Before Arunava could stop his black Tata Innova and get out, Shivangi's red sedan crashed at the metal barriers. His heart seemed to stand still. The fog made visibility very poor and even with the foglights on he had difficulty in locating the car swinging on the left railings. He had screeched to a halt at the sound of the collision, but now while running on the deck, he found the distance to be around twenty paces. Even such a small distance appeared very long now and he knew every moment was costly. The bridge side they were negotiating was from Kolkata towards Howrah. The one carrying traffic from Howrah to Kolkata ran parallely in the opposite direction. A double line railway track separated the up and down routes, confined inside massive steel girders. Upon reaching the location, he tried to look inside the car to ascertain whether Shivangi was still inside. Then without a second thought, he climbed on to the railings.

The dark waters was a raging torrent several feet below. He