"POOJAAAA, what are you still doing with your mobile," My mom shouts at me standing at the entrance of my room. "You are in your final year of M.Sc, have some seriousness towards it."

I minimize the Fidus Friends app and show her the YouTube screen pretending like I'm watching a lecture video without replying to her.

"OK. Sleep soon. You need to wake up early in the morning to get ready for your college function."

"OK mom, first you go and sleep, you need to wake up early to make breakfast for me."

"Fine. Good night."

"Good night, mom."

I recheck the online friend-finding app, but the guy who I was chatting has gone offline. Closing all the apps, I turn off my data and go to sleep.

--------

Next day morning

I step into my classroom and stop abruptly.

It's not my M.Sc lecture hall but my B.Sc second-year lecture hall.

I try to move out, but before I could do so, I hear someone calling me, addressing me, as Pooja Sis.

I turn to find my B.Sc junior, Nina is sitting in the front row, and she pats on the seat next to her, inviting me to sit with her.

What is my mentee doing in my B.Sc second-year lecture hall when she is in her final year of B.Sc?

Every PG student should mentor six UG students, and Nina is one of my mentees.

I go and sit next to her. "What are you doing in this lecture hall?"

"You donno, Sis? Priya Maam has announced a test on Euler's equation for unidirectional flow. Haven't you seen the mail?"

Priya Maam? How did she know about Priya Maam?

Priya Maam is not working in the college anymore, and she left before Nina joined. Also, this classroom was the second-year lecture hall for Physics Department when I was doing my UG. Due to more number of students in our department, the college decided to split the strength into two halves for our particular batch. And now Computer Science Department occupies this classroom for the same reason. Moreover, Kamala Maam is handling the Triple M (Mechanics and Mathematical Models) paper for the current batch.

"Are you sure? She is Priya Maam," I ask by air quoting her name.

"Yes, Sis. What happened? Why are you seemed to be confused?" she asks me as concern surfacing her forehead.

Yeah, confused a lot. "Nothing," I lie to her.

"Come, let's study," she says and nods her head toward my desk.

Looking at my desk, I find the Triple M notebook in front of me.

Being more confused, I keep staring at the notebook when a commotion makes me look at the entrance of the lecture hall as a group of girls enter. They are all freshers but arriving at the second-year lecture hall and sits behind Nina and me.

One of them taps me on my shoulder, and when I turn, the girl asks me, "How are you coping up?"

"For what I should be coping up?" I ask her puzzled.

"Your friend's death!!" She replies.

"WHAT?" I ask in a shock. "When and who died?"

"Vedhika.... you were also crying uncontrollably at her funeral!!"

"No way!! You must have mistaken," I refuse to take her statement.

"Maybe you are in denial, I'm sorry. But be careful. Everyone is talking that you might be the next target of the serial killer."

WTF. About what are these girls talking? Vedhika died. Serial killer. Me being the next target.

"What rubbish are you talking about?" I bark at them.

"If you don't trust us, check on Google for Axis College serial murders," she replies.

I suddenly take my phone and start searching on Google, and the results terrify me. One of the headlines read:

With the death of Student Vedhika, the number of murders in Axis College of Arts and Science has increased to seven.

Before I could click on the article and read, I hear the bell ringing sound, and everyone starts to leave the class.

"Where is everyone leaving?" I ask Nina.

"Sis!! The college hours are over. We all are leaving for home."

"What? Just a couple of minutes ago we entered, and classes are already over for the day? We didn't even start writing the test."

"What happened to you, Sis? We wrote and submitted it. Afterward, we attended other classes, too." she states with a perplexed look.

What? How could this be even possible? How could I forget the events happening the whole day?

Though I'm in a great confusion, I walk out with Nina, and the moment I keep my feet out of the building, I feel something different and look around my surroundings. Nina is nowhere by my side.

I'm no more on my college campus. Instead, I'm on the campus of Covenant Institute of Management Science, which is just a kilometer away from my college, and I have once gone there to write a competitive exam for a government job.

What the hell is happening to me? Am I getting mad or what?

Everyone is moving around me at a 20x speed. They either go to the canteen or to the parking lot to retrieve their vehicle. Some are leaving the campus to get into public transport or walk the short distance to their home. I always commute by public bus to reach my house, so I start walking toward the gate.

Suddenly I hear someone calling my name and turn to find my UG friend Mahima with a college bag over her shoulders and the college ID card hanging around her neck.

Mahima did her B.Sc with me, but she was from the Chemistry department, we both became friends when we attended English and General Mathematics and we are bus mates. After completing her degree, she joined a BPO company.

Now, what is she doing in this college as a student?

"Where are you going toward the gate?" Mahima asks me.

"Where else? To the bus stand outside the campus."

"Then who will drive your car?"

Huh? Car? I inwardly sigh, "What are you talking about?"

"What happened to you, girl? How could you possibly forget the car your parents gave you for your birthday?" She drags me towards the car parking and stops before a car.

A brand new electric blue Swift Dzire is standing before me. I go around the car, looking at it as though I'm a girl from the stone age era who is seeing a car for the first time. I find a sticker on the rear glass, reading My dad's gift, I cringe at the phrase.

"It's too much cliche. I would never get a sticker like this," I stretch my hand, pointing out at the sticker to Mahima.

Mahima shrugs her shoulder, "Of Course you won't, but your parents did that."

I slap my palm against my forehead and rub my face in frustration, thinking about my parents' antics and not knowing what is happening to me. Everything is different in my life today.

"OK. If this is my car, then where is the key?" I ask her, thinking I can somehow prove to myself that I'm in my right mind.

"It must be in your bag, where else it could be," she crosses her arms against her chest.

Lifting my one eyebrow with an one sided smile, I put my hand into my bag to show her that I don't have any key. But my hand gets hold of an object, and I take it out to find that object to be the car key. In shock, I dropped it on the ground. Mahima comes near me and lifts the key with a victorious grin, and she presses the sensor button to unlock the car before throwing it to me. I catch and look at the car key and wonder how I am going to drive the car when I don't even know how to ride a bicycle.

I get into the car and start the ignition. With the little knowledge that I gained by watching movies, I start analyzing what accelerator, brake, and the clutch is.

"What are you looking at?"

"Searching, which is accelerator, brake, and clutch," I speak the truth.

"Nice joke. But actually, you scored full marks in the driving test."

"Oh really? Then where is my driving license? It's not in my purse," I say hoping it's not in the purse.

Unlike challenging me to check in my purse, she lowers the sunshade and pulls out a waterproof envelope and hands it over to me. I opened it to find a duplicate of my license and other registration-related documents.

Pooja, It's 100% confirmed that you have gone mad.

I Keep the documents back in the place, start the car, and to my astonishment, I drive the car smoothly, instead of struggling to handle the steering wheel.

Surprisingly the road is empty, not even a single vehicle as if any minster passing by the way. I press the accelerator and pick up the speed.

What is happening to me? From morning everything is different, I cannot remember when I woke up, took a bath, and finished the test and when I attended the other lectures. Am I getting affected with Short term memory loss or what? All I remember is going to bed, and all other things are like a dream, including the car, I'm driving and the road being empty.....

DREAM !!!

I press the brake, and the car comes to a sudden halt. In the force, my head hits against the steering wheel. But it doesn't hurt or bleed. I turn towards the passenger seat to find Mahima has disappeared.

GREAT.... So what all the events happening from the morning is a dream...No, it's not even a morning. That's why everything was weird. The time leap, old classroom, juniors as classmates, Mahima still in college and now disappeared and top of all, I'm having a car and driving it.

In the empty road, I sit abandoned in my car.