Chapter 1

Divya climbed the stairs to the third floor breathlessly. Her throat was already dry from the game in physical education and she needed water. Since it was the last hour, her classmates were all still in the ground.

When she finally reached the third floor, the corridor was dark. There seemed to be a power outage again. Most of the classrooms were empty as the final bell rang around twenty minutes ago. She walked slowly dreading that she would be home in an hour. Her parents were arguing in the morning and she didn’t want to go back to that. Usually, they sort everything out soon enough by themselves, but lately, the arguments have become longer and louder. And she didn’t want to get in the middle of it.

Divya reached her classroom which was also dark with only a little light coming from the window. She got her water bottle from her bag and emptied it almost fully. That’s when she heard a sound of tapping on a table. It came from the back of the classroom and since it was dark, she couldn’t see anything.

“Hello?” Divya called.

No one answered, but the sound continued. She went towards the sound and what she saw froze her. Harish, her classmate was having seizures. His arms and legs were having jerky movements and there was froth in the corner of this lips. His lips were blue and his eyes expressed absolute terror.

Upon seeing Divya, he made a throaty sound and that took her out of the trance. She quickly went back to her place to get her water bottle. She tried to give him the water but he wouldn’t drink it. She had read somewhere that seizures last only for 1 -2 minutes. She didn’t know for how long Harish was having the seizures. She ran outside the classroom to call someone for help but no one was there in both sides of the corridor.

She heard a gurgling sound from Harish. She rushed to him and tried to roll him over to the side.

“Grghh…..grhh” he strained.

“Hold on, please hold on” Divya said to him as she removed his spectacles which were scraping the floor. The seizures didn’t seem to stop. Why didn’t it stop?

“Okay Harish, please hold on. I’ll get some one for help.” She turned to leave but the boy began to say something.

“Ssshkill…” he croaked. “Fffmeeh” he stopped.

Then his seizures stopped slowly. Divya began to breathe a sigh of relief. But then his head fell on the ground abruptly and his eyes were open but did not look at her. They were blank and unseeing. A cold feeling spread in her stomach as she checked his pulse.

He was dead.

(To be continued...)

Hey all! This is my first attempt at a novel named 'Sheer Silence' in this blog. If you have thoughts on my writing, please mention it in your comments.