Amyra sat on her bed in her room, facing nothing but front wall, her eyes closed, her breath steady her body unmoving and as still as a statue. It was 5 in the evening and at the moment, she was alone in the apartment. The locks of the house were changed now and she had new keys all to herself. Dhruv had left just a few moments ago. Both of them didn't talk much after coming back from the Police Station and had mostly stayed quiet as they first had lunch and then the locks of the house were being changed. After enough contemplation and consideration, Dhruv had left for the moment and went back to his apartment. Amyra had wanted to stay alone for some time. Everything was so overwhelming that if she hadn't been left alone for some time, she would have surely gone insane.

Dhruv had been adamant about not letting her alone for the night.

"Either come with me to my home. Or I'll come over here for the night. If you are uncomfortable with both the options, you can go stay at my home with my mom and sister. They wouldn't mind." He was adamant about it.

Dhruv lived alone with one of his friends in a different apartment at rent despite having a home here. It had always been out of her understanding why he would want to do that because he shared a warm relationship with his family. His was one of the most loving family Amyra had ever seen. Picture perfect, she called it. In every sense, perfect. He always said living alone was something about being on "a quest to find himself." Amyra's lips twitched with amusement recalling his expression as he said that.

"No, can't do that. I really, really want to be alone at the moment. And I can't leave this place right now as Riya's parents and her sister will be here by tomorrow." She had tried to reason with him. It sounded like a bad excuse even to herself.

"Stop giving me bullshit. They are going to be staying at Riya's aunt's place. The same aunt to whom if she had really gone, we wouldn't be here in the first place. God, what was she thinking?" His voice was a mixture of sadness and frustration. At one point, he had a crush on Riya. Although he grew out of it eventually, his affections for her as a friend had never died. It was through Riya that she and Dhruv had become friends later on.

Watching him sad made her feel worse than she already was feeling. 

"Okay. I don't want to leave this place right now. And I want to be alone. Do one thing, go home. Come back later at night. Please just leave me alone for a while." Dhruv had thrown her a glare first and then left saying he will be back later at night.

Amyra opened her eyes and stared ahead at the wall. She wanted to be alone at the moment because she needed to think through things. She had to go down the memory lane and pull some of them out of the dark pit of forgetfulness and self-induced amnesia. She was extraordinarily talented that way- perhaps too much so. And hadn't she locked away many of those memories because she had had enough of the extraordinary?

She breathed in deeply and tried to go back in time but it was becoming hard to do so. A part of her was scared and it didn't want to go there. What was the use of it all afterwards, if all she had to do in the end was to unlock the forbidden pandora's box? 

She tried hard but her mind and heart were resisting with full force, unwilling to go back and face it. She wanted to stay focused on that front wall in her room, to think about its texture and colour, the distance of it from her position on the bed. She sighed in frustration and lied down on the bed completely in a fetal position. It was like forcing herself to sleep- the more she tried to reach it, the farther away it got. 

She was in a very strange state of mind. She can't say she had completely forgotten everything, yet those memories were out of her reach somehow. It was like turning your head away from something you knew was right there in flesh and bones, but somehow not acknowledging it made it non-existent. That's how her faded memories were. They were right there, within her reach, but she was unable to acknowledge them, something inside of her warning her against it. 

She sighed and let go, not trying to reach those memories anymore, and as soon as she did that, she heard a voice say something to her. It was her mother's voice. 

"Amu, memories are living beings, just as alive as we are. It's wicked to keep disturbing them again and again. You should always let them rest if they are precious to you. Because we humans can corrupt them with our emotions and vices. We force them to change as per our selfish desires."

The voice sounded so clear as if it was spoken right now, right here, in the present moment. It was just a piece of memory, though.

Amyra sat up straight in her bed again, suddenly feeling immense pain and grief engulf her. She didn't remember much of her mother. Actually, she hardly remembered her at all. But this one, unbidden memory had revived a strange hunger in her, an instinctive need to have her mother close to herself and hug her, feeling safe in her embrace. The grief was unarming and a sob escaped her lips, foreign and alien. But it wasn't only grief that made her so vulnerable suddenly. It was an inexplicable fear, something carnal inside her telling her to save herself. Some animal instinct warning her of a looming threat.

She wanted to recall more of her mother suddenly- it was more of a need than a want. A sudden uncontrollable desire. 

"Your mom has schizophrenia," her dad had told her. Ten-year-old Amyra had trouble even pronouncing the word which had described her mother's every aspect in a weird combination of few syllables. Her mother was now limited to a single word- all her love and her stories were now part of that one word and she was told that the word represented doubt, confusion, hallucination. Was that all her mother was now?

As Amyra rocked back and forth on the bed, hugging her knees, her chin on her arms, she didn't know what she wanted anymore. She did want to take a little walk down the memory lane but didn't want to go that down and deep. She wasn't prepared for it. As she gasped slightly to breathe better, the tears from her eyes travelled down her face, tracing a wet path from her nose and onto her lips. She tasted salt and water as she licked her lips and sniffed, then wiped her face.

She stood up, feeling unsteady and dizzy and went inside the bathroom. Washing her face, she looked back at herself. Black eyes and hair, her mother's features. She shook her head and washed her face again. Then she walked out without looking at herself for a second time. An urge to see her mother took hold of her and she turned on the lights of the room and opened her closet, turning it inside out, hoping against hope to find an old picture or anything like that.

She knew that she didn't have anything here. Maybe back in their family home, she could find something, but nothing was here. And yet that thought didn't stop her from almost vandalising her already disorganized closet. Although she didn't find anything of her mother, she did find the keys to their family home in Shimla. She sighed as she realised it has been two years since she went to that place. Last she went there was on her father's death. He had committed suicide, was in depression for a long time and Amyra had been unaware of it all.

It was only after she went there that she came to know what he had been going through. How strange and ironic, that a psychiatrist who helped people come out of their depression had himself succumbed to it. It was her father's cousin now, her uncle who took care of the place, although the house legally belonged to her. He had asked her to come back often, complaining that it was getting difficult for him to take care of the place, but she didn't want to. The place held too much, much more than she could handle. She was happy here, with her friends and an ever-advancing career ahead of her. This place was her anchor, with only happy memories, all of them precious but none too much to make her vulnerable and weak. 

But now she didn't know if she could call this place her safe haven anymore.

She put the keys back inside her closet and finally seemed to be getting a hold of herself. 

Layers. Memories have layers. "And they live and change like us. They get corrupted like us," Amyra mumbled. 

She took in a breath again and thought about the dolls. It's been seven years since she left Shimla and got settled here, in Delhi. Initially, her father lived with her for the first two years, then he went back home while she stayed here. Living first in hostels, then in apartments. She finally moved in with Riya in this shared, rented apartment about three years ago. Her life moved on and she forgot all about what had happened back then and locked the memories in. She knew what she had locked inside her, but the details were far away from her conscious mind.

Amyra's life, as she liked to see, was divided into three crucial phases. The first two, she left back in Shimla and third was here, a very happy, carefree and normal one. Not anymore though, she thought.

She lied down on the bed and closed her eyes again. 

"Memories are mere recollections, not always the truth," Vansh said to Amyra when she kept her new doll away. This one was in a creamy white dress in a keychain. A very small one. She faced Vansh and asked him another question.

"Are they alive?"

Vansh smiled but did not answer. He smiled often, but Amyra has never seen him actually laugh. Even when he joined her father and sometimes other men at her home, Amyra has noticed how Vansh mostly just smiled, even though others could be laughing on something hilarious. And his smile often felt like the controlled, courteous one meant as a polite gesture. He was her father's student, 26 years of age, significantly older than Amyra and a "marvellously genius lad" as per her father.

His brown eyes bored into her black ones and he asked, "Why do you ask so many strange questions? The way you talk sounds like you're the daughter of an old midwife who grew up with million tales instead of a renowned psychiatrist."  His words said something else, but his eyes something else entirely. 

He was still looking at her and Amyra felt flustered, her cheeks tinted pink and she felt embarrassed. "Stop staring at me. You have a very weird way of looking at people. Did no one ever tell you that? Children must be so scared of you."

"As they should be." His skin was slightly tanned in the summer sun and a constant, never-ending smile decorated his face. His voice was always calm and smooth, his way of speaking always well mannered. But yet Amyra oft wondered if this was merely some sort of facade and yet, yet she couldn't trace any lie beneath the surface. Maybe what appeared was not fake, but what appeared was not all either.

"So what other stories do you entertain yourself with?" He asked, smiling at her.

Amyra woke up from her slumber, as her dream faded away. What was that sound, was it doorbell? She picked her phone up and checked the time- only half-past 9. It can't be Dhruv yet, is he back already?

Her stomach heavy with fear, she woke up from her bed, peeked outside of her room and then locked herself in, and called Dhruv. Should have let him stay here, she thought. Stupid me. Wanted to stay alone, huh? Why are you freaking out now then? Enjoy! 

"Hello, Amyra. Missing me already?" She rolled her eyes at his usual style of greeting that he used on every single individual on earth. She wondered what the use of it in this serious situation was.

"Yes, just dying to meet you again." Her lips twitched slightly in amusement despite everything.

"I'll be there in 20 minutes. Nothing funny, right?" He asked the last question with complete seriousness and Amyra wondered what to say. 

"Umm... I think... not."

"Doesn't sound like you're sure of what you are thinking. What happened? Doorbell? Blank calls?"

"Actually I don't know. I mean it could really be nothing at all. I just woke up from slumber by some sound and I just don't remember what that sound was. Maybe because I heard it in sleep. Whatever." She tried not to think too much into nothing.

There was a moment of silence before Dhruv spoke. "Okay, I'll be there quick. Keep you hockey stick handy, just don't smash it on my head when I get there. Just for the safe side, I won't ring the doorbell, I'll call you. Okay?"

"Okay. Cool. I'm waiting." Amyra liked Dhruv's idea of using the phone instead of the doorbell and finally sighed in relief.

"Okay. I'll be there in a while. Bye."

"Bye." Amyra kept the phone away and opened the door of her room. It felt pretty idiotic to be roaming around in her own apartment like a thief. Didn't she get the locks changed just today, after all?

She went to the kitchen to fix herself something to eat. As she passed through the living room, a strange desire to open the front door and then quickly close it took over her. She wanted to do an act of bravery. The thought would have been really funny if the current situation wouldn't have been so bad for her. 

She moved on into the kitchen and as she was making a cup of coffee for herself she heard the doorbell again. Her heart got caught in her throat and she froze in her place. She picked up the hockey stick in her right hand, which she was carrying around even in the house, and moved towards the main door. She reminded herself that the locks were changed and it was still pretty early to bully someone with doorbells. If it was the stalker, he wouldn't do it. She scoffed at herself, Amyra, you're an idiot.

Reaching the living room, she peeked out of the window and then sighed in relief. Oh, God.

She opened the main door and came face to face with an old man from her colony. What was his name, Mr Kaushik? 

"Hello, uncle. How can I help you?" She smiled at the old man, who seemed to be fading away right in front of her eyes. He must be over 80 years old and was slightly trembling from weakness or maybe old age. Amyra often saw him going on morning and evening walks alone, mostly carrying a tumbler of milk in the evening. Even now he was carrying the same, steel milk tumbler and something else, an envelope.

The old man smiled and then stretched out his hand, holding an envelope in it. Amyra took the envelope, confused, as he spoke, "It was lying here for so long. I went for the walk, it was here. I came back, it was still here. I thought you might lose something important if the street dogs tore it away. Here, take it." Saying so, he slowly turned around. His whole body was constantly shaking as he walked. 

Watching him walk away, her manners kicked in. "Thank you, Uncle." 

The old man didn't hear. Amyra shouted louder, "Thank you, Uncle!" He finally turned around, smiled and then nodded at her and again started walking away. Amyra's heart warmed at the old man and she smiled. I should call him over for some tea one day, Amyra thought as she went back inside and locked the door. 

Alone again, she looked at the envelope and her stomach got heavy. What was it? There was nothing written on it. No name, no address. She waited for a few seconds and then finally opened the envelope and pulled out a single sheet of paper. In what appeared to be a black ink marker, in capital letters, the paper contained these words: 

DO YOU REMEMBER THE STORIES OF MEMORY KEEPERS?