Short Story - fiction

It was past midnight when the train screeched to a halt at some unknown station. Shruti woke up. Surprisingly, the compartment was empty. She peered outside the window and no one was in sight. She noticed that beads of sweat have started to form on her forehead and temples. She ran her hand over her face and wiped off the coldness. It was not the moisture of perspiration that her hands were smeared with…. it was blood. Shruti wondered if she had been injured somehow. She could not recollect any physical pain or injury that she had faced lately. Slightly taken aback, she decided to take a thorough look at herself, to determine, how she is losing so much blood without the hint of any pain.


Shruti got up and as she tried to make her first move she found out it was not only the face that was bleeding so profusely but she was, in fact, standing amidst a pool of blood. Though she did not feel any numbness but noticed that her movement has become unusually light. She was almost gliding through the half lit compartment. She noticed there were marks of dried blood everywhere and as she was gliding, she was just adding some freshness to the fishy stench of dried blood. Inside the compartment she could faintly hear cries from voices, voices that were withering in pain but strangely she could not see anyone around. She panicked a bit but glided towards the door where the old mirror was hung. Much like usual railway mirror this too was spotted for most its part. Shruti looked at her reflection; she was petrified of the sight. The bizarre reflection brought back an excruciating pain and left her gaping whether she was still alive, dead or was she sitting on a cusp?

Three months ago, it was the fateful express train that Shruti Kamath had boarded, while returning from her aunt’s place. It was past midnight when she fell asleep while her train was standing on the platform, waiting for the green signal. Suddenly, out of the blue her train was hit by yet another speeding express train. Her compartment flew apart from the rest of the train and placed itself precariously half on a bridge and half on a deserted yet to be made platform. All the passengers in that wagon were injured to death. The rescue team had arrived after some time and pulled out crushed, soiled and bloodied bodies that now filled the coach. The remnant bits and pieces of bodies that remained, were all disjoint and somehow got complexly inter twined with the broken berths and iron rods. Even after numerous tries some of these body parts could not be pulled out and decomposition had set in with time. Shruti’s body, while asleep, was thrown to pieces when her compartment was hit. Hers was one of the few cases whose remaining body could not be assimilated and returned to anyone.

 Till date, Shruti Kamath wakes up every midnight in what remains of the coach. She glides her way to the mirror. Each night when she confronts her bloody reflection she’s invariably baffled to ascertain whether she’s dead, alive or somewhere in the transit……..