"Mr. John?" Asked a male voice.

"Yes. How is Ruby?" He asked.

"John you'd better come to the hospital. Ruby is... not doing well."

He returned three hours later, tired both physically and mentally. As he walked in, he locked the door behind him and plopped onto his favorite spot on the sofa.

When he had arrived at the hospital, Ruby seemed like she always did. Idle, still like a statue, surrounded by wires and machines. She still wore the same hospital gown, still had the bandages on the same wounds, still wore the lack of expression on her face as if she was just sleeping. He couldn't understand what was the difference. That is, until he spoke to her doctor.

John sat opposite to the doctor in his cabin. To his left there was a small shelf with medical books arranged neatly on them. On the table in front of him there were many other books. Dr. Wong was skimming through Ruby's file. His silence started giving John all kinds of anxiety. And then the doctor finally spoke.

"She had vomited again. There was bowel discharge as well. Her heart rate had dropped. It keeps fluctuating. Not to mention the low blood pressure-"

"Then do something about it!" John snapped as he slapped the doctor's table with his fist.

Waiting for John who immersed his face in his hands to calm down, the doctor remained silent for a few seconds just watching him. Obviously, relatives of patients losing their temper in his room was not something new for Dr. Wong. Throughout his medical career that had spanned for over twenty years now, he has had to face many such situations. Initially he used to get upset. He used to feel bad for the relatives and he used to feel pain for the patients. But as time went by, he learned that its better to not be attached to both the patient and to their loved ones. To not feel anything more than sympathy to these vast number of people he met everyday in his life.

Dr. Wong continued, "With her deteriorating health conditions, on top of her accident, I thought I should let you know that her chances of survival are not that high."

John groaned. He looked up at the doctor who had announced such a horrible thing like a news reader announces death toll of natural disasters in screen.

"Then why wasn't I let know of Ruby's deteriorating health conditions when it had happened?" asked John.

"We tried calling you, but we couldn't connect at all," the doc replied.

John raised his eyebrows and looked at the doctor's face in disbelief. He continued, "All we can do right now is wait for a few days. Let's just wait for the report to come fast and meanwhile, pray that she gets better."

"Pray? Are you serious?" Asked an agitated John.

"There is only so much modern medicine can do. Even Ruby isn't responding to our efforts. It's almost as if she has lost the will to live."

John let out a sigh of frustration. Then he turned to the doctor again, "You said she was drugged. What drug was it?"

"I can't tell until the test results arrive, John. Hopefully we'll get the results soon enough."

If only he could find out who had drugged her that night, he wondered as he rested back at home. He was absolutely positive that Ruby wouldn't have taken it on her own. He had always taught her to differentiate right from wrong.

And then it suddenly hit him. He sat up straight thinking. Her friends would know her whereabouts from that night. They might know who had drugged her. He immediately rushed to her room.

After her first year, there was a three week semester break during which she had visited him. During the time, she worked part time at one of the restaurants in the city. Though John was absolutely against it, she insisted on going, saying that it was for pocket money. Finally John had to give in.

Ruby wanted to work because she claimed to have wanted independence and freedom. Probably a lot of words she heard in the speech made by their prime minister on Independence day. John didn't want her working in a restaurant because he felt that Ruby deserved much more than being a waitress. He feared that her future might get limited to being a waitress. He feared that she would turn more like her mother.

At the time she had left a few things in her room, saying that she didn't need them anymore. Some old clothes, old books and boxes John had never even touched.

He thought that maybe he could find any of her friends' details, anything that would help him contact them, or anything that would help him connect them to Ruby's accident. If not, he'll have to call up her college tomorrow. He didn't know how much willing the college authorities would be to let him have a student's phone number.

He turned the knob on the door and walked into her room. Though he had cleaned it just a week previously, the lack of inhabitants in the room had stirred up a smell; the smell of dust and stagnant air.

He looked around the room. The floral bedsheet, the pictures on the wall, the furniture. It was all her selection. She had carefully picked each item in the room. John and Ruby had very little arguments, so it was rather easy to go shopping with her.

He looked at the pictures hung on the wall. There was one from her childhood holding a toy, one with her late mum hugging her right, one a random pic taken with pink flowers in the background, and one with John taken on her first day of college. In all of these pictures, she looked so happy, that it was difficult to comprehend that she was lying on that hospital bed.

There was a photograph of her mother, Rose, framed and displayed on top of the table. A smiling bright face that wasn't in their lives anymore. John looked at the eyes that smiled back at him. He couldn't stand to see her face, and he placed the frame flat on the desk.

He saw a show piece she had once bought from a gift shop. It was a tiny microphone on a stand. Ruby, as a child, used to sing a lot. She would walk around the house holding the tiny mike and act like performing on stage. When John would join her, she would stop immediately. "Am I that bad?" he would ask, to which she would reply, "Of course not. Here is your Grammy," and present him with the tiny mike. The corner of his mouth went up at the thought.

He looked around some more. A few cardboard boxes lay on the floor by the wall. He crouched near them and started rummaging through. Files about club meetings, text books, some clothes. It did seem like the things she didn't need anymore. But why leave the textbooks here? He wondered.

And then he came across an old diary. It was leather bound, small, square shaped with the year 2016 in gold engraved on the front cover. He recollected Ruby using it the day he had gone to visit her. He stood up as he opened the diary. Her name was written on the top right corner.

I never thought she would keep a diary. He thought.

He felt glad to have inculcated the benefits of having a diary into Ruby's mind even as a child. He skimmed through it immediately. But to his disappointment, the pages were rather untouched and plain. Except for the first few pages where she had noted her schedule for a few days in her first year, she hadn't used the book at all.

Sighing with disappointment, he walked backwards to her bed and sat down. As he flipped through, something caught his eye. It was a 10 digit cell phone number and against it was written the name, Maya.

**

"Hello. Am I speaking to Maya?" asked John as soon as a female voice attended the call.

"Yes, this is her. Who is this?" Asked Maya.

"I'm John. Ruby's father."

There was a moment of silence from the other side, and then she said, "Oh hello sir. How are you doing?"

"I'm fine Maya, thankyou for asking. I called because I wanted to actually talk about something..." John paused, "...Regarding Ruby. Is there any way we can meet?"

There was another moment of silence from Maya. It seemed like she was contemplating on what to do. Her hesitance was quite evident to him. He added immediately, "Not alone of course. You may call your other friends too."

"Umm..." Maya fumbled around. Had it not been so important, John wouldn't have asked the girls to meet up with him. But he wanted to know what happened that night. Talking to her friends seemed like the only option left.

"I don't understand why you contacted me sir," she said.

"Considering what happened to Ruby, I actually expected a call or a visit from you to be honest," said John.

"Considering what happened to Ruby?" She quoted him and said, "What happened to Ruby?"

John was puzzled. Did they really not know?

"Besides," continued Maya, "Why would you expect me to call?"

"Because you are her friend," he corrected himself immediately, "I meant, one of her bestfriends."

"What? Is that what she told you?"

"Why does she need to tell me? I have known. We had coffee in that little coffee place in front of your college," said John.

John heard a sigh from the other side.

"Sir, that was way back in our first year. We had just started our studies and were still getting to know each other. Ruby and I, we didn't really remain friends after our first year," said Maya.

This wasn't something John had expected.

Maya and Ruby weren't friends anymore? Why? And why did Ruby never tell him this?

"Who were her friends, then?" He asked.

"To be honest sir, I don't know. We weren't close at all. I just ...forgot she existed."

Maya was his only hope right now, to find what had happened the night of the accident. Maya must know something about Ruby that could help him find where she was.

He pondered over her words for a few seconds and said, "Even then, you had known her for a year. You must have some idea where she was before the accident..." He trailed off.

"The accident? Ruby was in an accident?" Asked Maya.

"Yes. She is in the hospital and unconscious. I desperately need your help. Please help me."

There was silence from the other side.

"Please Maya," he said, almost pleaded over the phone.

There was a sigh. And then she said, "Alright sir. I'll talk to the other girls too. We'll decide on a time and tell you."

"Thank you so much," John said as he breathed a sigh of relief.