The Mainline

Today, I received a text message from my friend, Ramesh. I thought he's gonna ask for funds and all that but i was wrong. His message looked really strange and unusual.

I am a student of the Bright Side University. It was 9 am for me when i received this message, i was preparing for the exams coming this Tuesday. I almost ignored this message until i read that ramesh is the sender. His message read, "Yo Deepanshu, I'm ramesh! We were really close friends during our childhood time. Remember the tuition classes we used to attend together by Mrs. Kumar?

Ramesh was my childhood friend. We studied in different schools but used to attend the same tuition classes. After passing out from the schools, we never talked with each other. You know, meeting a childhood friend after so many years is just something that i couldn't miss out on.

I booked a taxi and started my way out to the location that he shared in the messages. I could see cops almost everywhere today, but well who really cares. Afterall, i gotta visit ramesh first.

I reached the location within an hour, thanks to the driver's insane knowledge about shortcuts. The location seemed quite abandoned. It wasn't really the perfect place for a reunion but well i couldn't care less. I rang the door bell a couple of times but there was no response. I don't think it was even functioning properly.

Look, I'm quite of a shy personality. I wasn't always shy, i don't know why did i turn into a shy personality as i grew up. Back then, me and the crew used to roam around the town and participate in mischiefs. I still haven't forgotten how we once threw pies instead of water balloons on holi at a random person. It turned out that it was my father whom we threw the pies at. That day, i got grounded for a week straight. Well, it was worth it. Creating memories like this in childhood age stick to you till the very end, always reminding you of the friends that once were really close to you. It's a sad truth how we lose contacts with the friends as time passes. Kids these days don't care about the world. All they want is a tablet or mobile phone with them and they can spend days without access to any food or sleep. I feel bad for them. They will never get to experience the fun of childhood. Once they grow up, they'll not even be given enough time to make a stand for themselves. They'll just be crushed by the outside world. World may look kind and wise but it isn't. World is a cruel place and we have no choice other than to live in it. Oh! My bad! I forgot I'm in a podcast right now. Back to the story.

I knocked on the door and found that it was already opened. It would seem that Ramesh hasn't changed by a bit, eh? I went inside. Everything was a mess in there. Each and every item had dust particles on it, looking like everything was untouched for at least 5 years old or so. I'm not really an archaeologist or someone like that but the furniture felt untouched for a long time. Geez, the spider webs were everywhere. The only thing looking fresh was the pizza on the table. I thought that Ramesh would have ordered it so that we both could have a talk. Quite funny how I still wasn't sure how to start a conversation with him. Ramesh didn't seem to be there. So, I grabbed a slice of pizza and someone hitted me with a metallic stick. I went unconscious on the spot.

When i got consciousness again, i found myself lying in a prison. I asked the officers the reason behind it but no response was provided. I still had my smartphone with me somehow so i texted Ramesh again. In a matter of seconds, Ramesh sent some laughing emojis. This was enough to know that Ramesh had played with me. Not really sure what did he do but i don't remember committing a crime recently. Damn, everything after grabbing that pizza slice was a blur. My mind was under a great pressure. I wasn't thinking about escaping but about how Ramesh could even do this and what my parents would think when they'll get to know about this.

I requested cops to release me and tried to explain the situation but nothing worked. I had no choice but to escape the prison and remove the guiltiness above my head. I waited for the right moment and i got it. In the evening, there was only 1 officer guarding the prison while others went for an important mission. I gave a heavy punch on the head of the cop next to my prison and managed to get keys tied from his belt. I also took pistol from him for more security.

Having no time to waste, i rushed to the same location where ramesh asked to meet-up again with the belief that he had nothing to do with my current situation. Ramesh was nowhere to be found. He even took that pizza with him.

There was a taxi driver there. I thought maybe he could help me out. But, after seeing me, he got angry and confronted about booking a taxi and showing up too late. I asked him about the details of the booking and found out that it was booked about an hour ago which was approximately 20 minutes before i broke out of prison. What is more, the taxi's destination was DKG Airplanes. Considering the place was abandoned for roughly 5 years, This taxi had to be booked by ramesh. After being aware of my prison escape, he most likely hesitated to wait for taxi and took a faster route. One of my friends was coincidentally the head incharge of the DKG Airplanes. I explained the situation to my friend and he delayed the flight for a bit.

I booked a taxi and paid the driver thrice as much money for driving at lightning speed. It was almost impossible for me to get out of this crap but i just couldn't give up. I reached the airport, i saw Ramesh waiting for the flight at a cornered seat. I ran to him and started an argument with him, of course, in an extremely angry manner which is actually quite understandable. He was ignoring me until I slapped him. It was just too much of a pressure, the cops were after me for the crime that wasn't even committed by me. The thing is i still don't even know the crime i was falsely accused for and all because of Ramesh.

Now, i gotten to know what the actual heck was happening. It just couldn't get more worse than this.. Ramesh was getting black-mailed from an unknown identity. Ramesh stole the jewellery from his neighbour, The Garg's. The jewellery worthed atleast around 5 thousand dollars which was about 4 lakh rupees. Unfortunately, it got recorded on the security cameras outside on an electric pole and the footage was somehow managed to be received by the unknown identity, Ramesh was asked to accuse me as the mastermind of red bomb attack, otherwise the footage would be revealed to the media and well here we are today. Most likely the unknown identity was the mastermind behind the Red Bomb attack. Ramesh also added that the person used to text him from a new contact everyday. It was really going to be mind boggling to find this man but who would like to sit in prison for a decade long period or even more. Who knows, maybe i would even get sentenced to death.

I carefully read the text messages from the black mailer. The style of messages seemed familiar, i tried contacting the numbers again but none was active anymore. The only information i could find was that the number who sent Ramesh the last message had last activity in Thiruvananthapuram just a few hours ago.

We took a flight from the DKG Airplanes and reached the location. The journey was about an hour long. I had belief of finding the guilty but at the same time i was scared. Red bomb was a deadly operation led by the most wanted criminals. I couldn't imagine what kinds of firearms would they be holding or how many manpower would they have in comparison of only us. We couldn't take help from police either. Ramesh's expressions were not as before making me feel even more suspicious about him, Maybe i was being targeted again. I missed my parents who always tried to get me prepared for these life decisions but i always didn't take them seriously. Now i wanted their advices. But i didn't want to call them because police would probably be at my house. My parents were struggling because of me. I was just thinking and crying inside about all this when i managed to get an amazing idea. I just had to search for the criminal's hideout and report to the police from a telephone booth in a different voice so that they couldn't find me.

I got Ramesh to be hidden in a Hotel. To be honest, he didn't do all this intentionally due to which i didn't want him to be involved anymore.

I camped at the place where the contact numbers of the unknown last activated. I stayed there for couple of weeks. In these days, my whole schedule was messed up. I missed my important exams. Everything was going wrong till i saw some suspicious activity. It was Ramesh! Before i could have gotten onto a point, the things got more twisted. Ramesh opened a hidden entry. Unbelievable, the entry was underground which was covered by trash. It looked like the trash was untouched from years. I didn't have time for thinking about trash. I stalked Ramesh to the inside, i was hiding. Oh my god! There were at least 300 people and the place could still hold in about 200 to 300 more easily. Ramesh went inside a room, guarded by several armed people. They had the most illegal weapons which aren't even in the black market. I was waiting for ramesh to get out of the room but my unlucky personality.. i got spotted by a guard. I was just near the entry and when guard came in, his first looks were on me. I was really dumb to not hide near a piller or the stack of barrels just some metres away. The guard came near me, i accepted my fate. I put my hands up and asked him to kill me. But it just got more weird. Was i dreaming? I slapped myself, no it wasn't a dream. The pain was real. The guard told me that he's actually an officer from the Thiruvananthapuram police force. The officer added that somebody reported my suspicious activities from past days. It was probably that i was camping like a hitman at the whereabouts of criminals. I explained the situation to them, they seemed to understand it. The officer called backup force. I was provided the utmost high security, the officer took me to his van which was parked outside the entry. The backup forces arrived, loud sounds of shooting could be heard. I think i heard a rocket too or maybe it was grenades. When the bodies were being taken away, i saw the bodies of the two which were linked to my past, Ramesh and Harshit.

I have already mentioned about Ramesh but harshit was just a new story. Me and Harshit were childhood friends as well. We studied in the same school. After passing out from the school, I didn't see him after that till now.

Harshit was a hostile kind of person. In the school days, i needed a friend when i was lonely. I was good in sports and somewhat average in the studies. Harshit took me in his gang when he saw me beating the most reputed badminton player of his gang. I started being treated like the sidekick of him. After the stream selection, we were seperated but in the lunch breaks and sometimes when i used to bunk my classes, we met. The girl he liked had crush on me which made harshit jealous of me. I was also getting better grades than him. I was getting popular and popular everyday while harshit was not even being paid attention anymore. Even i forgot about him. He probably tried to take the revenge by creating this master plan which almost worked. The luck helped me when i needed it the most.

When I'm writing this, I'm feeling sad inside. I lost 2 of my close friends. If you would be wondering about my life, i had various interviews because of me being the key witness of the criminals of Red bomb case. I had interviews from newspaper companies, different podcasts, news channels etc. I made money from podcasts for the living. I got a part time job in DKG Airplanes. My life is going fine as of now. It was all like a fictional movie. Thank God, it has ended or has it?