More than 0.2 % of the patients undergoing major surgeries suffer from ‘anesthetic awareness’ when they are being operated. Anesthetic awareness is a condition in which the patient is aware of the being operated upon even when he’s under the effect of anesthesia.

‘Reeves, kill me, else I am not gonna let you live…’ I heard Sam say and I immediately fired in the direction of the voice.

Boom.. boom.. two shots were fired as we both fell to the ground. I was a detective trying to solve the murders at San Andreas where seven innocent girls have fallen to the gun of a rampant serial killer.

Going by a tipoff from a local man, I zeroed in on to this serial killer. And an exchange of gunfire ensued afterwards until both of us were hit and fallen to the ground.

A few minutes later the police were at the crime scene and they rushed both of us to the hospital. I was lying partly conscious and I was able to hear their discussions when I blanked out before knowing that Sam was already dead.

And when I regained consciousness, I was lying on the operation table with some one in a green dress and wearing a mask make an incision on my chest with a scalpel and slowly cutting my ribs after cleaning the blood and slowly they started to bypass the veins and arteries before cutting them off transplanting another heart. All this went on for a few hours but I was awake all the time still reeling under the pain of being operated upon.

But the greatest shock of my life was when I overheard the doctor telling his counterpart, ‘Sam shot the detective through his chest, when the pericardium is ruptured making him difficult to survive on his own heart. And Sam breath his last but the detective is lucky enough that he found his donor in the form of Sam, whose heart we have transplanted to him. This will be a secret according to the rules of our hospital, as we don’t divulge the names of the donors’ when I blanked out once again.

And when I woke up again I was in an ICU with lots of instrument panels around me. I shouted, ‘Doctor… doctor…’ when somebody rushed to me, injecting a needle when I lay asleep once again.

Within a few weeks I was discharged from the hospital and the physical pain slowly subdued but the mental pain of carrying the heart of the serial killer Sam, was something very hard for me to bear with. The pain traumatized me for a very long time. Other than the two doctors who transplanted the heart to me, and me myself, no one else knew that I was surviving on Sam’s heart.

Not very soon after my discharge from the hospital, the killings with the same pattern started once again. Newspapers read, ‘Sam the serial killer haunts even after his death…’ and so on. I couldn’t resume my duties because of post operation complications and hence my knowledge was limited to the newspapers and news channels.

One day I came to know that the doctors who operated upon me were killed in the same pattern. Half the time I never had any idea of what I was doing. Now serious thoughts crossed my mind.

‘Did the devil possess me cos’ I am transplanted with his heart? Or some one else knows this and is trying to lure me into these crimes? Or is it a copy cat serial killer or an inspired one on loose…’

And I decided not to be confined to the four walls of my room again. I need to check out what is happening.

As I slammed the door behind me, my mobile rang and I picked the call. ‘It’s too dangerous for you detective to walk behind me, on my trail. You were saved once, but I assure you, this won’t happen again…’ and the person on the opposite side hung-up. I recognized that voice, it’s that of Sam.

And my heart, actually his heart inside me started to pound. It seemed like it wanna get back to its owner. And my head started to reel under this. And I opened the door once again and went back to sleep once again. After a few minutes I was awakened by the sirens of police cars plying down my street when I rushed to the outdoors and asked a by-passer.

‘We have one more victim to Sam…’, he said. And I was shocked. ‘How can that be possible, his heart has been transplanted to me, how can he live…’ and I decided to investigate his death. I reached for the keys and started to drive towards the graveyard where he was buried.

I called another detective friend of mine who also made his way to the graveyard. He along with a few other personnel reached the place and they had already started digging the grave and inside it was a skeleton. ‘Collect few bone samples and send them for DNA test’, my friend ordered and he put his hand around my shoulder even as we started to walk across when I divulged to him that I am carrying Sam’s heart.

He was in disbelief for a moment and then said, ‘So, you think that it’s you who’s killing people under the influence of his heart which has taken over you…’ and started laughing out loud.

‘Please don’t make fun of this serious issue…. And I believe this is happening’ I said and continued, ‘anyways, lets await the DNA results’ and I walked away from the place. The same night I installed a camera to capture what’s happening around me when I am asleep.

The next morning I checked the newspaper and there was one more kill. And I immediately rushed to the camera and pulled out the tapes to play it on the VCR. It was around 1:00 PM in the night when I woke up and yet I don’t remember anything. It seemed that I was under the puissance of a foreign force and I opened the door and walked out of it.

Even when I stood wondering, my mobile rang when my detective friend called me out and said, ‘Reeves, Eye witnesses and circumstantial evidence suggest that you were at the place of all these killings ….’ And even before he could finish I hung up.

The next day police were at my house only to find me already hung myself. My friend was at the place sobbing and continued, ‘...Eye witnesses and circumstantial evidence suggest that you were at the place of all these killings… but they were killed even before that by serial killer Sam, who’s not dead yet. The DNA of the bones proved to be of some one else and the heart transplanted to you belonged to a different Sam’

Few hundred miles away from the place, Sam was watching the news of my death on TV and grinned. ‘I have already warned you Reeves, you kill me, else I will kill you, and you fell for my cheap trap’ and he opened the bottle emptying the wine into a glass and saying, ‘In the loving memory of my friend Reeves’ and closed his eyes for a moment as if he was mourning. And the minute he opened his eyes, I was sitting infront of him with my gun pointed towards him.

‘You aren’t dead yet…’ and I burst into laughter. ‘You played the dirty trick, and now it’s payback time…’ I said and boom there was a sound.

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When the hounds bay for blood, when the vampire bats squawk for life, when clouds engulf the crescent and when the stars align in an inverted pentagram, the creature of the dark will rise to life - the relic.

Recently we moved into a new house. And that’s when we brought home our new pup, Mike. The retriever pup was so active and friskily naughty. As days passed by, I found a gradual decline in its activity. ‘Growing pups are normally very active,’ a friend of mine suggested me to consult a vet.

“Nothing’s wrong with Mike, atleast physically. Don’t leave it alone all the time,” was the vet’s suggestion.

Plagued by the thoughts that the pup’s unwell, I couldn’t sleep a wink the following night. I was tossing and turning on the bed. Suddenly the lights blanked out. A thunderous lightening made me worry about Mike.

In the dark milieu, I managed to reach the window. It was raining heavily outside. I tried to look out for my pup. It wasn’t in its kennel. I was worried. I looked around and was about to go outdoors when something caught my eye.

In a lightning jolt, I saw a kinda projection out of the lawn infront of my house. In another jolt, I saw my pup trying to pull that thing. Perhaps a pipe or a piece of wood, I thought as I focused the torch and tried to get a better look. What I saw frightened me beyond all means.

It looked like a bone. Yes, it’s a human hand with the palm wide open. Of a recently buried corpse?

And I rushed to the outdoors; I wanted to confirm the same before I disturb my parents. My hands were trembling as I pulled down the latch and opened the door. I wasn’t worried about me being drenched. My primary concern was the human hand, the image that I couldn’t take off my mind.

“Mike… Mike…” I hollered when the pup looked in my direction. In a flash of lightning I saw its sharp canines dripping some slimy liquid. I wasn’t very sure if it was blood but before I could reach to any conclusion, I heard a growl which sent a chill down my spine. In the next instant, I saw it jump towards me at a gallop.

Shell shocked at the unexpected outcome of these events, I stood still when my pup whimpered as it dropped something at my feet. The bone? No, a book. The book’s soaked completely, it looked a little old with a tattered hard bound leather cover.

Having my dog leashed, I walked back to my bedroom and opened the book when I found a letter. Under the dim light from the torch, I unfolded the letter and started to read.

‘Centuries ago, a diabolic ghoul robbed the graves and ate the corpses of human beings. A priest cast a spell on the ghoul thus making it lifeless and the ghoul’s laid to rest once and for ever. Legend talks of a relic containing the spell that binds the ghoul.

In the early years of this millennium, on his quest for fossils, Paleontologist Mark Heines finds the so called relic with a hand clutching onto it. The hand was in such a preserved condition that Mark basing on the hairs spoke of the race of the human to which it belonged.

Nobody knows what happened to the hand, but a few years later, Heines was found dead, hanging to the ceiling, and with one of his hand, amputated. His severed hand was never recovered though.

Many are of the opinion that the ghoul’s back with a vengeance and it kills the one in possession of the relic. And the hand of whom will guard the relic forever. This is a vicious cycle’

I folded the letter and then started to read the relic. True, I dint believe in ghosts. They are just a figment of human imagination. As I flipped page after page much to the discontentment of my palpitating heart, I began to see visions. Visions of a goat inside an inverted pentagram called sigil of Baphomet, a ring of fire that almost engulfed me when I pushed aside the relic in fright, pushing myself to another corner of the room.

I buried my face into my knees seeing some impending horror when I looked out of the window. It was still raining incessantly. And in one strike of a thunderbolt, I saw the entire milieu, the sky and the clouds turning blood red.

Dogs were howling at a far off place. I approached the window and looked out. I saw a few bats cluttering at the place where my pup dug out the relic.

When hounds bay for blood, when the vampire bats squawk for life, when clouds engulf the crescent and when the stars align in an inverted pentagram, the creature of the dark will rise to life - I remembered a line from the relic.

And I felt a sudden drop in the temperature. A cold wave sent a chill down my spine. Sometimes, you have this feeling that someone’s watching you over. And tonight, I felt it. It’s more than just a normal human being.

I can feel the malice, the coldness of this diabolic being. In a wink, I was lying on my bed. The chill that cuts through your skin, the icy state when you are frozen and paralyzed when you know you are not alone, that’s the most frightening part.

For a while, I wasn’t able to fathom what’s happening. When something flowing touched my body, I regained my senses. It was warm and all over the bed.

I touched it with my hand. ‘Damn, its blood,’ I screamed and tried to push myself away from the bed. A stinging pain in the left part of my body prevented me from doing so. I looked beyond my shoulder and to my dismay found my hand amputated. I pressurized my palm on the open wound to arrest the flow of blood.

And I looked around. In the dim light, far in the corner lay the severed portion of my hand on the relic.... My hand now becomes the guardian of the relic? and I cried loudly in pain before I lost consciousness.

I don’t know for how long I lay in that position. But the next morning I woke up trembling. I looked around for the relic.

It was lying on my bed with my hand still on it. But my hand wasn’t severed. Was it my imagination? I saw things so close to reality... And I pulled the relic close to my body.

It indeed had the bite marks, probably inflicted by my pup when it was digging it up y’ night. And I saw the face of the relic. This was more frightening than all the things that happened over the course of the night. It read, ‘Domain level certification’.......

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The entire room was dark except for a cone of white light that illuminated a reclining chair beneath it, on which I was seated. The door creaked open. And a woman in her late twenties walked into the room clutching a notepad to her chest. She was wearing a straight formal skirt and a white shirt jacketed by a black tuxedo cinching her waist.

She came close to me and pulled a chair. Then she opened a document and started writing something. Where did I see her before?

I was playing with the long curls over my forehead and entwining them over my finger. “Can I know what you are writing?” I asked in a rather feminine tone whiffing the curls off my forehead. She pushed the papers to me. It read, “Session 6 - Marcus Solly : psychoanalysis by Dr. Lewine”

Yes, that’s me. Marcus Solly. A graduate from the Stanford school of business, a successful entrepreneur and a happily married man. You couldn’t ask for anything better. But there’s this devious twist to my life when my wife was found murdered in cold blood in my apartment and I was accused of killing her.

“My name is Dr. Lewine,” she said, “and I would be asking a few simple questions.”

I nodded. If it’s regarding my wife’s murder, I have nothing to say.

“Just relax Solly,” she said as the chair reposed at a higher obtuse angle and I reclined on it. “Free your mind Solly. We’ll not talk anything about your wife’s murder. Just tell me about your childhood. Tell me something that you’ve always wanted to confide in some one,” she spoke in a soothing tone.

And I started to speak. I dint know how well I was able to channelize but thoughts flowed and I subconsciously narrated to her my entire life.

“Do I know you prior?” I asked her. I’ve seen her somewhere. She smiled and nodded, “No.”

“So what happened on the night of murder,” she asked. I was least interested in talking about it but for her mesmerizing voice.

“Sasha was lying in a pool of blood by the time I reached home. She was pointing to someone in the kitchen. I ran behind him and I was able to get hold of the jacket he was wearing, but he managed to flee the scene. I ran back to Sasha and she was holding onto her stomach, crying in pain.

She was stabbed multiple times and was bleeding profusely. Seeing her in excruciating pain, I pulled the kitchen knife outta her abdomen and she bled to death even before I could call for an ambulance. In a matter of few minutes, the police invaded the place and they arrested me on homicidal charges,” I concluded as she keenly listened to my story.

She wrote something in her notes and she looked at me. “The knife had your fingerprint marks,” she said. “Of course there could be. The murderer must have donned gloves. In the frantic move to save my wife and free her from pain, I pulled the knife outta her body when my fingerprints must have been registered on the knife,” I said in an anguished tone as I plunged my face into my palms and started to weep bitterly.

“I am not going to leave that sick …” I hollered in anger.

“Relax,” she said, “So where’s the jacket you confiscated?” she asked, “You found anything in that?”

“Yes,” I said with bated breath, “A card which read his name!”

“The name, Allison!”

She smirked and stood up and started saying something that baffled me beyond all means.

“Don’t you remember Solly, that Allison is your middle name? Marcus Allison Solly, that’s you. You killed your wife. On the fateful day, you walked into your house wearing the said jacket. You were talking to your wife regarding something. And the talk converted in a squabble and later a big fight.

In a fit of rage you stabbed her multiple times with a kitchen knife lying by your side. Seeing your wife slithering in pain, you removed and threw away the jacket you were wearing and pulled out the knife from her body.

Allison, the other dissociative personality of yours fled the scene after killing your wife while Solly, the softer one came to the fore and tried to save her,” she ended.

“Your childhood events as narrated by you and these records prove that you’ve suffered from dissociative identity disorder more commonly known as split personality,” she appended as she pushed a bunch of papers towards me.

“There is something more than a twist to this tale. The court thinks that either you are extremely sick or you’re pretending. I have to prove to them that it’s your split personality that killed your wife. Not the normal you and hence we can have the charges framed against you, dropped,” she said as I stood in utter disbelief.

Her words echoed in my ears. My mind was filled with the clamor and chaos as I tried hard to understand Dr. Lewine’s words. When I heard a creaking sound again, I turned to the door and saw a woman and a man walk towards me. The woman was dressed in a tuxedo cinching her waist just like Dr. Lewine’s.

“This is Solly, your newest subject. He’s suffering from a split personality disorder. Right now, as we see his personality is split to Solly and Allison...” I overheard the man speak.

The woman walked towards me and pulled a chair.

“Hi Solly, this is Dr. Mary, dean, Institute of Psychological Disorders, North Hampton” she greeted. “I see that you are writing something?” she asked. I returned her a smile and pushed a scribbling pad which read, “Session 6 - Marcus Solly.... Psychoanalysis by Dr. Lewine”

“Solly, Allison and ....Lewine....” she turned back and replied to the man.

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I slowly opened the door of my car and stood before the huge building which read ‘The San Jose Asylum’ and I started to walk towards the facility. As a curator of the facility I made it a habit to visit each and every patient in the asylum every day.

This is the biggest asylum in this part of the world where people are treated for various mental disorders. I have spent more time of mine with these insane people than anything else in my entire life over a period of 29 years. And that compelled me to author few books called ‘The lines of sanity’ and ‘Living with the sane in an insane world’

Our patients are kept in huge cylindrical glass chambers where they are constantly monitored and treated. And hence our medical facility stands out of the crowd for these state of the art equipment and the ways which we adopt to treat our patients.

A renowned psychologist and the curator of this asylum and also the author of these books have earned me respect from various quarters of the world.

A cool wind blew away the dried leaves infront of the facility and even as I approached the door, I suddenly felt a chill run down my spine. As I turned back, I saw a young woman probably in her twenties approach the asylum.

She introduced herself as Jemina Stevens. She said that she was a journalist and that she was writing a book called ‘The mind of a psychopath’ and hence she wanted to interview a few of the patients.

“No miss, this is a prohibited area. And more over the patients cannot be exposed to strangers which may cost you as well as them,” I said.

“Please sir, I have been a fan of yours. Particularly the way in which you described how people are insane while thinking themselves to be sane is really outstanding. I am doing this thesis work for my criminology project,” she pleaded.

I looked at her from tip to toe. She had great curves with a pleasant face. The face of a perfect beautiful woman to whom you can’t deny anything. But as per my book ‘The lines of sanity’ goes, beauty is only skin deep and more beautiful people are cleverly insane.

I felt even more apprehensive because of the chill factor whenever I stood close to her. A negative force always makes its presence indicated by a drop in the temperature of the surroundings. Nevertheless her beauty masked my fears and I allowed her inside the asylum.

“The world now is a dangerous place. There is a thin line that divides sanity from insanity. The brain is a very sensitive organ in the human body. It can bear or receive adverse shocks up to a certain stage. It is an individual characteristic as to what that limit can be.”

“But once that limit is crossed a person will still look sane from outside. But what happens inside his mind, nobody knows. And ultimately he may turn out to be a psycho. But he’s still normal outside. This is what is called The mask of sanity.”

“Look at this man,” I showed Jemina, “Look at his face. It’s so still and so calm. Yet you would be surprised to know that he’s killed more than 20 people. This is what is called the mask of sanity,” I said. She looked closely at the glass chamber and tapped on the glass.

“No ma’am, since the day he’s come to this asylum, he has never spoken a word, either with me or with his investigators,” I said.

And then we proceeded to the next patient. “This man has murdered his wife and children in cold blood. He always complained that he under the puissance of a negative force perpetrated to the bloodshed. And one day he started to vibrate under psychic trance. Initially he said that the negative force inside him was trying to kill him. And a few hours later he blanked out. But his brain is still caught in the same psychic trance that at one point of time or the other he starts vibrating again. Very interesting case.”

“This is a classic case of possession. The patient believes that he’s possessed and belief makes him do all this,” I continued.

And then I lead her to most of the chambers. She interviewed few of them. A few of them who have significantly showed some medical improvement spoke to her.

“Thank you so much sir, I will now be able to complete my thesis,” she said and left the place.

I too was tired and left for the day. The next morning I was back at the asylum when I found some of the glass chambers were broken and few of the insane have escaped when I called 911 and complained.

“I guess its Jemina who’s freed them all. As she was the first person whom I led to the interiors of the asylum. Normally no one else has the access to these interiors,” I testified before the judge.

The judge was looking at me. “Have you suffered from any psychological disorder?” he asked. “Yeah, I was treated for Obsessive Compulsion Disorder,” I nodded.

“And this is the girl, Jemina?” the judge pointed his finger and I looked in that direction. “Yes, she’s the one,” I shouted.

“In what seems to be one of the most bizarre cases I have ever seen in my life, Dr. Wary Jones, the man who testified here infront of me is suffering with some major psychological disorder,” there was a pause of a while.

I looked at him, completely confused. Is he insane? Why is he trying to convict me?

The San Jose county sheriff will now narrate the exact incidents that happened when a man wearing a hat walked forward and spoke.

“The police have raided the area where the San Jose Asylum is located. In fact there is no such institution in that area. We could only find the residence of Dr. Wary Jones with a placard displayed with ‘San Jose Asylum’…” and he paused for a while.

“We broke into the house and were more than surprised to see huge glass chambers as indicated by the doctor. But… but the glass chambers aren’t any state of the art treatment facilities but huge vats containing vinegar used to preserve the dead bodies that were lying in those vats,” and he looked at me.

“We have ultimately caught one of the most prolific serial killers in the history of US of A who for over a period of 29 years has kidnapped his victims and preserved all of them in the vats in the cellar of his house which he called himself, San Jose Asylum. This girl Jemina is his last victim.”

“The previous night, Jemina was walking along the street when the doctor kidnaps her and eventually leads her into his death trap. In this affray to save her life, Jemina broke two glass cylinders from which the bodies came out and the doctor still under his mental state thought that Jemina helped some of them to escape called the police and helped us catch him,” the sheriff concluded.

And he handed over two books to the judge and said, “these diaries named ‘The lines of sanity’ and ‘Living with the sane in an insane world’ would give a complete account of how he killed people.”

“No, this can’t be true, you people are insane,” I shouted my heart out. But none of them heeded to me.

“The doctor will be treated for his medical condition and the judgement will be pronounced after further notice from the curator of the treatment facility,” the judge said.

The next morning I was lead to the medical facility. The door opened and I slowly got down from the car. And I looked around. The place seemed familiar. The huge words read, “San Jose Asylum” struck my eyes like a lightning. And I shivered under fright.

They slowly lead me into the asylum and I saw the huge cylindrical glass chambers before me.

Even before I could understand what was happening, “Please, don’t let me into those chambers. I am not insane. Please…..”

The next day newspapers read, Dr. Wary Jones escaped from trial the previous night. And the judge as well the sheriff too went missing. The police stormed the house of Wary Jones and found the dead bodies of the judge and the sheriff in the cylindrical glass vats still preserved in vinegar. And Wary Jones is reportedly missing. The police however recovered a diary with the name ‘The mind of a psychopath’

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