This is a story about a nice small city named Vikramnagar. This city is named after the king who had ruled the city centuries ago. The name is Vikramnagar. The city is situated at the foothills of the Himalayas.  It is an extremely beautiful and picturesque city. The beauty of nature is scattered almost in each and every atom of sand, water and air over here. This city has many temples and has an impressive mythological background. It is a saying in this city that Lord Shiva is the guardian of this city.  

It was around 11 pm. The city what's blanketed with darkness. It was pitch black. There was not a single person outside their homes. It was one of the coldest night of the year. There was a single bridge connecting to the outer world. The bridge looked scary and empty and without any lights on the bridge it was difficult to make out anything in this dark night. There was not even a single living solve there on the bridge.

Suddenly two high beam light bounced back from the railings of bridge. The bridge came to life the car was driving without any sense of direction as if the driver has lost control over the car. The driver seemed drunken, but he was screaming very loudly but his sound was not heard outside the car. His screams were becoming louder and louder. He was trying vehemently to get out of the car. But it seemed like the car has become alive and was not in mood to let him go.

The car was speeding at a fatal speed. Then with a loud bang car broke the railings and dropped dead in the river below. The bang was so loud that everyone woke up with the sense of fear in their hearts.The car was not completely in the flames. The smell of petrol was so heavy as if the entire city were covered in it. People run out of their homes to the bridge this so the most horrific scene in their lives. The driver was screaming louder and louder and it seemed that he was boiling from inside. Through the screams are very loud, outside there was no sound at all apart from the sound of fire and the flow of the river. Finally, the driver died in agony and then everybody came to their senses. Someone called the local police.

Police Jeep arrived on the scene with an inspector and a few constables. They had to cover their noses because of the smell of burn flesh and gasoline. Inspector's name is Ravindra Thakur. Ravindra watch this scene very closely to determine whether it was an accident or something else. From the first sight he was not able to see any sign of foul play. It seemed that driver lost control over the car and fell in the river. He wrote accident in the police report and asked to send his body to post-mortem. Though he knew that they are not going to find anything new.

The whole area was cordoned as they were waiting for the forensic unit. As it was late, they were going to take some time to come. Due to the remote area and a smaller number of crimes in the vicinity most of the time the forensic department used to have ample amount of free time. But the head of the department Satya Chakravarti is an industrious girl. She is just 27 years of age but too mature in comparison to her age. She always keeps herself busy in researching the old cases getting connected to the forensic science research groups worldwide. She is an honest and lovely girl.

After an hour or so, she and her team reached the site of accident. She started to carefully examine the scene of accident. She inquired about the body and why was it removed to the constable. She scolded the constable by saying, is this your first time on the scene. You don’t know a simple fact that nobody touches the crime scene before we collect all the samples. The constable looked at Ravindra with a request in his eyes to answer her questions. Ravindra said that it was very late and due to the burning of body, he decided to send the body as early as possible to the post-mortem department which may enable them to identify the body.

This was a logical explanation and Satya calmed down. She started to examine the vicinity of car. The car was completely burned and a very distinctive smell of burning rubber was present in the air. Satya asked the photographers to take the pictures from all the sides. She couldn’t find anything, so she went to the bridge. The railing was broken by the sheer force and speed of the car. There were long skid marks of tyres on the road. From the first inspection, it was looking like an accident, but Satya was a thorough police professional and she even doubts her own shadow. She asked the photographer to take the pictures of skid marks, the broken railing, and the bridge itself.

FIR was registered and people started to scatter. It was quite late in the night plus it was one of the coldest nights in that region. All the people including policemen wanted to go home and feel safe and warm. Ravindra and Satya were discussing something, and the constable came to seek permission to leave the site and go home. Ravindra said, yes go home everyone and be safe. Satya was not feeling comfortable, she was having some chills and uneasiness. Ravindra asked are you ok? She said yes but her gut feeling was saying something else. Suddenly, a pack of wolves cried in the nearby jungle and both missed a heartbeat because of the timing of the cry. It was a scary cry which makes you feel fear till your bones.

Satya grabbed Ravindra’s hand in panic and hold it very tightly. The entire area was pitch black. The kingdom of darkness was only challenged by two people. The cry made it worse and they both felt deep down their heart that something is odd about tonight. Ravindra said let me drop you at your home and without any hesitation Satya said yes. Ravindra started his jeep and Satya sat next to him. They were able to see the bridge in the rear-view mirror. It gave Satya goose bumps. They were not aware, but two eyes were staring them quietly without any emotions as if they were made up of stone. Ravindra was driving the jeep and Satya was silently saying a prayer to have some strength. Normally she is not afraid of anything, but tonight was different and oddly scary.

Satya finished the prayer and now she is feeling ok. Ravindra felt the same vibes but did not say anything as he is a strong-willed man. After a while, a shadow appeared on the bridge once everything stood still. That shadow was looking into the direction of that jeep. Slowly that shadow turned into mist and its atoms were scattered into air, leaving no trace behind. Ravindra dropped Satya at her home and stayed there till she went it and turned on the lights. Then he left for his home with a thought in his mind, why was he feeling odd tonight. What was missing? Did he overlook some details? With all these thoughts rummaging his mind, he did not realise that he reached his home already. He parked his jeep on the foyer and went inside. He decided to visit the scene of accident again in the morning once the post-mortem report is given to him.

Meanwhile, Satya at her home was thinking the same thing and decided to visit the scene again in the morning to check if she missed anything or not. The Sun fought the darkness by spreading its rays of light everywhere and the city is alive again by shedding the layers of laziness and leaving the warmth and comfort of the beds. Ravindra reached to his police station and asked the constable about the post-mortem report. The constable told him that he will get the report in an hour. Normally they do not conduct post-mortem if the body arrives late in the evening. But due to the temperature and condition of the body they decided to start in the evening. Ravindra said to the constable that he is going to check the accident scene once again and call him as soon as the post-mortem report comes in.

At this time Satya was also in the office and pushing his team to give her the report around all the samples collected from the accident scene. She asked the junior about the post-mortem report and got the same answer as Ravindra. Hence, she also decided to visit the accident scene again.

Both Ravindra and Satya reached the accident scene at the same time. The car was completely cold now. Ravindra saw Satya and they both greeted each other and Ravindra asked her about the report. She said her team is working on that round the clock and she will send the report by the end of the day today. Ravindra asked her about the purpose of the visit. She said that she could not explain it, but something had been eating her mind since yesterday.

Satya said let me explain. She opened the car door from the driver’s side and asked him “what do you see”? Ravindra was a bit confused but he tried to look for the clues. Bang…A thought came to his mind that which is the origin of the fire? He had a peculiar habit, when he solves any puzzle, he taps his right temple and snaps the fingers. He did the same thing and told that Divya that the origin of the fire is missing. There are only two places in any car from where a fire can be started. Either the engine or the petrol tank. But in this case, none of the reasons was visible. The point of origin of the fire was from the driver’s seat only which is highly unlikely. Only if someone had used some sort of accelerant to accelerate the fire and put the driver on the car seat.  But then why did not the driver jump out of the car? There were scratch marks on the inner side of the door glass. Probably, the car doors were jammed, and the driver could not jump out.

To iron out the wrinkle, he called the most trusted mechanic to test the car for any glitches. The mechanic was 10 mins away. So Ravindra asked Satya, let us have a cup of tea while he arrives. She agreed and they both went to the nearest tea stall. While drinking tea, Satya and Ravindra both had the same thought and tried to speak at the same time. Both started and Ravindra politely said ladies first. Satya said that something doesn’t seem right with this accident. There are many unsolved puzzled in this case.

Suddenly, Satya’s phone rang. She picked up and her lab assistant said that madam report is ready. She asked her to send that report to her email id. The phone chimed and immediately Satya opened the email and started to read. Death occurred due to burn only and there were no signs of violence. Satya narrowed her eyebrows and said hmm. This is the thing she does when she can not understand or solve any case. Ravindra still had the inquisitive look on his face and was eagerly waiting for the report. Satya realised that and said oops sorry. The report says that the death is because of burning only, no other signs of any kind of physical violence.

Both were flummoxed and the moment they started to say something, a car honked loudly and there was a break in their thoughts. The mechanic Bholu arrived and signalled his arrival with a loud noise. He saluted Ravindra and asked sir may I check? Ravindra nodded. Bholu checked the car with a minute detail and exceptional patient but he could find nothing. He said sir, the car’s engine, break, door locking mechanism everything is intact. There is no sign of foul play.

Satya and Ravindra just stared at each other without any clue. Now the only task remaining was to identify the victim. Ravindra could not inquire about the car details as the car was badly burned and both the number plates were unreadable. He asked Bholu what we can do to identify the car. Bholu said sir let me check the engine number. At last some luck. Engine number was readable and immediately Ravindra called his constable and gave him the number and ordered him to get the car details asap. Meanwhile Satya’s team was trying to recover any sort of fingerprints from the body, but they were not very hopeful about that based on the condition of the body.

Satya was quickly going through the report for any clue and a note caught her eye. The note said the internal body temperature was too high that his organs were found melted and that was not because of the fire. That meant the victim was burnt from inside. Satya could not make anything out of this. How can this be possible? She called Ravindra and discussed the same thing with him. None of them had any clue to solve this case and they just stood there staring at the car.

Satya and Ravindra both went to their respective offices but with an itch of not able to understand so many things about this case. Ravindra entered his office and even before he took his seat, he called the constable for an update about the victim or the owner of the car. The constable said that he will be back within half an hour with all the information. Half an hour passed meanwhile Ravindra was not able to wait or concentrate on anything else. He had been just pacing in his office for the last half an hour. Finally, the constable came with good news and he said sir the owner is…