Thank God I am alive today. I am so lucky that I survived that fatal accident and the bizarre encounter.
Christmas Eve
It was the night of Christmas Eve when I thought of driving to my mom’s house to celebrate Christmas with her, but who knew what was waiting for me!
When I was leaving my house, I saw a black cat crossing my path. I didn’t seem to care that much because I do not believe in superstitions. Then, as I sat in my Volvo, I got an eerie sensation that something was not right. Nonetheless, I decided to proceed because it really had been quite a while since I had seen my mother.
Everything was normal throughout the journey. I drove, I ate from some roadside restaurant, and I made sure I was fresh and satiated before continuing the journey. I knew that the last stretch would be one long road without any refreshment. When I was just about to leave, the waiter dropped a glass. Because of that, I had to sit around for five minutes before the waiter could clear everything up.
As I left the restaurant, I started playing some loud music to keep my spirits high. The road seemed deserted, black, and nightmarish. I was energized and enjoying my own company after a long time. I looked at the time, I was just one hour away from my mother’s house.
The Tree
I was trying to recall the last time I had visited her when suddenly something landed on the roof of my car with a loud thud. My instant reaction was to brake the car and slow down. Looking outside, I saw a big banyan tree. Then as I looked on the road ahead, I saw the spirit of a teenage girl. The spirit had blue eyes, brown hair and the bones of her neck were broken. Samaira? My heart skipped a beat and then it blanked out. At full pace, I tried hitting the break. However, I was so scared that my car went into a graveyard and crashed into a huge banyan tree.
I don’t know what happened after. I could just feel the warm blood around my face and a few steps rushing towards me. The next thing I remember is that I passed out…into 2015.
2015
It was my final year and a beautiful girl with blue eyes and brown hair had joined the college. Fascinating as a rainbow, Samaira drew many admirers and somehow my popularity started taking a back seat. I don’t know how, but envy started poisoning my heart. The final blow came when she won the ‘Best Trekker’ award that year leaving me to be congratulated for being the first runner-up.
The Trek
It was almost the end of the college year and one dark, cloudy and shady day, we were out on our last college trek. We were not even halfway through when it started raining cats and dogs. People were slipping left, right and center. I was the trail of the trek group watching out for everyone. As I was turning a corner from the old banyan tree, I heard a feeble voice amidst the hammering rain. It seemed like someone was calling for help. Looking back, I strained to locate the source of the voice through the torrents of water falling from the sky. Then, I saw it.
It was Samaira hanging near a cliff, her hands barely getting a grip-hold on that slippery muddy rock. As I started to reach out to her, something gripped me. After all, she was strong and undoubtedly, the best trekker; she could take care of herself. For a moment I hesitated, thinking that I would be taken to task for not bringing back everyone, but I took my chances. The rain took the better of the leader and without a headcount, the trek-group returned.
Easter holidays started the very next day and it was a crazy time with family and cousins, all coming over to stay with us. Our house was like a hurricane center buzzing with non-stop activity. It was only when I went to college after a week that I came to know that Samaira had slipped down from the cliff and met her end. The news completely jolted me. Her pleading eyes came back to me and I wondered if she knew that I had left her behind deliberately.
The Guilt
I was all baffled after hearing the news and did not know how to react. My conscience started pricking me so badly that it felt I was almost going mad. The thoughts that Samaira had died because of me were so maddening that I had to start seeing a psychiatrist. It seemed that the psychiatrist had his own ways. I would lay there on his couch, close my eyes, weep at times and on other occasions I would try to justify that I had nothing to do with Samaira’s demise. The sessions healed me quite a lot. It was almost the last session when I was lying down with my eyes closed, talking to my psychiatrist about moving on in life.
When I opened my eyes up, I had a very bad headache and many broken bones. I was back in the year 2024.
2024
The doctors told me that I was admitted to the hospital at 00:00 and it must have been some godly intervention that saved my life. After all, it was the day when people celebrated the birth of Jesus. When I had been wheeled in, the doctors had no hope of my survival, yet I was there- alive and breathing.
Some days later, police came to me for investigation because something was not right about my accident. My Volvo car which had crashed into a tree near the graveyard, had somehow disappeared from there while I was being rushed to hospital. The most unexplainable element was that the police had found my Volvo car stuck in between two trees, not far from the graveyard, on the same trail track where I had left Samaira alone, 9 years ago!
Photo credit- https://in.pinterest.com/pin/394557617324082915/
Credit- Xylocopa
Writer : Mankirat Singh
Grade : 10 (Year 2024)
Place : Stockholm, Sweden
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