Hostel Murder

The Strange Sight

"No way! it couldn't be.. ", Raghav thought.

"VARUN?!!!", he exclaimed.

Varun was his childhood friend. They had studied till 4th grade together. Due to some financial problems, he had to leave school. Raghav still recalled the day he had cried when Varun had to leave all of s sudden. The childhood memory ran a shudder down his spine, as he recalled how childish he had been.

Till then they haven't met each other except the fact that they followed each other on i********:.

"Yeah Man!, so good to see you after a long time", replied Varun happily since they were having a reunion.

"So, MIT ha? looks like someone kept studying hard", said Raghav smiling.

"No, No, I was on the waiting list bro, just got the call today that I got in..", replied Varun in a serious tone. There was an awkward silence. This made Raghav feel bad since he got in with a good grade and scholarship.

"Oh! , it's fine, at least you got in, most of them don't, anyway happy to see you mate", said Raghav while hugging his old friend.

"Go to your respective rooms!", shouted the Vice-Principal.

"Yes Mam, we are about to leave... ", replied Varun.

They started walking back to the hostel talking about how strict the college is and also the Vice-Principal.

"So, see you around bro, Bye! ", said Raghav and walked away in the direction of the hostel. Before that, he had to unload his urine tank since he was holding it from the morning. He walked as quickly he could to find a toilet. And after asking the directions from a lot of students on the way, he finally reached a washroom at the end. He ran straight into it and locked the door.

Later, he heard some footsteps approaching the bathroom.

"I heard all the boys are not that good looking", said a girl voice entering the toilet with a group.

"Yeah, all are nerdy guys!", replied her friend in a shaming tone.

*Raghav knew he had messed up bad*

"Oh, I think I'm in the girls' toilet!", thought Raghav worried sick.

"And that Vice-Princi, what an arrogant lady right?", the girls kept talking about the college and blah blah...

Raghav waited patiently for them to leave, but it took a while for them to stop chit-chatting. After they left, he slowly came out through the backdoor and went outside as a rat sneaking out of a hole. He thought no one noticed him,

"Oh, Hello!, where do you think you are going? ", a voice called him from behind. He turned around a saw a lady in a saree, staring at him.

"To my room..", replied Raghav acting as nothing happened.

"Then what are you doing in the girls' toilet?", she asked him furiously.

Raghav knew there was no way out of this and he said the truth,

"Aunty, I'm a fresher, I didn't notice the board, I'm sorry, please don't complain to anyone." cried Raghav.

"Hahaha, I'm just messing, MY GOD!, she replied laughing so hard seeing his innocence and blush.

Raghav walked back to the hostel thinking how could this morning get any better. First the scooter incident, then getting picked up by the Principal, and now this!.

"It's not like I purposely did any of these, yeah, except for the first one", thought Raghav smiling at what he had experienced.

He reached the front door of his room and saw it was now unlocked. He opened it and saw Varun there,

"Varun? !!", what are you doing here? , said Raghav surprised.

"Quite a small world, ha? , Well looks like I'm your roommate", replied Varun in a jolly voice who knew Raghav was gonna be his room buddy.

"Wait.. you knew before?".

"Duh!, it's written outside the room dude.."

"Yeah, how silly ... looks like you have to bear with me for the rest of the three years, Varun".

"Lol, I was gonna say the same thing dude".

Raghav and Varun had a small chat about their family, how they were holding up, where they lived etc. They were happy for each other since it's very rare to get your childhood friend as your college roommate. Time went quickly as they talked.

"Well, it's lunchtime, let's go eat, Varun", said Raghav who was famished.

"Yeah, let's go".

They got out of the room and was about to leave when they heard,

"You boys heading out? , said a lady voice familiar.

"Oh, Yes, we were about to leave for lunch", replied Varun as if he knew her before.

"This is my friend and roommate, Raghav",

"Raghav, meet Malavika aunty, she is the one that helped me find my room this morning, and also she works here as a maid", Varun added.

"Call me Malavika, and yes I think I have met your friend before", she replied smiling.

Well of course they did. She was the one who caught Raghav sneaking out of the girl's toilet.

"Yeah, Yeah, I have seen you somewhere I think", replied Raghav rubbing his hair in an awkward manner giving a fake smile to her.

"How can you forget, I was the one who told you that the orientation had started in the morning when you first came here", said Malavika, still smiling.

"Oh, it was you? , thank you Malavika", replied Raghav.

"See you around boys, hope you know the directions to the boy's toilet", she said looking at Raghav. She then walked away leaving Raghav cringed and Varun confused.

"Boys toilet? what is she talking about?, asked Varun.

"Aaah, who knows..crazy women, let's go man", replied Raghav.

They went in search of the hostel canteen to eat, but it was quite easy to find. The aroma of biriyani was spreading all around the college campus. They found the canteen but were amazed to see the queue for biriyani. It was quite long for the boys, but it was worth the wait.

"Man, it's just amazing right?", said Varun.

"Yeah, nice biriyani..", he replied.

"What's the plan after this?".

"Nothing, let's just explore the campus".

"Great plan Raghav!".

After lunch, they left to look around the campus. Saw a lot of banyan trees, monkeys climbing them, some deers jumping here and there. The MIT campus was a real beauty. They were about to return to the hostel when Raghav noticed something strange that caught his binocular eyes.

"Are you okay? what happened?", asked Varun.

"Oh, Nothing, let's go, it's already getting late..", Raghav replied.

"Wake up Raghav!", shouted Varun.

"It's 10 am, the breakfast will get over", he added.

"But, it is Sunday, right?

"So what, they will close the cafeteria now, wake up dude!",

"Yeah, ok, I'm coming, gimme five mins", replied Raghav.

While brushing his teeth, the only thing he could think about was the strange view that he saw yesterday. He first thought it was just a dream. But, No, he was sure what he saw was real.

"Hey, come on, get out, it's getting late", shouted Varun.

"You go, I have a bad stomach ache! , Raghav shouted back.

"Oh, ok, TC man, bye", Varun replied and ran to the cafeteria.

Raghav checked if Varun had left. He knew this was the right opportunity to check out for the thing that he saw yesterday. He put some clothes on and ran to the toilet where he had met Malavika. He searched everywhere for her but couldn't find her. Later, he was about to go meet Varun when suddenly heard,

"Looking for someone?", Malavika asked.

Raghav turned and saw her wearing a beautiful saree, her eyes were sparkling and done, red pale lips, the skin had some dirt from all the work, and a fine stomach, exposing her navel. Raghav forgot what to ask.

"Oh, just looking for Varun, yeah..", he replied.

"He might be somewhere in the cafeteria, I always spot him there", she said.

"Oh, thank you, and where are you beautiful lady headed to?.."

"Nowhere, just heading home early, got an occasion.."

"What's the occasion, if I may ask?"

"Ah, it's my son, he is turning two today", she said joyfully.

"Ahha!, my wishes and greetings to that young man".

"Thank you Raghav, it means a lot... you should come by sometime",

"Sure, Sure, would love to", he replied.

He badly wanted to ask her about what he saw yesterday. But, since it was a wonderful moment, he didn't want to ruin it for her.

"Ok bye! Raghav, I'm late for my bus", Malavika said and departed.

Raghav was still staring at her figure mouth opened wide, and waving bye. He wanted to know more about that incident.

"Hey, who you waving at?", Varun asked.

"Aaah, no one, just some mosquito disturbing me since morning", replied Raghav waking up from his stunning reality of waving Malavika.

"You are one crazy guy, you know that right?, said Varun laughing.

"hahaha, how was the breakfast dude? ", he replied faking a laugh and diverting the topic.

"It was lame, some pale dosas and chutney",

"Oh, it's always like that, they give you good food the first day for the best impression on the canteen, but the next day onwards, it only gets worse", replied Raghav.

"Yeah, true facts. Well, how is your stomach by the way?".

"It's hot!", replied Raghav thinking about Malavika's body.

"WHAT?!!", exclaimed Varun.

"I mean, it was hot in the morning from all the spices of the chicken I ate last night, now it's alright", he replied thinking how careless he was.

"Hmm, let's head to our room", Varun replied.

"No, wait, got to buy some books from the stationary... you coming?", Raghav asked.

"Yeah, Sure! Let's go".

So, both of them headed to the stationary. Raghav was busy buying books on one side while Varun was asking some dumb questions to the old man at the counter.

"How much for one pen?", asked Varun.

"It's 7 Rupees", the man replied.

"What is the size of it?", continued Varun.

"I don't know, son", that poor man replied.

"Well, that's enough", interfered Raghav handing over the books to the man.

"That would be 40 Rupees", he said giving a smile to Raghav.

Raghav paid for the books and both of them fled from there. After roaming around the campus for some time, they headed back to their room. Later that day, they had a small argument about teasing old people where Raghav raised his voice on Varun. For the past 30 mins, they didn't talk, was just sitting idle.

After a while, Varun felt sorry about what he did and apologized to Raghav. He went and sat next to him,

"I'm sorry mate, It's my fault," said Varun keeping his hands on Raghav's lap.

"It's alright," he replied happily.

Little did Raghav know that this incident was going to take their friendship to another level.

The call for class rang, and without much talk, we had to get to our batches.

It was a bit too awkward with Varun walking with me holding my hand, a few inches behind while I tried to get my head immersed in the corridor and its new faces. Girls of all sizes walked around, slyly, giggling and slapping backs while boys on the opposite corner, with long beards and incoming mustaches, barked loudly.

"Any girls turning you on?"

"You already did", he whispered and ran off. I laughed it off and reconsidered his choice of having him as a roommate.

Everyone looked like us, all childish and with sticking out hairs here and there, and the great testosterone charge to get girlfriends and love stories, but it sounded funny if anybody actually admitted if they were in college for that instead of lousy grades.

Nothing made us look like we were in college, except for the fact we tried to look all big and matured.

We had reached our room. It was at the corner and it shined in a scribbled black label, S1 A; which must probably mean semester 1 A batch.

Varun ended up reading it as "SIA" and starting singing Chandelier, which did catch a lot of undesired attention that I had to push him into the class, hiding my face.

"Wtf bro?"

He raised his brows and winked, clearly making me uncomfortable.

I looked around, for the first glimpse of my classroom. Specifically, it was a bitter mess. The front rows looked clean and washed away as if nobody gave a damn about it while the crowd was in the back.

Varun marked for his big brains ran for the last bench and put down his buttocks immediately as a girl in short skirts walked forward.

"Its mine"

"No, I sat here first!", he screeched.

"But my pinky is there!"

"So?! You should have sat next to your pinky kitty", Varun tossed the bag to the side and sat down, gesturing for me to come.

But my mind was elsewhere.

Even when that girl went, "Baby, he stole my place!" and turned to some huge muscular dude in black in order to kill my dearest friend, my eyes were elsewhere.

Through the large window of the classroom which was guarded by grills, I saw a sight. A rather disturbing one.

It looked like it was the opposite building, where the principal's room was.

The second floor, the third room; yes, of course, the Princi's chamber.

The door opened and out walked a rather smiling Principal and that someone.

My eyes went so wide.

Last time too, she had.....

No way....!

Bloody hell!