First Chapter Friday: Vanished

Vanished by Sheela Chari

First Chapter Friday

It is late at night, and an American woman and her partner are traveling through India by train. She leans her head on his shoulder, wraps her arm around her instrument and closes her eyes. As the train speeds towards its destination, a thick fog rolls across the country, obscuring the tracks, making it difficult for the conductors to the train to see. When a cow steps on to the tracks, the conductor hits the brakes, causing the train to derail and crash. The American woman and her partner die in the wreck. Her instrument is thrown into the shrubbery, but when the authorities go to tag it, it disappears without a trace until years later, it ends up in Neela's hands.

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