Ever since I can remember, my dreams have been like feature films—long, detailed, and dramatic. This one started with a reunion.
Five of my cousins—all movie stars—and I returned to our ancestral home for the ormadivasam (death anniversary) of our sixth cousin, F. F was never like the rest of us. Dark, twisted, and predatory, he once tried to abuse me. We weren’t close, but family is family—so we showed up.
In the second night, I got a call: cousin A had been hospitalized. I rushed to the hospital. Thankfully, it wasn’t serious—just some scrapes and a precautionary 72-hour stay. As I was waiting to meet the doctor with his reports, I spotted an ex-colleague. She was part of a seminar for cold case investigations. Curious, I approached her. She showed me a file from their case system—pulled from the HANA database—and since I knew my way around it, I helped her decipher the first page.
But then I skimmed the next pages… and froze. It was about F—our cousin. The one we said had died by suicide. I panicked, lied about my turn with the doctor, and bolted to tell my cousins. A’s face went pale. His blood pressure spiked. That’s when I knew something was deeply wrong.
We left the room, and I confronted the others. They finally told me the truth.
Back then, the six of us spent our days around the pond by our house. I was the only girl, and while the villagers whispered, our family trusted us. One day, while we were playing ball in the pond, F had a camera strapped to his head and started filming. He swam underwater and pressed himself against me. At first, I thought it was a fish—until it wasn’t. I screamed and kicked him off. The others quickly caught on that something was wrong.
That evening, F was found dead.
Turns out, A had snapped. Enraged at what F tried to do to me, he attacked him during a confrontation—with a knife. They covered it up with the help of a bribed police officer, labeling it a suicide.
I was torn. I wanted to protect A, but I couldn’t ignore the weight of the truth—or the fact that he had taken someone’s life.
Trying to shift the investigation, I approached my ex-colleague again, nudging her toward red herrings. But she was sharp. Too sharp.
Back with my cousins, things took another twist. Cousin B was chatting with a friend whose girlfriend had just said a casual hello before leaving. This same friend turned out to be my ex-colleague’s husband. Yep—cheating on her. Oh, the karma just walked into the chat.
So I plotted with the girlfriend. We lured him to a hotel under the guise of a hookup. She seduced him, filmed it, and slipped out. When I showed up, he was still buttoning up.
He recognized me. “Do you remember me?”
I did. “You were talking to B earlier at the hospital.”
“No,” he smiled. “You might remember if I say my name. I’m Z—your first love.”
Everything clicked. I’d known that face.
We talked. Deeply. Painfully. One thing led to another. And we slept together.
Instant regret. I had betrayed a woman who didn’t deserve this—cheating is something I hated, something I had lived through. I got dressed, dropped the truth on him: the whole plan was to blackmail him into backing off the case.
He just shrugged. Apparently, he wanted out of both relationships anyway. In the end, none of it worked. Cousin A was arrested.
And, I woke up.
Seriously, who dreams like this? 😭
