Mridul Sharma Chapter 1: Arrival in Jatinga unfolds with an air of subtle unease, as Ranjit Barua makes his way into the mist-laden village nestled deep within the hills of Assam. From the moment he arrives, he senses the unusual stillness that hangs over the place, a quiet that seems almost unnatural. The village is small, with narrow winding lanes that vanish into dense forests, where thick fog curls around ancient trees like spectral fingers. Ranjit is there to report on the recent installation of 5G towers, a technological intrusion into a landscape steeped in mystery and superstition. Yet, as…
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Amit Joshi Chapter 1: The Legend Ravi, a historian with a passion for uncovering forgotten histories, sat in his cluttered study, surrounded by piles of old manuscripts, faded maps, and ancient scrolls. His eyes glimmered with excitement as he uncovered a fragment of a long-forgotten legend, buried deep within the annals of history. It spoke of a village, lost to time, hidden in the rugged hills of Himachal Pradesh. The village, once home to a thriving community, was cursed and abandoned after a series of unexplained deaths and disappearances over a century ago. According to the legend, the villagers had…
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N. V. Rao One Kartik Rajan had written about many strange things in Delhi—forgotten cinema halls with broken projectors still facing empty screens, a clocktower in Chandni Chowk that ticked in reverse during an eclipse, and a hermit who claimed to dream in languages that no longer existed. But when his editor slid a dusty manila folder across the desk marked “Malcha Mahal – DO NOT ENTER,” he scoffed. It was the kind of gimmicky fluff assigned to rookies or burned-out writers nearing retirement. “Ghost Story Saturday,” they called it—an online weekend column for bored readers. Still, something about the…
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One The city never truly slept, but it had moments—between the honks and the hum of late-night traffic—where the silence stretched long enough to pretend. It was during those hollow hours, somewhere between midnight and 3 a.m., that Arjun Malik sat in the rusting studio of 93.7 FM, alone but for the hum of old electronics and a faint smell of melted plastic. The station had been abandoned for years, but Kabir Mehta, his slick-talking former colleague turned nostalgia mogul, had offered him a one-man show: “Midnight Playback,” retro-themed, analog-recorded, broadcast from a tower that hadn’t seen a live feed…
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Arundhuti Basu Chapter 1: It was the kind of cold that crept under your skin and settled in the bones—a Lucknow winter that made the air brittle and the silence of Baraf Bagh Street even more unnerving. Saswata Mehta arrived at dusk, his suitcase in one hand and a stack of crumpled manuscript pages in the other. The mansion stood like a forgotten relic—its yellowing façade blotched with moss, tall arched windows sealed shut, and wooden eaves sagging under decades of neglect. The gate creaked in protest as he pushed it open, a cry so human it made him pause.…
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Priyanka Banerjee 1 The newsroom was always a chaotic orchestra — ringing phones, furious typing, coffee-fueled conversations bouncing off walls lined with award certificates and framed newspaper clippings. But Aparna Banerjee thrived in this cacophony. She sat at her desk near the window, where the Kolkata rain tapped like a Morse code from the skies, sipping lukewarm black coffee and scanning through online news alerts. She had a reputation — relentless, articulate, and unafraid. Whether it was child trafficking in Murshidabad or illegal sand mining in Birbhum, Aparna dove in headfirst. Her writing had teeth, and her fearlessness was her…