There lies the place of haunting in my dreams, there lies the place where it all happened. There's the place where they died. I start to walk again looking straight ahead to the house.
It feels as if my feet weigh a ton and I am dragging my feet towards the house. I can't just walk there, my brain says that I need to do this; I need to finish it so that I can move on, and my feet disagrees. I again look back and see her looking at me with a worried look on her face. I smile at her once more and I realize I need to do this; I need to finish it for her. I don’t care whether my feet agrees or not, my heart does and that's all what matters.
I move my left foot ahead and then came my right foot following, I was remembering how to walk again. My T-Shirt drenched in sweat, sweat sliding down from my glistening head and following a definite path and falling towards the earth.
When I complete the step I hear some voices, I am moving my head around trying to find the source of the sound, but there is no one around. I start moving again and hear the voices again. This time it seems clear and I realize whose voices they were, and I shudder at that instant. Because these voices belongs to them , and they died years back at the very place where I am headed right now.
“The place where I killed them”
Each step I take is accompanied by a memory, "it might be a part of the process" I think.
With these dreadful steps I reach back to the brain, a part of my head where these memories are locked. It is time to unlock these memories and let them flow.

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I was transported back to the clock tower in the center of the town near The Grim Police Station. The clock was showing 1 PM as I looked at it the minute hand started moving backwards!
It kept on going back and back and as I saw all the people started moving back and all the processes were happening reverse.
As the clock showed 7 AM I saw a red convertible driving in perfect reverse down the highway. The Clock then sped up. The hour hand started going back just as if it was a second hand. I saw the sun and moon changing the position and each day went in two minutes and it was very strange the entire world was changing in front of his eyes.
The height of the skyscraper under development decreased and decreased, the floors were vanishing in front of my own eyes. I had trouble to keep my eyes on as the sun was coming out and going in the horizon as if someone was playing ping pong with a wall and the ball was the sun. It was as if someone was pointing world's brightest torch in my eyes and constantly switching it on and off.
I saw darkness coming over my eyes and I must have passed out because I was now in front of my room in our apartment where I used to live with my parents and it was still in quite good condition which probably mean that I was years back from present. I ventured inside the gate with large keep out sign which I had designed myself when I was 8 or 9.
Any way I moved inside ignoring the warning. I saw myself lying there asleep, it was technically not myself but my earlier self, sleeping without any troubles just a regular small teenager trying to sleep probably dreaming. It was strange and creepy experience, watching yourself sleep.
I again shuddered at the thought of dreaming and I closed my eyes. I felt my feet moving, which probably means that I was still moving towards that house of my nightmares, somewhere else, at some other time.
Again I opened my eyes and as I was looking at him, I felt a force pulling me towards my own past self and I came crashing towards the bed and there was darkness all over.

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