I’m not asleep so it can’t be a dream. And if it isn’t a dream I don’t have long to live. I’m being strangled in my bed.
It’s not Tamal, which was my first panicked thought. Immediately after, I realise I can’t see anybody, even though these hands have cut off my air. And it’s not the dark either, although the lights are off. I can make out other things in the room — the fan, and over there my exercise bike — but there’s no one to see beside my bed!
The demon, my mind screams out, Arati’s asura, but how? Where is the rest of him while his hands hold me down? And death was not the price asked of the others!
Death for just one measly day of possessing the gift?
Your case might not follow the exact patterns of Arati or Shivani, remember.
I have seconds to live.
What does appear when I look towards the ceiling isn’t a face but an image of a knife in a back pocket for which my attacker is reaching, perhaps because I’ve struggled more than he expected. Just briefly, he has taken a hand off my throat. I use the respite to throw off the thin sheet covering me. My desperate hope is that the sight of my body will cause him to hesitate and reconsider whether he wants to murder me right away, and those instants will be my opportunity. Because what he wouldn’t know is that he isn’t totally invisible to me.
But this killer is a pro, or at least so focused in his hate that my ploy doesn’t hold him up at all. Instead, he returns his left hand to my throat, as if determined to complete the job with his bare hands. I’m out of plans, and give up the struggle to breathe. The end of resistance is surprisingly easy: the last thing I feel is a knee on my midriff, which also ends my thrashing and twitching.
And then a warm splash — and suddenly there is air. Incredible gulps, my head jerking up, the hands are off, and all over my face squirts what is certainly blood.