I got discharged from the hospital and they took me home. I could walk alright. And my head felt better. Though the doctors said that I needed to be careful with it.

This Rahul's house was an apartment, fairly large. The family led me in through the front door. The dad was carrying the small bag with my-the other Rahuls' things in it. I looked around... the girl, the sister had not come to get me discharged from the hospital. She was at home.

When I stepped in through the front door, she popped a party popper and yelled. "Welcome back home, Rahul." I smiled to be polite. But actually, I wanted to yell out, my world has turned upside down and you wanted to pock a fucking party popper on my head. But I kept quiet.

Mainly I keep quiet. I don't want them to realize that I am not their son and brother. I mean, I don't even know where their son and brother is. If I am in his body, where is he? In my body? But then where is my body?

I brushed away the bits of paper from the party popper off my head and looked around the apartment. I should probably go to the other Rahul's bedroom. But I did not know where that is. So I just stood there. And it was becoming awkward.

"Aunty," The girl suddenly addressed the lady. Aunty? Isn't it mother? "Maybe you should go to your office today. I don't have class today. I can stay home."

So the girl was not the other Rahul's sister?

"Are you sure?" Aunty asked. "I do want to go to the office though. There is so much leftover work. Will you be okay?" The last question was for me.

"Yeah." I nodded. I just wanted some alone time. To figure out what in the world is going on.

"Then I am heading out for work as well," the dad said. "I will leave you to that. I will see you all in the evening."

"Can you drop me off on your way?" The mother asked the father.

"Okay, come on..." he said.

The mother went into a room and took her bag and stuff and came out. She gave me another hug before she left with the father.

And the girl and I were alone in the living room. And I felt pretty stupid standing there in silence. I looked at the girl, Aarohi was her name, I think. I looked at Aarohi.

She looked back at me. She still looked at me with suspicion and worry. The parents were just too happy to get their son back to notice. But the girl was not his family. She was a friend, I guess. Or cousin. She seemed too close with the parents to be just a friend. But anyway, she could notice that I was being strange.

"I should go in," I said, and then regretted it. I did not know which room is the other Rahul's room. One of the parents' room was the one the mother went in to get her stuff. But there seemed to be three other doors from the living room.

"Go on," Aarohi said. "Do you need something to eat or something? Coz I can get you if you..."

"No. I am good." I said. I don't need more interactions with these people.

I decided to try my luck and walked to one of the doors and opened it.

"Why are you going in there?" The girl asked with a weird look. "That's my room."

Oh...

"Sorry...." I said and tried the other door. It was a bathroom.

"Rahul." The girl came to me, with a worried look. "Are you okay?"

I looked up at her. She seemed concerned. And I was feeling really pathetic. I didn't know what to do. I felt sad and confused, and kind of scared even.

"Sorry. I can't remember my room." I said. That was the best I can manage. She seemed to believe that.

"Come." She said, and took me to the other door and held it open. I walked inside. The room was a guy's room for sure. It looked like one. And there was a basketball in the corner. It was quite neat. The mother cleaned perhaps.

I went and sat on the bed.

Aarohi continued to look at me with concern.

"I am fine."

"No. You are not." She said. "Since when do you have this problem of not remembering things? And why didn't you tell anyone? And why are you so quiet all the time?"

I stayed silent. I did not have any fake answer to convince her.

She came and sat by me.

"Are you okay?" She whispered to me in a concerned voice. "Rahul.." She hissed again when I was not answering. I looked at her. Her sharp brown eyes were at me.

"I know you did not drive out that night simply for no reason." She said. "I know you. You won't do that for no reason. I know something is wrong. Tell me."

Great. Now, what am I supposed to do? Should I tell her that I am not the person she thinks she is talking to. I am someone else?

"How did the accident happen?" I asked. A change of topic will be nice. "Do you know?" I looked at her.

"You don't remember?"

"Well, not much. I remember the crash...but..." It was really late at night.

"Your bike skidded off the road and you got threw off to the roadside. The rubbles and stuff. And your head hit the ground. If you did not have a helmet you would have died."

"But wasn't there another vehicle? A car?" I asked.

"You remember?"

I was driving the car. I remember the bike coming towards the car.

"Yeah. The car didn't hit you though." She said. "If it had you would have died."

"What happened to the car?"

"Well, according to the police, the car's driver tried to avoid getting hit with you and steered the steering. And the car went and hit with a construction truck parked nearby." Arohi's face contracted in a pained feeling. She was straining as if she did not want to tell me the details. "And well, the truck was loaded with metal rods."

I remembered the shards of it now. And the horror dawned on me.

I could clearly remember the accident now. In detail. It was all coming back to me.

I was going home after a party with my friends. I was alone in my car when the accident happened. It was past 1 am or so. And I choose to go through a route that has less traffic, to reach home faster. I was tired. But I was not drunk. The party had drinks, but I never liked alcohol. And I had to drive, so I had refused to drink even when my friends forced me to. Also, I had the office the next day. So I could not drink.

So remember clearly when the headlight came straight at me. The bike was coming fast. I thought it will turn and go past me. Normally, they do. It was a small road, and I was driving on the left side of the road, leaving much space on the right side. But the headlight was coming straight at me.

It was too late when I realized that the motorbike was not going to turn right. I had to steer the steering fast before I hit it. I stepped on the break, I think... But before I knew it, the car had skidded off the road and then crash, I had hit with something...

I remember the pain...

I placed a hand over my chest...

"The car driver...is he dead?" I whispered out, in fear.

"Well..." Aarohi said.

"Is he?" I looked up at her in fear.

"No. But they say he might die soon." She said. "Poor guy. The metal rods pierced him. Straight in the chest. One so close to his heart."

I could still feel the pain. My current chest was not pierced. But it hurt. It was like a pseudo pain. Or maybe it was in my head.

"It was a horrible accident," Aarohi said. "Thank god someone saw and called for an ambulance at once."

I looked down. We sat in silence for a while.

"Do you remember it?" Aarohi asked. "Any of it?"

Yes. But I was not the one on the motorbike.

"Anyway, thank god you are okay now," Aarohi said. "You could have died."

Hm...

"You should probably tell that memory problem to uncle aunty or the doctors." She said. "It could be temporary. They say that things like temporary problems like this can happen, right? At least we have seen in movies and read in books."

The things that actually happened to me happen only in movies and books. No doctor can explain this. This is not medical.

This is some supernatural, fantasy stuff happening.

I have never believed in all this stuff. But now I have no choice.

In the next few days, I tried to find out as much about this other Rahul as I could. Because if I need to live as him, at least I should know a bit about him. And what I found out was this –

Rahul was twenty-one years old. His full name is Rahul Bhatt. His family consisted of his parents and then there was Aarohi. Aarohi seemed to be the same age as Rahul from the look of things. And I really could not figure out her relationship with the family. She addressed Rahul's parents as 'uncle' and 'aunty' and lived in Rahul's house. Her surname was not Bhatt. She was Aarohi Mital. And Aarohi and Rahul seemed to be attending the same college. And Rahul was an engineering major, computer science. They were in the final year of the course, and because of the accident, Rahul has missed a few days of classes and one internal exam.

I was an MBA major. I had no idea what the hell was I going to do with the engineering studies. Or why the world do I have to go back to college? I had graduated college a year back. And I had found work. I was employed. I was earning my own money. And now I am back in college? That too in the fourth year of a subject I had no idea about? GREAT.

The other Rahul was two years younger than me. Sort of taller than me. But I guess in looks we stood on similar grounds. We are both above average, more on the good looking side. He was even a slight bit better looking than me. So I was okay with the looks. I could get used to it. He was better built than me as well.

But I could not get rid of a jolt of anger towards him.

If the boy drove his bike a bit better, I would not have been in this situation. The accident was entirely his fault. He caused it. So I felt bitter...

And I had no idea how to go back to my body, which by the way was in another major hospital in the city, dying away each day.

"I want to go see him," I said one day at the dinner table.

The mother looked at me with concern.

"I knew he would say that," Arohi said.

"But Rahul, you won't be of any help." The mother said. "And... I am not sure how his parents react. They are not really that approachable right now..."

"How do you know?" I asked.

"I tried to visit." The dad said. "And well...they think the accident was your fault."

"Well, it was my fault." The other Rahul's fault.

"But you need not go there, dear." Mother said. "You should not give yourself any stress."

"But what if he dies?" I asked.

"Then that will not be your fault." The dad said. "It was just an accident, Rahul. Just an accident. You can't help it."

No, it was not. The boy came straight at me. Was he drunk or whatever, I don't care. But it was his fault that the accident happened? And I steered the car to save him. If I had not I may not have hit the truck. I would have hit the bike, and I would not have suffered that much injury. I would not have had to die...

But then.... I am not dead, am I?

Is the other Rahul now in my body? Dying?

"I need to see him," I repeated.

The mom and dad looked at each other.

"Let him go," Aarohi spoke for me. "I think if I were him, I would want to visit the guy. It is because of him that he is alive now. Or Rahul would have been dead for all we know."

I felt thankful to her. But what she said was not true though. I was dying somewhere else, because of this Rahul...

"Well, then..." The mother said. "We will come with you."

"I can go alone," I said.

"You are not going alone." Mom said.

"Well, I can go with him, if you want," Aarohi said.

"Yeah. I can go with Aarohi." I said. She is better than the parents. I am okay with her more than the parents. At least I don't have to pretend to be her son.

"Okay, then." Mom said.

But when we went to the hospital, we could not see my body though. Apparently, my body was in the Intensive Care Unit. I could just stand outside that glass wall and door and stare at the white curtains.

Aarohi was standing beside me listening to the nurse explain to her my body's condition.

"Three surgeries were conducted." The nurse was saying. "Major ones. Because well one iron rode had gone straight through one of the major valves to the heart. And he lost too much blood."

"Will he survive?" I turned and asked the nurse. That was all that I need to know.

"Well...we are still not sure. His vitals are not stable. And he is prone to infections. And the blood pressure keeps fluctuating."

"Is he going to die?" I asked my fear.

The nurse looked at me with sympathy. "We can't say anything. All I can say is that have faith in god. And pray for him."

"But will praying do any good?" I asked. "What if he dies?" I was getting really pessimistic and cynical. What is the use of all this? I was not even inside my body. And it was dying.

The nurse did not reply.

"Do you wish to talk with his parents?" The nurse asked.

"No," I said turning away from there. I would not be able to hold up if I see my parents now.

Aarohi hurried to catch up with me.

"Hey, wait up. Why are you walking so fast?" She asked.

Because I felt I needed to get away from that place as far as I could go.

That night, I could not sleep at all. I lay in the bed thinking...

What would be the end of this? If my body dies...will I have to live in this Rahul's body forever? But then, what happens to this Rahul? Where is he? Is he dead already or...in my body or....somewhere else? How am I supposed to live now? No one will believe that I am not Rahul Bhatt, but is Rahul Sharma. Can I ever go back to my body?

If I go to my parents in this body, will they believe me? Well, I can make them believe. Because there will be things that only me, Rahul Sharma will know. But then...should I do that?

If I have no other way, I should do that. Because it does not make sense for me to stay in this body and pretend to be Rahul Bhatt, while my parents think I am dead. To never see my parents again as me, seems like an insane thing to do. There was no reason for me to do that.

But then, first I need to find out if there is any way to go back into my body.

But the complications come in there in many forms. First I have no idea how to do that. I can't ask someone or consult an expert, because I think I will be the first person on earth this has happened to. And then the most major problem was that my body was dying. Because however inconvenient this might be, I surely did not want to die. I did not want to go back into my body and die with it.

So yeah... I am pretty much fucked.