The Midnight Call

It is 2:00 am in the night, telephone rings. Rohit wakes up to pick the call. The caller says, “hello”.

One month later. Its been 2 months since the new year of 1990, Rohit lives in a normal house near Kodambakkam and receives a decent salary from where he works. His family is in Madurai, but he lives here for work. Rohit is not aware of any technology of that time. As the importance of his work increases, he was forced to buy a telephone connection even though he doesn’t want to. He was given the most advanced telephone by his company.

A week later at 2:00 am, he receives a call from an unknown number. Rohit wakes up in the middle of the night to pick the call. It was a stranger saying “Do not go to the trip, stay in the office”. Rohit goes back to sleep again. When he wakes up, he forgets everything and goes to work, when Rohit reaches the office, he sees everyone packing their stuff and a van outside. He questions one of his colleagues. He says it was the manager’s birthday so he planned to take everyone in the office on a trip.

When Rohit gets in to the van he remembered the call. Even though he felt not to go, his colleagues forced him to come. While travelling, everyone was enjoying except Rohit. He thinks that something might happen while he’s out of office. He turns back to see the vehicle behind their van, looks over the window to see if there’s any truck or bus is about to hit them, he even questions the driver whether the brakes are working fine. The place they’re about to visit is outside the town. They have to cross a railway gate to reach there. While crossing the gate the vehicle suddenly shuts down. A train is approaching them. The driver tries to start the vehicle but it doesn’t start. Rohit is in immense terror. He shouts to stop the train. But neither the train driver nor the conductor could hear him. His colleagues try to open the door, but it is jammed. They even try to break it, but they couldn’t.

The train nears to them fast and the driver starts the vehicle and crosses the track. The office workers are shaken by this ordeal. Rohit thought everything was over, but it isn’t. When they reached the place, they had lots and lots of fun. After returning to the office, they came to know their office was raided by the income tax department. Rohit was in the accounting department and his colleague had failed to submit the ITR 6 months ago. Rohit and his colleague got scolded badly. His manager, who thought a birthday is a fun day never knew it would be his last fun day.

The manager got fired because of this. Rohit’s promotion was withheld, he returned to his home with sadness. Rohit ate his dinner and went to bed early. At 2:00 am at midnight, he receives a call. In half-sleep, Rohit picks up the phone. It was the same stranger scolding him with swearing words. As he was in deep sleep, he thought it would be some sort of prank call or wrong number, so ends the call.

Next day he goes to the office to see the manager hanged himself in the accounting department. The scene was terrible. There was some blood on his shirt, no one cared about the blood or the wounds. The police took one day to clear the scene. The manager post is perfectly vacant because the manager killed himself, there is a high chance for the staffs to get that job.

At 2:00 am Rohit gets another call. This time he doesn’t pick up. He tries to avoid the call but the phone keeps ringing continuously. To shut it off he attends the call. This time that stranger gives him some advice. Rohit shouts “why are you calling in the middle of the night and disturbing me”. The call hangs up.

Next day, when he reaches office, he remembers what that stranger said. There was a temporary manager in the office. That temporary manager was supposed to analyse the staffs in the office and assign a new manager. But unluckily that temporary manager is not easy with the staffs around the office. The stranger told Rohit to destroy the sales record before it reaches the manager. The sales record was being prepared by Tushar, who was in charge of the sales team.

Tushar finished preparing the sales record. The file was in his table, Tushar leaves his cabin to get some fresh air. Rohit tries to steal the file but Tushar was back before he could do it. Tushar took the file and verify before going into the manager cabin. Rohit was in the cafeteria, which is nearer to his table. From distance, Rohit sees Tushar moving. This was his chance, Rohit fills his mug full of coffee when he nears Tushar, He fakes an accident, falls over Tushar and pours coffee over his file. Tushar is not an easy guy, he started to fight with him by shouting. Tushar makes Rohit do sales record analysis. Rohit took almost a day to complete.

It was 6:00 pm. Tushar came to Rohit’s cabin to see his work. Rohit said he didn’t finish the work. Since the work was not completed, Tushar leaves home. Rohit had completed the work an hour ago, he waited for Tushar to leave. Rohit took the file to the manager’s office and presented the sales record. The manager was questioning why Tushar didn’t submit the sales record. Rohit lies to the manager by saying he is the laziest person in the office and he doesn’t finish his work on time, that’s why I had to finish and present it. Rohit leaves the manager cabin and leaves the office.

While heading back, Rohit didn’t know why he was doing or why did he do. To him all he did was disturbing other’s work, He slightly felt guilty. When he reached his house, he thought of disconnecting the telephone before sleep but he forgets to do it. Again at 2:00 am, He receives a call. Rohit wakes and attends it. This time the stranger says to have some time with the quality manager. There is only one person in the quality management department, he is kind of funny guy.

Next day when Rohit reaches the office, he talks with Siddharth, who is in charge of quality management. Even though Siddharth has a lot of work to do, he accepts to hang out with him. They both left work in the morning itself. They returned at evening 5pm. The manager was looking for the quality inspector. Since Siddharth was out with Rohit, he wasn’t there for the manager. The manager called the plant in the afternoon and the plant in charge said he didn’t visit the plant today. Evening, when the manager sees Siddharth, he scolds him badly in front of everyone because he failed to do the quality inspection for the past three months. Siddharth had planned to go on an inspection today, but Rohit took him out. There’s a bad name on all of the department now, some are worse than Rohit’s and some are not.

Next day when Rohit gets to the office, someone is on his place. Which means his job is given to someone when he enters the manager’s office and questions manager he says “You won’t be working in accounts department hereafter because you are the manager of this company now”. Temporary manager congratulates him and so the whole office, some are angry at him and some think he actually deserves it.

Now Rohit gets a salary hike and a cabin. He shifts to a new apartment because he earns more now. One day the fiancée of the top salesperson in that company visits. She actually came to have lunch with her fiancée. She looked gorgeous and amazing. That night, Rohit receives a call. Rohit slept but he was expecting. He picked up, the stranger talked to him for like 10 mins or so. Next day the salesperson’s fiancée came to the office. When they were leaving for lunch, Rohit called him and asked him to provide a rundown on clients. He forced him to do so that they can’t hangout. While she was leaving alone for lunch, Rohit took the back door followed her and went to the place where she was about to have lunch.

Her name is Sowmya. Sowmya doesn’t know Rohit is her fiancée’s boss. The tables were full except Rohit’s. She had to share with him. Rohit started a conversation with her, Rohit was talking from his heart as said by the stranger. She really liked him even though she knew she’s about to get married. After she left, everyone gave their bills to Rohit because he brought people to that hotel to fill the tables so that she would be left with his table.

When Rohit returns to the office, he waits for the top salesperson to take a break when he does, Rohit runs to his table, takes his diary and steals her number. Everything Rohit did till now was told to do by the stranger. He called her at night and talked for a while. She was surprised to know how he would get her number. They had a really good conversation. Days passed Sowmya was hanging a lot with Rohit than her fiancée. She was so confused between the two of them. She called off her wedding. Everyone in his workplace started to talk bad about him because obviously when a girl dumps a man, people will think there are some issues with him. He couldn’t work, he couldn’t relax, he couldn’t do anything. He quits his job, even though his family is in desperate need of money.

She is now in a relationship with Rohit. Rohit feels slightly guilty. Rohit gets a call again that night saying do not do any charity stuff. Despite being said, next day midnight Rohit withdraws half of his bank balance and goes to his house. He planned to keep that money there and leave, it was almost six-month salary of him. He slightly peeks in his window and sees he was about to hang himself. Rohit breaks the door and tries to stop it. The moment when he saves him, the salesperson sees his handful of money with Rohit. The salesperson learns everything at that moment. Why she rejected him, the reason behind everything and most importantly the reason to quit his job. He tries to call the cops.

Rohit fights with him, he pushes Rohit real hard. Rohit falls down and becomes unconscious for a second. When Rohit wakes up, he has only one option which is to kill him. Rohit took the knife from the table and stabs him from the back. The cops arrive at his place. Rohit leaves the place with the knife. When he reaches home realizes he stopped him from killing himself just to die on his hands.

Two days later, Rohit gets back to his work. Cops visit his office for investigation, Rohit has proof that he was in his house for two days. His apartment CCTV was not functioning, the watchman was sleeping that night and he ordered food for two days. After a week, Rohit and Sowmya hang out regularly. They talk to each other all night, they go to movies every weekend, things were going really great for him. Sowmya felt safe and warm whenever she hears his voice. Until one day Rohit gets a call from the same stranger, this time he threatens that he would expose his secret.

Rohit gets scared and didn’t know what to do. Next day Rohit and Sowmya hangout and Rohit says everything he had done till now. She listens to him and leaves. Rohit goes in a mental breakdown. Six months later. Rohit moves to a newer place where he got the same kind of job with a better salary. He doesn’t want to buy a telephone this time. Due to company pressure, he was made to buy a telephone. At 2:00 in the morning Rohit receives a call. He wakes up and attends the call and he was completely freaked out. It was the same stranger again. He ends the call immediately.

Rohit doesn’t know what to do. His mother died last month, he’s alone now. No one would ever listen to him. He is helpless, hopeless and completely heartbroken. He calls Sowmya, he knew she wouldn’t care him if he’s dead but she was his only option. He begs her. She couldn’t deny. She agrees to help him but she also says she’s done after this. She travels to his place. Rohit explains every second of that night. She tries to stay up all night while Rohit sleeps to see what’s happening, but she fell asleep after a few hours. Suddenly they receive a call, they pick up and this time they put it on speakerphone so that both can hear. She listened to the call and felt something. She felt something different which she experienced long ago. They didn’t get a call that night. She was having a video recording camera.

Next day she hides the camera and pretends to be watching while she slept. They receive a call and when they pick up, it was no one. They sleep again, and the next day morning they went to a nearby park to get some fresh air. They both were talking and she started to like him again. Sowmya completely forgets about the camera. When they return home, she sees the battery in the camera has run out. She connects it to the charger.

While Rohit was making breakfast, she opened the camera and saw the video she took last night. She was shocked, angry, depressed. Her face was full of sadness and fear. She started to cry slowly. Also, she was angry. She pushed him in the kitchen and showed the video. She said “This is why you brought me here? A sentimental story to pull my legs again, Liar!”. Rohit woke up after Sowmya slept, modified the telephone to make an automatic call in the midnight and slept. This was happening every night. She quickly packed her things up, while Rohit saying he didn’t do this and didn’t know anything about this. She took everything and left.

While she was boarding the train, she accidentally dropped her handbag and the camera came out and damaged. The video was playing again and again. In that video, she could see Rohit’s eyes and after he receives the call he woke up with a shock like a normal man would when he receives a call in midnight. The video was playing again and again and she realized he didn’t do it. She quickly gets out of the train, takes a cab and goes to his house.

Rohit was about to drink poison and she stops it. She apologizes to him and explains. Rohit had multiple subconscious power. His subconscious would wake up in the middle of the night, records a call with the answers for Rohit so that he can become a successful person in his life. His subconscious threatened him to leave his past job and city. His subconscious created these events so that they can be together. But his subconscious never thought that she would record everything.

Six years later. Rohit wakes in the early morning and packs lunch for two. Now they are married and they have a kid. Rohit quits his job to remove all the stuff on his plate and live a happy life. He sends off his wife and child. Suddenly he hears a mobile ringing sound. It's her mobile, she left it on the couch. He takes and sees, it displays unknown number. He attends it and it is a male voice saying “Hello…”.