The postmortem report did not indicate anything suspicious either because Parth and I did not have a physical confrontation. But I knew I was the culprit. I had taken my friend’s life.

Over the next few days, to survive the trauma, I made him a part of me. His dreams became mine, his personality became mine too. I would see Parth all the time. I would feel him sitting next to me, I would hear his voice telling me what to do. I didn’t even realize that I had become like him, studying day and night. But in becoming Parth, I had to destroy myself. I forgot about poetry. I stopped writing. I was only focussed on achieving his dreams.

Every time I entered the dorm, I saw Parth on his bed. I saw him playing basketball, smoking up in the sports field, studying in the library. I saw him everywhere. I even took up smoking to be more like him.

I tried filling the chasm inside me with what I had lost. Parth’s aggression, violence and hatred were the last things I had witnessed and it was this that drove my new identity.

One day, before the board exams, I was walking past the infirmary when I noticed Parth’s wheelchair in a corner. I pulled it out and touched it. I felt his energy flowing through it into me. I took his spectacles out of my bag, where I’d kept them, and put them on. I tried to smile like him too, not knowing what was happening to me.

The spectacles blurred my vision but I kept them on as I sat on the wheelchair. I rolled the wheelchair around the boarding house, laughing, as I felt Parth’s identity take over mine. A few students gathered around to watch as I behaved like a lunatic. A whisper ran through the crowd. Within minutes, the guards caught hold of me and brought me back to the infirmary.

There was a lot of talk about my mental health after Parth’s demise. There were several people who had witnessed me doing odd things, besides lying, hurting people and even myself at times. The principal decided to terminate my enrolment and send me back to Delhi. My parents were told to take me home after the board exams. But day and night, I toiled, driven by the strange force with which I was becoming familiar. After I topped the board exams, the school reconsidered my expulsion, but my parents decided nevertheless to take me back home.

Shriya didn’t even come to see me or speak to me after Parth’s death. I heard she moved to London with her family soon after. I never saw or heard of her again.

Since that day, I have always kept Parth’s spectacles with me. I wear them whenever I feel the need to be like him, sometimes intentionally, sometimes unknowingly. There is not a single day where I don’t curse myself for killing him. Since that day I have been living like this—living two lives, two dreams. While trying to find Parth, I lost myself.