7-12-2019, 22:00:00

D+3 Night

It became an eventful night.

All through the day public had been speculating a few possibilities of why the woman might have been kidnapped. The comments sections in all social media sites flooded with multiple theories of what would be happening behind the scenes of the videos.

There’s just no safety for women in this country.

Women should know how to be in public places.

Maybe she did something wrong? Why else is targetting her?

Shut up! Men target women all the time for no fault of theirs.

I don’t think he is just locking her up without doing anything. Who knows how much physical torture he is inflicting on her.

The injuries on her face... he must be hitting her.

Didn’t she attack him in the video? It was edited out. She seems to be fighter.

She seems to be a tough girl. Hope she can kill him instead and escape from there.

What are the police doing? Why aren’t they tracing the video? It is a very easy task.

Can anyone in the public trace the video? Someone who is good in hacking and stuff... maybe we can catch him before the police do.

The wordings, expressions and theories in the netizens’ comments became increasingly degrading, far-fetched and acrimonious as the day progressed. There were only a few sensible people who were actually worried about the safety of the victim and empathized with her and the situation.

Three days after the kidnap, at around nine PM, the third video made it to the internet sites, majorly leaked on news portals and social media sites anonymously, and it was immediately picked up by news channels.

This time, the video featured both the woman and the culprit, sitting across each other.

While Mitra was in the chair she usually appeared in, the culprit was comfortable in a cozy arm chair. The camera had been angled to focus on Mitra while featuring the criminal from a side profile that restricted the visibility of his face.

Mitra had a couple of bandages on her right arm and left forearm, the bandages on her face still in place. She looked stoic, confident, a sense of strength exuding in her demeanor.

The culprit’s face wasn’t visible as he had a hood covering his head. His voice, though, was audible.

“You are quite remarkable, you know. I admire you for that,” the man was saying in a heavy tone.

“I do make amazing impressions on people. That’s a strength in itself.” Mitra looked very serious, like she wanted to hit the man.

“Tell me about this trap of yours,” the man asked.

“I have told you enough about it already,” Mitra responded strongly.

“Not enough.” The man’s voice was low-pitched but harsh.

“It’s just like I said.” Mitra looked fiercely as she spoke, “I knew you would come for me and waited for you to show up. When you did, I tried to capture you. But you, being a shameful man and more of a coward than I expected you to be, drugged me against my will and brought me here when I was unconscious.”

She leaned forward in her chair, her anger proclaiming a sense of vengeance in her expression, and continued, “Why? Were you scared that if you didn’t cheat your way with me, you would lose? You know, I find this idea of abducting woman against their will very much a testimonial to men’s cowardice and incapability. You pretend to be strong and mighty, but you can’t even fill your bellies with food unless you use a woman’s hand as a cooking tool or a woman’s body for pleasure to earn that darn money to foster yourself. Your macho is patched with and parasitic on a women’s existence and yet you pretend to be the better one.”

The man seemed to be equally infuriated as he said, “I do appreciate that you are a feminist Mitra. But I didn’t bring you here to prove my macho or earn money on your body. I have secrets of my own, which, unfortunately, can’t be revealed due to your discretion, or lack of thereof.”

He leaned forward in his chair and asked with more weight and darkness, “Where are the others?”

There was mischievous smile on Mitra’s face as she answered him with spite, “You are scared, little man.”

“Answer my question.” The man's voice was bitter, violent and frosty.

“Why should I?” Mitra spoke out in a begrudged tone, looking wrathful. “Traps are meant to be surprising. There’s no thrill if I tell you now. You need to figure out things on your own. I am not going to betray myself or the people relying on me to ease your fears.”

Despite the way she spoke, she looked like she was conflicted with the content itself of what she was saying.

“If you don’t talk, Mitra, I am going to have to find it out the hard way,” the man continued in his bitter tone.

“What will you do Sashi?” Mitra raised her voice. 

Finally, a name was spoken for the public to know about the man.

Mitra burst out in her anger as she continued, “What can you do? Shout out to the world and ask them yourself?”

Though the man’s face was concealed, his madness was seeping out to the viewers through the situation and the frame capturing it.

His icy voice broke through the tensed stillness of the situation in the video as he said, “You are greatly underestimating me Mitra. The thing I least prefer is being laughed at, mocked and being told that I can do nothing.” 

He leaned back and asked again, “Tell me who all are with you and what is the extent of this trap you laid for me.”

“No matter how many times you ask me, my refusal to help you is not going to change.” Mitra crossed her arms, finalizing her decision to remain silent.

There was a pause as the man sighed. “I really liked talking to you Mitra. What a pity it is that I cannot take any of this any longer.”

The man twisted his hand to his back, pulling out a butcher’s knife from beneath his hoodie.

He brandished it at Mitra, leaning forward in his chair and flashed it threateningly at her, saying, “I told you Mitra. I will do things the tough way. I don’t have anything else to do with you if you remain silent.”

The expressions on Mitra’s face varied within the fractions of a minute inexplicably from a hint of a surprise to an acceptance without deterring from the confidence she has had. She looked like she had expected something severe to happen all along.

Despite the severity of the situation, there was no fear in her eyes, no scare in her demeanour and no shake in her voice as she smiled challengingly and said, “Good luck, little man. I hope you find your answers the tough way.”

“Really?” he blasted off at her. “I am trying so much to save you, yet you are forsaking it all. You don’t deserve my kindness.”

“Kindness?” Mitra scoffed in fury. “You are just a psychopath trying to gain attention. An attention seeking, sadistic psychopath. And you dare paint your atrocities as kindness?”

“I will show you the best of my kindness then!” it was a proclamation from the murderer.

The man lunged from his seat, raising his hand high in the air, the knife poised readily in it and brought it down with a heavy force to Mitra’s neck.

The video ended.