Rage outflowing, head spinning round I took the pen knife from my pocket, ran at the evil woman and stabbed right near her breast bone. The sharp edge penetrated deep inside her.
Suddenly a bright white light blinded my eyes. My eyes witnessed her black dress transforming into a shining white gown and her thick black hair braided with white roses. It was MOM. The same woman whom I called as my mom. Her eyes were teary but her smile was beautiful.

In horror I took away the knife only to find my smiling mom with her hand raised towards me vanishing into thin dust. ‘’Why are you staring at the ceiling? I know that the paint has fainted gravely but what to do?’’ Salim’s rapid entry shifted my gaze. ‘’Now Mr. Jones had called. He said we will have to postpone the demolishing by two weeks.’’ I couldn’t concentrate on what he was saying but when he said the demolishing is postponed I got relieved as there is time to figure out everything, everything that I thought I knew, everything which was a nothing.

‘’ Salim, do you know if anyone was living here after the accident?’’ ‘’Obviously no.’’ Salim answered. ‘’Who do you think would live in such a broken house. By the way, why are you asking this now?’’

My heart pounded at the question. I replied, ‘’ No nothing. I simply asked. It’s been a while being here so I don’t know anything about this place after the explosion.’’

We went to have lunch shortly after. All I could reflect upon was the evil voice. Was it my mom? No way, it could never be her. Then who? Maybe what if it’s some hallucination? Believing that it would have been my hallucination, I tried to forget the whole thing. The whole thing began replaying in my head. Frankly I am very bad at keeping secrets especially something as this which has shaken everything out of me. ‘’Salim I want to tell you something.’’ I started off till the end of my tale. I thought he would consider this as a joke. But my expectation was ruined when Salim asked, ‘’Where is the knife?’’

Salim and I are college buddies. We studied together for five years. He was more than a friend, my brother. From bunking classes to the last drunken road adventure which ended up in an arrest, he was my family. We rushed into the living room in search of the knife. Since it was dark inside the hall, I held the torch while Salim searched for the knife. ‘’Yo, we found it.’’ I rushed to the spot where Salim stood. The knife had a black coloured fluid on the pointed edge. This made Salim to believe what I had seen. Salim said, ‘’ what is this black fluid?’’ I replied, ‘’ I don’t know. Let’s wipe it and see.’’ I erased the knife into a tissue. As I cleaned off the fluid, the black colour changed into dark red colour as of blood and the knife just vanished from my hands. It was such a terrifying ordeal. It scared the hell out of Salim that he did not show any movement for the next ten minutes.

We both sat on the floor without speaking a word. The hair on my right arm stood still. After what seems like a thousand years of silence, Salim spoke up, ‘’something is wrong in here. We need to discover it out before the mansion will be smashed.’’

I agreed by nodding my head. ‘’From the instant you had told about the apparition of the women till this moment, there is only one question in my head and it is not a very pleasing question. But still I will ask you. How did that explosion happen?’’

That’s the mystery I haven’t searched for. The thing I have been trying to forget for years. ‘’Since the explosion, I was taken care by the church. In order to make me forget everything, they shifted my schooling to an entirely unfamiliar place. Hence I never enquired about the accident to anyone.’’ Salim said, ‘’ I am sure the police station would have recorded this case. Why don’t we search at the local police station? It would be better to discuss such a personal matter face to face. Let’s go now itself to the police station.’’

As I was about to shut the door, the same woman dressed in black with a crooked smile on her face spoke in a malicious tone, ‘’the last war has just begun.’’ Despite the room being so dark, I could see my dad, mom and sister standing on her side.