I know Who I am ( Trivedi final )

It is inconceivable that once a person is declared dead then that person is coming back to life. Maybe that is called a near-death experience. And I would never imagine, one day in my life, I would experience that. I was pretty sure; I was dead in that accident. There should not be any more of me.

But certainly, I was wrong. After that accident, I didn’t know how many days, I opened my eyes, which means I was alive!!!

I was lying on a bed in the same room. I slowly got up from it. I had checked my right leg where there should be a bullet wound, but I didn’t see it. I touched my head where I was bleeding to death last night. No sign of any damage. Even I didn’t feel that my backbone was hit with two bullets. If it was, then I would have not even moved a bit.

“There is something going on here. I must be dead by this time. But I didn’t. They have done something to my body. I have to find out”, I was thinking.

After few minutes, the boss came inside.

“Hey, Afzal! How are you? I guess you didn’t sleep well. The security guards said you were shouting last night. It must be a bad dream. Isn’t it?”

I was not stupid. I could make out that he was pretending that whatever happened was my dream. I knew that was not a dream.

“Yes, it was a very unpleasant dream”, I told by rubbing my forehead with my hand. Then I saw Michele, she had come inside.

“Ya, Afzal, here is a surprise to you. Michele came yesterday night. She didn’t feel like working after you left that place”, the boss told me by showing Michele to me.

“Hey! Afzal how are you, yaar? After a long time?”, She came close to me

I smiled, “What an acting, really. Everyone lives in their characters. I should end this drama soon.”

“I need some time to rest. I’m tired”, I said.

“Ya, sure. Take a rest. But don’t be in this room forever. Come out and have fresh air. By the way, your passport is ready. We are trying to get the visa. This can be done today. See you”, he left along with Michele.

I got ready in few minutes. Though all these crazy things were happening, the only thing that makes me happy was the fact about I was alive.  If I had some remarkable powers or I didn’t know, but I was alive.

I came out of the room and wandering outside. I saw the guy, who had tried to kill me when I was trying to escape. He told me I was a secret service agent, and he was here to help me. But why he tried to kill me? There were many unanswered questions. I had remained silent though I felt like killing the guy in that spot. He said, “hello” and left as if nothing had happened. His actions didn’t surprise me much. Might be I was used to that kind of behavior. I wanted something, something to threaten that guy.  Yes, I wanted a gun. The whole day I was trying to get a gun. Finally, I managed to get one. I kept it in my back pocket. At night, I had requested security guards not to close the doors as I told them I was getting bad dreams because of that. I didn’t know whether they had believed that or not, they didn’t lock the door.

At midnight, I went straight to room number 9 and knocked on the door.  I told him that I had to discuss something. He opened the door. The moment he had opened the door, I hit his face with the gun. He fell to the ground. I entered inside and closed the door.

His nose got fractured, and blood spurted out, “what the heck are you doing? Are you mad?” he was screaming.

I hit him with the gun again on his head. He lost his conciseness. I tied him in a chair and spilled water on his face. He is back to normal.

“See though I was a software architect, who believes that everything can be achieved softly. But after seeing all this stuff, I understood nothing can be achieved by being soft. So tell me, I want answers, who am I? Why did you try to kill me? Then how come I’m alive? If you don’t answer my questions, then I won't hesitate to kill you.” I aimed my gun at his head.

He looked puzzled. He tried to convince me that I was actually dreaming of all that stuff. He didn’t know anything other than that.  I knew he wouldn’t give answers so easily. I was prepared for that, along with a gun I also bought a scissor. I put waste clothes in his mouth, so he won’t shout aloud. Then I cut his little finger with scissors. He was crying like a kid because of pain. I had spent some more time interrogating him. One moment he gave up and agreed to give answers.

He was talking in pain, “I’ll tell you everything. Please stop hurting me”.

“Alight. I won’t hurt you. So tell me why I didn’t die?”, I asked.

“you can’t die, because YOU ARE NOT A HUMAN!!!”

“What do you mean I’m not a human? Am I a ghost?” I asked sarcastically.

“No, you are a humanoid. After 15 years of thorough research, US military scientists have come up with your model. You made up with half-human organs and half-machine parts. You have a capability to change your appearance as like anybody”,  he stopped for a while because of pain.

“What are you saying?” my voice was breaking.

The heavy bleeding was made him so weak. But still, he was talking.

“The first rule the scientists made after developing your models was ‘HUMANOIDS MUST NOT KNOW WHO THEY ARE’ as that would make chaos in their brain. Once we program humanoid brain as a particular person, then they would totally believe that THEY ARE HUMANS, and mannerisms, actions, affection, love, phobias, character, attitude everything … everything would be like a person whom they have programmed. To change you to some other person, we have to reprogram you. But once we convert you into some person then no one could find out.”

“All our previous models behaved exactly in that way… except you. Once we replaced Trivedi with you. I was badly needed money, so I was sold myself to US sleeper cells and leaked information about you. They were very excited. They decided to have you was most important than killing the US army chief. So they captured you. I helped them to reprogram you and to change your appearance. I warned them about the rule that they should never reveal about you.”

“But the problem came after altering your program. Somehow your brain didn’t lose the ‘Trivedi’ identity. Every day we were trying to make you believe that you are not a Trivedi. But we didn’t succeed. As we proceed with different personalities, yet you strongly believed that ‘you are Trivedi’. As you are thinking, you are NOT here for the past two days. You are here for the past 30 days; we were doing all types of experiments on you. We even called Michele and tried. But there was no use.  We did everything that we could do to bring you back.  We also tried coming up with another model. I shot you because I knew that you can’t be killed with bullets.”

Tears were rolling from my eyes.

“I’m not a human”, I was blabbering. I was not able to believe that fact.

“I don’t believe you.  I want proof. Prove me that I’m not a human”, I shouted in angry.

“I know you would ask this. Go ahead and shoot yourself. You will come to know. There is no blood in your body. Instead, a chemical solution is circulating. If you shoot yourself then you would see that chemical. After few minutes, you will recover yourself. But you will experience pain as like normal human beings”, he looked at my eyes after telling that.

I recalled seeing that chemical when he shot me last time. I still wanted to check again. When I got ready to shoot myself, then suddenly someone had knocked on the door. They asked me to open it otherwise they would break it. I reacted quickly, opened the door, and hidden beside it. When they entered inside, I closed the door behind them and ran. Looks like those guys alarmed others, so everyone got alerted. I looked for opportunities to escape. Then I saw the drainage entrance. I entered inside and then ran like crazy. Those guys also found that I was in drainage, so they followed me. After running for several minutes then I came out from it in some deserted place. I didn’t know what was that place.

It was very dark. I felt even I shouldn’t be there. They might find out, so I ran again. As I expected they somehow found, and they were following me. I saw a freight train, which was picking up speed slowly.  I ran at full speed and entered inside the caboose.  When I looked behind; they were trying to catch it, but they were too late. The train went at full speed.  I was so tired, so just slept inside.

When I opened my eyes, I was somewhere in northern India.

I got down off the train and went to the nearby tea shop. I had asked for tea before I went into deep thoughts. Whatever my background was or whoever I was, I decided to forget all and start from zero. Start a new life and a new beginning. Get a new job and mingle with new friends and new people. A person in a tea shop had interrupted my thoughts and asked about me as he hadn’t seen me before there. I looked at him and thinking, “Who am I?”

Well, there are certain things, which you believe till your death. And what you believe depends on what you are. No matter what anyone says – I believed I was Trivedi.

“My name is Trivedi”, I answered him with a smile.

THE END

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