The strong smell of incense sticks had occupied all over the house, there was grim silence in the room, people sat in white clothes, some kept quiet while some cried their eyes out. Shruti's photo frame was placed in the centre of the room, frame had flower garland on it. Everyone were present at Shruti's funeral. People included Shruti's parents, relatives, Monika, Uncle. Monika's eyes were swollen because of endless crying in past hour.

10 hours earlier:-

When Shruti visited Uncle's office, she kept only one thing in mind, which was to meet him one last time, but she didn't knew, that it was Sameer who was disguised as Uncle. Sameer took her to the death ride.

The real uncle saw them sitting in his car, uncle was horrified by looking at Shruti going with his lookalike. Uncle called Shruti several times, but her phone didn't seemed to work. There have been many cases where our phone signal vanishes in the presence of extremely evil spirit or ghosts. Maybe the same thing happened with her. But although, she got that message before sitting into the car with him. After getting into the car, her phone signal went off and all that shit happened.

It is rightly said, that wherever you are Death have you by its way. Remember the movie series 'Final Destination'. Just like that. In case of Shruti, she had enough time to get rid of Sameer, but she took one wrong decision which cost her life. It is also said that we have to pay for our sins, which we committed in this life itself. We can refer this to many other sayings like this. But in the end,
the bottom line is, we cannot evade Death.

Besides, if you thought about 'Why didn't God help her?'. It was simple, 'God only shows us the way, at the end its our decision, whether to accept that way or not'. We always assume that, ghosts or spirits are imaginary. We bullshit many such claims, but what happens when you yourself experience their presence. Hence, this story is exactly about this. Although, it was backed by logic too.

Well then, back to story! What happened after Shruti died?

During her fall into the pit of hell, she experienced the Death. She saw herself burning in the flames of her own sins. Yeah! Hurting anyone, Torturing other people's soul is classified as 'Sin'. The car explosion was just consolatory.

After some hours, people reported that matter to the local police, car was found, but strangely they couldn't find Shruti's body anywhere. They tried everything, even Forensic department couldn't track her body.

After, many days of investigation, as per law, Shruti was declared dead. Police interrogated everyone, all blame could have shifted to Uncle, but luckily CCTV camera, came to help, which showed Shruti communicating, with no one. It was like She was talking to herself, and it is proved that Ghosts never have shadows or reflections, but in very few cases ghosts are captured in camera, but only if special equipments were used.
At first, it was unbelievable for Police Department, but Uncle explained this to them. Soon, there were no evidences of murder, then the case was dismissed.

Monika was not ready to believe that her best friend was no more. She became hysterical. She was unconsolable. Uncle was also very quiet and Shruti's parent's condition was similar to Monika's. It was definitely hard to believe, that Shruti was taken by supernatural force.

PRESENT:-

Now, the question remains, What about Sameer?

Sameer, completed his revenge, he even got succeeded in killing Shruti. But, he didn't cross over or didn't obtained moksha. Because, still his body was not being burnt according to Hindu rituals. He had claimed that, no one will ever find his body. He was clever, he hid his body, below the land behind their college campus where no one was allowed to trespass, he dug the hole and transferred his own body deep underground. Well, till now his body must have been fossilized.

Of course he could do this on his own, if he could kill one person with axe, then digging a hole by using that axe and his powers was not a big job for him.

Now, the college has decided to expand the campus, and even started working on it. Hence, temporarily the college was not in function because of the renovation. That explains why the college was empty while Shruti visited. Sameer was mastermind, he manipulated uncle into inviting Shruti to college. He also kept this secret, and didn't revealed how did he reached Rohit and killed him, before he could reach out to Monika and Shruti.

Another question remains, When did uncle and Sameer meet?

During, hearing of that tape, uncle became certain about Rohit's spirit regretting something, this made him to think more about Sameer and he became curious about knowing the whole truth. He performed one more seance and summoned Sameer's spirit, through which he came to know that Sameer is not the one who is guilt ridden, but Shruti is. Sameer specified the reason for his revenge and even warned uncle to stay out his way. Uncle, wanted to aim two targets at one time, to which he planned with Sameer to bring Shruti to college, and another reason was to get rid of Sameer, which he did. He also saved Shruti and gave her new chance to start her life all over again, but then she got all confused and took a wrong decision, after that we know what happened!

Uncle was trapped in his own game, now his new mission was to find Sameer's body. Will he find his body? Well that's a story for another time.

In the mean time, the College inaugurated its new campus. Some children were seated on a bench which was built on new campus, the bench was built exactly above the Sameer's body, which was already present below.

Sameer's ghost still wanders, as well as some people claimed to have seen a man with axe, who resides in Sameer's original house.... So a new name for Sameer, 'Man with an Axe'.

So at end, Love never dies, but kills.

*********************************

The End

Please feel free to comment on my story. I would really appreciate that. I am glad you read my novel. Thank you so much. Keep reading!

- Jaai.