Ananya's POV :

There was a momentary 'oooh' moment and then slowly all eyes turned instantly to Shilpa and Rubina - the two makeup junkies in the lot.

"What?", Shilpa snapped defensively before anybody could say anything "Don't look at me now. These B grade cosmetics aren't mine. I only use international brands".

"I don't use this either", Rubina confirmed a little more calmly after taking her time to look at what Oviya was holding.

"What's the need to narrow it down to us so quickly?", Shilpa argued "Aren't there any other women in this hotel? As if, me and Rubina are the only people who apply makeup!".

Why was Shilpa getting so annoyed? Nobody had said a thing. We had all just looked at her. I frowned. As far as I'd seen in movies the guilty people were always the most irritated on being questioned.

"Yeah, what about the other girls?" Arjun asked.

"We don't even have any cosmetics with us at the moment other than deodorant", said Pooja. I and Oviya nodded.

"This gives us another suspect", Arjun said shrewdly.

"Who?", I asked warily. This mystery business was really getting on my nerves. Sure, I had been the one very keenly interested in the mystery guy not very long ago, but now I was half wondering whether the sensible thing to do would be to quit this lame competition and move on. 

Wait a second..the mystery guy?

Oh God!

What if that mystery guy had something to do with this?

I had a very strong feeling that my inclination was right. I wanted to suggest it but nobody had ever seen that guy other than me and Pooja and I didn't want to seem like a lunatic so I kept quiet.

"Roma!" Arjun declared.

"But she's in the second floor", Pooja said. I nodded.

I'd never been too fond of Roma but to think that she was going around playing stupid pranks like this was absurd.

"Didn't you see Roma was looking really drained yesterday?", Arjun said earnestly "I mean, what if this is not a prank? What if this is the work of a mentally disturbed person? And Roma could easily be that person. She looks unhappy most of the time".

"Stop it Arjun", I snapped raising my voice for the first time that night, "You're getting carried away".

"I agree", Oviya said frowning "Roma doing this seems unlikely. Though we can't rule it out", she added quickly, "But first we need to know why someone used this pink lipstick to draw this picture here?"

"Can you tell for certain that this is lipstick?", Raghav asked Shilpa pointing at the drawing.

"I can't tell", Shilpa said high handedly, moving towards the drawing. She then went a little closer and sniffed it like a dog, "There's no smell. It could be a crayon too".

"What about the family in the other suite?", Oviya asked suddenly "We've made so much noise and they didn't even peep out to check if we're okay. What's up with that?"

"Rude much?" Pooja asked.

"This is the period of Kali", I said "People only care about their own business".

"Ignore my sister. She's always blabbering stuff like that", Arjun said.

"By the way", said Dulquer turning to Shilpa, "I'm not undoubting you. That lipstick is not a global brand but it's still pretty expensive. Out of all us here, you're the most likely one to be guilty".

Shilpa frowned at him.

"I'm right", Dulquer reiterated, "You are always walking around with make-up in your pocket. Need to wear all that to continuously keep your boyfriend interested, don't you?"

Okay this was getting dirty now.

"What's with you?" Shilpa yelled in frustration "Taking out your vengeance on me? You useless asshole!".

"What did I say wrong?", Dulquer shrugged "You are always going behind this boyfriend of yours. You're nothing but a mean slut. Who knows what other things you do!"

When she heard the 's' word, Shilpa's face instantly changed and did something unthinkable. She removed the black heel slipper from her right foot and started spanking Dulquer with it!

And instead of backing away Dulquer tried to shove the slipper back on her face.

Oh. My. God.

I could not believe what I was seeing. Two teenagers from elite class families were fighting like monkeys. Okay, monkeys don't spank each other with high heel slippers. But still!

Pooja and Oviya went and tried to pull aside Shilpa but she seemed to be overcome with a mad rage and went on spanking Dulquer. I stood there unable to move, my suspicion on Shilpa increasing manifold. Why was she behaving like this all of a sudden? She was always a diva, but had never lost her control.

Arjun and Kishan together fell on top of Dulquer and tried to drag him away. The stupid guy was still trying to hit back Shilpa.

Raghav along with me stared at the scene, open mouthed. He was completely stumped by his girlfriend's action.

They finally managed to pull away Dulquer. Shilpa fell to the floor with her heel slipper still in her hand.

"What in the fucking world are you guys doing?" Kishan literally yelled at them.

I was seeing him lose his temper for the first time. And I couldn't blame him. I myself felt like giving both Shilpa and Dulquer, a solid slap on the face, each.

"Someone call Roma", said Arjun.

"No!" said Oviya, "She'll only make this worse!"

Resisting the urge to slap her, I went and sat down next to Shilpa, "Are you hurt?" I asked cautiously.

"You're asking that to her?" Dulquer snapped at me, "Madam, I was the one who got spanked with a slipper!", he then pointed to Shilpa, "She is a psycho! Someone take her to the mental hospital!"

"Enough with your nonsense", said Arjun said firmly, "Just be quiet. Both of you need to calm down".

Dulquer didn't say anything. But he looked very flustered. But then, anyone would be, if they had just been spanked with a slipper. Still, he wasn't any better than Shilpa. He shouldn't have called her a slut.

Shilpa got up finally and stomped back to the suite with her slipper still in her hand.

Dulquer followed Shilpa's action but a little more dramatically and marched off from the place.

"Seriously!", Oviya scoffed "Just because they have the same first name, the guy goes around thinking he is Dulquer Salmaan".

I turned to Raghav, "Dude, couldn't you say something to Shilpa?".

"If I had said something, she would've spanked me too with that slipper", he said.

"Are you afraid of your own girlfriend?", I asked in disbelief.

"Not afraid. Just being sensible", he shrugged unapologetically.

"Let's go back to the rooms before someone comes up", Arjun said, "I'm surprised they haven't already. I'm sure we were making quite a chaos".

"What if something happens in tonight?" asked Raghav looking slightly wary.

"Then let's all die", Arjun said.

"Arjun come on", said Rubina. She had talked very little all evening. Even Arjun looked surprised to see Rubina directly addressing him.

"There's no need to talk like that. Nothing will happen", Rubina continued, "If at all anything happens, I'll be there to save you. I could dive infront of a bullet for you".

Yikes! The useless bitch was flirting with my brother even after all the shit that had happened.

My opinion about Rubina had changed to some extent after her split with Arjun, but it all reversed back to square one now, in a second. And I couldn't picture the self obsessed Rubina diving in front of a ball of socks for anybody, let alone a bullet.

"Do the rest of us look stupid?" Raghav asked.

"Are you sure you want to hear the answer to that?", Rubina asked turning to Raghav.

I sighed. If there was a competition of who was the most shitty person out of the lot, it would be a very very tough competition.

"Let's go to sleep", Kishan suggested.

But I didn't go to sleep. I and Pooja sat talking in our suite long after the other girls had fallen asleep.

"You're right", Pooja told me "It really could be the guy we saw on the terrace who's doing all this".

"Do you think that guy could be someone from the other family on this floor?" I asked.

"But that family wasn't here the last time we came here. They're here only for a week", Pooja confirmed.

"Oh" I said puzzled.

"Hey why don't we do something? Let's go and take a picture of that drawing so that we can later try to figure out what it means!"

"Good idea", I said "But I'm too scared".

"Oh come on, now. Let's go", said Pooja for once, more enthusiastic than me as she hauled me up and dragged me out.

I anxiously followed her gripping my phone in my hand but when we reached there..

"It's gone", Pooja almost screamed.

It was. The drawing had disappeared. Just disappeared. It had been completely wiped out. You couldn't tell a drawing had been there only fifteen minutes ago.

The creamy brown wall stood infront of us clean and with no trace of pink.

Pooja gripped me, "Is this hotel really haunted then?"

"Let's go", I said faintly.

We turned and ran back to our suite without looking back.

Pooja grabbed her blankets and jumped into bed but I grappled around not knowing what to do.

I did what I usually did whenever I was clueless about what was next.

Called my mom.

We talked about school as always and then I finally told her about not feeling very safe. And when she asked me why, I told her about going out from my room a couple of times. I didn't tell her anything about the drawing or stuff. I knew she and dad would come there straight and drag both me and Arjun home.

"Well the hotel is pretty safe, so that's not a problem", I lied.

"Nowhere is safe if you roam around alone at night", mom rebuked me.

"That's true", I accepted "I won't do it again".

"I can sense there might be something more to this than what you're telling me Ananya", mom said.

God! She had guessed!

She continued, "And whatever it is, I'm gonna ask you and Arjun to stay out of it. Poking your nose into things that don't concern you is never a good idea", mom said.

Too late!

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