Adultery Priya Didi

[shailu4ever]

Monday Morning, Flat 205 (Silence, Curiosity, and Tension)
 

Ravi woke up with a start, the sharp rays of morning sunlight piercing through the half-open blinds. He blinked, disoriented for a moment, before glancing at the clock: 8:05 AM.
 
He groaned softly, the weight of another day pressing down on him. His eyes were heavy, the remnants of last night’s dreams still clinging to him, but he forced himself to sit up. He rubbed his face with his hands, trying to shake off the fog in his head.
 
The flat was still quiet, too quiet. The air felt thicker than usual, as if the weight of the silence had increased overnight. Ravi reached for his phone on the nightstand, a habit by now, to check for messages, calls, anything to break the stillness of the morning.
 
Nothing.
 
He scrolled through the screen, expecting to see at least a couple of messages from Neetu or Sirisha, they always checked in after their night out, especially if they had gone to the movie together.
 
But today, there was no trace of them. No playful goodnight texts, no witty emojis. It was as if they ignoring him.
 
Ravi frowned, a twinge of confusion tightening in his chest. It wasn’t like them. He couldn’t remember the last time a day had passed without at least a short text from Neetu or Sirisha, something light-hearted or teasing. Last night, he had heard nothing. This morning, still nothing. Silence.
 
He stared at the screen for a long moment, the hum of the city outside the window only adding to the unsettling quiet inside the flat. The more he thought about it, the stranger it seemed.
 
Without overthinking it, he dialed Neetu’s number, hoping to hear her voice, to get some reassurance that everything was fine, that maybe they’d just been busy. His phone beeped a few times. Then the tone changed.
 
“We’re sorry, the number you’re trying to reach is switched off or out of network coverage.”
 
He stared at the screen not understand what to think. What was going on? This wasn’t like her. He dialed again, a little more impatient this time. Same result. Her phone was off.
 
A small flicker of worry crept up his spine.
 
He tried Sirisha’s number next, his thumb moving quickly across the screen, dialling the number as though it might somehow fix the strange, uncomfortable feeling gnawing at him.

.

[shailu4ever]

.

 

The same thing. Switched off.
 
Ravi’s stomach tightened. A cold weight settled in his chest.
 
This wasn’t normal.
 
He had a fleeting thought: what if something had happened? What if there was some sort of emergency? Maybe it was just bad timing, a technical glitch, or they’d forgotten to charge their phones. But it didn’t feel like that. Something about the stillness, the lack of any communication, felt off. The weight of the silence grew heavier with every unanswered call.
 
He couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong.
 
He dialed Vamsi’s number, hoping for a breakthrough, maybe some clarity. Vamsi, despite his chaotic nature, was always in touch, always part of the late-night messages, the morning updates, always the first to send a meme or a ridiculous joke. But even Vamsi’s phone was switched off.
 
The call felt like a slow descent into a strange void. Ravi hung up, his hands suddenly clammy, his mind racing.
 
What was going on? Why wasn’t anyone answering?
 
He stood there, holding the phone in his hand, staring at the screen, his mind working over the possibilities. A dozen thoughts scrambled through his head, none of them making sense. Was it something he had missed? Was there something in the air, some unspoken tension that had built up without him realizing it?
 
No, that didn’t feel right either.
 
He shook his head, trying to clear the fog from his thoughts. No one had mentioned anything unusual the night before. The movie, the evening, it had seemed so normal. And yet, this morning, everything felt out of place.
 
Curiosity and unease swirled inside him.
 
Ravi had always prided himself on not letting his mind get carried away with what ifs, but today was different. Today, something was amiss, and he couldn’t ignore it. Maybe he was overreacting, but the silence, the complete absence of messages or calls from the people who were usually always in touch, was too much for him to dismiss.
 
He stood in the middle of the flat, unsure of what to do next. Call again? Wait it out?
 
And then, in an almost automatic movement, he grabbed his jacket from the back of the chair and slipped it on. The decision was made. The nagging curiosity, the unsettling feeling that something wasn’t right, was enough to push him out the door.
 
He headed toward Vamsi and Neetu’s flat, hoping to find some answer to the strange silence. But the tension in his chest didn’t loosen. If anything, it grew with every step he took.
 
 

-- oOo --

.

[shailu4ever]

Monday Morning – Outside Flat 401

 

Ravi stood in front of the mirror, adjusting the collar of his shirt. His fingers lingered on the top button longer than usual, almost as if by tightening it he could somehow control the restless swirl of thoughts in his mind. Maybe it was just the shirt, stiff and crisp from yesterday’s laundry. Or maybe it was him, scattered, preoccupied, weighed down by the quiet that had settled over the building since the morning.
 
He hadn’t received a single message from Sirisha or Neetu since last night. Normally, Neetu would have sent a cheeky “Good morning” or one of her teasing memes. Sirisha, even in the busiest of mornings, would have sent a playful “Hey Bhayya ?” or some string of laughing emojis. But today, nothing.
 
Ravi frowned. Maybe they were tired after the late movie yesterday. Or maybe they were giving him space, as they had seemed slightly distant when he left in the morning. Still, the absence of any contact felt odd, unsettling.
 
He grabbed his keys and locked Flat 205 behind him. The corridor stretched out in front of him, unusually quiet. Normally, the faint thrum of life, children rushing past, a distant radio, the clatter of utensils from the kitchens above, gave the hallway a sense of motion, a rhythm to which he could anchor himself. Today, it was silent. Too silent.
 
Ravi hesitated at the foot of the stairs. He glanced upward toward Flat 401, where Vamsi, Neetu, and Sirisha lived. He almost expected to see Sirisha’s ponytail bouncing as she descended the stairs, or hear Neetu’s teasing voice drifting down, joking about something trivial. Anything familiar to ground him.
 
But the higher floors remained mute, the silence pressing in like a weight.
 
He climbed the stairs slowly, each step deliberate. The worn wood of the staircase groaned under his weight, the sound strangely loud in the stillness. As he reached the 4th floor, Ravi froze.
 
The door to Flat 401 was ajar.
 
Just enough to be noticed. Too open. Too still.
 
His pulse quickened. He took a cautious step forward. Normally, the ajar door might have been unremarkable, perhaps a breeze had nudged it, perhaps someone had left it open for convenience. But today, the emptiness around it, the quiet in the corridor, made it look different, almost deliberate.
 
He squinted inside. A pair of sandals lay near the entrance, unfamiliar. Beside them, a duffel bag had been tossed carelessly. A faint, lingering smell of incense hung in the air, heavier than the mild aroma that sometimes drifted from the apartment. Something else, subtle but sharp, tickled his senses, maybe the faint trace of perfume, maybe the lingering scent of last night’s cooking. He couldn’t tell.
 
Low voices drifted from inside, murmured, cautious, deliberate. The tone was unlike anything he had ever heard from Neetu, Sirisha, or Vamsi. He tilted his head, trying to catch fragments.
 
The words didn’t make sense yet, but they pressed on him like a warning.
 

.

[shailu4ever]

.

Ravi swallowed hard. His throat was suddenly dry, his palms slick with sweat. He wanted to retreat, to run down the stairs and pretend he hadn’t noticed anything. But a stronger part of him, a curious, insistent part, kept him rooted. He had to know.

 
He cleared his throat softly.
“Excuse me… is Vamsi garu home?”
 
The murmuring ceased abruptly. A man, wearing a white shirt and holding a notepad, turned toward him. His face was neutral, unreadable, but his eyes flicked over Ravi with a subtle intensity that made Ravi uneasy. The man exchanged a glance with the woman sitting on the couch. She was older, perhaps in her forties, her posture stiff, her hand pressed against her chest as though trying to hold herself together.
 
The woman rose slowly, cautiously. Her movements were deliberate, almost mechanical.
“Who are you?” she asked, her voice low, measured, guarded.
 
“I’m Ravi,” he said, his words careful, cautious. “I live in 205… I’ve known them for some time.”
 
A long, suffocating silence followed. The woman’s eyes were moist, but distant, not quite focused on him. She seemed to be seeing something far away, something he could not. She opened her mouth as if to speak, but no words came.
 
The man stepped slightly forward, placing himself between Ravi and the doorway. His voice was soft but firm.
“Can you wait a moment?”
 
Ravi nodded, stepping back as instructed. His heart raced. The corridor suddenly felt colder, the morning sun filtering in weakly through the stairwell window doing nothing to warm the chill settling into his chest. He leaned against the wall across from the half-open door, trying to steady himself.
 
Inside, the voices resumed. Ravi caught fragments now, just enough to stir the unease into something darker:
 
“The accident happened around 8:15 PM…”
“A truck… highway bypass… the driver didn’t even stop.”
“We tried calling their phones all night… nothing… only this morning… the security officer…”
 
Ravi’s stomach turned. His legs felt weak. His mind tried to process, to rationalize. Perhaps these were relatives, people who lived nearby and had been contacted by the security officer overnight, arriving early in the morning to check on the family. It would make sense, logically. Yet, even as he tried to anchor himself in reason, his chest tightened, and a hollow ache began to spread.
 
He forced himself to stay still. His gaze fell to the photo frame lying near the entrance. A recent photograph of Vamsi, Neetu, and Sirisha, laughing on the balcony just a few days ago. The frame had been upright yesterday. Now, it lay fallen, glass edge scbanging the floor.
 
Ravi’s breath caught in his throat. His fingers clenched against the wall, damp with nervous sweat. His mind refused to accept the logic of the moment.
 
Inside, the murmuring continued, and the fragments of words began to take shape, each one striking him like a blow:
 
“All three… died at the scene.”
 
Time seemed to freeze. The hallway, the stairwell, the sunlight on the floor, it all vanished from his perception. His heart thundered in his chest, but no sound came from him. The reality of those words, the absolute finality, pressed down like an iron weight.
 
He could feel the absence, of laughter, of footsteps, of playful teasing, stretching out from Flat 401 and consuming the space around him. The corridor felt impossibly long, impossibly silent. Sirisha’s bubbly voice, Neetu’s laughter, Vamsi’s chatter, erased in a single moment.
 
Ravi’s legs shook, but he didn’t move. Not forward. Not back. He stayed leaning against the wall, staring at the ajar door, the voices inside now muffled by distance and the half-closed threshold. Each word he caught, each fragment, pressed into him, layering shock over confusion over disbelief.
 
The man in the white shirt moved slightly, flipping pages in his notepad, but did not acknowledge him. The woman sat quietly, her hands folded, her eyes wet. Their presence was a silent confirmation of something Ravi could hardly face yet.
 
He closed his eyes briefly, trying to steady his breath, to contain the swirl of panic, grief, and disbelief. The apartment, once a space of comfort and laughter, now felt like a hollow shell. The stillness was a physical weight pressing against him, an invisible hand squeezing tight around his chest.
 
Ravi’s gaze returned to the photo frame, now more painfully vivid than before, three faces alive, smiling, frozen in joy. He had laughed at that moment just days ago. And now… gone.
 
He didn’t step forward. He didn’t cry. He just stood there, frozen, suspended between disbelief and reality, listening to the voices inside, voices explaining, confirming, and yet somehow distant, muffled, unreal.
 
The corridor echoed with emptiness. Every detail he had taken for granted, the creak of the staircase, the hum of the morning, the distant chatter of neighbors, was gone. There was only the weight of the unknown, the silence of tragedy, and the unbearable stillness pressing down around him.
 
Ravi’s breath came shallow, ragged. His body felt heavy, his mind numb. And in that moment, he understood, nothing would ever be the same.
 
 

-- oOo --

.