Shadows in the boot

It was a night draped in darkness and shadows, the monsoon rains pounding relentlessly on the deserted streets of Mumbai. The city’s usual hum was drowned out by the relentless clatter of rain and broken glimpses of streetlights flickering through the downpour. Amid this bleak scene, a young girl named Aisha , drenched to the bone , stood trembling in a black rain jacket , the hood of which covering most of her forehead , hair damp and clinging onto her face and shoulders , under a faded lamppost, clutching her mobile phone with wet sweaty palms.

Her voice was trembling as she dialed the police station. “Please, I need help. I saw a dead body in the trunk of that white sedan parked on Mankikar Marg , Chunabhatti. It’s... it’s horrible.” Her words tumbled out in frantic whispers, punctuated by the howling wind and the incessant patter of rain . 

Within minutes, sirens wailed through the rain as police cars arrived, their beams casting eerie shadows across the wet street . Officers hurriedly examined the parking spot, the trunk, the interior of the vehicle— but found nothing. The white sedan was empty, parked innocently in the vague darkness. Officers looked at Aisha with a mixture of concern and skepticism. “Miss, we checked the car. Nothing there. Are you sure you saw what you said?” her interrogators asked gently but firmly. Embarrassment painted her face as she stammered apologies and looked away, backing away towards the safety of her home. 

That scene replayed itself with chilling familiarity every such rainy, dark night— and every time, Aisha’s trembling voice calling the police, their investigations ending with nothing to find. “ We may have to press charges against Aisha , the next time she calls us like this “, said Inspector Rane from the Sion police station to Aisha’s parents . Her affluent parents were left worried and bewildered. They reached out to counselors. Therapy sessions became a routine, an attempt to unravel her strange visions.

One rainy evening, more desperate than ever, her parents decided to try something new. On a strong recommendation from their therapist , Aisha and her parents decided to try out past life regression . During a past life regression, you are guided into a peaceful state to access memories from your subconscious, helping you reconnect with past life experiences and understand your deep connections with certain places. It can bring clarity on why you feel a strong connection with specific locations and environments. 

Aisha started her sessions amidst a lot of controversy and confusion about the nature of the therapy . 

Aisha was guided to a quiet room with soft ambient lighting , a private space with comfortable seating , neutral and conducive to healing . The room was painted in calming pastel shades and decorated with natural elements . A space where one would feel calm and secure . natural elements. The overall ambiance was professional yet welcoming, created to foster safety and trust, which allowed Aisha to be open and honest during therapy sessions.  

The therapist’s voice was calm and soothing as she guided Aisha into a trance. Her eyes fluttered shut, and soon she was free-falling into a different reality—a time when she was no longer Aisha, but someone else entirely.

In that hypnotic state, Aisha’s voice grew distant but clear. She described rough hands pulling her into the dark. The sound of her own scream echoing as a brutal force overwhelmed her. She recalled a cruel, violent death: a sharp knife slicing through flesh, a brutal struggle, her body discarded in a car trunk. She saw herself in the back of a white ambassador, the engine of the car humming ominously as it moved through deserted, rain-soaked streets before coming to a stop in a shadowy alley. The trunk opened. The cold, dark night swallowed the pain and the fear.

When she awoke, tears streamed down her face as she recounted her memory— the vivid details of her death and her body being abandoned like trash, in the same white ambassador on a lonely, rainy night. She remembered the suffocating darkness, the relentless rain, and the sense of finality.

From that moment on, her perception shifted. Any white sedan on a rainy night was no longer just a sight— it was a sinister relic from her past life, echoing her own brutal end. Every dark, rainy night became a portal to that past, a reminder of a violence she had endured centuries before.

The police, now aware of these haunting memories, acknowledged that perhaps some things transcended simple explanation. Her parents, burdened with this knowledge, sought specialized healing—trying to untangle the layers of her trauma and her past. 

And in the quiet moments—when the rain began to tap against the windows, and the streets of Mumbai lay deserted and soaked—Aisha’s eyes would flicker with a flicker of recognition, haunted by the echoes of a life lost in darkness and rain, lost in a past that refused to stay buried.