SHORT STORIES FRIDAYS (25)

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.Sharmila decides to have fun at X’s expense. She enters his body, snatches the phone from one of the guards and calls Grace with the update. X returns the phone with a thanks. His guard is pleasantly surprised. When X comes to his senses, his guard appreciates him for his good manners which X vehemently denies.

Sharmila re-enters his body and X turns into a pervert. Stewart kicks him while the guard chuckles and gets fired. Sharmila possesses him and manages to capture the incriminating photos of the hideout. The guard visits the lab and blackmails Stewart to reinstate his job Or face the police. He has already forwarded these pictures to other men as a precaution and potential blackmail. Stewart and X are ready to merge their sinister machines as Sharmila is shocked and contemplating how to stop these villains from carrying out their evil plan.She foils their attempt to revive her with their combo machine by entering X’ s body and making him enter wrong password that destroys their project. She leaves him and possesses Stewart who tries to seduce X. They fight with each other and while they are discussing the chain of events, they eventually find out about Grace and try to kill her by sending their assassin.

Grace has a nightmare and witnesses her own death. When she wakes up, she’s shocked to find a stranger holding a sharp knife in her room and she screams.She sees a stranger about to murder her but it turns out that Sharmila had entered his body and tells her about her involvement in the case being discovered. She requests her to fake her death so that X and his men will stop making attempts on her life. The man leaves with his partner who was about to set the house on fire. He convinces him not to clean up the act. They are being followed by their own gang members who end up being dead because of the assassin’s quick thinking. He sends the confidential info to the police and alerts X about the betrayal of his men whom he had to kill, thus, getting away from the crime itself. X and his men are hiding, watching the police raiding their den. The next day, Sharmila’s mother enters her room and screams.

Grace wakes up and tells her about Sharmila’s soul. She acts as a medium and Sharmila talks to her mother. The assassin sent by X to kill Grace has forgotten what he did because Sharmila had possessed his body. He wants to know how he ended up in Sydney when they had an important task. His partner shows him the pictures on his phone and says that their boss had asked them to go into hiding.

X and his friends are awestruck with the splendor of Stewart’s residence. Grace excuses herself from a tour with Sharmila’s parents. She is shocked to find a strange woman who appeared out of thin air into her room and claims to be her Aunt Ruby, the sister of Marge Royce, Grace’s mother.

Aunt Ruby tells Grace that she is a Princess of Witches and her parents are still alive and living in Queensland. Ruby produces a magic mirror in which Grace sees her past. She was on October 13, 1876 and a wicked wizard, Xander, her father’s friend turned foe is planning to Kill Grace but her father kills him. His evil spirit takes over her father, Reginald, and he tries to strangle her but fortunately her mother, Marge, saves her and hands her over to their trusted servants, Maria and Vincent, and time travel to 1994, with her memories modified. Ruby also warns her that her nemesis, Xander, has now reincarnated as X, Sharmila’s murderer and a crazed scientist. They wait for Sharmila’s parents to return and now:

Chapter 14:

A dangerous twist in the tale.

Grace waited for Sharmila’s parents to return. When they came back from their tour, she introduced them to her Aunt Ruby who was now dressed up in a modern attire. Aunt Ruby said, ” Mr. and Mrs. Gupta, on behalf of Grace and her family, I request you to spend some days with us in Queensland until Sharmila’s killer is caught. We have a reason to believe that the murderer is living here and Grace is working hard to collect evidence for his prosecution. Please think over this matter tonight because we have to leave by tomorrow morning.”

Mr.Gupta answered, ” We would love to come, if it isn’t too much bother for you. We are waiting for the murderer to be caught so that we can go back to live in India with Sharmila’s fond memories.” Ruby smiled at him and said,” It’s our pleasure to have you as our guests. In fact, had it not been for Sharmila, Grace wouldn’t have been alive.” The couple gave her an odd look while Grace nudged at her to be quiet. Grace replied, ” She means to say that I would have died in loneliness if I hadn’t met Sharmila. I had to live away from my family without any contact due to unavoidable circumstances.

Besides, I promised to visit them shortly. Don’t worry, Uncle. This stay is only for a short period and I assure you it won’t affect my investigation in any way.” Sharmila’s parents accepted her explanation and went to their room to pack their clothes. Aunt Ruby said, ” Sorry, Gracie. I almost made a slip about Sharmila’s presence as a spirit. I guess that they don’t know about your true identity. We will have to be very careful around them.”
Aunt Ruby magically got her luggage packed.

The next day, Grace, Ruby and Sharmila’s parents went to the airport. Ruby had cast a spell on the house to make it look like it had been destroyed by fire to the villains. She had anticipated that the goons would surely be back to confirm that Grace had indeed died and her house was set ablaze.

The assassin ( possessed by Sharmila) in Sydney felt something wrong with his partner’s explanation. He wanted to make sure that Grace was dead. He left his partner alone with a note and resumed his journey back to Melbourne. Fortunately, Grace and her Aunt Ruby with Sharmila’s parents had left for Queensland. The assassin hired a car and reached Grace’s residence. He was astonished to find it in ruins. He decided to contact X and tried calling him but the number wasn’t reachable. He drove the car to the old den and was surprised to find it devoid of any life form. He decided to drop the matter for the day and go back to his hotel. Unfortunately, a truck collided with his car and he ended up dead. His curiosity definitely got him killed.

Meanwhile, X and his friends were enjoying their stay at Stewart’s mansion. Stewart showed X and his 50 men their respective rooms. Later that night, they had a grand dinner consisting of fried chicken, roast beef, tomato soup, fried fish, kebabs, vegetable fried rice, and ice creams for dessert. Stewart asked X to send his men to retire for the day.

He said, ” I would like to show you something. You aren’t supposed to open your mouth and blabber what you saw to anyone. Your men can’t be trusted. I am sure it’s not their fault but promise me that you would keep quiet.” X nodded and they proceeded towards the library. As soon as they entered it, X was astonished to find plenty of expensive books from all the genres, fiction and nonfiction, nearly arranged in the wooden shelves in five rows with sufficient space to browse. There was a big mahogany table with plush comfortable chairs. They reached the end of the middle shelf and Stewart pressed a button on the wall. X was shocked to find the floor moving downwards. Stewart grinned at his confusion and said, ” This is a special escalator leading to my very special laboratory. No one knows about this place because I didn’t give anyone the access or privilege of visiting my lab. You are the first and the only one who can come here at anytime. But make sure that you are alone and none of your cronies come here. I don’t want our project resurrection to be ruined again.”

He led him towards an air-conditioned unit with sliding glass panels and a biometric system to gain entry. He punched in some numbers and X felt like he was in a Wonderland. There was a gigantic LED screen that showed what was going on in the mansion. There was a big control panel with many laptops and computers connected to it. X saw that Stewart had gathered the broken pieces of their joint venture on a big table and had started fixing the components.

Stewart chuckled, ” I bet you have never seen anything this grand in your life.” He led them to an antechamber in the lab. X saw a glass rod-like thing. Stewart said, ” I am now working on a special gadget to reveal the presence of any supernatural power so that I can trap it. I feel that we have failed in our earlier mission because of Sharmila’s ghost. She has been helping Grace and as per the pictures sent by your men, Grace is dead. What if one of them was possessed by her ghost and helped Grace to escape to safety?” X was taken aback by this mere suggestion but he didn’t know that Stewart was absolutely right. X asked him, ” What are you talking about?” Stewart replied, ” We have been fools. Don’t you think it’s weird how none of the newspapers or TV news channel aired any information on an arson and a death? Do you think it’s possible for a person to disappear without a trace? “

X was livid with the late realization dawning upon him. His own men had cheated him. But he couldn’t ignore the image of seeing Grace’s body and the fire engulfing her house. Stewart said, ” Don’t you worry, buddy. Even if she’s alive, we will find her out and hunt her. But we must trap her friend’s ghost to prevent her from helping Grace. ” Sharmila was horrified at the prospect of getting trapped forever. Stewart was too clever for his own good. She wondered, ” How did he find out about Grace being alive? I must warn her to leave Melbourne immediately.”

What’s going to happen to Grace and Sharmila’s ghost? Watch out for the next episodes because more magic and adventure are in store for you.

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