I didn't stop to freshen up or eat—the hunger gnawed at my stomach, a reminder of last night's skipped meal—but there was no time. Nehra was missing.
I dialed her colleagues first, my fingers trembling slightly. "Where is she? She didn't reach home last night?" I asked, my voice low but urgent.
"She... she left in a cab," one of them replied hesitantly. "We don't know after that."
Nothing. That single sentence sent a cold weight through me. I tried her relatives, her parents—calls unanswered, messages ignored. Every number led to silence.
Panic threatened to claw its way in, but I shoved it down, replacing it with calculated urgency. I couldn't wait. I grabbed my coat and ran to the police station, each step echoing my own heartbeat.
The station smelled of disinfectant and faint metal. I approached the desk, voice steady despite the adrenaline. "My friend... Nehra Rathod. She's missing. I need to file a report immediately."
The officer glanced at me, noting the tension coiled in my posture, the barely suppressed desperation. "Can you give us details?"
I nodded, rattling off every fragment of information I had: her last known location, the cab, the unreturned calls. My mind raced ahead, thinking of every possible scenario, every shadowed street, every wrong turn she could have taken.
As the officer typed, I felt the icy grip of fear—but also the spark that had always driven me in court: resolve. I would find her. Whatever it took.
Outside, the city carried on as if nothing had changed, but for me, time had narrowed to one singular mission: Nehra.
he cab's GPS had led me here—an abandoned stretch at the edge of the city, where cracked asphalt met overgrown weeds and the faint skeletons of buildings loomed like silent witnesses. My heart pounded, the chill of early morning air slicing through my coat. The street was empty. Not a sound except the distant hum of traffic and the occasional creak of rusted metal in the wind.
And there it was—the cab, parked near the cracked curb, its windows dark and driverless. I approached cautiously, every instinct screaming that someone, or something, had been here moments ago. I circled it, the tires cold, the doors locked, no sign of Nehra. My stomach twisted, and my mind raced through every possibility—accident, abduction, misdirection.
The police had arrived shortly after, moving with methodical precision. Officers combed the area, flashlight beams slicing through shadows, radios crackling with coordination. One of them touched my shoulder lightly.
"Ma'am," the officer said, voice gentle but firm, "we've searched the area thoroughly. There's no one here. You need to go home. Rest. We'll continue the search and find her."
I nodded mechanically, but the calm they projected did nothing to soothe the storm inside me. Each step toward my car felt heavy, weighted by tension I couldn't shake. I didn't want to leave—but the officers' presence and their promises were the only tether preventing me from spiraling entirely.
By the time I reached my apartment, the world outside had begun to stir with morning traffic, indifferent to the panic gnawing at me. I barely closed the door behind me before leaning against it, trying to steady my breathing. Hunger, fatigue, and anxiety collided in a storm I couldn't disperse.
I didn't eat. I didn't sleep. I simply sat by the window, staring at the streets below, listening for the sound of her key in the lock, her voice calling out, anything. Every second that ticked past was a knife of uncertainty.
Neha was out there. Alone. And the city, vast and indifferent, seemed to stretch endlessly between us.
The apartment was unusually quiet. Morning light filtered through the blinds, carving narrow bars across the floor, but the calm was brittle, easily shattered. I sat near the window, hands wrapped around a cold mug I hadn't emptied, my stomach still growling from the night before. Hunger had no place here—worry had already consumed it.
I had replayed every step of the search a dozen times in my head. The abandoned street. The cab. Empty. Nothing. And yet, something about it had felt... wrong. Too deliberate, too clean. Whoever had been there had vanished without a trace.
The phone remained silent, save for occasional updates from the police: "We're searching, Sera. She'll be found. Go home, rest." Their words were meant to reassure, but they only added weight to the tension coiling in my chest.
Minutes dragged into hours. My mind wandered over every possible scenario: maybe she had gotten lost, maybe she'd been taken—but by whom? And why? Every instinct screamed that this was not random. There was planning, intent. Control.
I glanced at the street below. Cars passed, pedestrians moved, utterly oblivious to the fear clawing through me. I wished Nehra would just appear, safe and laughing, her messy hair and carefree grin dissolving this nightmare. But she didn't.
A shadow flickered across the edge of my vision. I froze. Just a tree branch swaying. But my chest tightened. Every sound—the hum of the refrigerator, a distant honk, the faint rumble of a bus—felt like a warning. My fingers tapped the edge of the mug, counting seconds like a mantra.
Sleep was impossible. Hunger was irrelevant. All that existed was waiting, listening, imagining. And the gnawing certainty that this was only the beginning.
Somewhere, out there, Nehra was alone. And I had to find her before the city swallowed her completely.