The message was meant for Priya.
Anika’s fingers hovered over her screen, then hit send before she could rethink it. “If Uncle touches me again, I’m going to run away. I swear.”
She sat up straighter when the message went, her throat tightening. The room smelled of wet clothes and incense—her mother had lit an agarbatti after evening prayers.
Then she saw it.
The message hadn’t gone to Priya. Not to her best friend. Not to anyone she could trust.
The number at the top of the screen read just one word: Unknown.
“Shit,” she whispered. “No no no.”
She panicked, sent a follow-up: “Sorry. Wrong person.” Then locked the phone, heart pounding too loud in her chest.
It was 10:49 p.m., and Koramangala was still soaked from the evening downpour. A rickshaw horn bleated outside. Her uncle’s voice drifted from the kitchen, laughing with her mother. “Beta, have you eaten?” he called.
Anika didn’t answer.
She lay back on her thin mattress, stared at the ceiling fan, and hoped the number would stay silent.
Across the city, in an office near MG Road, Rhea Rajan sat alone under tube lights. She was finishing a late shift—again. Her team had left hours ago, the last one muttering something about “overtime obsession.”
She ignored them. She always did.
When her phone buzzed, she glanced down. Unknown number.
“If Uncle touches me again, I’m going to run away. I swear.”
The message froze her fingers. A part of her brain flicked on like an emergency switch. The word “Uncle.” The chill of familiarity.
Another message arrived. “Sorry. Wrong person.”
But it was already too late.
Rhea reread the first message. It felt like looking into a mirror cracked across decades. Her eyes stung.
She typed without thinking: “Are you okay?”
No reply. Just the two blue ticks.
Anika’s screen lit up. Are you okay?
The stranger was replying.
She should’ve ignored it, blocked the number, gone to sleep. Instead, she stared at the message. The words felt too… real.
She typed, then deleted. Then typed again: Who is this?
The reply came seconds later: I’m someone who believes you.
That’s when Anika began to cry. Quietly, so no one could hear through the walls.
At 38, Rhea didn’t cry easily. But something about the girl’s message—the timing, the name—had opened an old wound.
Vinod. That was the name. He wasn’t just “uncle.” He was her uncle.
The one who used to take her for ice cream. The one who would pat her back too long when no one was watching. The one who smelled of coconut oil and carried that same old jute bag with a red stitched handle.
She hadn’t seen him in years. She thought he was out of her life. Out of the city.
But the message felt like a warning. Or a call.
She stared at the screen and typed: You don’t have to run alone. Tell me what’s going on.
Anika read it five times before replying.
She whispered the words into the pillow first, as if trying them out loud. Then she typed: He’s my mum’s brother. He touches my arm, my back, sometimes when no one’s looking. She says I’m imagining things. Says I’ve always been sensitive.
Rhea pressed her palm to her mouth.
Same story. Same mother-blindness. Same silence.
She typed: You’re not imagining. You’re not alone.
A pause. Then she added: He used to do the same to me. Years ago.
The next day, Anika skipped school. She said she had a fever, and her mother barely looked up.
She sat by the balcony grille and watched the Ganesh Chaturthi procession pass below. Men in white dhotis smeared with turmeric. Loudspeakers blaring Marathi chants.
She typed: Are you still there?
Always, came the reply.
They chatted more now. Quietly. Carefully.
Anika told Rhea about the night her mother slapped her for crying during a pooja when Vinod put his hand on her knee.
Rhea told her about the time she ran to the neighbour’s house at age twelve and stayed there till morning. No one had asked why.
They shared no pictures. No full names. But something passed between them—trust, maybe. Or the kind of knowing that didn’t need proof.
On the fourth day, Anika typed: I want to leave. I’m scared.
Rhea replied: There’s a shelter. Close to your area. I can send you the address.
Anika paused. Then typed: My mum would kill me.
She won’t, Rhea replied. You’ll be okay.
Anika’s next message came after three minutes. Where is it?
The shelter was near Jyoti Nivas College. Rhea had looked it up at lunch. She sent the address.
That evening, she stayed later than usual at the bank. Her manager frowned but said nothing.
She kept looking out the window, watching the rickshaws pass. The rain had started again.
Anika hadn’t replied.
Rhea checked WhatsApp every five minutes. Blue ticks. No new messages.
At 12:34 a.m., Anika texted: I reached.
Rhea exhaled so hard it surprised her.
Then Anika added: They’re nice. There’s food. I’m scared though.
You’re safe now, Rhea wrote. Sleep.
No reply.
But the blue ticks stayed.
The next morning, Rhea arrived at work early.
She hadn’t slept. Not really. Her dreams kept flipping between faces—her mother, Uncle Vinod, and a girl in a green school uniform sprinting down a rain-slicked lane.
At the bank, she pulled up her hair, answered emails, poured herself watery tea. Her fingers trembled slightly. Her manager passed behind her desk and said nothing.
Around noon, her phone buzzed. It was from the shelter.
“She’s here, safe,” the counsellor said. “Quiet, but eating. We’re keeping her away from phones for a bit. She’ll be alright.”
Rhea nodded, even though no one could see. “Please tell her I checked.”
The counsellor hesitated. “She said she didn’t know anyone named Rhea.”
Three hours later, Rhea walked out of the building and into the afternoon drizzle.
She stood near the gate, under the tamarind tree where interns smoked during lunch.
Had she used her real name in any of the messages? She didn’t think so. She was careful.
But the doubt stuck.
She checked WhatsApp. Anika’s number was grey now. No DP. No status. Just “last seen today at 5:17 p.m.”
She scrolled up through the messages. Her own replies were there—tentative, kind, real. But the responses from Anika…
Something felt different now. Off.
Two days passed. No word.
Rhea told herself that was a good thing. The girl was safe. The shelter had rules.
And yet.
At 6:42 on a Thursday evening, her phone buzzed.
A message. From Anika’s number.
“You did the right thing.”
Rhea stared.
She typed: Who is this?
The blue ticks came fast. But no reply.
A second message followed: “She’s gone. But you helped.”
Friday morning, Rhea visited the shelter. She hadn’t planned to, but her feet carried her anyway.
The place was painted sunflower yellow. A fading Ganesh Chaturthi toran hung above the gate.
“I’m looking for a girl who came here Tuesday night,” she told the receptionist. “Fourteen, from Koramangala. Name might be Anika.”
The woman flipped through a register. “We had a walk-in that night. Didn’t give a name. Stayed a few hours. Left before dawn.”
“Left?”
“She said she had a plan. Took her bag. Said she didn’t want anyone calling the cops.”
Rhea’s throat felt dry. “Was she… okay?”
The woman gave a soft, pitying smile. “She was brave.”
On the auto ride home, Rhea thought of her own escape.
She had run at thirteen. Taken the lift to the fifth floor of her apartment and hidden on the terrace behind the water tank, her knees pressed to her chest. Vinod never found her that night.
But he had found her again. Years later.
At her college graduation. He smiled like nothing had happened, pressed an envelope into her hand with two crisp thousand-rupee notes and a folded red handkerchief.
She had thrown it away.
Or she thought she had.
That night, she couldn’t stop checking her phone.
Anika’s number had disappeared again. No profile photo. No status. But at 11:14 p.m., a new message came.
“You helped her, Rani.”
Rhea froze.
Rani. No one had called her that in twenty years. It wasn’t even her name. It was Vinod’s nickname for her.
Rhea blocked the number.
Then unblocked it.
Then blocked it again.
Her hands wouldn’t stop shaking.
Saturday morning, she stayed home. Boiled tea leaves three times. Didn’t drink it.
Someone rang the bell.
She opened the door. No one was there.
Only a small brown envelope on the doormat.
Inside was a red handkerchief. Neatly folded. Red stitch at the corner.
The same one she thought she’d thrown away.
No note. No message. Just the handkerchief. And the faint smell of coconut oil.
By evening, she was back at work, finishing reports no one had asked her to do.
She didn’t tell anyone.
There was nothing to say.
Late Sunday afternoon, a colleague named Mahima leaned over her desk. “You okay, yaar?”
Rhea blinked. “Yeah. Just tired.”
“You should go home on time once in a while. People are starting to talk.”
Rhea gave a small nod.
Mahima lingered. “You know, there’s a new guy in audit. Keeps asking about you.”
Rhea looked up, her voice too small. “I’m not… interested.”
Mahima shrugged. “Didn’t think you would be.”
She left.
Rhea turned her screen off and stared at her own reflection in the dark glass.
The week passed.
Ganesh Visarjan came and went. The streets flooded with petals and songs. Loudspeakers belted out remixed bhajans.
Outside the office gate, the tamarind tree swayed quietly.
On Thursday evening, she stepped out and saw a man across the road.
He wore a beige shirt. He carried a jute bag.
His posture was familiar. But the light was fading, and the crowd swirled between them.
She turned and walked quickly toward the metro station.
That night, she opened WhatsApp one last time.
No new messages.
She scrolled through old texts.
There were none.
The entire chat was gone.
Even the first message.
Even “Sorry, wrong person.”
She went to bed but couldn’t sleep.
At 2:33 a.m., a final message arrived.
“She’s safe now. You did your part.”
It came from a new number. No photo.
No name.
Just blue ticks.
And then silence.
Rhea sat at her dining table. A cup of tea going cold.
She placed the red handkerchief flat on the table and stared at it for a long time.
The fabric held no answers.
Only memory.
Only a girl’s quiet scream that had found the wrong phone… or maybe the right one.
Some girls are saved, she thought.
And some learn to listen for footsteps in the dark.
—The End—
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