Present
Karan aimed the gun at Arjun as Arjun was on his knees and puking. The shot was fired, and a shocked Arjun turned back to see Karan holding the weapon. He fell to the ground and let out a scream that was so shrill it shook Karan and brought him down to his knees. Karan was in shock and was paralyzed by fear. A dark liquid oozed out of Arjun, encompassing everything in its way, and got closer to Karan each second.
Karan was terrified of that fluid; he somehow knew that if it touched him, he would be dead instantaneously. He tried to move, but no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't. The fear had paralyzed him. The fluid had now encompassed everything in front of Karan, and it was just seconds away from consuming him.
Karan fell down from the bed and woke up from a terrible nightmare. It was one of his sleep paralysis incidents that had grown more frequent, so much so that he had begun to sleep in a separate bed to prevent Mohini from getting hurt by his impulsive actions to break out of that paralysis.
It was early morning, and Karan splashed cold water into his face. He couldn't go back to sleep now. If he went back, it was almost sure that he would enter another paralysis incident again.
Karan was in his early forties, with a spray of white hair over his head, a receding hairline, and a grizzly beard. He had worn his shiny black night clothes as he sat down on his head. He had gained some weight over time and had a pot belly.
Karan wore his headset, closed his eyes, and began to listen to classical music. The therapist had told him to listen to calming music whenever he had this paralysis incident. It gave him some temporary calm but was ineffective in reducing the incidents.
It had been fifteen years since that day. The day he had killed his friend. Since then, a lot has happened. His son, Gautam, was born a few months after that incident. He had concocted a believable story to tell Mohini and Katrina about Arjun's disappearance. Over time, Katrina moved on to another city, and Mohini forgot about Arjun.
Karan used the hidden money bit by bit to start his own business. He opened a grocery shop and soon made it profitable. He turned it into a grocery chain and expanded it throughout different cities. Soon, it extended beyond groceries and started to sell all kinds of foods, household equipment, electrical, fashion, and body care products.
He had started with one employee, and now he had more than three hundred thousand employees working all over the country for his chain, "K stores." This growth would not have been possible without the initial investment from the money he had stolen.
Karan was worth billions of dollars and had practically destroyed or bought competitors. Every politician, every judicial court judge, every police official in most of the major cities of the country were either his friends or took money from him and supported him.
Karan was at the peak of his career, with a happy family. Mohini was still with him, always supporting and caring for him, unaware of what it actually took for Karan to be this rich. She wasn't aware of the stolen money or about the murders or mysterious deaths of the people who opposed her husband and threatened his empire.
Gayatri was fifteen years old, a model student, and always got the best grades. Gautam was fourteen, a mischievous boy always getting into fights but nothing beyond a typical boy his age. Both were going to the top schools in the country and got everything they wanted before they could even ask. Despite being very busy, Karan always ensured he gave his family enough time and kept them happy.
Karan had a few loyal workers whom he could always trust. Sudhama, his chief of staff, had been with him for over ten years. Sudhama was the man who would do anything for Karan. There was no way to count all the things, both legal and illegal, that Sudhama had done for Karan to make him one of the wealthiest businessmen in the country.
Rama was the second in command to Sudhama; he had started out as an accountant but soon took multiple roles, from head of the department to several of the stores to communications head for the entire chain. Karan felt safe in the hands of these two people and their men.
Everything was going good until the sleep paralysis incidents started. It had been going on very frequently for almost a year, and it made Karan more and more tired each morning. Like he had to go to a battle every time to wake up. All those incidents were variations on the same theme.
Each involved Karan killing Arjun in that storage shed fifteen years ago. Arjun trying to say something moments before his death. But, Instead of words, some days a scream came out, some days a black liquid, and other days a terrifying music. Each of these would make Karan very scared. Trying to get out of the paralysis, he would end up forcing himself so much that he would end up kicking and writhing in the bed, unintentionally hurting his wife, or falling off the bed. Until he moved to a different bed to keep Mohini safe.
Every time, he would have the same nightmare. Still, for some reason, Karan couldn't tell those were his regular sleep paralysis events, which a lot of people suffering from sleep paralysis can tell. Every time, he would experience that incident as though it was happening for the first time, and he would try everything he could to get out of it.
These recurring sleep paralysis events began to affect his demeanor. He got cranky very quickly, scared away business clients through aggressive behavior, and sometimes even abused his workers when they didn't do something very mundane that he had asked them to do. Sudhama tried to console him and explain that this new behavior was bad for business, but Karan couldn't control it.
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Karan got a reality check on how bad this behavior was when, one night, he got angry at Gautam for breaking a porcelain vase in the house while playing. Karan lost his cool with his son and slapped him badly until his son's face turned red with his hand marks. Mohini had scolded him and threatened to go away with the kids if this behavior continued. Gayatri had not spoken to him since then. Karan took that seriously and secretly began to meet a therapist.
Of course, he couldn't tell the therapist that he had killed Arjun, and all his sleep paralysis incidents involved repeating that killing. So, he came up with another believable thing, where he pretended that he was abused by his father as a kid, and every time he had paralysis, his mind replayed the abuse his father gave him. The therapy seemed to help a little, and he was able to control his anger better than before. Still, it did nothing to reduce the frequency of incidents.
The paralysis incidents got more and more common until it was happening every day.
As Karan sat on his bed, listening to the calming music, feeling very tired before even the day had started, he decided to find a permanent solution. If not, then everything he had built would crumble, or even with everything, he would lead a miserable life.
Karan called Sudhama, "Cancel all my meetings today. Book an early appointment with the therapist."
***
"I haven't been telling you the truth, doctor," said Karan.
"I thought so," replied the therapist.
The therapist was a thin man with a bald head and thick glasses. He wore his usual formal wear and was seated opposite Karan in a comfortable chair. There was a small table between them, and the walls were covered with strange paintings on one side and a bookshelf on the other.
"Here's the thing, I had a friend called Arjun fifteen years ago. He disappeared, and no one has been able to find him since. My sleep paralysis incidents are usually associated with him."
The therapist listened carefully and made notes periodically.
"Every time I see that I am the one who kills him, weird things happen from that point until I force myself to wake up. I hid this fact as it sounds like Arjun didn't disappear, and it was I who killed him in real life, too."
The therapist asked a few more questions, and Karan answered, maintaining that lie. The therapist realized the desperation in Karan's voice, who wanted to get rid of these nightmares every morning, so he decided to understand those nightmares clearly.
"I will hypnotize you, ask you a few more questions, and provide instructions that will lead you to this nightmare. I want to see and hear everything that happens throughout this incident," said the therapist.
Karan knew that they could permanently silence the therapist even if anything happened. Sudhama and his men were waiting outside the room if needed. As Karan agreed to the hypnotism, he was taken to another room on the backside of the therapist's office. This room had a bed on it and nothing else. It was very bland when compared to the colorful walls of the office. Karan lay on the bed as the therapist went on to place him in hypnosis.
Before he knew it, Karan had slipped into deep sleep, and the therapist's voice sounded like it was coming from a different place. Everything got blurry for a few minutes, and then it became clearer. There he was, back in the storage shed all those years ago. There was a gun in his hand aimed at the kneeling Arjun.
The trigger was pressed, and a hole was created in the heart of Arjun. Arjun turned back in shock and fell; before he took his last breath, he said something. In all those other nightmares, Karan could never hear what Arjun was saying; it was always gibberish or music or a scream.
This time, it was different.
Arjun was finding it difficult to put the words together, but he died before he could say anything.
Karan stood in silence, unable to move due to some unknown force. Just then, the vomit around Arjun's mouth began to move. The blood around his heart began to flow out of his chest. It mixed with the vomit, and a disgusting fluid was formed. This fluid began to move towards Karan, burning everything in its path.
Karan tried to run away, but he was stuck in his place; the fluid was all over him before he could even think about a plan to escape. It burned him wherever it touched. The fluid seemed to have a life of its own and pushed him towards Arjun. The fluid had covered him from head to toe and pushed him until his ear got so close to Arjun's mouth.
Karan was trying to escape and scream from the pain, but he could do neither of that. The fluid around his ear moved away as the dead Arjun spoke, "When you think you have everything in your life, when you feel you are on top of the world, everything you hold dear will be taken from you."
Those words were more painful than the burning fluid. Karan completely stopped fighting against the fluid's pulling power and gave up. His vision got blurry until it was covered by the reddish-white fluid before everything turned black.
The darkness turned into a blurry thing, and slowly, the room's white ceiling came into view. The hypnosis had been removed. The therapist was standing next to him; he seemed to be sweating.
"That was something," he said after wiping off the sweat from his forehead.
Karan sat on the side of the bed and drank some water that was kept to his side.
When you think you have everything in your life, when you feel you are on top of the world, everything you hold dear will be taken from you.
Who is going to take everything away from us?
Karan was still thinking about the nightmare he just had. It seemed like there was a voice in his head talking to him.
"I think you might have to get some serious treatment; this is beyond me," said the therapist.
We don't need any treatment!
"Is there no alternative?"
"I think your condition is more extreme than I had in mind. I know you are busy, but you need to put everything aside and focus on this before it becomes a real problem."
Nothing is wrong with us! Why does he want us to get away from our business unless he wants to…
Karan asked, "Do you want to take everything away from me?"
"What? I…" Before the therapist could say anything, Karan pounced him with his hands tightly around the guy's neck, and he squeezed on it with all his might. The therapist tried to scream, but his trachea was broken within seconds, and he was a thin guy with not much strength to push away Karan.
The guy was dead within minutes.
That's what happens if anyone tries to take away anything from us.
Sudhama walked in after hearing the sound of a scuffle in the therapist's office. He saw Karan was sitting on the therapist with his hands over the guy's neck. The therapist had a contorted face with his tongue sticking out; he wasn't moving.
Karan looked at Sudhama, and Sudhama could see the fire in Karan's eye. He had never seen his boss that way. There was an anger in that face which he had never seen. But Sudhama was experienced; he wouldn't lose it in a situation like this.
"Boss, stay here. There are a few people in the waiting area. I will figure out a way."
"Kill them," said Karan.
"Boss, calm down," said Sudhama, even as he realized that killing them was the only way that no one would be suspicious and not tell tales after the therapist's death was made public.
"Your men are here with guns; kill those people. This is an order," said Karan with a threatening voice.
"Got it, boss. I will handle this."