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I sat stunned as I absorbed the news: He had been shot in the chest and was at a hospital in an unstable condition.
I could never have imagined it. Especially when he had done everything as I had asked him to do. A conciliatory man, he never went against my advice.
He had done everything I had already practised. And if I had survived, he should too!
I rushed to the hospital where he was. There, I saw a sea of angry, bemused and faraway faces outside the facility.
I identified a dominant majority of them. They all were like me, from the same industry I was in. They all were following the path I was already successfully strolling upon. And, here they were, all as confused as I was.
One of them ran towards me. “How is he...?” I inquired.
“The doctors are not optimistic...” he choked. “His chances of survival look slim...”
I watched him withering away as he spoke. Visibly shaken; his forehead was a maze of wrinkles and his body was soaked in perspiration.
A sudden anger chilled my bones. My face reddened, as my fists clenched and I virtually roared.
“How can he do this,” I spat out.
Why didn’t he let the lie go, as all of us had agreed to keep doing?
“No one knows...” I heard a voice from distance.
We lifted our heads and looked at the man who had spoken. His face too, was like mine. He leapt towards us – fuming. He looked in our eyes with a bizarre desolation.
“I saw him speaking loudly,” he whispered furtively. “I had warned him not to do this again, but he didn’t listen.”
The first fellow rolled edgily. “I too witnessed the same,” he spoke guardedly. “He had suddenly turned reckless. He would not heed to my warnings.”
I swung my eyes around and caught the humming of the dozens of distressed souls in the crowded hallway, suffused with the trademark hospital odour. Doctors and paramedics were scurrying around, unsuccessfully asking visitors to leave.
“It has gotten difficult to live with all this,” I muttered. “That bullet is not going to stop. Once it is fired, it is hard to impede it until it finishes off all its targets.”
They gazed at me fearfully. Their squinting, anxious eyes trying to catch sight of the bullet, which could come whizzing from anywhere, at anytime.
“How can a single bullet kill so many times ... how ...?” the second fellow hummed.
“That bullet has been created especially for us, for those who speak up and write and change,” I said quietly. Instantly, I shuddered at the realisation that I had just divulged a secret to them.
The knowledge that I had, on many occasions, done the same as a critically wounded colleague of mine had done just hours ago sent a chill down my spine.
The crowd around me leaned in, wanting to know more about the mysterious bullet, but I opted to hold my tongue now.
A deafening silence continued to overwhelm us, until a nurse scampered out from the Intensive Care Unit and loudly announced my name.
Everyone looked at me, as I walked towards her. “He wants to see you,” she stuttered. “He has very little time left.”
I dashed into the facility. He turned his head towards me, struggling with his breathing as he lay in wait.
I went to his bed and held his hand – I noticed it turning cold in mine.
As I felt a heavy lump forming in my throat, I realised I was extremely annoyed with him and wanted to yell at him for telling the truth. I had asked him to use the keyboard for fun on social media, but he had used it for reasoning. I wanted to admonish him for it.
“You are getting well,” was all I could utter. A faint smile danced over his face and vanished.
“I am going to die soon,” he tried to maintain a careless demeanour. “I just wanted to warn you that the bullet is now headed for you.”
I nodded my head to convey to him that I already knew that.
“Will you not reproach me for telling the truth?”
“No, I don’t,” I said. “Can I ask you one thing, though?”
He nodded.
“Why did you do this? Weren’t you happy with things how they were, with your life?”
“I was,” he began losing his breath. “But, it wasn’t me who did it.”
His words perplexed me. He motioned for me to move closer. I leaned my ear towards his trembling mouth.
“It was not me who told the truth...” He whispered, “It was someone else.” I saw his wobbly hands pointing towards his body.
He said, “It was someone else....inside....me.”
I stepped back as his head fell to his side and he breathed his last.
Doctors and paramedics urgently rushed into the room, examining the screaming machines around me.
In the moment when they declared him dead, I saw someone jump out of his body and infiltrate mine.
I heard a voice from inside, “I am someone.”
It paused for a moment, and then said, “Are you ready to face the bullet that is now hunting you?”
I felt an amazing calm and walked out of the room.