Episode 3

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Vikrant was at home now. Resting on his sofa.

*Pop up*

Vikrant slightly took his phone and saw, he was having a message. It was Abhishek's message.

"Hey buddy!"

Vikrant replied "Hey"

And continued typing message.

"So what you up to. Tell me how many of our colleagues are gonna come for the trip?"

"Umm, not decided but around 3/4 they are... Like Manish is there, Gautam also there, Vrushika, Aisha and ha Naina too!"

Vikrant blushes after reading Naina's name.

He types back, "Oh😁"

Abhishek again types, “And we have a Chevrolet for our trip."

Vikrant replied "okay great, so we are all set to go, just tell everyone about the location and fix the date when to move"

Abhishek "I prefer to begin the travel on 12th March, Sunday. It will be the best time as perfectly we would have the next 2 free weeks."

"Awesome, so Sunday final! " Vikrant answered.

"Okay, I report them and report you back their views."

"Yay, okay"

"Bye"

"Bye"

Vikrant put his phone aside, and moved

his body to get more comfortable at his place. Slowly closed his eyes,

In the brilliant silence, Vikrant surfed into a flow state. His vivid visualization made him go through his beautiful memories.

The second when he saw Naina for the first time.

Her charm, her soft voice, the spark of her eyes... Everything was just mesmerizing.

Vikrant had never been in love. But this was for the first time.  The beautiful feeling of love was chilling him with fairly goose bumps and a smile on his face.

Vikrant slowly opened his eyes and thought as Naina is too coming on the trip, it would be a perfect time to get to know her and start a friendship,

Cause friendship is the first step to relationship.

I think I should work on this, means along with treasure hunt; I will try to win her heart. So that this trip will prove a double advantageous trip.

Vikrant smiled again at his place.

He looked at the time. It was 11:45.

"I guess I should sleep now."

Vikrant stood up and went in his bedroom. His bed was already waiting for him. Vikrant opened his cupboard, he opened the safe, here was the old map. He took it out and murmered, "Sunday, I will reveal your treasure."

Saying this Vikrant smirked and kept the map back, closed the cupboard and retired over the bed and in a minute he catched the forty winks.

***

It seemed Vikrant had thought that finding the treasure was such easy as drawing out water from well. But nothing in this realm is as easy as it sounds. Vikrant was unaware by everything... Everything which was going to come in his way.

Prompt decision can kill.

***

The night was gone dark, duskiness was all over. In that gloom, a secret activity took place. The map which was resting in the safe started moving; it slithered through the place. It came out from the cupboard. In that collab of dark & silence, when Vikrant was in deep stage of sleep, this map travelled through his bed to him. The map slowly adjusted himself beside Vikrant's arm. And lulled there...

Felt like the old cloth map was living for a moment.

***

NEXT DAY

SATURDAY MORNING.

Taking a long yawn, Vikrant woke up, he look at watch, it was 8:55. It was weekend the 'No office day'.  Through a window, the sunlight was falling on Vikrant's body making him charged for the day. Vikrant stretched on his bed and while stretching his hand stuck over something, it was soft, Vikrant put his eyes on that thing and got aghast to see the map lying on his bed. Vikrant tried to put some light on yesterday's night to remember whether he had kept this map inside the safe or not, he was sure that he kept this back in safe then how could it can come out.  Vikrant took that map, rolled it and kept it back in the safe, thinking that he might have forgot to put it back. "Atlast maps don't walk"

***

Here, on the other side officer Azad Srivastava was appointed as the chief of the investigation department, Mumbai.

And so onwards the suicidal case of RAVI NARAYAN was going to handled by him.

Azad was 32 year old, an intelligent, bold officer, recently got promoted. And now was to handle the Ravi narayan's case.

By the first day he started his investigation, with his 2 trusted policemens under him, Salunke and Patil.

He went at Trivedi heights, the suicide place. To check what was the reason of the suicidal, or whether it was just a suicidal or something else.

Patil and Salunke quickly took their positions and started their search.

Azad was trying to visualize how the suicide could have happened. He looked at the blood drops, Azad started to look for more proof, like suicidal note, fingerprints, belongings of others.

Suddenly Salunke found something; he called Azad closer to have a look. Inside the house, on a table, there was someone's fingerprint, visible under the magnifying glass.

Azad took a closer look. "Now this is something new, Salunke somewhere inside me. I was having an intuition that this case is not just a suicidal but a planned murder...  And I feel now we would find the murderer soon... You send these fingerprints to forensics, and just take out the fingerprint traces of Ravi's friends and family...  This work is done by someone closer to him..."

The matter was looking serious, Officer Azad was seemed to find out the murderer very soon...

***

"Yeah,

la la la, oh, la la la humming his favorite song Vikrant was cooking. And suddenly he heard an irritating sound of his door bell.

Vikrant washed his hands and went to open the door.

The moment Vikrant opened the door, Vikrant got freeze for a while. 

A policeman was standing outside.

"Hello, you are Ravi's friend?"

He asked.

Vikrant was in a freeze state and couldn't able to respond for few seconds.

"Hello!" the police man exclaimed in little high tone.

And this made Vikrant come back to normal.

And he replied.

"Ahh... Yes yes... I... I am Ravi's friend."

"I dont have much time, I just need your finger prints, keep your hands here on this device."

He opened a tab in front of Vikrant and told him to put his hand to get his fingerprints.

Vikrant was confused, he asked.

"Why do you need my fingerprints?"

On his question the policeman got uptight saying,

"Do what I say; I have a list of people to visit ahead. We are collecting a data to find out Ravi's murderer. Now just keep your hands on this and free Me.!"

Doubtful Vikrant quickly put his hand on the tab and let that policeman move ahead.

Vikrant closed the door and came inside...

Vikrant gasp something burning around, he realised that he kept the stove burning; he ran towards the stove and turned it off. But till now, the dish was burned, Vikrant reluctantly started making something different for his meal.

And was just thinking about tomorrow's trip. "It is going to be Awesome", he said.

***

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