Link to the 6th chapter : https://www.tellyupdates.com/where-secrets-lie-chapter-6-a-life-without-him/
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Riddhima was back in front of the same creepy house. Again.
She wondered if it even was the sane thing to do. Was she about to make a big mistake? Was she endangering not only hers, but even her best friend’s life in her desire to uncover the truth?
The sun was up, throwing it’s mighty rays all over the forest. Yet, a certain feeling of dread loomed over the entire place.
“I can’t believe I’m actually doing this,” complained a trembling Seher. “The memories from last evening’s séance are still fresh in my mind. Only I know how difficult it was for me to even get a wink or two in the night.”
Riddhima ignored her rants and set her foot inside the house. The strong incense of burnt candles from the previous night still lingered in the air.
She got startled when Seher let out a short squeal.
“This table…remember Mrs. Sanders had asked her assistant to place it in the middle? After the séance got over, we left this house as it is without moving anything. Then how did the table move on it’s own to the same corner where it was originally placed at?”
A chill ran down Riddhima’s spine as she also noticed it.
“I’m telling you, Riddhima. This isn’t safe anymore. Let’s leave before any untoward thing happens with us,” requested Seher and her frightened eyes moved to and fro the place.
Riddhima took a sharp breath instead.
“You may leave if you want. But I’m not going anywhere. Not until I get to the bottom of this matter.”
Seher shook her head. She wasn’t much surprised by her answer because Riddhima’s stubborness was famous throughout the world.
“Mrs. Sanders had said that the truth lay in this house itself. There’s nothing much in the living room. I think whatever it is that we are looking for, must be inside the bedroom…”
But Seher did not pay heed to her at all. She was keeping on blabbering something or the other.
“Why can’t I recall the Hanuman chalisa, ughh! If only I had listened to Maa, and would have learnt it properly at that time, then there would have been no reason to feel afraid today.”
Grasping each other’s hands, the girls entered the bedroom. Riddhima remembered how she had been here at this very place few days back, and now her whole world, her entire existence was in doubt.
Seher opened the cupboard, the same one from where Riddhima had picked out Vansh’s clothes to change for the night during her stay here. While Seher was busy rummaging through the small drawers and other compartments, Riddhima took out a black shirt, presumably Vansh’s, and brought it closer to her face.
The sweet musk of sandalwood pervaded through each and every olfactory receptor of hers. Tears began dripping from her eyes at the thought that he was long dead already and there was no way to ever meet or be able to see him again.
A sudden voice from outside broke her from her trance. She observed Seher who oblivious to it, continued her job of finding anything that could be of their importance.
Leaving her right there in the room itself, Riddhima walked back into the living room and then towards the door. With shaking hands, she pushed it open only to find the frontyard completely empty. There was nobody there.
Her eyes fell on a broken potted plant lying on the ground. It had been standing there upright just a while ago when she and Seher had passed it. Then how did it break all of a sudden? There wasn’t any wind blowing, too. Was it Vansh’s spirit behind this act? But why was he doing this and trying to scare her off, when he should have been helping her even more in finding out about the truth?
Just then, a loud shriek rang throughout the house.
“Seher!” She gasped and ran into the room where the screaming voice came from.
When she reached back there, she saw Seher all cowered up on the cot.
“What happened?” asked Riddhima as all sorts of weird thoughts ran through her mind.
Quivering, Seher pointed a finger towards her right.
“There’s…there’s a rat under that cupboard.”
Riddhima couldn’t believe this girl at all. “Are you for real?”
“Look, you have to admit that rats are scarier than ghosts and spirits anytime,” Seher tried to defend herself. “And unless you shoo that disgusting creature away from here, I won’t even put a step down.”
Riddhima sighed. Why was this girl like this?
She crouched on all her fours and peeped under the cupboard, expecting a pair of gleaming eyes to meet her. But thankfully, she didn’t.
“I guess that rat must have escaped from here after hearing your screams,” joked Riddhima. She stopped talking abruptly when she found a paper lying under the cupboard.
“What’s this?” She picked it up and examined it. It was half torn and had stains of rust all over it. When she flipped it over, she found something written on it.
It was a prescription in Vansh’s name for some psychiatric medicines. Completely shocked, she recognized that the prescription had her handwriting on it.
“What the hell!” she exclaimed. “How is this even possible? Look at this Seher! This is my handwriting right here.”
Seher grabbed the said paper from her hands and scrutinized it.
“Yes, it even has your signature at the end with the date on it. It is exactly from one-and-a-half year ago. Apparently, Vansh died one year back. So does that mean that the last few months before his death, he was consulting you for a psychiatric illness?”
Riddhima stumbled on the ground. Over the past few days whenever she encountered Vansh, she found him uncannily familiar, as if she knew him from before. And now it made sense as to why she felt that way. Because Vansh was her patient and she had been treating him!
As far as she knew, she had a very good memory. She used to diligently remember all her patients, even from many years back. Then why couldn’t she remember treating Vansh? Hell, she couldn’t even remember writing this prescription down. What was even going on?
Riddhima started panicking and pulled her hair in exasperation.
“Why can’t I remember anything about Vansh even though I happened to meet him just one-and-half year back? What is wrong with me?”
Seher tried to calm her down. “You know this is not something uncommon. It happened with me so many times that I met someone but forgot all about him. Also, one-and-half year is such a long duration. Perhaps, Vansh had consulted you only once and didn’t turn up for the next visit as stated in the prescription, thus making himself even more forgettable.”
“I don’t know, I really don’t,” mumbled Riddhima miserably. “I’m beginning to doubt my own mental condition now. Is this even normal? Am I normal?”
“Stop second guessing yourself. It’s not the time for a self-blaming session. It’s the time to further dig into the truth,” Seher berated her. “Do you think we might find something in your hospital’s records? Something more in detail about Vansh and what problem he was suffering from?”
“Yeah maybe,” said Riddhima slowly without paying any attention. Her mind was still running over how this could be remotely possible. Why was it that the more she tried to advance towards the truth, the more entangled she got in this web of secrets?
_____________________________________
The girls exited the house and walked through the jungle to reach their car. Throughout the drive, there was an uncomfortable silence lingering between them, with each one of them confusingly drowned in his own thoughts. But the most affected out of the two was undoubtedly Riddhima.
As soon as they arrived at the hospital where Riddhima worked at, they made a dash for the records department and demanded the supervisor to help them.
“We need the case sheet of Vansh Raisinghania, probably dated one-and-half year back.”
The supervisor agreed and asked them to wait for ten to fifteen minutes. They complied with him, but each passing minute seemed like an hour or so. Riddhima was feeling so restless, that she was either constantly fidgeting with her fingers or tapping her foot. This long waiting period was killing her.
The supervisor returned after a while with a grim face.
“There isn’t any file with that name.”
“Did you check properly? You might have missed it…” Riddhima tried to say.
“No Madam. There really isn’t.”
Riddhima was getting highly irritated, but nonetheless, she tried to keep her anger in check.
“But a patient named Vansh Raisinghania did visit me one-and-half year back, then how are his files and other details not present?”
“Look, Madam. I’m a mere supervisor. My only job is to store all the patients’ case files here for future reference. And let me tell you that I’ve been doing my job very nicely,” stated the supervisor.
Don’t know what happened to Riddhima in that moment. Perhaps it was all the stress doing it’s work on her or something else, but she felt a sudden urge to slap this man right in front of her. She even began charging right at him.
“Riddhima! What do you think you are doing?”
Luckily, Seher pulled her friend back at the correct time. But she was extremely surprised at this sudden change in Riddhima’s behaviour.
When they were out of the records department and away from the sight of the supervisor, Seher ordered her to control herself.
Riddhima jerked her hands off and took the stairs to her cabin on the first floor. Seher tagged behind.
Once inside her cabin, Riddhima opened the shelf in the corner. She frantically began hunting through it’s middle row, which was stacked with a row of videotapes.
“What are you doing?” enquired Seher who couldn’t make head or tail out of her actions.
“Nobody in the hospital knows this but whenever I see any patients, I make sure to video-record the session so that it can come in handy for a retrograde and detailed case study later on. If Vansh had really visited me, then I must have done the same with him too.”
Riddhima was a woman who preferred that everything be kept in a prim and proper fashion. This was evident in the way she had arranged the videotapes date-wise.
Her breath got caught in her throat when she managed to lay her hands on a set of 4 videotapes with the initials ‘VR’ marked on it.
“What’s VR?” quizzed Seher.
“Must stand for Vansh Raisinghania,” she replied.
There were 4 video-tapes in total. Each was named ‘VR -Session 1’, ‘VR -Session 2’, and so on.
Seher was utterly puzzled. “According to the number of these video-tapes, you had conducted at least 4 different sessions with Vansh at 4 different times. Then how come you don’t remember anything about him?”
Riddhima stayed silent for a while. “After much introspection, I’ve come to the conclusion that I’m suffering from…Dissociative Amnesia.”
“What?!” Seher blurted out in shock.
“I’m a psychiatrist who is used to diagnosing different psychiatric problems based upon the patients’ symptoms. But the irony being, I couldn’t recognize my own symptoms!” cried out Riddhima. “Dissociative amnesia is a disease where a stressful or a traumatic factor can make the person forget everything related to that event. It’s like a coping mechanism where when the mind feels it cannot handle all the stress anymore, it flushes off all the memories related to it…”
Seher just stood completely still, trying to process all that what had been told her. She looked on sympathetically as Riddhima knelt down on the floor, shedding tears after tears.
After getting a grip over herself, Seher sat beside her and rubbed her shoulder.
“I can understand how you feel…”
“No you cannot!” she said rather harshly. “You’ve no freaking idea as to how it feels when you feel you know something, yet you seem to know nothing about. I’ve not only lost a part of my memory, but I’ve lost a part of myself too.” She wrapped her arms around her body trying to hug herself. “That is the reason why I used to feel so disconnected with my own self!”
Now Seher realized as to why Riddhima’s behaviour seemed a tad too odd when she returned to India few months back. Earlier she had dismissed it off as mere mood swings, but now things were starting to get clearer.
But there were still many unanswered questions left.
“What incident related to Vansh caused your mind so much stress that you lost all your memories about him? Secondly, I wasn’t here when all this had occurred. But Ajay Uncle, Yash and Neeti were all around you. Then how didn’t they figure out about your amnesia?
And lastly, why are Vansh’s medical files missing from the hospital?”
“I have no idea. But the answer to one of your questions must lie in these video-recorded sessions.” Riddhima wiped the tears off with the back of her hand. She inserted the video-tape titled ‘VR – Session 1’ in her camcorder and connected it to the TV in her cabin.
She then then proceeded to press the ‘PLAY’ button on the remote and waited with bated breath for the video to start.
Riddhima’s heart skipped a beat when she saw Vansh’s face flash on the screen. She felt a lump in her throat as emotions got the better of her.
She ran her hands over the screen in a futile attempt to reach out to him.
Her Vansh. This was the real Vansh who neither was a spirit, nor a figment of her imagination. If only he was alive and not merely trapped behind a screen…
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Video Session – 1 (June 2020)
Vansh was sitting in Riddhima’s cabin, stiffling uncomfortably in the chair. His eyes were casted down and he refused to see her in the eye.
Riddhima who was sitting right across him, was keenly observing each and every action of his.
“Don’t be afraid, Vansh. I’m here to help you. Also, all our sessions from hereon will be video-recorded…”
At this, Vansh raised his worried eyes at her.
She blinked at him in reassurance. “Don’t worry. This is going to be strictly confidential. Whatever happens here, remains between us. I promise you that.”
She flipped through the pages of her notebook with one hand, while with the other hand she kept nibbling at the end of the pencil.
“Okay so Vansh, today’s session is going to be a mildly introductional one. Tell me something about yourself.”
Vansh nervously played around with his fingers, not knowing what to say.
“Say whatever comes in your heart,” said Riddhima understandingly.
“My name is Vansh Raisinghania. I was born in Manali. I am 32 years old…I did my MBA and currently am jobless….” He now started to fidget with the buttons of his black shirt.
“What are your hobbies?”
“Hmmm, playing the piano. And spending time around nature.”
“So you are a music lover as well as a nature lover? That’s super impressive!” beamed Riddhima.
However, Vansh seemed least affected by these praises. He continued to have an expressionless look on.
“Do you’ve any friends?”
Vansh flinched a little. “No.”
“And what about your family?” she asked carefully making a note about the discomfort on his face that kept increasing as the questions got more personal.
Vansh remained silent.
“Do you want to tell me about your family?” she prodded him again.
“No!”
The harsh manner in which Vansh replied gave Riddhima a jolt. But she calmed herself down.
“Okay, I respect that. But may I know why?”
“None of your business, Doctor,” he snapped at her.
Riddhima realized that she had a hit a wrong nerve and began diverting the topic. But the damage was already done. Vansh refused to cooperate for the rest of the session.
Sighing, Riddhima called the session off, allowing him to leave.
Vansh was about to step out of the cabin, but stopped when Riddhima called him from behind.
“Hope to see you next week for the 2nd session. Goodbye!” she said with a broad smile.
Vansh did not acknowledge that and shut the door of the cabin behind him.
End of Video Session – 1
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As the video came to an end, Riddhima could literally feel her heart wrench. She could see that Vansh had been in immense pain, which was so discernible from his gorgeous grey eyes. But in spite of all that pain within him, he still appeared strikingly handsome, almost akin to a Greek mythologica personality.
“I think it was something related to his family that was troubling him,” muttered Riddhima. “That’s the reason why he lost his cool as soon as I mentioned about it in the video.”
“Yes, that is what even I feel so,” agreed Seher. “But what could it be?”
“I guess we need to watch the second tape to get all our answers.”
Riddhima inserted the ‘VR – Sessions 2′ tape inside. The video was just about to play out, when the door was thrown wide open, and in entered Ajay, looking extremely angry.
Luckily before he could cast a glance on the TV screen, Riddhima switched it off using the remote.
“Papa! What are you doing here?” she asked with a hint of displeasure.
He scolded her, “Stop acting smart, will you? I’m the one who should be posing all sorts of questions to you. Tell me, why aren’t you resting in your house instead of turning up at the hospital?”
Riddhima eyed him suspiciously. “But how did you come to know that I was here at the hospital?”
She noticed a flicker of panic cross her father’s face. But that lasted only for a second or two, after which Ajay was back to berating her.
“That is not important. Why are you behaving so carelessly? Why aren’t you ready to listen to me? You won’t go to America, you won’t take medicines on time. You are just like your late mother, insolent and stubborn as hell.”
Riddhima rolled her eyes at him. How dare he bring her dearest mother into all this?
“Don’t you dare give me that look, young lady. Have you seen yourself in the mirror?” He mocked at her. “What were you earlier and what have you become over these past few days! You don’t realize this, but gradually you are turning into a crazy woman. When you cannot prevent yourself from becoming crazy, how will you even treat your crazy patients, huh?”
Riddhima had had enough of all this. It was true that he was her father, but she wasn’t going to take any crap from him.
“Leave,” she pointed towards the door. “This very instant.”
Ajay stood there, astonished. “You are ordering your father to leave? Where are your manners?”
“I still have my manners with me and that’s the only reason why I’m talking to you respectfully in spite of all this,” remarked Riddhima. “Or else…you know me well.”
Ajay proceeded to storm away, but not before warning her clearly.
“You don’t know, but you will soon be the cause of your own destruction!”
After he had gone, Seher tried to come to Riddhima’s rescue.
“It’s okay, I’m fine.” Even though Riddhima tried to brush it off, but Seher knew that she was greatly hurt by her father’s mindless talks.
“How did Ajay Uncle come to know about you being in the hospital? Unless…” Seher thought for a while before coming to a conclusion. “Unless, the supervisor informed him.”
Riddhima added, “Yes, you’re right. Moreover, I also think that it must be Papa on whose instructions the supervisor stashed away Vansh’s medical files.”
“It means that Uncle knew all about Vansh?” Seher stuttered in disbelief.
“Yes. Not only him, but even Yash and Neeti must know everything – about Vansh, about my amnesia. Yet, they choose to conveniently hide it from me.” Riddhima gritted her teeth. “But not anymore. I will soon uncover all the secrets that have been lying around me.”
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Hello everyone! That is it for today guys. Only few more chapters are left, and still there’s a lot to be revealed. So stay tuned.
Peace out!