Room Number 7, July

"One shot of Bloody Mary please, Diana," I wailed, flopping my anti-socializing self on my usual seat, deserted from the rest of the bar.

"Coming right up, my love!" Diana bellowed, managing to squeeze in a few words in between the chaos and the tune that she had been humming.

"How is it going, ma cherei? Diana asked, flopping a couple of ice cubes so vigorously that a couple of drops spurted out and lashed on to my face instead.

"So so," I grunted taking out my embroidered napkin and moving on to the drink in stead.

"Another paper, I assume. Well, have some fun, there'll be the DJ today, so, that might raise your spirits a lil," Diana suggested as she took off her great, fat bun of brown curls.

"Mhm," I muttered shrugging. "I'll return to my spirits for now,"

"Oh, you're terrible at puns, my girl," Diana shook her head and laughed, trying her best to produce an expression of disappointment.

My eyes travelled around from one person to another, meticulously observing each one, as Diana walked off to another visitor.

Their was a girl about my age; her greasy, black hair lay untied till her shoulders. Rather high cheekbones.

"And she would have looked so much prettier with a smile" I muttered to myself.

Catching my hard stare at her, she shuffled her feet and looked away, fidgeting with her straw and drowning her self-consciousness into her blue mojito.

"Amateur" I commented at her choice of her drink.

My eyes shifted to the group of four, seated nearby. One of the girls was completely drunk and was sleeping it off and her group of friends were obviously there just to comfort her. Breakup, I presume.

Next there was a duo of two men, drinking moderately, obviously in love with each other, but too uncertain to confess.

Then there was a young couple, swearing and laughing at jokes that weren't even funny. Things are funnier when you're in love, they say. Well, I wouldn't know how that felt like anyways for I had long been out of love.

My eyes shift on to another man, in a whit shirt, walking into the bar with confident strides. Catching my stare, he started walking up to me as I sank below like the stem of a flower bending down, due to heavy rain.

"May I buy you a drink, young lady?" he asked with an unusually confident smile. People couldn't really get themselves to smile, and that too confidently, when they tried speaking to me for all I ever did was bark.

"Sure," I blushed as the DJ music filled in the room, casting some sort of spell that made me want to fall in love all over again.

*****

I gasped, squinting, as my eyes adjusted to the strong LED light that filled the room like it was trying to take over everything. I was lying in the corner of the room with my hands tied behind me with unusually strong jute ropes. Struggling was of no use, for I only felt something trickle down my wrists- not sure if it was blood or sweat. I felt the end of my lip burn and realized that that was bleeding too. I spluttered and coughed, gagging at the salty taste of my own blood. Looking down I gasped, seeing all the bruises that had settled on my knees like crevasses that settled on a paper after one folded and crushed it out of rage or misery. I let my mind race back to the previous night even though I failed to concentrate because of the voice inside my cerebrum screaming “Where am I? How did I get here?”

“Oh yes, I remember now, I was at Diana’s bar.” Diana’s bar was the typical sort of place in which 21 year olds crashed at after failing to submit their paper on time. I still fail to understand why people think uni is better that school. By the time one gets into college, she is likely to have lost her ability to socialize. And partying? Honey I’m sorry to break this to you, but you can’t just go around partying at all times. The weekend? You’ll be bombarded with papers and duties. Even though the professors aren’t going to care if you have submitted or not, by this time you would have developed anxiety and would be well aware that you were likely to fail if you only studied the day before the exam.

“There was even a DJ as it was the weekend. Sore type of guy though, not the right sort to hold a loud, cheerful DJ, very much unlike the guy who I started hanging out with. Oh yes, I was drowning myself in alcohol to reduce my misery and that was when some other guy came in and offered me a drink. And that’s pretty much all I could remember," I remembered.

I struggled, trying to look up in the bright light, head throbbing like it was going to burst. Managing to catch a glimpse of the room, I spotted a fireplace at the corner. Trying to gallop like a horse with an injured leg, I tried crawling like a one year old baby this time. Putting my quivering hands behind my back, in front of the blazing fire, I took heavy, shaky breaths as it burnt out the ropes which turned into black, torn threads, that fell on to the ground silently, like dead petals. Blinking a couple of times, my vision became clear in a fraction of a second. With quivering legs, I managed to drag myself up to the door. I stopped at the threshold, uncertain if I ought to walk out. At that moment, I was like a deer running away from a chasing leopard- except for the fact that I could only limp, and not run. It was hopeless to run for I had not even the faintest idea of where I was. Deciding to take the risk, I limped out and entered the next room, with a heart full of uncertainty, reluctance and fear. “Room number 1, January” the sign on the door said. The paint on the door was nearly worn off and it opened with a slight creak. Entering the deserted room that was filled with cobwebs and layers of dusts, I came to a halt, being greeted by the lifeless body of a middle aged girl. Patches of dried up blood lay around her body with a knife that had been pierced in her chest several times. I gasped and decided to pay a visit to the next room.

'Room number 2, February'

'Room number 3, March'

'Room number 4, April'

'Room number 5, May'

'Room number 6, June'

But no matter whichever room I strolled into, there were bodies of girls that I had seen in the bar at least once with tracts of dried up blood stained on the wooden floors.

Oh, I almost forgot to mention- legend has it that a girl from Diana’s bar goes missing on the last day of each month.

I looked back at the sign on the door in which I had been in. My heart dropped to my feet as I read the sign: “Room number 7, July,”