Chapter 9 : Batch Of 2020

A tale woven by  craftsmen in the Team 'Supernova'.

Read the previous part of the story here

Jennifer kept thinking hard what Sasha was expecting from her. She kept thinking what had possibly gone wrong that summer. Jennifer had just joined Damania Engineering College. Jennifer was a bright student and was an ardent art lover. She was someone who had no plans in her life. Everything she did was spontaneous and had to be total fun. She was totally different from the other girls in her college. On the first day, she remembered how she had come in late and how she had to be seated around an extremely feminine and stylish girl called Alka. Alka and Jennifer were different as chalk and cheese but something had clicked between them. Their friendship slowly became the talk of the college. They would bunk lectures, hang out in the college and have fun. They would go shopping together , hogging around in all the eateries and would act totally crazy when around.

Alka came in from a upper middle class background whereas Jennifer belonged to a middle class family . But this never affected their friendship. They were like soul sisters. Every student in their class wanted to hang out with these cool chicks in the college. Slowly and gradually they became a group of 5 , all kids of influential parents except for Jenniffer. Alka and Jennifer became hostel roomies too. Jennifer had shifted to Mumbai for her engineering studies but her interests lied somewhere else. She always wanted to do something exciting, like covering crime journalism. Alka , she just wanted a degree.All that she had to do was manage her dad’s flourishing business.

 It was just a month after their joining that their seniors had announced a Fresher's party. This year the college seemed to have announced Fresher's party. Everyone seemed to be excited for the party. The party was just a polite and decent way introduced by the seniors to rag the freshers and that too in front of the teachers. The date was announced and the venue was declared for the party. But Jeniffer’s group already had a plan set for the same day. They had decided to hang out in a friend’s farmhouse that weekend. And now this fresher’s party had come up.It wasn’t a tough decision choosing which party to attend for a gal like Jennifer who had her own rules of life.The other 4 in the group followed whatever Jeff (as her friends would call her lovingly) said.


They bunked the Fresher's party and headed to the farmhouse in Lonavla which belonged to one of their classmates, Mohit. They had decided to party all night. Booze and drugs all were arranged to add in more fun. . Late night the gang of 5 headed to Lonavla. Jennifer remembered, that was a night of fun. Alcohol flowed in abundance. No one to control over her. She was a free bird unlike in Cochin where her dad would control her every movement. She remembered him as a control freak.

On the other hand Alka was totally high on booze. She was getting close and cozy with her boyfriend of a month who was also called in for the party. Alka was totally out of control and Jennifer poured in more alcohol for her. Jennifer screamed in euphoria, “Have it more babes, Lets rock the party!" In the next few hours, the party became wild. Everyone in the party was lying around drunk.

Alka was having a wild time with her boyfriend. But Jennifer knew that was a night they all wanted away from their parents, they wanted their own world of fun. Jennifer had no guy around to hook up with, so she decided to hook up with the first love of her life, her camera. She clicked pictures of the party of everyone doing stupid stuff. She laughed thinking how the pictures of her classmates were going to embarass them once they came back to their senses. She knew, they were going to beg of her to clean up those pictures. But Jennifer had a rule, " Nothing clicked by her camera ever goes to the trash. It stays with her no matter what". She decided to explore the farmhouse and ventured out. She was drunk but she didn’t care about anything. Jeniffer had an eye for beauty and unusual stuff.  She went "Click Click Click " capturing whatever she saw..
The next morning as she woke up She found herself in the farmhouse with a heavy head and severe headache. Everyone around her was tensed. She woke up and dragged herself out and asked her classmates what had happened. Jennifer remembered someone saying " Alka was dead" and that is when reality struck her. How! What ! What are you saying?? Jennifer had screamed.She couldn’t believe what she had heard.But everyone seemed as clueless as Jennifer was. Jennifer had regretted making this plan and heading to Lonavla for a night of fun. Jennifer had a faint picture of Alka going out with her Boyfriend. That was the only ever image in her mind that she had of Alka.

Jennifer tried to think hard what had happened next... She remembered her running crazily to find her camera and go through the pictures. The camera had last snaps of Alka and her boyfriend on the road outside the farmhouse .They were seen cozying up in his swanky new car .

Jennifer cried out loud. Shekhar and Cyrus rushed to her help and asked her what had gone wrong. Jennifer had realised that Alka's death had some connection with the whole Sasha thing. Jennifers camera also had some pics of unknown strangers in the party and their was one face who was in every snap of Alka's. He was always in the background or somewhere around Alka. Jennifer had wondered who the guy was then but she hadn't paid heed to it. But somehow she now felt that fellow had some connection to it. Jennifer opened up everything to Shekhar and Cyrus about the party and everything she could remember had happened that night. She also told about the unknown stranger she had seen in the party. She also expressed concern as to who he would have been to Cyrus as he was also in the party.

 Cyrus remembered that it was indeed a tragic night and he never ever talked about that incident every to anyone. It was sad that a gal from the party had met with a tragic end and everyone in the party were grilled for hours by the police. That was one night he never wanted to be associated with and was reluctant to share whatever details he had with Jennifer and Shekhar. But their life was in danger and he had no choice. He had to share whatever he knew with Jeniffer.

Cyrus opened up. “There is something I want to share” , said Cyrus and paused thinking whether he was doing a right thing talking to two unknown strangers about that night. But did he have a choice?
He continued,”I do have an account of the party detail by detail written on my blog. You can read it there . I have also shared some photographs of the people from the party. I am not sure whether they would help us but you can go through it” . Jennifer tried surfing the net for Cyrus’s blog but realized that the network was jammed . “ Shit! This isn’t working. We are all going to die”, cried out Jennifer.

Cyrus tried on his laptop and then realized their efforts were in vain. He browsed through some files and folders to find whether he could find the blog posts saved as drafts on his  laptop.
“ Jeniffer, I think I have found it. This is the one .” said Cyrus. Both Shekhar and Jennifer peeped to check out the pics and the post.She was surprised with what she found. She kept staring into the screen . She became all pale and white. Did the post hold any clue to Alka's murder? Was the stranger found ? Was Cyrus sharing everything that he knew? Could their lives be saved… hundred thoughts ran across Jennifer’s mind.



The story continues here ...Read on

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