This was not happening, thought Harper as her trembling hands dropped the thin sheet of paper on the table.

This couldn't be happening.

It was too much to believe.

After everything, you can't be thinking this is too much, can you, Harper?

It all started around last year. One night, when she was back home after a quick visit to the park, the first of it was buried in her jacket's pocket. Looking at it, one couldn't call it a word, for certain. It was more of a few alphabets jumbled together. Dismissing it as something unimportant, she had chucked it at her at some corner of her drawer. 

By the time, the next one arrived, she had almost forgotten about the previous one. This too just another jumbled word, but found in the mail. It went with the last one.

When this was followed by third, fourth fifth and so on as each month passed, it became a constant nagging. Was it a prank? Who would play it for so many months?

In midst of all this, a thought at the back of her mind, always tried to come forward. But she couldn't let it stew. No, not now. It was a dangerous thought. Always there. It had to be kept away. Far, far away where it couldn't hurt anyone else. Locked away, lost and forgotten.

Surely, this was just another silly prank someone cooked up. The neighbour next door was notorious for those. Well, it was working out just fine by the way it scares me, but that's it. Nothing serious.

So it went on, every month, without a break, one letter found its way to her. Sometimes official, other times, kept somewhere within her reach. And everytime, there was or were jumbled words. 

She had tried a few times to make her neighbour, Mr Wilkes, spill something, if he had been brewing some kind of concoction this time to scare someone. She didn't get much information on that part, for certain. But she did have something.

“Be careful, just in case. Also, don't hesitate to ask for help.” 

There was a different tone to his voice that time, cautious and calculating.

One couldn't comprehend it all without the whole thing. She tried to solve it, always finding a huge chunk of it missing. And as days went by, the suspicion grew. Just as the blurred lines, tried in desperation to be seen, to be heard, loud and clear. As much as she loathed it, the dread was still there.

The last time a letter of similar kind came to her was two days ago.

Almost as if it were a routine, Harper had dedicated most of her time towards solving it. After dozens and dozens of incorrect meanings, now, there laid the sheet of paper in the dim lighting. Still as the air was. 

Running, masquerading and hiding is never enough when the claws are in too deep, dear deer.

A cruel joke would never have matched this.

All of a sudden, her worst nightmare was right in front of her eyes. Things she had tried to forget for so long.

A sentence full of scorn, arrogance, mock, pity and so much more. She was the prey.

It had taken time, but there must have been a reason. A definite plan. Layer upon layer of work. The work had to be efficient, no matter what. Prepared and ready to take control, damage and break her.

How soon, she didn't know, but soon enough. How sad, she too was prepared, not to let down anyone anymore. 

One night around the month when the eighth letter arrived, she had found Mr Wilkes bloodied with hardly much breath left in him. He had been sent to a nearby hospital, in haste. What caused all that had never been made clear and how he avoided answering it, Harper didn't know. But that was when her suspicions had started ascending in acceleration.

And after all that time, She told herself that she was not the criminal. They were. So why should she be hiding, being the witness of what she had seen.

It was time to make a choice. She couldn't keep on running forever.

No more running. Seeing the problem right in the face and slapping it with the solution. Oh, and the evil laugh afterwards.

But that was for if she won. Harper knew the dangers, had seen with her own eyes.  Seen them be capable of killing someone and not giving a fig about it. Being a witness had some responsibilities which she would have to take up now.

Facing them would not be so easynot be so easy. Doesn't mean it can stop me anyway.

She took help where she needed it and gave the statement which was important to start investigation on them.

They sure had not assumed that from her, from the wimpy chit. And that was what had led to their doom. As more and more people came up with their statements following Harper, wanting justice, nobody could ignore their presence and tell them to walk away.

Harper started rallies against them, those who had murdered, abused and broke her as much as the others. All their plans of killing her went down the train. And if someone had stumbled into her bedroom at the dead of night with the intention of a knife straight to the chest, let's just say, they had not anticipated being caught.

They were right in a way. Hiding and running would not be enough. She had to face it one day. So, she did.

This was for all those who had gone down for her and those who would go down if this continued.

She broke out of the fear that tied her for quite a long time. And even if her dreams transformed into nightmares on some nights, she knew to take a deep breath and tell herself that it won't come to that.

_____________
°*°