Behind the scenes of the second video.
The night of Mitra's kidnap - after the culprit shot the first video and left Mitra alone in the basement.
The room was cold and the single light bulb hanging from the roof in the middle of the room did little to address the darkness of the room and melancholies of the setting. Mitra had nothing to do other than wait and plan her course of action.
She had no sense of the time that was passing, and it was something she had expected as soon as she realized that she was a captive. She knew that counting the seconds was not going to help. The only thing she could do was count each second as a second lost from her life, her freedom and as a dead person.
She wondered how the situation was outside.
Someone would have realized that she was kidnapped, right? Her parents, Vishal, her colleagues, any one of them would have raised alarm when they couldn't get in touch with her.
Maybe they had registered a complaint with the police and were already looking for her.
But what if they were still waiting to see if she would turn up on her own? She had always been a little allusive to daily communication. Still, at least her colleagues would notice that she hadn't showed up at work without any intimation.
Her manager was a tough guy and he would have tried all means to reach her, thereby triggering a chain of suspicions regarding her absence. Above all, Vishal wouldn't stay put without hearing a word from her for a whole day.
The chains that were cuffed to her hands allowed her to move around the room in a semicircle, letting her to the bed, the curtained wash space and a few steps away from this setting till the centre of the room and the armchair the perpetrator set for himself.
The first few hours after her captor had left her alone in the room, chained and confined, Mitra had tried prying the chains apart from her hands, tugged at them with all the strength she had to wrench them out of the wall, pulled and struggled with all her might to set herself free.
Nothing worked.
Breathless and swearing at the assailant, she sat down in the chair, running through other options in her mind. It was completely blank for her.
She had no idea where she was, was locked up indefinitely and wouldn't be able to escape without help from outside. She had no idea who she was up against, what his motive was to bring her in and what his end goal was. It seemed like a daunting task for her, if not a lost cause, to try and get out alive from her captivity.
Thoughts ran wild, over and over, in her mind. She knew too well how the cases of abduction ended up. She had all the paths to an improper life, closed off. Either she would end up dead after being starved or tortured or raped. Or she would end up as a lifelong captive. Or she might end up being trafficked or sold for prostitution. The possible ways she might be dealt with were all horrible and terribly scary.
Let's not get frightened so soon. Let's think on how to deal with each of the situation I might end up in. Mitra kept comforting herself.
It proved to be tough to think straight in the situation she was. Somehow, her brain seemed to be in a lockdown from the shock of finding herself so helpless.
Her eyes fell on the food that was on the table. She was hungry for sure, yet, she didn't trust the food that was in front of her. The assailant could have drugged it or spiked it with slow poison or at least dirtied it in some way or the other. She couldn't trust him. The thoughts of him stalking her for a long time, however, came back haunting her.
Why hadn't she noticed it? She had always been very cautious of the people around her and her surroundings. Maybe he had always followed her in crowded places where it was easy to blend in with other unsuspecting people?
It was a complete chaos in her brain with all the storming conflicts and thoughts.
The new hostile environment stifled her sleep. She simply sat in her chair, sometimes with a silent mind and sometimes with thoughts running wild with her imagination. She couldn't plan or plot anything with the limited information she had.
She had no idea how long she sat frozen like that. The tiredness finally got the better of her and she dozed off in her seated position. She kept jerking awake within five minutes every time she nodded off, afraid to close her eyes lest anything happened to her while she was asleep.
Footsteps nearing the room woke her up again. She sat upright, her heart beating fast. The door creaked open and the kidnapper stepped in. Mitra instinctively stood up, poised, fists balled up and raised in an offensive block.
He smiled at her, a mocking smile.
"I see you haven't slept properly, although you look awfully tired and sleepy." He slowly walked up to his lounge chair and settled down. "You can relax and sit down. I am not going to hurt you now." He gestured towards Mitra's chair, indicating her to settle down.
"Now?" she asked cautiously.
"Yeah, for now. I can't promise that you would be safe in the future though." He smirked.
No immediate danger. So, I might have time to figure out this man, the situation I am in and the ways to escape from here. Thoughts of escapade ran in Mitra's mind as she sat down.
She looked straight at the man, defiantly showing him her confidence.
"What's your name?" she asked him.
"Can't tell you now," he replied.
"Then I will call you 'scumbag'," Mitra spat.
"Sure, whatever suits you," he shrugged, irritating Mitra further.
"Shall we talk in detail about why you brought me here?" she asked seriously.
"There's still time for that," he waved it off.
There was a pause, a long and uncomfortable one. Mitra knew more than enough not to be the first to break silence. It would signify her anxiety. She drew daggers with her eyes at him and waited.
He tilted his head a couple of times, trying to see a better reaction from her, and getting none, said, "It is always so hard to figure you out."
"Since when have you been watching me to know that?" she asked.
"Again, from a time you can't even imagine." He smiled and got up from his chair smoothly, saying, "You know how things are going outside?"
Before she could say anything, he pulled out his phone, turned on the video he had posted online and flashed it at her.
Shock. Silence. Alarm. Distress. It felt like a heavy boulder had settled on Mitra's heart.
"You took a video of me?" she asked, voicing her words in a barely audible whisper.
"Yes. And it is all over the internet."
"What?" her voice became hoarse.
The kidnapper's excitement grew by bounds as he said in a rapid voice, "People are going crazy over it, not knowing whether it is a real video or just a prank one. You should see the comments, people trying to speculate the details about you, about me and this whole situation."
He looked at Mitra with a crooked smile of satisfaction.