The Selfie

2:00 p.m- 11/8/11

Diana was looking through Atisha's file once more. She wanted to check if she had missed anything. Once she finished going through the file, she went through all her stuff that had reached the office the previous day.

First she looked at the clothing.

The top was covered in dirt and a bit of blood at the back, where her left shoulder blade would've been. The pant was also covered in dirt, but no blood. Both were in tatters, quite possibly from the fall.

Then another thought struck her. If Atisha had fallen, the impact should've made her bleed, which meant both sets of clothing would have blood stains on it. But from what the reports said, and from what she could see, only the top had blood on it, that too, only on one side. Certainly that meant that she didn't fall of the cliff, or wasn't thrown over it either. Which meant that the only way the body ended up there was because someone had placed it there. She looked at the autopsy report once more. Then she saw it.
"Marks on left shoulder."
Diana closed her eyes and thought hard. "Marks on left shoulder... Knife marks maybe? Or any other sharp object for that matter." She thought. "Maybe that's where the blood stain came from."
Things became a bit clearer, even though it was all based in wild guesses. Diana could now clearly visualise what could have happened that night.

Maybe Atisha was attacked in her own house. The assaulter must have tried to kill her with a knife but missed and slashed her shoulder. Then maybe he strangled her with something, which could be the reason for the marks on her neck. He then must have disposed the body in the forest.

The question now was-why? Why would someone kill her?

Diana decided to answer that question later. She wanted to go through the rest of her stuff. She looked through the wallet, and another bag that she had on her.
Inside the bag was her "career characters" as Atisha liked to call it. The bag contained a notebook, a stationary pouch and a small tape recorder.
Diana had already listened to the tape once before this. But she didn't find anything helpful.
This time, she took out the notebook. As she opened the notebook, a small note fell out.
"Page 57"
Page 57? Diana thought. She opened the book and saw that all the pages were numbered. She quickly flipped over to page 57.

1st August, 2011- 11:00 p.m
I knew he was hiding something! That's why I went over to figure out what was going on. I never thought of him to be this kind of a person. Its like he is this two faced guy- the sweet kind in front of me and a totally different guy when he's alone.
I'm glad I never got to say that I loved him. I didn't know him either way. The guy I knew didn't exist. When his real self attacked me, I knew then that it would be the last time. The last time he assaulted me, the last time I loved him. The last time I got to see my friends. And that friend went away too, before I was attacked.
Oh well, I'm just glad that I can rest in peace, knowing that if this diary fell into the right hands, she would know.

"Why does she always talk in riddles??" Diana said in frustration. She threw the book on the table.
"Something wrong?" A voice said from near the door. She turned and saw Hiya at the door. She sighed. "I don't even know how I'm going to solve this."
Hiya glanced at the table and nodded knowingly. "You read the diary?"
"Yeah. And it's like, every riddle that we get, it comes first as a note."
"A note, you say?"
"Yeah. Why?"
"Oh, I don't know, maybe because there wasn't a note in this one?"
"What do you mean, there wasn't a note?"
"I was just looking through the book and came across the entry. Since that was the only entry in the book, I went through it. Apart from that, I didn't see anything. Not even the note."
"Oh." Diana frowned. "So where did that come from?"
Hiya just shrugged. "I have no clue."

Diana frowned. That was literally the umpteenth time that something out of the ordinary happened to them.
She couldn't accept that Atisha was doing this stuff, as a ghost or whatever. It simply wasn't plausible, although that's what everyone else believed. She was literally having an internal war between mind and heart now.
"Penny for your thoughts?" Hiya asked, snapping her out of her reverie. "Nothing much. It's just that, there have been many unexplainable occurrences in the past one week, and its just playing with my head. I don't know what to make of it.
"Do you want to tell me about it?" Hiya asked her.
Diana told her about everything, right from the very first occurrence, the selfie. Hiya pursed her lips and didn't say anything the whole while. Once Diana finished, she thought for a while and then replied. "Wow. That's one hell of a story. Now I know why you are so confused."
"I know right?" Diana said, sighing. "More than anything, I want to know who and why she was killed. She didn't have any enemies. I still stand by the thought that she probably knew something and silenced her. That's the only theory that I have."

Hiya didn't say anything for a while. "Take it easy, calm down. Maybe things will become a bit more clear when we search Atisha's house today at 4. So how about you just take a nap for an hour and then freshen up a bit, what do you say to that?"
Diana gave her a small smile. "Yeah, that would be great. Thanks, Hiya."
"Thanks for what? For telling you to go sleep? You are really tired, Di. Just go." Hiya grinned and pushed her slightly towards the couch. She then went out and closed the door behind her.
Diana sighed and settled on the couch. She hadn't counted until 16 before she fell fast asleep.
                                 * * *
It was around three fifteen when she woke up. She got up and walked out of her room to go to the ladies room and wash her face. As she walked out, she glanced at Hiya's table.
Surprisingly, she saw Mr. Rao standing near the desk and talking to Hiya. They seemed to be having a very heated conversation. Diana changed her mind and decided to check on them.
"Papa, what are you doing here?" She asked him.
Mr. Rao turned and immediately smiled at her. "Nothing, sweety, I just came to check on you-" He glanced at Hiya. "-but she told me that you were too busy to meet me." He finished, glaring at Hiya. "Well, she has to get ready for the search, and she was sleeping until a few minutes ago, so I wasn't exactly lying!" Hiya told him. Diana laughed. "Okay, okay, calm down. Papa, she's right. But how about we meet each other for dinner, eh?"
Mr. Rao thought for a bit and then smiled. "Okay. Pick a place and time and I'll be there." He said, and with one last glare at Hiya, he walked out of the office.
"That old man really hates me, doesn't he?" Hiya said as they both watched him leave.
"Maybe. It sure looked like he did." Diana replied, laughing.