Chapter 2: Curious Rabbit

"Oh, there you are, Radhika!"
Tanya stops at my desk between her walk from the coffee machine to her cabin. She holds a burgundy-coloured file in one hand and a coffee mug in another. Her naturally straight, black hair reaches below her shoulders and lightened brown locks fall on the dossier. The contrast between the two colours looks right out of an Instagram story. She sips her coffee and continues, "I was just telling everyone how quickly you've settled in. We really appreciate your work."
"Thank you," I say, standing up to greet her. My flat trainers are no match for her wedges; I crane my neck, albeit just a tiny bit, so my eyes can meet hers.
"Connect with Vanshika once. She has been managing the Kaveri account. See if you can help her out."
"Vanshika? Okay, sure," I reply. Who could that be? She glances at her watch, her eyebrows rise for a microsecond, and she has already stepped away before I can follow up with a question. Tanya has the largest cabin on the floor, and with it comes the privilege of kicking off initiatives involving entire teams on a whim and the authority to drop out of them—under the guise of having more urgent and pressing matters to attend to—whenever she wants.
"I've got to run. Let's connect later. Let me know if you need any help," she says. I nod in reply. Her door is always open, but her calendar seldom is. She passes a customary smile to me and walks away. This was an awfully brief conversation, even by her standards. I'm all for figuring things out yourself, but randomly dropping by and giving me a name really pushes it. Thankfully, I know someone who might be able to flesh out some of the details.

A row of indoor plants separates the canteen from the work area on the ground floor. A large food counter covers most of its length on one side. Two women clad in green aprons are working behind it relentlessly. One reads out the orders from a laptop, and the other puts food on plates and places them on the counter. Tables are laid out in the middle, most of them with more backpacks and Macbooks on them than plates of food. A door on the other side leads to the gym, and another, made of transparent glass, opens on a balcony with a wooden floor and a matching wooden table in the centre. Ananya is seated at her usual spot on the right side of Varun and his laptop. She toys with a french fry, twisting and curling it, then drags it through ketchup while munching another one in her mouth. She raises her palm towards me and slams her fingers into the heel of her hand to acknowledge my arrival as I sit opposite her.
"Radhika got assigned to Kaveri," she says, turning towards Varun. She swallows the fry but continues to play with the one in her hand.
"Kaveri, isn't that managed by Vanshika on the seventh floor?" he says.
"She moved to the seventh? No wonder she always gets the big clients." Ananya scoffs in return, her lips stretching to one side for a second and rebounding. "I wouldn't move floors for any number of clients," she continues, "ours is super chill. The higher floors are so gloomy. It has rubbed off on the people as well! Their participation in this year's Diwali party was near zero. And they keep the aircon running at full blast even in November."
She is seldom animated except while admonishing Varun for working too hard. She crushes the fry on the plate like one does while putting out cigarettes using ashtrays. Varun smacks her hand to make her stop. His eyes are set on hers, prodding. This time, Varun is the one scolding her.
"You're supposed to eat that," he says.
She shakes her head in disagreement and drops the fry.
"I don't feel like eating anything; I'm too full."

I make my way to the seventh floor after lunch. The LED downlighters in the lift lobby have a cooler shade; one of the lights flickers intermittently. A large gray stone pot in a corner houses a money plant. I can't tell whether it's real or not; the damp soil, however, is definitely real. I ask a passerby where to find Vanshika. He points me towards a woman near the copying station. She is wearing a pink sleeveless top and blue denim jeans. Her skin is dark, and there's a faint outline — presumably a rash or a bite mark — on her left cheek, which she has tried to cover with a concealer.
"I was starting to think I would have to go find you myself," she says, catching me off guard. She shoots a cursory glance at me and returns to the copier. "Hello," I reply with a teeny closed-mouth smile.
She pulls one of the papers from a nearby pile and loads it into the copier. It springs to life, whizzing, then picks up a yellow highlighter and waits for the copy, paying no attention to me. I move closer, "I..." but she cuts me off just as I'm about to extend my hand, "I hope Tanya told you about Kaveri. Review the proposal for their next ad campaign." She picks up the fresh copy and reads it, dragging the highlighter along the text.
"You should be able to access the project plan from your machine. I have asked IT to add you to the project. All the details are on it." She circles some text with the highlighter, tutting like an agitated school teacher grading an exam. She continues instructing, giving me no room to reply, "Report your findings to me, and I will check with the client if required. We do things a little differently here. I hope that won't be a problem for you."
"No," I say, shaking my head.
"Okay," she says, then looks at me and gives me a tiny nod. That's my cue to leave.

I breathe a sigh of relief at my desk on my floor. Ananya is nowhere to be seen, nor are any of my more approachable peers. I fetch some Hide n' Seek chocolate cookies from the pantry. Tearing off the plastic wrapper, I pull out a biscuit and pause to admire the diagonal pattern on the dark, square cookie before putting it in my mouth. The Kaveri project planner is immaculately maintained, but most tasks have already been marked off or assigned to somebody else. My eyes wander around the room with nothing else to do besides reading the draft proposal. A white silhouette, about a foot tall, enters my field of vision momentarily but disappears into the pantry before I can determine its form. I investigate the pantry but find it empty, save for the biscuits, jars, and the noisy coffee maker. I catch a glimpse of the silhouette again on my way home later in the evening. And yet again, it hops through a door before I can make out what it is. I enter the same door, and a startled twenty-year-old looks up. She sits on the floor leaning over a white canvas, one hand stretched to support her frame and the other holding a paintbrush. The canvas is about three feet in length and has black checks with numbers written inside of it. She's painting a monthly calendar, a set element for an ad campaign.
"Hi! I'm Pari..." she says. I greet her back, but her presence won't deter my investigation. A soft toy lies over the check for the twenty-eighth on her calendar. It's shaped like a rabbit, with short limbs and long ears that extend upwards, and strangely enough, matches the silhouette I had followed. I walk over to the canvas and pick it up. I run my fingers over one of the ears; the fur is silky soft, and the ears fold immediately due to a lack of support. How were they standing up earlier? The ear canal isn't closed off but has a tiny hole that leads inside the body. I want to put my fingers in that black void and touch the stuffing inside. Instead, I squeeze its back, feeling for a battery or motor, but find none. There is no way it could have walked to the room by itself.
"Is this yours?"
"Oh no!" she says, flustered, "It must have fallen from one of the racks. I didn't even see it."
Plausible. We are inside a storage room, surrounded by props and decorative items. The toy could be a relic from an earlier shoot.
"Be careful; it could have messed up the paint," I tell her, placing the toy on one of the racks.

Ananya calls me for an early lunch the next day, two hours earlier than our regular lunchtime at two past noon. She sits at the far end of the otherwise empty cafeteria. Her flawless, almost-white skin is redder than usual, and the light, repetitive tapping of her foot is the only sound to be heard. She blows lightly into the coffee mug she holds with both hands, observing the kitchen staff in silence.
"Coffee?" I ask her. She nods.
"But.." I signal towards the lunch box in my hand, but she cuts me off.
"Arey you have it na! I'll have lunch later with Varun."
What could it be, if not food, that couldn't wait for two more hours?
"So, how was the meeting with Madam Lestrange, ugh..." she fakes a cough, "Vanshika?".
"It was alright." I shrug.
"She's a bit edgy, isn't she?"
She scans my face, leaving the kitchen staff momentarily unsupervised in preparing for the onslaught of orders that will roll in during the day. A voice inside me wants to deflect, to turn the conversation the other way. My meeting with Vanshika, however unsettling it may be, does not warrant an early lunch. Whatever she called me here for might. But I don't. "Very," I reply.
"Something happened in her family last month. She disappeared for a week, left some critical Kaveri tasks unfinished, and brought the entire project to a standstill. It caused a lot of embarrassment for us." Her reply is prompt but just a whisper.
"She was 'moved' to the seventh floor upon her return. Apparently, she refused to explain her absence, citing 'personal reasons.' She has been keeping her distance from everyone since then." "Yikes!" I reply, and a faint chuckle escapes her throat. Vanshika is not a recipient of the courtesy Ananya usually extends to coworkers.
"How do you know all this?" I add to keep the conversation going.
"It all happened during the podcast competition that Varun participated in. She was in it too but dropped off before going on leave."
"Huh, I will be double-checking everything in that project from now on," I say. Ananya continues to gaze at the kitchen staff passively. I scan the counter, from the ordering tablet on the right to the coffee machine on the left and all the utensils in the middle — the dal, the saag, the biryani; I almost taste the sambhar on my tongue from the other side of the hall — but find nothing peculiar about the preparations. And then, just a second later, peculiarity ensues. The rabbit from yesterday jumps over from behind the counter. Its long ears point straight towards the sky, and its large eyes point right at me.
"Are you looking at the rabbit on the counter?" I turn to Ananya and then back to the rabbit.
"What rabbit?" she turns to me. In a blatant display of agility and guile, the rabbit leaps off the counter and hides behind a concrete divider before I can point towards it. "Never mind, I have to make a phone call." I brush off her question and excuse myself from the table. The hallway behind the divider is empty. There's no rabbit in sight, just a toppled-over trash can on one side and a leaky tap in the cleaning area on the other. In front of me is a glass door that opens into a common area with people typing, video-calling, and chatting on the sofas — all the things they wouldn't be doing had a rabbit hopped by. Back at the cafeteria, Ananya waits for me, sitting upright with her hands folded across her breasts and her coffee mug kept aside.
"What happened?" She asks me; her suffocating, piercing stare is unrelenting. Lying is much easier. Besides, there is no way to explain what's going on. "Nothing; just had to call Mom."

Back at my desk, I scroll through the company's social feeds to the podcast competition posts. If Vanshika had been warm and friendly back then, her personality must have shown through in her recordings. An episode or two could help me understand how she was before her fall from grace. But, there is no trace of her participation anywhere.
Even if it did exist, her podcast has been wiped off the internet entirely. After many minutes of scrolling, I find a 30-second clip posted by a visitor that she has commented on. I play it and watch her walk over to the makeshift stage with a mic in her hand to pitch her podcast. I scramble to put my earphones in and hear her talking about how the most mundane of objects can hold fascinating mysteries and how her podcast explores one such object, a soft toy that she dubbed the "curious rabbit." I rewind the clip many times, unwilling to accept this as another coincidence, but her words remain the same. I stare through the computer screen into nothing. The only other people in the room, a group of three, are huddled around a monitor and talking about yesterday's cricket game. Marnus Labuschagne played an incredible innings, they say.
"He's racking up hundreds really fast..." and "...the next best test cricket batter."
Watching a good inning is one thing, but fawning over players of other nationalities is quite silly, if not absurd. Tanya's cabin has been vacant since the morning. I wonder what effort she has gone off to lead right now. Did she know about Vanshika's podcast? She must have sat desk listening to Vanshika, and swivelled towards her when she was done, put her glasses down, and told her what utter crap it was. Or simply asked to keep her looped in? Did Vanshika stop off her own accord, or did they, whoever they may be, put an end to it because it edged perilously close to a well-kept secret. My contemplation is interrupted by a mandatory online meeting with the Kaveri folks. Vanshika does most of the talking. I, for once, am surprised when she introduces me in a calm, professional tone, right at the beginning. The Kaveri people seem nice. They must be glad that another person has been assigned to manage their social media accounts. The meeting, like most client meetings, runs longer than scheduled. After about an hour of ceaseless discussions, one cup of coffee, and a full glass of water, it is decided that the discussions should continue in separate threads. Vanshika summarizes the key points from memory and brings the meeting to a halt. My floor is almost vacant when I get off the laptop. Most of my coworkers have left for home already. The sun still hangs fairly high over the horizon when I pick up my bag and get ready to go. I text Ananya, checking if she's still around, but receive no reply. I wait in the lift lobby, but the numbers on the display panel don't budge in either direction. A chivalrous rascal holding the elevator for his friends, perhaps. I re-adjust the backpack straps on my shoulders and walk towards the windows to bask in the scant sunlight pouring in. A flight of birds fly across the setting sun, their wings flapping in perfect synchronization. "One ought to make better use of their evenings than waiting for elevators, rails, and rickshaws", I tell myself. Another flight of birds appears but drops straight down without making a sound, instead of flying across, as if they were playing a game of statues and I were the curator. Before I can make out where they land and express anything — amusement, astonishment, or horror, the sun, too, bored of the daily palaver of setting over the horizon gracefully, drops instantly. The starless sky over New Delhi is now pitch black; no moon in sight. Then the lift doors open with a low hissing sound emanating from inside, the kind my cousin's guitar amplifier used to make when left idle.
My feet land in a dark space, much larger than the 12-person elevator car I had stepped in. The roof is lined with glass panes, and fluorescent light seeps in, revealing the walls enclosing the space around me and the puddle of blood-red liquid I stand in. The puddle extends all the way to the other end of the room/hall/dimension I'm in, where Vanshika sits on an oversized black chair. She caresses the rabbit with her hands and whispers into its ear, but all I can hear is the deafening thump of my heart. Blood drips from her hands. I wonder if it's hers or the rabbit's. I should run away before she learns I'm spying on her secret commune with her curious rabbit, but there is nowhere to go. Then I hear the elevator doors open.
"I asked you to wait for me!" Ananya quips in her usual playful tone. I clutch her hand with my clammy fingers. I am back in the elevator.
"Sorry, missed your text," I say.
I ease my grip but continue holding her hand till the lift doors open on the ground floor.

I've dealt with difficult coworkers before, but none inspire dread quite like Vanshika. My attempts at avoiding her lasted two full business days. I had closed every work item and responded to every query promptly and professionally, giving her no opportunity to nitpick. Now, an invite from her sits in my inbox: she wants to have coffee with me tomorrow evening.
"It will be good to catch a break without work bothering us!" the description reads. A cordial invitation from an unsavoury host. I cannot shake the feeling that this is a ploy to get something from me, but declining would do no good to our already floundering partnership. I think. I think of how the week had gone, how I had handled the Kaveri workload and all the messages I had exchanged with her. Besides the obvious misstep during our first conversation, there had been nothing erratic or offending about her behaviour. I also think of the rabbit, the times I had seen it, chased it, and how I had a reason to believe that it had something to do with Vanshika. I text Varun to meet me downstairs. One doesn't go to a tea party empty-handed, after all.
On the ground floor, beside the main stairwell of the building, is a door that leads to the staircase going down to the basement. The upper half has an aluminium sheet nailed on with a hydraulic hinge on the top, and the bottom is Sunmica, with the metal rod of a broken doorstopper protruding outwards. The door opens with much less effort than I expected and I step in, feeling my way towards the staircase as the light gradually fades as the door closes behind me. Cars whoosh in and out of the basement parking, and pigeons coo, banging against glass and PVC pipes as they traverse the narrow spaces near the ceiling. I descend, holding the bannisters, but let go when a mix of dust and rust clings to my hand. Wading through the cement, gravel, and cigarette butts scattered on the floor, I can't help but wonder how such a derelict passageway remains unnoticed in an otherwise stately monument that is our office building. These dilapidated stairs, colloquially referred to as downstairs, had witnessed numerous quarrelling couples, scheming coworkers, and secret trysts. If only a sweeper had passed through here in the last month or so, the air in this haven for private conversation would have been more breathable. I find Varun standing with one foot against the wall. The green stripes of his Onitsuka Tiger sneakers are instantly recognizable. The rest of him, however, is barely visible.
"Hey!" He stretches the y.
"Hi! Thanks for coming." I stop a couple of steps higher than him, compelled to clarify the choice of location before all else.
"I thought this would be an ordinary isolated staircase, but it's a horror house!"
"It's especially dark today," he chuckles.
I turn on my phone's flashlight, bringing the teal-coloured squid printed on his t-shirt under the light. The squid has one gigantic eye, many tentacles, and the word "skyharbor" printed below it in gold.
"Anyway, what's going on?"
"Umm... I wanted to ask about Vanshika," I pause to observe how he would react to the statement. He doesn't.
"But I don't want Ananya to know; she worries too much." My words were much feebler than I had imagined they would be back at my desk.
"Ahn hn," he replies and beckons me to follow him back up the stairs.
The matter lacks the necessary severity to warrant a secret rendezvous at such terribly illuminated, sweeper-forsaken depths. In fact, I can't think of any matter that would.
"Ananya told me that Vanshika recorded a podcast, but I can't find anything on the internet. You two used to talk at that time, right?"
"We did. She uploaded a few episodes but deleted them a week later."
"I need a copy of those episodes. Can you help me?"
"I can send them to you. I must have them somewhere."
"So you've listened to her podcast?"
"Not really, no. We used to bounce ideas off each other back then. I downloaded the episodes but was too busy to listen."
"Okay."
"Why the sudden interest?"
"I'm just... curious."
"Hmm."
"But don't tell Ananya!"
"It's alright. She's just sad that you got assigned to a different project."
"Still."
"Okay," he says, holding the door, and I crossover into the warm, bright light of the ground floor.

An email from Varun lands in my inbox. "There you go," the subject line reads. He has attached two audio files and written absolutely nothing in the body. I reply, thanking him for the expeditious delivery and play the audio files. The voice in the recordings is unmistakably Vanshika's. With a deep breath, I follow along as she assumes the character of the seventeen-year-old Vani and narrates her diary entries.

4th September 2023
I had bought it from a local gift shop, I remember not which one, and given it the left half of my bed to sleep on until one afternoon, when I had returned from school and found that my mother had stashed it along with her precious crockery in the grand iron trunk.
"The white fur would get dirty if you keep it outside," I was told. The trunk had been closed, and no degree of whining or nagging would force my mother to open it. It was opened no more than twice a year, once when my father would start asking for his jackets and sweaters and once when mom decided it was warm enough to store them for the next season. The rabbit would now rest in the trunk along with an assortment of family heirlooms: my brother's old football jerseys, the pile of second-hand Hardy boys novels dad had brought me from Daryaganj, the countless photo frames I had received as birthday presents over the years.
But all of that was about to change today. Diwali was right around the corner, and my mother had decided that buying a new gift for my aunt was too much of a hassle. She would part away from a piece of her precious crockery instead. The trunk would be opened. The crockery in question, a tea set, was gifted to my mother as a wedding gift, nineteen years ago. Since then, she had saved it for a special occasion that had never arrived. All we had to do was to find and gift-wrap it, and Mom would be saved from the trouble of going to the crowded bazaar for a last-minute gift.My brother was ordered to clear a path to the trunk by moving all the dusty furniture, delivery boxes, and folding beds out of the store room. Then, Mom declared that no lunch would be prepared that afternoon, as opening the trunk was an utterly exhausting ordeal. After several minutes of advising my brother on what food to order and several hours of assisting my mother as she sorted through the contents of the trunk, I finally saw it. It had been a long year without my rabbit, but now, it was back in my arms.

8th September 2023
Today, my phone was saved from the grips of death. The maid bumped into the dressing table in my room. And guess what was on the table! My phone! Admittedly, I shouldn't have kept it right on the edge, but it's not entirely my fault. Who bumps into a dressing table? Thankfully, and coincidentally, the phone fell and landed right on the rabbit's back. How did the rabbit get on the floor, you ask? That's the craziest part! My brother must have thrown the rabbit from the bed. I will give him a proper lecture on how to treat your sister's friends later. But I'm so grateful. If something happened to my phone, it would have been such a mess.*

24th September 2023
My cousin stayed over for a night. Chacha was in town due to some business, and he brought her along with him. She is such a quiet child. A real gem. She sat in the drawing room like a doll. I literally had to force her to come with me to my room. We watched Doraemon together. Then I gave her one of my old drawing books to colour. She is very neat. She's smart too. But she said the strangest of things while leaving the next day. She asked Chacha for a talking rabbit, "one just like Vani di's."

29nd September 2023I've kept the rabbit in my almirah. Because my family won't allow me to have my peace and the rabbit. Mom keeps complaining that if I leave it on the floor. But that's so not true!
Yesterday, my brother set a new world record in mischief. He sat the rabbit on the living room sofa, put the cooking channel on TV and placed the remote on the rabbit's leg. I found it watching Chef Vikas Khanna prepare Jalebis. I was so confused! It was only when Papa brought a plate full of Jalebis for us later that night that I realized who was behind all this. Papa must have told my brother that he was bringing sweets for us, and he must have devised this stupid idea. I scolded him so much and snatched his PlayStation controller.

"You look tired."
Ananya calls out from behind me. I turn around to find her standing over my shoulder. Luckily, the email is tucked away, and the only thing visible on my computer screen is a work-related Google search. If my mind is a raging, turbulent river, hers is a calm, serene ocean on a sunny day. Everything from her barrette, scarf, and long coat is in perfect order, not a lock out of place or a crease on her skirt.
"Don't work yourself to death," she asks earnestly, her eyes widening, "you looked half dead in the elevator the other day."
"You're right. I need to focus on something other than work for a while, get a life outside the office."
That would not help the conundrum at hand, but it could prove palliative nonetheless.
"Huh. Let's think about that. But, first order of business, what are we having?"
She walks me to the pantry and stops before the coffee machine.
"The usual for you?"
I nod, and she hands me an empty cup, takes my hand, and pulls it towards the drip tray. I catch a faint whiff of strawberry body lotion from her hand as the machine starts pouring a mocha cappuccino into my cup.
"And, an Americano for me."
She picks her cup from the drip tray, puts it beside the coffee machine and looks at me.
"Got any plans this weekend?" she asks and continues after an infinitesimal pause, "Let's go out. Shaan's in town this weekend and I really want to go to a concert. Remember that time we went shopping last month? I had shortlisted three music shows for that evening but was too tired to see any of them."
"Besides, Shaan is unmissable!"
The shopping date. That was the last Saturday of the month.
"Was that the twenty-eighth?" I ask, "The time we went shopping."
"Yeah. I guess so, yeah," she replies. The lines on her forehead darken, but her eyes still gleam with excitement. After many moments of reflection, I pull myself to the present, realizing that I had left Ananya's offer hanging in the air, and quickly agree to accompany her with whatever conviction I can muster in my voice. Among the lot of mature, non-indie musicians who regularly toured around the country, Shaan was a safe bet.
"Varun and Singhee?" I ask.
"We could ask them," she says, nodding slowly, reflectingly. Then the excited house cat in her makes a comeback.
"You know what! How about a game of foosball?"
Just like that, her empty cup is in the sink, her face is towards the door, and all I can do is grab a couple of biscuits and scramble behind her. The foosball table is on the other side of the main hallway. Artificial grass on the floor demarcates this area, and the furniture is sparse, save for a coffee table in the centre surrounded by lounge chairs and ottomans. The furniture is vacant, but I find Pari resting on the edge of the pool table, scrolling through her phone while fiddling with a pair of black, full-framed cat-eye glasses. She looks up momentarily and smiles sincerely as we walk by. She murmurs inaudibly, and I notice the white Airpod in her ear. The game between Ananya and I is evenly matched. She deploys her men tactically, leaving very little space between her lines, and I resort to sheer reflexes to counter when she attempts a shot at my goal. But the sense of occasion is missing in Varun and Singhee's absence as if it were a charity match, not a cup final. After a good few minutes of frantic movement around the game table, I ask Pari to replace me and plop down on one of the yellow lounge chairs. She joins me at the coffee table when Ananya departs. She remarks about how the game was "awesome" and how she had been settling in.
"So, still lurking in the storage room?" I ask her.
She chuckles after a pause, "No, that was just for a day. What a waste!"
She presses two fingers against her forehead, "It wasn't much use in the end," and shakes her head.
Did you see that rabbit again? I looked for it in the storeroom earlier but couldn't find it. Most of the props were useless, but I would have taken it home."
"No, I'm afraid. I have no idea where it is."

On the fateful day, I turn away from the cafeteria and walk out of the building. It's a short walk to my destination. Still, the afternoon is too sunny to be comfortable outside of the confines of the air-conditioned office. I look through the glass walls of the Starbucks outlet, observing what can only be described as a bustling convention of corporate employees. The interiors are a mishmash of standard chairs in the middle, sofa chairs at the sides, and high chairs sprinkled in between. If Ananya were here, she would have scoffed at how jam-packed it was and turned back. But if safety in numbers was a thing, this was the perfect location for meeting Vanshika. She had texted me that she was already here, and her malignant, domineering self would be tough to miss, but I cannot find her in the crowd. Was she lounging in a corner, eying me with contempt as I searched for her like a lost child? It wouldn't be out of character for her. Reality, however, is much more mundane than my imagination. She stands behind a tall man, sticking her head to the side to peek at the bakery display counter. There's no trace of malignance, just exasperation. I join her in the queue and we order together. The barista takes down our names, and we find seating on the high chairs. The last time I was here, I had to employ all my faculties to manage the sugar rush induced by the cold frappe topped with extra chocolate and ice cream. Kartikeya had waited patiently for me to finish it after devouring his in an instant. Vanshika leans back, straightening the creases that had formed on her green kurti, and looks up.
"It's good to catch a break sometimes. Isn't it?" She asks.
Hasn't she used the same line earlier? I nod, "Ahmm hmm."
"Speaking of breaks, I've accumulated quite a few leaves. It would be best to utilise them before they lapse. What about you?"
"I took an extended leave just three months ago," she replies dryly.
"Oh! What for?" I inquire with a mix of genuine and made-up curiosity.
"Health issues in the family. Had to go out of town." Another short reply.
"Oh! Is everything okay?" I don't allow her to reply, "These things can derail your plans terribly. You were working on a podcast as well, right?"
"Yeah."
"What was it about? Any plans to resume it?" Best to get it out of her before she has time to think.
"No such plans. I've done whatever I wanted to." She shakes her head with no discernible change in expression. There's no sign that she's caught on.
"I wish I could hear it! Fictional storytelling is so fascinating. How do you make it sound so authentic?"
"Don't make up stories or beat around the bush. If whatever you say comes from a place of real, lived experience, it will sound authentic."
She looks down, sets a lock of hair over her ears, and then looks straight at me.
"That's the trick to writing convincing fiction—at least, that's what it is for me."
I push the cup of coffee away from the table's edge, then pick it up again and shake it. There's still some coffee left in it.
"What's life like on the third floor?" She's smiling now, a smile too wide to fit the question. Two girls come over and sit at the table behind her. They put their backpacks on the table and pull out their phones.
"Most of the senior media folks work on the seventh floor. You really get to connect with a lot of interesting people. I could put in a request to move you as well. It would be much easier to work together!"
One of the girls hands her phone to the other, and she giggles. Vanshika fiddles with the ring in her hand. She has long nails and has applied a subtle earthly shade of polish to them.
"Oh no! I'm good. I've barely settled in. Best not to change the environment so soon."

I follow up with a bunch of inconsequential observations around Kaveri. As expected they lead nowhere, and we depart soon after.
Back at my desk, I dive into work, only to be distracted by a low grunting noise in the vicinity. The rabbit is back, sitting on the chair two desks over. I gaze at it from my seat, making no attempt to chase or grab it, and wave after checking that no one around is watching. It stands on its hind limbs and waves back.
"Has your processor hanged or something?" I hear Naman call out from behind me.
"You've been staring at that chair for the last ten minutes."
Naman sits on the desk next to mine. He has the complexion of wheat, as they say in this region, with thick eyebrows, and an even denser beard.
"No, I'm okay. I just spaced out."
The rabbit is invisible to all, but I am not. I make a mental note not to do anything conspicuous. The rabbit now leans back on the chair with its legs spread wide. I leave it be to focus on work. Work takes me through a labyrinth of email threads between the Kaveri marketing team. They have a big launch next week that will bring this phase of the project to a close. I descend the labyrinth with confidence and vigour, but only to shallow depths, skimming the conversations to ensure no requirements were missed. We had signed a cadre of super-talented and popular 20-something social media influencers to market their new line of jewellery and the entire campaign was coming together rather well. I lose myself in work till a text from Pari flashes on my phone.

"Storeroom on the third floor, ten minutes. Got a surprise!"
I read, coming dangerously close to facepalming myself. Why is this girl still lurking in the store? I'm going to find who implanted the idea of going into the storeroom the first time and there's going to be an intervention. The rabbit isn't around anymore. I march to the store, which is little more than the name suggests. Gone are the painted folding chairs that were laid out in a circle, and the open space where Pari painted the calendar.
Instead, an army of rusted metal racks lined with cardboard boxes stands collecting dust.
"Pari," I call out as I walk in and look for the switches to turn on the lights. With extended arms, I feel my way to the switches on the adjacent wall. When they are within reach, a force pushes me from behind and my head crashes against the wall. My forearm hits the metal frame of a rack as my body bounces off the wall. I clutch a beam of the rack to save myself from falling down. There are levels to blacking out that far extend the inability to not see anything.
"I thought I had knocked you out for a second. That would have been so troublesome."
Every word brings a wave of pain. My head, still buzzing, isn't ready to process auditory information.
"Vanshika, what are you doing?" I reply between gasps and yelps.
She stands beside me. Even though it's near impossible to see, the voice is unmistakably hers, the actions even more so.
"The right question is what are you doing Radhika?"
"Where's Pari?" I demand.
"Pari isn't here," Vanshika sneers, "she doesn't even know we're here."
"She told me all about how you met her here and your little games of foosball. Did you know how careless she is with her phone? All I had to do was to fake an urgency and she scampered away to help me, leaving all her belongings under my care."
"But you, you have been cautious, avoiding me at every step. Now, tell me, where's my rabbit?"
"I don't know...." exhale, "what you're talking about."
A futile attempt at feigning innocence. I attempt to move away from her but she holds me back and lets out a loud grunt.
"I just wanted my family to be safe," she screams, "...convinced them that we needed a vacation, even convinced Tanya that I must leave right in the middle of the project."
"What are you talking about?" I grab her shoulders and try to shake her out of the trance she's in.
"The rabbit showed me everything. Kartikeya was going to do something stupid and blow up the entire city. I had to leave!"
"But nothing happened. When I returned, the rabbit was gone, Kaveri was fucked up, and I almost lost my job."
She pushes my hands away, then disappears momentarily.
"Then one day I saw the rabbit following you," she is much quieter now, and calmer, murmuring in my ear. Fury has left her and reason reigns again. Then she hits my clavicle with a hard, flat piece of metal and presses a pointed metal blade against my neck.
"Give it back!"
Reason isn't even in contention for the chair in her head, and I'm not getting out of this without a scratch.
"Okay," I say. The only possible reply that could make her pull back, or even flinch for a second: complete surrender from her adversary.
Just as she does that, a pair of purple, ripple-patterned eyes, leap from the rack behind her, and the rabbit lands on top of her head. I grab the blade from her hand, knee her in the stomach, elbow her jaw, and run to the door.