Meerab had known paranoia as a constant companion ever since that night. It woke her up every morning and kissed her goodnight. For all actions have consequences especially ones that promise peril. So, for the last week double checking every door,nook and cranny in her one bedroom apartment hadn't become a routine but a ritual for survival. Even now she sat in her living room, knees clutched together by her arms, slowly rocking back and forth. Her hair usually so taken care for, it was foreign to "air drying" now an unkept, greasy mess. The bags under her eyes made her borderline unrecognisable. To put it simply, she was going through it......
All she could do was blame herself for being so stupid, childish and well stubborn. She just had to prove a point, she had to watch it. That ridiculous tape, the one that had taken so many lives and would now claim hers. What could she have done though, the idea of it sounded so stupid she couldn't even call the whole thing a hoax, those still have an ounce of sensibility. How could a video tape of nothing but a well be responsible for this much damage. The thing is though deep down she knew it wasn't just a plain tape. Even remembering it now made her nauseous. As soon as she had pressed the play button on the remote she already knew something was wrong, very wrong. She had this urge in her body to do something wrong, something awful but not to anyone, to herself. In all her 22 years of life, she had never had thoughts this depressing, emptying and draining. She wanted to scream. She wanted someone to help her, but her voice wouldn't leave her throat. All she could do was watch and wait till her misery ended. It did but before the video could end she had already passed out.
When she woke up, her voice had returned in the form of that scream that she couldn't let out before after seeing what was in front of her in the mirror. Her head was bleeding, there was a gash on her right temple, but what scared her the most wasn't her pain. It was the writing on the mirror with what looked like well the blood from her wound "seven days" .It was two words only but they were enough to take away her sleep for the next few days. Someone could probably give her a reason for all this and reassure her with the words she desperately wanted to hear, "nothings going to happen, you probably had a long night and its just your mind playing tricks on you." That's what she told herself too the first two days, then she got a call that changed everything, her friend, Amir, the one who had dared her to watch the tape, had passed away. There was no specific reason but a 20 year old doesn't just pass away from natural reasons.
That's when Meerab officially lost it. Whatever she had gotten herself into was real and she was fucked, not even fucked she was going to die, a realisation like that doesn't leave you, it makes you go senseless and right now as Meerab still sat there on her couch, with no tears left to cry, her eyes on the clock it was a minute before midnight, a minute before her seventh day ended. When the clock finally struck 12 she didn't know whether to cry, scream or laugh, nothing happened. Nothing had knocked on her door or climbed through her window to gauge her eyes out. She didn't know what she was feeling relief or if this was her losing her sanity. She figured though it was time to get up, it was official seven days were gone and her she was breathing. A tear did trickle down her cheek but she was the farthest thing from sad. As she got up to head to her bedroom she stopped dead and looked down, it was that moment, that awkward moment she realised that the shadow that had stopped her dead in her tracks was infact, not hers.
