"Naah!" 

"Is this even me? Yuck!" 

"What was I even thinking while posing for this picture?"

Laying on his bed lazily, Shivaay, a 25 year old boy with ocean blue orbs, just to mention, was scrolling through his phone's photo gallery making remarks after each photo was displayed, either editing them or deleting them.

He was a happy-go-lucky boy who loved fooling around with his friends, studies can be done later, isn't it? He was just 21 year old when he decided to move out of his parents house with a sense of responsibility of building his own house but ended up renting a apartment on the, same locality, same street, same building, where he lived previously, though it was different wing. 

Permanency and Shivaay don't fit in the same sentence, reason, he gets bored of anything real quick resulting in him changing things around him regularly, be it things or girls. He was a friendly flirt who never was in any relationship, he was scared of commitment, he has always desired of thrill and the adrenaline kick in his life but since his childhood was quite normal and easy to go, he still wasn't satisfied of his not-so-happening life as he describes it.

He has always been the class clown who would take things easy and simple, though there was nothing extraordinary about him except for his blue orbs but he was special in his own way, everyone is. He never knew what fear was for his fright or fight hormone was maybe fight and only fight hormone, he was never scared of anything, he lived life like a video game and every thing that frightened others was a challenge to him which would increase his level, as he thought.  

But right now, things seemed different for the first time it looked like as if Shivaay was feeling the emotion which makes your heart beat at an ever so fast pace, increases your pulse rate, and makes you sweat enormously.

It was three in the morning and after exhausting all his internet data for that day, finding himself nothing better to do he decided to clean the enormous amount of clutter in his phone, uninstalling the useless applications, erasing the unnecessary screenshots that he once took thinking they might help him one day, or maybe never, he finally jumped into the camera's photos section analysing every picture of himself and that's when he came across a picture that froze him on his place.

He sat there dumbfounded with his mouth half hung and his heart pounding against his ribcage. Was that even for real?!

He shivered as a cold gush of air entered through the half open window blowing away the curtains, hooting of owls and barking of dogs was all that could be heard in that screaming silence of the night. With sweat beads forming on his forehead, he decided to check the time when the picture was taken only to get the biggest shock of his life. 'Half past three in the morning'. He glanced at the clock in his bedroom to see it tickling in an unusual speed, remarkably slow, in an almost negligible speed, he kept looking at it for God knows how long but to his annoyance the minute hand only moved a bit, thinking it to be some mechanical issue he focused his attention back to the screen which displayed his picture sleeping with a weird shadow casted over him. 

Shiver ran down his spine thinking about the one who clicked this and that made him numb, he felt he could barely move, his whole face covered in sweat, tiny droplets started streaming down his ocean blue orbs, his body ached, his mind clogged he couldn't think of anything else, and the fact that he lived alone in that apartment of his made him want his death at the moment. 

Somehow gathering up all his courage he decided to scroll furthermore to find many more similar pictures of him sleeping almost of each day since the last week, though all of them had different poses and angles one thing was same in all the pictures. The time and the mysterious shadow. He didn't knew what was going to happen with him, he was shivering, waling at the top of his voice, he buried his face in his palm and sobbed feeling his body temperature decreasing. He passed out not being able to cope up with the newly found fear he never knew existed. 

Next morning, he woke up with the worst headache he ever had in his whole life of twenty five years, and even before he could take a breath he was reminded of last night's incidents. His palms sweating, heart pounding again, louder and louder and the hammering headache, he shuffled his blanket, in search of his gadget and after few seconds that seemed like decades he finally caught sight of it which was lying on the floor. His hands shivered as he forwarded it to fetch it, and decided to check the photos section, only to be frightened to death. The photo was yet again there, taken at the same time as usual with the same shadow casted over him but this time he noticed something different. Blood stain?! 

He ran to the mirror untangling himself from the sheets and froze watching himself. His whole face was covered in bruise and cuts, and his forehead had a severe wound. His heart sinked in fear thinking about what could have happened. He cried finding himself helpless at that moment. His body yearned for a hug of assurance and his heart ached for his family. Moving out wasn't a good decision afterall.

His legs involuntarily made its way to a isolated corner of his room where he cried lowering his face with his hands hugging his legs. He felt weak and broken. He was still lost in his grief, frightened and cold when suddenly something popped in his mind and with quevering hands he reached out for his smart phone which was lying on the floor, a few inches away from where he was sitting. Wiping his tears and gaining all the left courage he turned it on and his fingers made its way to the dialing pad.

He with a lot of difficulties dialled a number, in his own dilemma, whether to do so or not after all he was bravest boy of the university. "Shivaay, jaan hai toh jahaan hai" (If one survives one can have the world) He said to himself as he finally decided to call the person, he thought would help him.

"Hello...I need your help"