“Unknown Number”
It began with a message.
“I know what you did. Meet me at 11 p.m. near the old railway bridge. Come alone.”
Ananya stared at the screen, her breath catching. She was 29, married to Karthik — a kind, predictable man who believed in routines, Sunday market trips, and never forgetting to water the plants. Their life was quiet, structured, safe.
But this message cracked something buried.
She deleted it. Must be spam.
The next morning, another ping.
“Delete again, and your husband gets the photos.”
Attached was a grainy image — her, five years ago, at a college party. A man beside her. A moment she had buried. Her hands trembled.
She didn’t tell Karthik. Instead, she went to the bridge that night. It was empty. Silent. But when she returned home, the front door was slightly open.
Nothing stolen. But her old diary — gone.
Then came the courier. No return address. Inside: a pen drive. It played a slow slideshow — college photos, scanned pages from her diary, and finally, a video of Karthik leaving his office.
She felt the floor tilt beneath her.
She went to the police. They were polite but dismissive. “Probably a prank, madam. Don’t worry.”
But she was worried. Because the next message read:
“RUN.”
She packed a bag and vanished.
For days, Ananya lived in shadows — cheap lodges, women’s hostels, train stations. She changed SIM cards. Wore sunglasses indoors. She traced the number to a burner phone. Dug through old college group chats. Found a name: Ravi — a man she had once rejected. He had spiraled into obsession.
But Ravi wasn’t working alone.
One evening, at a bus stop on the outskirts of the city, a man brushed past her too closely. She turned. He followed. She ran.
She sprinted down the highway, heart pounding, lungs burning. Headlights approached from behind. She turned, terrified — but the car slowed beside her.
A woman in her 40s rolled down the window. “Get in!”
Ananya hesitated for half a second — then dove in.
The car sped off. “I saw him chasing you,” the woman said. “You okay?”
Before Ananya could answer, another car appeared in the rearview mirror — black, fast, closing in.
“They’re following us,” Ananya whispered.
The woman’s grip tightened on the wheel. “Hold on.”
They weaved through traffic, horns blaring. The black car tailgated them, trying to force them off the road. Ananya ducked as a bottle shattered against the rear windshield.
The woman took a sharp turn into a narrow service lane. The black car overshot. They lost it — for now.
She dropped Ananya at a police outpost.
This time, the police listened.
With her help, they traced Ravi. He had a rented room filled with photos of her. Notes. Timelines. He had hired local goons. He wanted to ruin her life — not for money, but for revenge.
He was arrested.
But the story didn’t end there.
Ananya returned home. Karthik was shaken, but stood by her. She told him everything. He didn’t flinch.
“You should’ve told me sooner,” he said. “But I’m proud you didn’t let fear win.”
She changed her number. Took self-defense classes. Started volunteering with a women’s safety group.
One evening, she stood on the same bridge — the one where it all began. This time, she wasn’t afraid.
She was watching.
------
Weeks passed. Ananya tried to return to normal — morning walks, office work, quiet dinners with Karthik. But something inside her had changed. She no longer flinched at shadows, but she watched them. She no longer feared silence, but she listened to it.
Then, one evening, a letter arrived. No return address. Inside was a single photo — her, standing at a traffic signal two days ago.
On the back:
“You thought it was over?”
Her hands trembled. She showed it to Karthik. This time, they went straight to the police.
Ravi was still in custody. But someone else had picked up where he left off.
The police traced the envelope to a courier dropbox in another city. No fingerprints. No CCTV. Whoever this was — they were careful.
Ananya’s phone buzzed again. A new number.
“You ran once. Let’s see how far you go this time.”
She didn’t run.
She fought.
With the help of the woman who had rescued her on the highway — a former journalist named Meera — Ananya began digging. They found a pattern: three other women, all harassed by anonymous threats, all connected to Ravi’s old online forums.
One of them had gone missing.
Ananya and Meera met in secret, shared notes, tracked usernames. They discovered a private group — a digital echo chamber of men who believed women like Ananya “deserved to be taught a lesson.”
The threats weren’t random. They were coordinated.
One night, Ananya’s apartment was broken into. Nothing stolen. Just a message scrawled on the mirror:
“You’re not safe. Not even with him.”
Karthik insisted they leave the city. But Ananya refused. “If I run now, I’ll never stop running.”
Instead, she set a trap.
She posted a message in the same forum, pretending to be a new target. Within hours, someone responded. They arranged a meeting.
Ananya went — wired, watched, protected.
The man who showed up wasn’t who she expected. He was young. Nervous. And when the police closed in, he broke.
He wasn’t the mastermind. Just a pawn. But he gave them a name.
Ravi’s cousin.
The real architect of the second wave. He had taken Ravi’s obsession and turned it into a vendetta.
He was arrested. The network dismantled.
---------------
The courtroom was colder than she expected.
Ananya sat on the witness bench, palms damp, eyes steady. Across from her sat Ravi — thinner now, but still wearing that same smugness like a second skin. Beside him, his cousin, the true mastermind, avoided her gaze.
The prosecutor asked her to recount everything — the messages, the chase, the threats, the night she ran barefoot on the highway.
Her voice didn’t shake.
But when she described the moment she found her diary missing — the one place she had poured her fears, her secrets — her throat tightened. That violation had cut deeper than the threats.
The defense tried to twist her words. “You never told your husband. Why hide it if you weren’t guilty of something?”
She looked straight at the jury. “Because I was afraid. And women are taught to be quiet when they’re afraid.”
There was silence. Then a nod from one of the jurors — a woman in her 50s, eyes brimming.
The trial lasted weeks. Evidence piled up: the burner phones, the photos, the forum messages. Meera testified too, recounting the highway chase and the network they uncovered.
In the end, the verdict was clear.
Guilty. Both of them.
But justice didn’t feel like fireworks. It felt like breath — slow, steady, earned.
Six Months Later
Ananya stood in front of a small group of women in a community hall. Some wore bruises. Some wore silence. All of them carried stories.
She shared hers — not as a victim, but as someone who had clawed her way back.
She and Meera had started a foundation: “Project Echo” — for women facing cyberstalking, blackmail, and digital abuse. They offered legal help, counseling, and most importantly, a voice.
One evening, after a session, a young girl approached her.
“I thought I was alone,” she whispered.
Ananya smiled. “You’re not. And you never were.”
Moral: sometimes, the bravest thing a woman can do is break her fear.
Author : Harish Babu
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