Neelesh Kale
The Road Trip That Shouldn’t Have Been
The night air was thick with the scent of damp earth and diesel as five friends—Khushi, Rakesh, Dev, Meera, and Ajay—sped along the old Mumbai–Pune Highway. The plan had been simple: leave Lonavala after sunset, beat the weekend traffic, and reach Pune by midnight. But as the hours passed and the road grew emptier, an unease crept into the silence that the stereo couldn’t mask.
“Why does this road feel… weird?” Khushi asked, gazing out the window into the dark, where dense forest pressed against the highway like a wall of secrets.
“It’s just your imagination,” Dev replied, hands on the wheel, his eyes scanning the winding road ahead. “These ghat roads always feel spooky at night.”
Ajay chuckled from the backseat. “Or maybe it’s Lohgad Curve. Heard of it? People say it’s haunted.”
Meera rolled her eyes. “You’re just trying to scare us.”
“No, seriously,” Rakesh jumped in. “A lot of accidents happen there. My cousin swears he saw someone walk right in front of his car and vanish.”
“Ghost stories,” Dev scoffed, adjusting the rearview mirror.
But as the car turned around the next bend, the headlights flickered once. Then again. The road ahead darkened momentarily before the beams steadied.
“Not funny,” Khushi said, gripping the door handle. “Is the car okay?”
“It’s fine. Maybe a wiring glitch,” Dev mumbled, though his knuckles were whitening around the steering wheel.
They passed a shuttered dhaba with a broken tube light sputtering faint blue flashes. A dog howled somewhere in the distance. Beyond that, there was only the sound of tires slicing the highway and the occasional chirp of night insects.
Then came the fog. It wasn’t thick at first—just a pale mist curling over the tarmac like spilled milk. But within minutes, it grew denser, wrapping around the car like cotton stuffing, obscuring the edges of the road. Visibility dropped to a few feet.
“Guys, I can’t see the divider,” Dev said, slowing the car.
“Just stop,” Meera urged. “Let’s wait till the fog clears.”
They hadn’t yet reached Lohgad Curve, but the GPS flickered and glitched, freezing at a blank screen. Dev pulled the car to the side, near an old milestone half-eaten by moss: Km 72 – Lohgad Bend.
No one spoke.
The car’s engine sputtered—once, then again—and then stopped.
All lights went out.
“What the hell,” Ajay whispered.
Dev tried to restart. Nothing. Not even a click. The power was gone. The doors, surprisingly, still unlocked.
“I’ll check the bonnet,” Dev said. “Rakesh, come with me.”
They stepped into the fog, the flashlight from Dev’s phone barely cutting through the thick white air. From inside, the others watched nervously.
Meera gasped. “Did you hear that?”
It sounded like… footsteps. Soft. Bare. Pacing just outside the car.
“I swear someone just walked past my window,” Khushi whispered, shrinking into her seat.
Ajay leaned forward, peering through the mist. “It’s just them walking—”
“No. This came from the other side,” Khushi said, her voice trembling.
Outside, Rakesh shone his torch on the ground. “Dude,” he called. “Look.”
Footprints. Bare, wet footprints on the dry tarmac. Leading away from the car and into the woods.
Dev stared. “No one else is out here.”
They heard a soft laugh. A child’s giggle—sharp, broken, and far too close.
Dev and Rakesh rushed back to the car, slammed the doors shut, and locked them.
“Start the car. Start it,” Meera chanted, panic in her eyes.
“I’m trying!” Dev twisted the key, but the car didn’t respond.
Then, as suddenly as it had died, the engine roared back to life. The headlights flicked on. The fog cleared, just slightly—enough to see the curve ahead. But no one cheered. Because standing at the curve’s edge was a figure—a small childlike form—barefoot, back turned to them, hair covering its face.
The headlights flickered again.
“GO!” Rakesh shouted.
Dev slammed the accelerator. The tires screamed. The car lurched forward—towards the curve, towards the figure.
And just before impact, the figure vanished.
No collision. No sound. Nothing.
They drove in silence, hearts pounding, until they crossed a bridge half a kilometer ahead. Only then did Dev stop the car again.
“What just happened?” Meera whispered.
“I think we just met… her,” Ajay said.
“Her who?” Khushi asked.
“The girl who died here,” Rakesh replied grimly. “The one from the Lohgad Curve legend. The one who waits for company on lonely roads.”
They looked behind. The fog had cleared, and the road was empty.
But the silence in the car was no longer just fear.
It was knowing. They had crossed into something far darker than they understood.
And it had noticed them.
Footsteps in the Fog
The car rolled forward on the highway, the silence inside pressing harder than the dark outside. Dev kept his eyes glued to the road, knuckles white on the steering wheel, afraid that if he blinked, something might appear again—something that shouldn’t exist. The others sat rigid in their seats, every noise amplified, every breath audible.
“No one’s going to believe us,” Meera finally said, her voice hoarse.
“Let’s just get out of here,” Dev muttered.
But just as he spoke, the car jolted—once, violently—and came to a dead stop again. The engine died.
The headlights dimmed.
And the fog returned.
Not the drifting mist they had seen earlier, but a wall of white so thick it swallowed the world. The taillights barely glowed. Nothing beyond the windshield was visible. It was as if the car had dropped into another dimension.
“Try again, Dev!” Rakesh urged.
Dev twisted the key. Click. Nothing. Again. Dead.
Then came the sound.
Tap.
Tap.
Tap.
Soft. Rhythmic. As though someone was tapping gently on the hood.
“No one move,” Ajay said, his voice trembling.
The tapping continued. Then shifted. Now it was on the roof.
Tap.
Tap-tap.
Tap.
A giggle echoed through the fog. It was thin, childlike, but fractured—like something laughing through broken vocal cords. Then came the whispers. Close. Inside-close.
“Come play.”
Khushi let out a small sob and covered her ears. “No no no no…”
Rakesh reached for his phone. “No signal.”
“I’m going out,” Dev said suddenly.
“What? Are you insane?” Meera grabbed his arm.
“If someone’s messing with us—”
“It’s not someone!” Khushi snapped. “You saw her. She wasn’t… real.”
Dev took a breath and opened the door.
The cold hit him first—a chill that seeped into the bones. He stepped out. The world was milk-white. His footsteps on the gravel sounded too loud, too alone. He could hear the car’s engine ticking as it cooled, the sound unnatural in this silence.
He walked around the front of the car. No one. But on the hood—muddy handprints. Small. Child-sized. Three of them. As if someone had crawled up and stared through the windshield.
He backed up instinctively.
Then saw the footprints again—bare, wet, muddy—emerging from the trees and circling the car.
They didn’t lead away.
They led to the car.
And then… stopped.
A rustle to his right. Dev turned the torch. Nothing.
Another rustle. Behind.
He swung around.
And saw her.
The child stood barely ten feet away, barefoot on the side of the road. Her white dress clung wetly to her frame. Her face was hidden under her long, matted black hair. Her neck hung at an odd angle.
She began to giggle.
Dev couldn’t move. Couldn’t scream. The flashlight in his hand flickered and died.
The girl took one step forward.
He stumbled back, gasping, and turned to run—but his foot caught on the gravel, and he fell.
From the car, Meera screamed.
Rakesh jumped out. “Dev!”
He reached Dev and pulled him up. The fog around them thinned just slightly. Enough to see the girl was now gone.
But in her place, on the ground where she stood—the doll.
Small, ragged, face pale as chalk, with red eyes staring up at them. Its stitched mouth had come undone.
Dev picked it up with shaking hands.
“I… I think she left it for us.”
“Why?” Rakesh whispered.
Dev didn’t answer. He was staring at the doll’s chest. Written in faded red ink—no, scratched into the fabric—was one word: “Stay.”
They bolted back to the car.
Dev got in, doll still clutched in hand. The others looked at him wide-eyed.
“What the hell is that?” Ajay asked.
“She gave it to me,” Dev said. “She doesn’t want us to leave.”
Khushi screamed and hit the doll from his hand. It fell to the floor with a soft thump.
Suddenly, the dashboard lit up. The engine turned over. The car hummed to life.
Everyone stared.
“She’s letting us go?” Meera whispered.
“No,” Dev said softly. “She wants us to go. So she can follow.”
They didn’t speak after that. Dev drove. Fast. Straight. The fog began to thin, and the familiar lights of Pune twinkled faintly in the distance.
But none of them looked behind.
Because in the rearview mirror, something kept flickering—a pale shape sitting in the bootspace. Watching.
They reached the city limits in less than half an hour. Pulled into the first petrol station. Parked. Got out. Stood in the harsh white light like survivors of something invisible.
“Burn the doll,” Khushi said.
They looked. It wasn’t in the car anymore.
Meera began to cry.
“She’s not done with us,” Dev whispered.
And they all knew: the horror hadn’t stayed at Lohgad Curve.
Lights Out, Voices In
The streetlight at the petrol station buzzed overhead, casting a sterile glow over the shaken group. Khushi leaned against the car, hugging herself as if trying to hold her sanity together. Ajay lit a cigarette with trembling fingers. Meera stared at the ground like she was afraid to look up. Dev stood still, staring at the backseat where the doll had vanished.
“She took it,” he finally said.
“Who took what?” Rakesh asked, still trying to sound rational, still pretending they were in control.
“The doll. She doesn’t want it gone. She wants us to keep it.”
“No, she wants something else,” Meera muttered. “She wants us.”
Dev glanced up. “We can’t go home.”
“What?” Khushi snapped. “Where do you want us to go? We just ran from a ghost on a haunted highway, and now you think we should what—camp out?”
“No,” Dev said. “We need answers. That old guy at the junction—he knew something. Remember what he said?”
Rakesh nodded slowly. “He said she’s looking for company. For those who laugh at night.”
“She’s following us because we laughed,” Meera whispered.
Ajay snorted, a humorless sound. “So what, we just wait around and never smile again?”
“No,” Dev said again, firmer. “We go back. We find the old man. We make him tell us everything.”
“You want to go back to Lohgad Curve?” Khushi’s voice cracked.
“Better than waiting for her to come knocking.”
A long pause.
“Fine,” Rakesh said. “Let’s go. Now.”
They refueled and turned around, the night even darker now than before. Clouds had swallowed the stars. The highway seemed longer. Stranger. As if it knew they were returning.
And this time, no one spoke.
About thirty minutes in, they passed the broken dhaba again—now completely dark. The fog returned like breath on a mirror. Meera shivered. “This is where it started.”
“GPS says we’re five minutes away,” Dev said.
Then the music started.
Soft, crackling, from the car speakers—though the stereo was off.
A child’s lullaby. Slow. Off-key. Sung in a girl’s voice that sounded distant, underwater.
Khushi screamed and reached to turn off the system. It didn’t stop.
“Dev,” Ajay said urgently, “pull over!”
Dev slowed the car and parked near a road sign—its paint peeling, barely legible. Everyone jumped out.
The music stopped the moment the last door shut.
No sound.
Then: Click.
The doors locked by themselves.
Whirr. The windows rolled up.
Then silence again.
And then: voice.
From the forest. Not near. Not far. A soft whisper—coming from nowhere and everywhere.
“I said don’t leave…”
Khushi dropped to her knees.
They stood frozen.
Then a rustling. Leaves. Footsteps.
This time, no one needed to speak.
They ran.
Down the side of the road, back toward the junction where the old tea stall had been. But the stall was gone.
Gone.
Not closed. Not dark.
Gone.
No structure. No bench. No lamp. As if it had never been there.
“No no no,” Dev muttered. “It was right here!”
They heard crying.
A soft, sniffling sound.
Rakesh turned around and pointed. “There!”
A girl stood near the edge of the forest. Hair hiding her face. Again. Always.
But this time, she was facing them.
And she was holding the doll.
“Don’t go,” she whispered. “Play with me…”
Her mouth didn’t move. But the words came.
Inside their heads.
“I don’t like when people laugh. I don’t like when they leave me alone. I waited. So long. You came back. Good.”
The forest behind her began to ripple. The trees swayed though no wind blew. Shadows emerged. Dozens of them. Children? No—figures. Hollow-eyed. Blank. Dolls with limbs that moved like puppets.
“RUN!” Ajay shouted.
They ran up the slope toward the car. But the fog was too thick now. They tripped. Fell. Helped each other.
By the time they reached the road, the car was… gone.
As if erased.
“What the—” Rakesh began.
Then the headlights blinked on. From behind them.
The car was there. But facing the opposite direction.
As if it had turned around on its own.
“Nope. Nope. Nope,” Meera said, shaking.
They ran to it. Doors unlocked. They jumped in. Dev started the car—this time it obeyed immediately.
They drove. Fast. The forest disappeared behind them. The fog thinned.
The doll was back on the dashboard.
“I didn’t touch it,” Khushi whispered.
“I don’t think we ever had to,” Dev replied.
Back in Pune, dawn crept in quietly.
They pulled up outside Dev’s building. No one spoke.
But as they stepped out, something moved in the backseat.
The doll turned its head.
And smiled.
The Red-Eyed Doll
The elevator creaked as it climbed to Dev’s fourth-floor flat. No one said a word. The silence between the five of them was brittle, heavy—like glass about to crack. Khushi clutched her phone tightly even though there was no signal. Meera kept glancing behind her as if someone was walking a step behind. Dev stood still, arms crossed, his mind racing.
When they reached the apartment, the door opened with a rusty groan, even though he was sure it had been properly latched.
“Did you… leave the door open?” Rakesh asked.
“No,” Dev replied, his voice low. “I locked it before we left for Lonavala.”
They stepped inside, each person careful not to look too far into the corners, as if shadows might stare back.
The doll sat on the kitchen table.
Its red eyes gleamed under the fluorescent light.
Khushi backed away. “We left it in the car.”
“I threw it out the window!” Meera cried. “Outside Lonavala!”
No one moved closer.
Dev forced himself forward and picked it up by the edge of its ragged dress. It was cold. Not fabric-cold. Cold like something dead. Its stitched mouth was half open now, as if mid-sentence.
Rakesh muttered, “Burn it. Let’s just burn the thing.”
Dev nodded and took it to the balcony. There was an old iron bucket there. He threw in some paper, doused it with lighter fluid, and dropped the doll in. He flicked the lighter and held it to the paper.
The fire started slowly, licking the edges of the cloth.
The doll didn’t burn.
The flames danced around it, rising higher—but the fabric didn’t catch. The doll sat untouched, expression unchanged.
“That’s not possible,” Rakesh whispered.
Dev poured more fluid in.
Still, nothing.
Then the flame died.
And the red eyes began to glow.
Suddenly, the power in the apartment cut out. The lights went off. The fan stopped.
Darkness.
Then came the sound again.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
From inside the house.
The five of them froze.
The sound moved. To the wall. The floor. The door.
Meera whimpered. “She’s inside…”
Then the voice came. This time, loud. From the walls. From under the bed. From everywhere.
“You laughed. You left. You were supposed to stay.”
Khushi screamed and ran to the door. It wouldn’t open.
Ajay kicked it. Nothing.
Rakesh tried the balcony gate. Jammed.
Then, out of the corner of Dev’s eye, movement.
The doll was gone from the bucket.
He turned slowly.
It stood on the floor now, beside the kitchen threshold. Upright. Red eyes glowing. Head tilted.
And then… it blinked.
“I’m calling a priest,” Rakesh said, voice shaking. “I don’t care what this is—ghost, spirit, black magic—we’re ending it.”
Dev agreed.
They all gathered in the living room, sitting in a tight circle, candles lit from Khushi’s purse lighter. Every creak of the floorboards felt like footsteps. Every gust of wind from the balcony door seemed like breath on their necks.
An hour passed. The doll hadn’t moved. But it was watching. Always watching.
Around 4:13 a.m., Dev’s phone rang.
No caller ID.
He answered anyway.
A man’s voice spoke.
“I saw your car. You came back. To the curve.”
Dev’s heart dropped. “Who is this?”
“I warned you. But you didn’t listen.”
It was the old tea-seller.
“Where did you go? Your stall—”
“She doesn’t like when people speak of her,” the man said. “She makes them disappear. Like me.”
“What do we do? Tell us how to stop this.”
There was a pause. Then: “You can’t stop her. You can only understand why she came.”
The line went dead.
Khushi cried quietly. Meera sat hugging her knees. Ajay paced like a caged animal. Rakesh stared at the doll as though willing it to burst into flames.
“I’ll find her name,” Dev said suddenly. “Ghosts… spirits… they need names. Maybe if we learn her story—her death—we can end this.”
“And where do you plan to look?” Meera snapped.
Dev looked up. “Lohgad archives. Police files. Accident records. Someone must’ve reported her.”
Ajay spoke for the first time in a while. “Why us? Why not anyone else who passed that road?”
Dev stared at the doll.
“Because we didn’t just pass.”
“We laughed.”
“We mocked the legend.”
“And then we went back.”
They all sat with that truth like a sickness in their chest.
Suddenly, all the phones in the room lit up—every screen flickering the same image.
The doll’s face.
Close-up. Cracked. Its red eyes looking straight into the lens.
A message appeared:
“NOW YOU REMEMBER ME.”
And underneath it, a name:
MANSI.
What the Old Man Knew
The name lingered in the room like smoke after a fire.
Mansi.
It flashed across every phone screen. And just as suddenly, vanished.
No one spoke for several minutes.
Then Dev stood up. “We have a name. That’s something.”
“Something?” Meera’s voice cracked. “A cursed doll knows our numbers, shows up in my dreams, freezes our car, and now it’s playing mind games. And you think ‘Mansi’ is helpful?”
Rakesh intervened. “Wait. If this is real—and we all know it is now—then names have power. Stories have power. Maybe this is her story. She wants it told.”
Dev nodded slowly. “I’m going to Lohgad tomorrow. Alone if I have to. There has to be a record. A girl named Mansi, an accident—maybe a local news story.”
Khushi, shaken but composed, said, “We go together. No more splitting up.”
Ajay sighed. “Then let’s get some sleep. We’ll need it.”
But sleep didn’t come easily that night.
Dev dreamed of fog. The highway. A child crying. And the doll’s voice whispering into his skull:
“You’ll find the truth. But you won’t leave it behind.”
Morning brought little comfort. Pune’s usual brightness seemed dulled. They left by 8 a.m., crammed into the car again—this time with the back seat left conspicuously empty.
No music. No talking.
The drive to Lohgad took them past familiar turns. Past the dhaba (still gone). Past the spot where they had first seen her. The fog was gone now, but its memory hung heavy.
They reached the Lohgad police outpost around 11 a.m.—a squat concrete building with peeling paint and a tired constable drinking tea under a banyan tree.
Dev approached him.
“Sir, we’re looking for accident records. From this area. Maybe ten… fifteen years ago. A girl named Mansi.”
The constable raised an eyebrow. “That’s specific. What for?”
“Research,” Dev lied.
The man took a long sip. “Mansi. Mansi Pawar?”
The group leaned in.
“She died just before the pandemic. 2019, maybe? Bus accident near the bend. Came back from a school picnic. Foggy night. She wandered onto the road after getting separated. Driver never saw her.”
“She died on the curve?” Meera asked.
The constable nodded. “Instant. Her body wasn’t found till the next morning. Her parents came from Kamshet to identify her. Horrible scene.”
“Anyone else with her?”
“No. She was alone. It had rained. The road was slick. People blamed the driver, but… the story took on a life of its own. You know how these hills are. Soon they were saying her spirit walks the fog. Looks for company. Laughs like a child. Whole village talks about her now.”
Ajay asked, “Have you seen… anything?”
The constable’s eyes darkened. “I don’t drive the night shift anymore.”
He wrote something down on a notepad and tore the paper. “This is her village. Go there if you want to know more.”
They thanked him and followed the directions. The road to Kamshet village twisted through narrow mountain passes. Kids played cricket near the fields. Life looked simple. Untouched.
An old woman sat outside a thatched house, stringing marigold garlands.
Dev approached. “Excuse me… are you Mansi’s grandmother?”
She looked up. Her eyes—milky and sunken—studied his face. Then she said, “You brought her back, didn’t you?”
Everyone froze.
“We… we found her name,” Khushi whispered. “On our phones. A doll—”
“She was eight,” the old woman interrupted. “Loved marigolds. Wouldn’t sleep without her doll. Her parents gave it to her before the trip. She never came back.”
“We’re so sorry,” Meera said softly.
“She liked to sing lullabies to that doll. Used to say it smiled at her. We didn’t listen. We didn’t know. After she died… strange things happened. Her doll came back. Found on our doorstep. Burnt on one side. But it didn’t stay burnt.”
The woman stood slowly, back curved with age. “My son—the father—threw it away. It came back. Again. And again. Then the voices started. At night. Mansi’s voice. Asking to play. Begging not to be alone.”
Rakesh whispered, “And the doll?”
“We buried it,” she said. “In the forest. Deep. No one should’ve found it.”
Dev said, “We found it on the highway.”
The woman’s face broke. “Then you’ve woken her.”
“She’s following us,” Khushi admitted. “She’s angry.”
“No,” the old woman said. “She’s lonely.”
“What do we do?” Ajay asked.
“You must return the doll to her place of death. The curve. The exact spot where her body was found. At night. Alone.”
“No way,” Meera said. “We can’t do that!”
The old woman continued, “Put it there. Light a diya. Say her name. And walk away. Do not turn around.”
“Why?” Dev asked.
“She’ll follow you. Try to speak. Try to touch. Don’t respond. If you look… she comes home with you. Forever.”
They returned to Pune as the sun began to set. No one talked on the drive back. The doll waited at Dev’s apartment. Right where they’d left it.
Except now, its eyes weren’t red.
They were black.
Never Return After Midnight
The doll’s eyes had changed.
Where once they glowed a sinister red, now they were pitch black—empty sockets like bottomless wells. Everyone stood in Dev’s living room, frozen. The overhead bulb flickered once and then went out with a pop.
It was 10:47 p.m.
Dev whispered, “She knows we’re going.”
They had decided—against every natural instinct—to return to Lohgad Curve. To the place where Mansi had died. To return the doll, say her name, light a diya, and walk away.
Simple instructions.
But terrifying.
“She’s making this harder,” Meera said, her voice tight. “She doesn’t want to go.”
“No,” Dev corrected. “She wants us to go… and fail.”
They packed the doll into a cloth bag, carefully tied it, and placed it in the boot. Khushi prepared the diya: oil, cotton wick, matchbox. Rakesh kept the engine running. Ajay, quiet all evening, now held a small steel thali with flowers. No one asked why. Maybe it was instinct.
By 11:35 p.m., they were back on the highway. The air had turned thick again—no fog yet, but the scent of dew and something less natural rode on the wind. It felt like the road itself was holding its breath.
They drove in silence until the turn appeared: Lohgad Bend.
The curve sloped gently, the forest pressing in on both sides. The same milestone loomed: Km 72 – Lohgad Bend. This time, even the crickets had gone quiet.
Dev stopped the car exactly where the constable had said the body was found.
“We do this fast,” he said.
They got out. One by one.
The forest was still. The moon peeked weakly through drifting clouds. The air smelled faintly of burnt marigolds.
Dev opened the boot.
The bag was open.
The doll was gone.
“No,” Meera breathed.
Then they heard it.
Soft humming.
A lullaby.
They turned.
The doll sat on the exact spot where they were supposed to place it—upright, facing them. The diya sat beside it, already filled with oil. The cotton wick stood tall, unlit.
Khushi stepped forward and lit it with shaking hands. The flame flared once, then calmed.
Dev took a deep breath and said aloud, “Mansi Pawar. We’re returning you. You’re not alone. But you cannot stay with us.”
Ajay placed the flowers beside her. Meera joined her hands in silence. Rakesh stood guard.
Then Dev whispered, “Now. Walk away. Don’t turn around.”
They began to walk.
One step. Two.
Then came the giggle.
High-pitched.
Closer.
Then the soft rustle of feet behind them.
Then:
“Why are you leaving me again?”
Khushi flinched but kept walking.
Meera’s eyes watered.
Ajay clenched his fists.
Rakesh whispered under his breath, “Don’t look. Don’t look.”
Then came a soft touch on Meera’s hand. Cold. Featherlight.
A voice in her ear.
“You said you’d stay.”
Meera nearly turned—but Khushi grabbed her wrist.
“NO.”
They walked faster.
The forest seemed endless.
The curve stretched too long.
Then the footsteps stopped.
The air changed.
Warmer. Lighter.
They reached the car.
And all at once—they knew.
She was gone.
Dev turned back toward the curve.
The diya had extinguished.
The doll was no longer there.
They drove in stunned silence back to the city.
Back to noise.
Back to life.
At 3:27 a.m., they reached Dev’s apartment. The power was back. The walls felt warmer. The silence no longer throbbed.
Khushi checked her phone. No messages.
Meera looked at the kitchen. No doll.
Ajay opened the fridge for water. No voices.
They exhaled, one by one, like survivors.
Until Dev walked to his bedroom.
And froze.
There, on his study table, sat the steel thali Ajay had carried.
With marigold petals.
And at the center—an old black-and-white photograph.
Of a smiling girl.
In a school uniform.
Holding the doll.
Her name, written on the back in fading blue ink:
Mansi Pawar – Class 3A, St. Teresa’s School
Below it, scribbled in a child’s handwriting:
“Best friends never leave.”
The End
