Author to Author- Question/Warning- Is it plagiarism or idea theft or simply co-incidence?
Read the story I have published in Kindle [in my book sneak peek]
Those of you who have a Netflix connection or can manage to watch it at a friend’s place or elsewhere check out the movie Hypnotic [2021] in Netflix, how similar the core of these two are. All I can say that I sincerely hope that this penniless author does not have a shark in her close circle or stalking her online LOL. I truly am penniless, dependent on my brother for my livelihood.
I am always open to team up with another author but not into ghostwriting, I am really to possessive about my works to let others claim them as theirs.
For years I have come across snips and pieces of my stories being used in movies and have known that either these authors hire ghost-writers who steal from authors in blogs or they themselves flutter around blogs to steal ideas, stories. This one is a huge leap toward stealing story I feel, what do you think?
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the story
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Scratching sound on her window woke her up. Mina opened her eyes, it was dark outside but she could see vaguely because of the streetlight. Someone was standing at the window, slowly running her finger on the glass, looking at her.
An old woman with disheveled hair and hungry eyes, she was staring at her like she wanted to devour Mina with her eyes!
She woke up in her bed with a bad taste in her mouth. Her husband was sleeping by her, like a baby. One arm wrapped around her waist. She gently freed herself and went downstairs for a cup of tea.
A strange feeling of gloom took over her whenever she dreamt about this old woman. Sometimes she will dream that she was stalking her in a deserted road, sometimes she would be in a strange place with strange people, people who seemed known to her then this woman will show up and they will disappear.
Her husband said it was because of the accident she had a few months ago, she was in coma for a week then recovered. Her husband was taking care of her. He was a doctor. A qualified one so there was no reason to worry. He took her to this summer house they have near a lake, up on the hills, surrounded by woods, there was a small town a little distance away to take care of their worldly needs. Almost everything was available there because it was a tourist destination during summer months.
It was autumn now and the weather was really pleasant, neither hot nor too cold. She sat down with her cup of tea and started sipping, gazing out of the window at the lake and the woods around it.
The trees were shedding their leaves. Softly they sailed down from the branches and settled on the ground below, creating a thick carpet. They created a mesmerizing effect on her and she drifted off to another waking dream.
She was in a hospital. There were a group of strangers sitting around her, teary eyes. Her husband was consoling them.
“It happens with transplants like this quite often. For a while they work really well, and the patient starts to recuperate, improve and then they suddenly crash. I am so sorry! She was so young.”
“You know that she has donated her body for medical studies, right?”
One of the crying men nodded in consent, “Do whatever she wished to do!”
“She was a very brave and noble girl.” Her husband said.
Why was he talking like this about her, so coldly and casually, as if she was just another patient of his, not his wife, not the love of his life according to him! He tells her every day how much he loved her and how badly he missed her when she was gone. She could feel his love. She could feel his passion whenever he kissed her, whenever they made love. There was no doubt about that, he was madly in love with her.
Why could not she feel any love for him? She could neither recognize him nor remember anything about their time together, even though the summer house was full of their photographs and videos. He said that they were married for fifteen years. Did not have any kids or family, they both were orphans, lost their parents early, met each other when she got admitted in his hospital as a patient, fell in love and married within a year.
“Since that day you became my life, my very existence. We never regretted that we could not have a child or not having a family, we were so much in love then for that brief period of time I thought that I have lost you! The whole world came crashing down. I knew I will kill myself if you die. God must have had mercy on me and returned you to me!”
“Hey!” she jumped out of her reverie. He was standing right besides her looking at her with a quizzical expression. “You OK? You have been staring out of that window for last fifteen minute like you were sleeping with your eyes open.” He softly kissed her cheek.
“Are you sleeping well at night?” he sat down facing her, picked up one of her hands and held it gently.
“Not bad, apart from those nightmares.” She said.
“Had any lately?” he asked.
“One right before you brought me back to earth.” She said.
“What did you see this time?” he pulled out his journal and wrote down the dream. “Maybe I will change the pills. Those dreams should not be happening.” He looked genuinely worried.
“They will stop I hope. Once my memory fully returns.” She said trying to console him, but she herself was slowly starting to wonder if her memory will ever come back.
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“I will consult other doctors and change the medicines if needed. I will have to go to Delhi for a day, will you be alright by yourself?” he asked her when they were having lunch. She nodded in consent. She was absolutely alright, other than those nightmares.
“I will leave on Monday and return on Tuesday.” He said. “Are you sure you will be alright on your own? It is very urgent otherwise I would not have left you alone, you can come with me if you want!”
“I will rather stay here and don’t worry I will be alright.” She has reached out and held his hand.
He left early on Monday morning, she retired early after dinner.
This time the old woman was not anywhere in sight, she was following her husband. He was sitting on a sofa, in this very house holding a photo to his heart. He looked shattered. Who was he grieving for she wondered, was it when she was in a coma?
He placed the photograph on the table and went out for a cigarette. She looked at the photo. It was the old woman that stalked her. Only in this photo she looked beautiful. So happy and full of life!
He returned and pulled out a diary from one of the cabinets and started writing on it. After writing he kept the journal back into the cabinet, locked it and placed the key under a statue.
She woke up. The phone was ringing. It was eight in the morning. She picked up the phone, it was her husband, “I won’t be able to return tonight sweetheart, I will let you know when I will be returning.”
He asked repeatedly if she will be alright on her own and she comforted him by saying she will be absolutely fine.
Finally he had to disconnect the phone, even though she could feel that he did that against his will, and if he could he will rather be here than there.
She came downstairs and curiosity got the better of her and she looked under the statue, there was a key. Then she opened the cabinet in which he has kept the diary.
There was a stack of journals in that cabinet. She brought them out, carried them to the bedroom and sat down. She had all the time in the world in her hand and she wanted to know about the life she had before she lost it all.
She had other surprises waiting for her, a rude shock!
First few journals talked of the life that Dr. Sudhakar Das and his wife Dr. Mina Das were living, a life blessed from heaven one will say. They loved each other and shared every passion. That included their secret laboratory where they experimented on human mind, how to control it in special.
They took turns as guinea pigs. One will allow the other to hypnotize and see how deeply the hypnotism worked and how far the test subject will go when ordered by the hypnotist. On one such session Sudhakar went too deep and could not bring Mina out of her trance.
He tried every possible and impossible method but her life slowly ebbed away, right in front of his eyes. He performed his last rites and lost himself completely in his experiment, using beggars on street, he invited them to his laboratory for a free meal, some money in return of their services, soon he discovered the point where he should stop, at the cost of few lives of course, when he lost one of his test subjects he simply discarded them on the street from where they were recovered by municipality workers and cremated.
Then she entered his journal- not Mina Das but Prema, Prema Chauhan. She was a university student, she came to the tourist spot with her university batch and when their jeep was returning from a spot it met a horrible accident, all her batch-mates suffered more or less injuries, some died. She went into a coma.
Dr. Sudhakar Das’s entry says- I could hardly believe my own eyes when I saw that young girl in ICU, she was a clone of Mina, my Mina! The girl is only a decade or few years extra younger than Mina was. I had to see her again and again to convince myself that she was not a dream. Maybe it was a second chance given by God. My love was returned to me in another body.
I decided I will try my luck. The girl on my instruction was shifted to a private room, where no one else but me and the nurses who took care of her were allowed, her parents were allowed visits at my presence and none else was allowed.
Being the only doctor of that small town had its advantages, I convinced her family from a small town of Bihar that their daughter was in a very serious condition and I will do my best to take care of her.
Next entry:
I convinced them that we will have to do a microsurgery and insert a small chip in her brain that will stimulate her brain cells and she will come out of her coma. That chip in fact gave me an access to connect to her brain without being known by a third person from my home or further.
I started working on her brain, slowly and steadily I started erasing her past memories by hypnotizing her, she forgot who she was and finally I made her fall in a deep sleep and injected her with a drug that convinced the rest of the medical staff that she was dead.
I have already forged a document that donated her body to any hospital if she died. I took hold of her body and after the town was cleared brought her here.
I revived her and she came to me as a blank slate. Now I will have to turn her into Mina. She may not be Mina but she is so close! Every time I look at her I feel like Mina has returned to me!
I have brought her to my summer home, taken a voluntary retirement from my job. I have enough money to live a luxurious life with her even if we both live to be hundred! I want my Mina back into my arms but it will take time, lot of time and patience. It is easy to suppress her old memories but how can I turn her into Prema?
Maybe, I will just make her believe that I am her husband, she is Mina and accept her, love her the way she is. That won’t be tough! The girl may not be Mina but she is sweet enough to be loved and cherished.
The whole world shook under her, darkness engulfed her and she slumped on the bed. When she came back to her senses her actual memory has returned too. Whatever the lunatic has done to her was nullified by the shock! Prema Chauhan could now remember everything about her past life.
She placed the journals back into the cabinet, locked it and placed the key where it was and left the house with enough money to take her back to her home, to her parents. Hoping and praying that the lunatic won’t follow her.