SHORT STORIES FRIDAYS (14)

GRACE’S WITCHY ADVENTURES : A PARANORMAL THRILLER BY ME.

The story so far:

Grace Royce accompanies her best friend and colleague, Sharmila Gupta’s wedding in Balrampur, Uttar Pradesh, India. When Sharmila shows her fiance’s photo, Grace is shocked because she has frequently seen him in her dreams forcing an innocent girl to suicide.

She saves Sharmila from marrying a criminal after nabbing him and his friends in a shameful act of trying to hang an innocent girl.

Grace has recurring dreams of Sharmila attempting suicide when the friends are holidaying in Dehradun. Her fear is about to materialize after their trip. Grace skilfully revisits the past and alters everybody’s memories to stop the wagging tongues of people from hurting Sharmila. She thwarts the attempt of a mad scientist X, in Australia, who is watching the proceedings, to kill Sharmila.

He stages small accidents which Grace is unable to prevent. Finally, he is able to cause a hit and run accident leading to Sharmila’s death. Grace is mourning the loss of her good friend while blaming herself for failing to protect her. She has a strange dream at night, where she finds herself in her bedroom in Australia. Her dead parents appear before her and they take her into the alternative future time zone, had Sharmila lived. Whatever she witnesses is awfully shocking to her.

She sees the evil side of Sharmila abusing her friendship and taking advantage of her. She is horrified to see her best friend kidnapping and sacrificing her with the help of a mysterious stranger. She comes back to her room with her parents and Sharmila’s soul pays her a visit. She explains how she was cursed by her grandma after she accidentally killed her grandfather who was bedridden with cancer. When she clarified that it was just an accident, her grandma realized her folly and offered a choice to die young before the curse could materialize or live a long cursed life. She had chosen the former. Sharmila warns her to be careful.

Grace decides to investigate Sharmila’s death and views the CCTV footage that shows the car which ran her over. She finds that it belonged to Vinod Mohan, Vivek’s ( Sharmila’s former fiance) younger brother. She approaches the police and hands them the evidence. Vinod claims of innocence and says that he had lent his vehicle to a friend who reported it missing. Grace is frustrated and prays to Sharmila for guidance.
Grace sees identical bracelets on the wrists of Vivek and Sharmila in her dreams. She requests Sharmila’s mother for the bracelet and discovers the hidden microchip which alerts X in Australia because both the bracelets were connected to his destiny machine. He orders Vivek’s death which leaves Grace completely stumped.

X is surprised to find his mentor Edward Fox’s son Stewart on his doorstep. Stewart is shocked to hear about Sharmila’s death. He takes X to task for acting in a haste and tells him about Sharmila’s past. Both of them are planning to bring her back from the land of death to wreak havoc on earth which Grace sees in her dream.

Grace questions Sharmila’s spirits and discovers the identity of her killer. Grace leaves to Australia with Sharmila’s parents. She requests Sharmila to infiltrate X’s gang to uncover clues and prevent him from carrying out the dangerous task of reviving her. She spots X and enters his body in the presence of Stewart. X gets into trouble after misbehaving with a waiter and Stewart slaps him. He drags him out of the cafe as they go back to their hideout. And now:

Chapter 9:

The fun has just begun.

Grace waited for Sharmila’s phone call. She was getting worried because it was evening and there was no news from her. Meanwhile, Sharmila was having fun playing a poltergeist. When they entered X’s hideout, she snatched the phone of the bodyguard and moved away before she called Grace. She said, ” I have managed to enter X’s body and reached his hideout. Listen, I want to create a rift between his henchmen before we could stop X from executing his evil plan.” She went on to tell Grace how she had got X into trouble. Her friend roared with laughter but finally sobered up.

Sharmila convinced her that she would be fine and would meet her in person, rather than calling her, using a different mobile each night.They ended the call with Sharmila promising to visit her at the weekend in her spiritual form. Sharmila ( in X’s body) quietly handed back the phone to the bodyguard after deleting the call. X chuckled,” I forgot to charge my phone and I had to call someone urgently. Anyway, thanks for your help.”

The bodyguard who looked like gorilla could hardly believe his eyes and ears. X had a reputation of being rude and downright nasty. “No problem, Boss,” he grinned. Sharmila left X’s body to float around and find out what’s happening. She saw Stewart working on a gadget that resembled a thick bracelet. There was the destiny changing machine invented by X on his right and connected to the laptop. Sharmila was alarmed. She had to do something to sabotage both the machines.
She saw X taking out his mobile and arguing with his bodyguard that his mobile was fully charged and he didn’t understand what the guard was blabbering about.

She giggled and re-entered X’s body. Now, X’s demeanor had completely changed. He started acting coy and behaving like a cross dresser. He battled his eyelashes and said, ” I am sorry, handsome. Why don’t we play a game of love?” It was precisely the moment, Stewart stepped out of the lab. He was so furious that he kicked his butt, causing X to fall face down. The bodyguard failed miserably to suppress his laughter. Stewart turned to face him. He said, ” Do you think it’s funny to laugh at someone’s misfortune? You are fired. Collect your belongings and leave.” The bodyguard pleaded with him to give him another chance but Stewart stomped off to another room, dragging a bewildered X along with him. Sharmila left X and entered the guard’s body. She took out the smartphone and started clicking the pictures. One of X’s men spotted him taking the pictures of every single room. ” Hey” Guard no. 2 asked, “You aren’t supposed to click the pictures. This place is supposed to be hidden.”

The former guard replied, ” Our boss has lost his marbles. His partner saw him making a pass at me and kicked him. I laughed and I got sacked. I will share these pictures with you so that the new asshole can’t fire you. We can also extort money to keep our mouths shut.” The second guard was very greedy and gave in to the temptation. They circulated the confidential pictures among themselves.

The first guard who took the original pictures, went to the lab, much to the surprise of his friends because they were not allowed anywhere near the lab. He knocked at the door. Stewart opened it with a shock registering on his face. ” How dare you defy my orders?” he yelled, ” You aren’t supposed to be here. The lab is meant for geniuses like us. You are just a lowly servant who just got fired.”

The guard sneered at him and said, ” I would watch out for my mouth, if I were you. I guess I have to subject you to a shock treatment.” He showed his phone containing the photos of the hidden rooms storing the weapons, drugs, and stolen idols, besides, complicated machinery parts. The guard saw his smug expression turning into that of a frightened child. He said, ” I have forwarded these pictures to my friends working for you and your gay partner. If you sack any of us, we will forward these pictures to the Australian Police. Your future will be permanently behind bars.” ” What do you want?” asked Stewart. The guard replied, ” First, reinstate me into your employment. Secondly, you will treat us like your colleagues and not your servants. See to it that Mr. Pervert doesn’t misbehave with any of us.”

Stewart agreed to all his conditions. The guard returned with a smile on his face and briefed his friends about the exchange. His friends beamed upon him as their hero. Sharmila left his body and the guard looked confused as there was a huge celebration going on.

Sharmila entered the lab and watched X and Stewart having a discussion. They were ready to fuse their machines together to bring her back from the jaws of death. What’s going to happen now? Can Sharmila’s spirit stop them? Or is it too late to avoid a huge disaster? Watch out for the next episode of Grace’s Witchy adventures.

Thank you so much for taking your precious time to visit my website. Hope you enjoyed reading my blogs. 😊😊