Rishabh Mehta
Part 1 – The Arrival
The bus wound its way up the narrow mountain road, its engine straining against the climb. Aanya Kapoor pressed her forehead against the cold glass, watching the mist rise like smoke from the cedar forests below. It was late afternoon, but the hills were already wrapped in a twilight haze. The signboard that flashed past read Chamba – 18 km, its paint peeling, its iron frame leaning precariously as if even it wanted to escape the lonely curve of the road. She closed her notebook, the one already crowded with scribbled headlines and half-formed questions. Three families gone missing in six months—disappeared without luggage, without farewells, without explanation. The official word: migration. The villagers’ word: curse. And somewhere in the silence of these valleys, the truth lay hidden.
The bus shuddered to a halt at a bend where the road narrowed to a single lane. A shepherd drove his flock across, their bells clanging in chaotic chorus, the mist swallowing them whole within seconds. Aanya shifted in her seat and noticed the conductor staring at her with a mixture of curiosity and unease. “Madam, it will be dark soon,” he said in halting Hindi. “Are you sure you want to get down at Bharmour? There is no hotel there, only homestays. And the people…” He hesitated, his lips pressing into a thin line, “they don’t like outsiders asking questions.”
“That’s exactly why I’m here,” Aanya replied, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. “Don’t worry. I’ll manage.”
By the time she reached Bharmour, the village was wrapped in a silence so complete it felt unnatural. The bus rumbled away, leaving her standing on a rough patch of gravel where a few shuttered shops leaned against each other. Smoke rose from a distant chimney, but the streets were empty. She adjusted her scarf against the sudden chill. A child appeared at the edge of an alley, watching her with wide eyes, then vanished as quickly as he had come. Somewhere, a temple bell tolled, the sound heavy and final, echoing across the mountains until it died in the mist.
Aanya dragged her suitcase along the cobbled path until she reached the only homestay marked on her list: a two-storied wooden house with faded blue shutters and a small prayer flag fluttering at its roof. A middle-aged woman opened the door, her face lined with weariness. “You must be the Delhi journalist,” she said flatly, as if the news of her arrival had already spread. “Come in, quickly. It is not good to stand outside after sunset.” Without further conversation, the woman led her to a modest room with a creaking bed, a brass lamp, and a window overlooking the forest. The air smelled faintly of cedar and damp earth.
Over dinner—simple rice and red kidney beans—the woman, who introduced herself as Mrs. Rana, spoke little. Her eyes flicked constantly to the curtained window, as though expecting someone—or something—outside. When Aanya asked about the missing families, Mrs. Rana’s spoon clattered against her bowl. “They left,” she said sharply. “Like others before them. The mountains are hard, the winters cruel. People always leave.”
“But they left without telling anyone?” Aanya pressed. “Without taking their belongings?”
Mrs. Rana did not answer. Instead, she rose, gathered the plates, and whispered, “You will hear things here, madam. Do not repeat them. Do not write them. And above all, when the last temple bell rings at night, lock your door and do not look outside.”
The warning lingered in the silence of the room long after she had gone.
That night, Aanya lay awake, the blanket pulled to her chin. The wind rattled the shutters, and the trees groaned like ancient sentinels. She took out the old newspaper clippings she had collected: three families gone from Bharmour, their names barely remembered now—Thakurs, Vermas, Duggals. No farewell notes, no sale of property, nothing left but empty houses with locked doors and dust on the windows. In one clipping, a line had caught her eye: “Schoolteacher Arun Duggal was last seen carrying lanterns into the cedar forest.”
The diary she found the next day confirmed it. She had wandered into the old village library, a crumbling structure where damp pages stuck together and the smell of mildew lingered in the air. Behind a stack of forgotten registers, she discovered a leather-bound notebook with faded ink: the last entries of Arun Duggal. The writing grew frantic as the pages turned, speaking of a shrine deep in the woods, older than the village, older than the temples. They worshipped something there that should not be remembered, one entry read. The priest said the shrine must remain buried, but it calls in the silence. It calls when the bell fades.
That evening, the mist thickened until the world beyond the window vanished. Aanya kept the diary close, her pulse quickening with each line she reread. Then it came: the tolling of the temple bell, slow and heavy. She counted each strike. Eight… nine… ten… and then silence. The kind of silence that pressed against her ears, that made her breath sound too loud, too quick.
Somewhere beyond the shuttered window, a whisper carried through the mist, soft but deliberate, as if someone called her name. Aanya froze, heart hammering, the old woman’s warning echoing in her mind: Do not look outside. Yet curiosity pulled at her, fierce and unrelenting. Her fingers reached for the latch of the window, trembling. She hesitated, holding her breath. And in that hesitation, she heard it again—the whisper, closer this time, laced with something between a prayer and a curse.
She stepped back, locking the window tight. The cedar forest loomed outside, unseen but alive, and she realized with a shiver that the missing families might not have left at all. They might still be here, somewhere in the silence, swallowed by the forgotten shrine.
Part 2 – Into the Cedars
The morning broke pale and reluctant, the sun barely piercing the heavy mist that clung to Bharmour. Aanya strapped on her boots, slipped the diary into her satchel, and stepped outside. The air was sharp with the scent of cedar and frost, each breath forming a ghost in the air before her. Mrs. Rana watched from the doorway, arms crossed, lips pressed thin. “Do not go where the trees thicken,” she muttered. “The forest keeps what it takes.”
Aanya didn’t reply. She had already decided. The entry in Arun Duggal’s diary mentioned a stone path that began near the abandoned schoolhouse. She found it easily: a narrow trail half-swallowed by weeds, winding downward into the shadows of the cedars. The village sounds—barking dogs, clanging pots—faded as soon as she stepped under the trees. All that remained was the hush of pine needles underfoot and the occasional call of a distant bird.
The deeper she went, the stranger it felt. The forest was too quiet, the air too still, as though the mountains themselves held their breath. Her phone had no signal, the bars vanishing the moment she entered the woods. She kept glancing back, half-expecting someone to follow, but there was nothing—only trees, endless and tall, their trunks rising like pillars of an ancient cathedral.
After an hour, she found it: a clearing where a ring of stones stood half-buried in moss. At the center, a crumbling idol leaned against a pedestal, its features weathered beyond recognition. The diary had described it exactly: the shrine that should not be remembered. She crouched, brushing away dead leaves, and saw faint carvings at the base—spirals, symbols, a script older than Sanskrit. Her heart thudded. This was no village rumor. This was real.
The air grew colder as she lingered. She felt it then—a prickle at the back of her neck, the unmistakable sense of being watched. She rose quickly, scanning the trees. Nothing moved, yet she could swear she saw a shadow slip between the trunks. A voice, faint but sharp, whispered her name.
She stumbled back, nearly tripping on the stones. Her rational mind insisted it was the wind, but the sound had shape, intent. Her eyes darted across the clearing until she noticed something else: offerings. Fresh marigold garlands lay wilted at the base of the idol, a clay pot filled with ash still warm. Someone had been here recently. Someone was still worshipping.
Her camera trembled in her hands as she snapped a few photos, the shutter loud in the silence. She turned to leave, heart racing, when she froze. A bell rang—soft, single, and close. Not the distant temple bell from the village. This one came from the forest itself. She spun, scanning the trees, but saw nothing. Then it rang again, deeper this time, the sound vibrating in her chest like a warning.
Panic surged. She broke into a run, crashing through undergrowth, branches clawing at her jacket. The trail seemed to twist, unfamiliar, as though the forest were shifting to trap her. She gasped for breath, stumbling, until finally the outline of the village appeared through the mist. She didn’t stop until she reached the homestay, slamming the door behind her.
Mrs. Rana was waiting, face pale. “You went there,” she whispered. “Foolish girl. Now it knows you.”
Aanya clutched the diary against her chest, trembling. She wanted to ask what it was, but the words caught in her throat. All she knew was that the shrine wasn’t forgotten. It was waiting. And someone—or something—wanted her to find it.
Part 3 – The First Sign
The storm rolled in by evening, clouds pressed low over the valley, thunder muttering in the distance. Aanya sat at the small desk in her room, the diary spread open, her notes scattered like restless thoughts. Every few minutes, her eyes flicked to the window where the trees loomed, their dark silhouettes swaying. She couldn’t shake the sound of that bell, hollow and heavy, still echoing in her chest.
When the rain began, she lit the brass lamp, its glow trembling against the walls. She reread the final entry of Arun Duggal: If I do not return, tell them the shrine is awake again. The families did not leave. They were taken.
The words gnawed at her. Taken where?
The next morning, she returned to the forest, against every warning in her mind. The rain had left the trail slick, the earth rich with the smell of pine and rot. She followed the same path, her boots squelching in the mud, the mist thicker than before. It felt different this time, as though the forest was aware of her return.
Near the shrine, she noticed something new—a length of cloth snagged on a branch, bright red against the green. She pulled it free, her heart racing. It wasn’t weathered or torn; it was fresh. A child’s sweater. The label inside still legible: Verma & Sons, Shimla.
Her throat tightened. One of the missing families had been the Vermas.
She pushed deeper past the clearing, the trees crowding closer, the air heavy with damp. That was when she saw it: a cluster of houses, half-buried in the earth, their roofs caved in, walls crumbling with moss. Not marked on any map. Not spoken of in any report. Abandoned, yet not entirely. The doors were nailed shut from the outside, thick wooden beams barring them.
Her stomach turned. She leaned close to one of the doors, peering through a crack. The darkness inside was thick, impenetrable. Then, faintly, she heard it—scratching. Slow, deliberate, as though fingernails dragged along wood. She stumbled back, pulse thundering.
The diary slipped from her satchel and fell into the mud, its pages flaring open. The wind caught them, flipping to a page she hadn’t read before. A single line stared back at her: Do not open the doors. They are not empty.
Her skin prickled. A crow shrieked overhead, startling her so badly she nearly dropped her torch. She gathered the diary quickly and backed away, never turning her back fully on the row of houses. As she hurried back along the trail, the scratching followed, faint but constant, until the shrine was behind her.
By the time she reached the village, she was shaking. She wanted answers—needed them—but the villagers’ eyes slid away when she asked. Only one man, the old temple priest, spoke, his voice brittle with age. “You went too far,” he said. “The families were not lost. They were sealed. And you… you may have loosened what keeps them bound.”
Part 4 – The Bell After Midnight
That night, Bharmour did not sleep. The storm had passed, but the air hung heavy, damp with something unseen. Aanya sat at her desk, her pen moving in restless loops across her notebook, but her eyes were fixed on the diary. The old priest’s words replayed in her mind—they were sealed… you may have loosened what keeps them bound.
She tried to laugh it off, tried to frame it as superstition she could dismantle with logic, but the sound died in her throat. Logic didn’t explain the scratching she’d heard behind those doors. Logic didn’t explain the sweater she still carried in her bag.
The temple bell rang late that night. It was unusual—she had grown used to its regular rhythm, closing the day, binding the night. But this time, the sound came long after midnight. She sat bolt upright in bed, heart pounding. The toll was slower than before, stretched thin, as though the bell were struck underwater.
Then the whisper came. Not from the forest, but from inside the village itself. Faint, sibilant, rising from the empty alleys. She strained her ears, pressing against the window. At first she thought it was the wind slipping through cracks in the wood. But no—the sound carried weight, syllables. A name. Aanya.
The lamp flickered violently, plunging the room into half-darkness. She rushed to steady it, her fingers cold. A shadow passed across the window, though no footsteps sounded in the lane outside. Her breath clouded in the air.
She forced herself to open the curtains just a crack. What she saw made her blood turn to ice. In the courtyard below, three figures stood motionless. Their faces were indistinct, blurred as though smoke clung to them, but their posture was unmistakably human. One tilted its head upward, staring directly at her window.
She stumbled back, slamming the curtains shut, locking the window latch with trembling hands. The lamp guttered, nearly dying, before flaring bright again. Her chest heaved, her pulse thundering in her ears.
The whisper ceased. The bell stopped. Silence returned, sudden and suffocating.
Morning light revealed nothing in the courtyard—only damp cobblestones, puddles shining under the weak sun. The villagers avoided her gaze more than ever. When she tried to ask about the midnight bell, Mrs. Rana pressed her lips together and muttered, “You should not have gone to the forest. Now the forest has come to you.”
Aanya clenched the diary in her hands. Whatever the shrine was, it was no longer just a story. And whatever was behind those doors in the forest—it was no longer content to stay there.
Part 5 – The Sealed Door
The decision came with the recklessness of exhaustion. Aanya had spent two nights listening to whispers scratch at the edges of her sanity, watching shadows stretch too long across the courtyard, feeling eyes she could not see. If she was going to uncover the truth, it would not be in the frightened silences of Bharmour’s villagers. It would be where the scratching lived—behind those doors in the forest.
She set out at dawn, before the temple bell. The path was slick with dew, her boots muffled against the pine needles. Each step deeper into the cedars felt heavier, as though the forest wanted to hold her back. When she reached the clearing, the shrine loomed in the mist, its spirals glistening with rain. She kept her eyes from it, forcing herself past to the cluster of ruined houses.
The doors were as she had left them: nailed, bound with wooden beams darkened by years of rot. She pressed her ear against the nearest one. The sound was faint but there—the dragging, the patient scrape of nails across wood. Her breath caught.
She raised the crowbar she had taken from Mrs. Rana’s shed, its weight awkward in her hands. With each strike, the nails groaned loose, the beam splintered. The scratching grew frantic, desperate, as if the thing inside knew freedom was close. Sweat stung her eyes despite the chill air.
The final beam fell with a hollow thud. Silence.
Aanya hesitated, her pulse thundering in her ears. Slowly, she pushed the door open. The smell hit her first—damp earth, mold, something sour and metallic. The darkness inside was so thick it seemed alive, swallowing the daylight at the threshold. She flicked on her torch.
The beam cut through the black.
What it revealed made her stagger back.
The walls were carved with the same spirals as the shrine, gouged deep by fingernails until they bled into the wood. In the corner sat a shape—human once, perhaps, but twisted by time and hunger. Skin stretched tight, eyes sunk deep, lips moving in silent repetition. It looked at her, unblinking, as if it had been waiting.
Then it spoke—not with sound, but inside her head. A single word that filled her skull like a bell tolling underwater: Taken.
Her torch shook violently, the beam skittering across the walls, revealing more. Not one figure. Three. All crouched, bound by the dark, their mouths whispering soundless prayers.
The door slammed behind her with a force that rattled her bones. The scratching began again—not from inside, but outside, circling the house. Something else was out there. Something that didn’t want her to leave.
Part 6 – The Escape
The air inside the house thickened until it clung to her throat. Aanya pressed herself against the wall, torch beam trembling across the crouched figures. They did not lunge or rise. They only whispered, lips cracked, eyes hollow, as though reciting a prayer too old for her to understand. The word Taken throbbed in her skull, not spoken but planted, heavy as stone.
Then came the scratching again, circling outside. Slow, deliberate, closer with each drag. Something moved around the house, brushing the walls, rattling the nailed beams on the other doors. The three shapes inside turned their heads in unison, as if listening to the thing that prowled outside.
Her breath quickened. She fumbled for the diary, flipping it open with shaking hands. A page she hadn’t seen before stared back: If the door opens, do not linger. The forest will come for you next.
Panic surged. She lunged for the door, yanking hard. It resisted, as though held by an unseen hand. She shoved, muscles straining, until the wood gave with a splintering crack. Cold air rushed in, carrying the smell of cedar and wet soil.
She stumbled out, her boots slipping on mud. The forest was different—darker, the mist denser, the trees leaning in like walls. She turned back once, just once. The figures stood at the threshold now, staring after her, their whispers echoing into the mist.
A movement in the corner of her vision froze her blood. A tall shape, blurred and shifting, slid between the cedars. She couldn’t see its face—if it had one—but its presence pressed against her chest like a weight. The bell rang then, hollow and close, reverberating through the trees.
Aanya ran. Branches tore at her jacket, roots caught her ankles, but she didn’t stop until the houses were far behind, until the shrine was swallowed by the fog. When the village rooftops appeared, she collapsed against a stone wall, lungs burning, heart threatening to tear free.
Mrs. Rana found her there, mud streaked, torch dangling from her hand. One look at Aanya’s face and the woman shook her head. “You saw them,” she whispered. “Now they will not stop until you understand why they were sealed.”
Aanya clutched the diary, knuckles white. She wanted to scream, to demand answers, but the words lodged like stones in her throat. All she knew was this: the forest had let her go once. It might not again.
Part 7 – The Priest’s Story
The rain returned by evening, pattering against the tin roofs of Bharmour. Aanya sat by the lamp in Mrs. Rana’s kitchen, her hands wrapped tight around a cup of steaming tea she had no appetite for. The older woman moved silently, chopping vegetables with sharp, angry strokes, refusing to meet her eyes. The silence pressed in heavier than the storm outside.
It was the priest who finally came. Bent with age, his robes damp, his eyes two pale embers under heavy lids. He lowered himself to the floor, resting his prayer beads on his knees. “You opened the house,” he said, his voice carrying the weight of certainty rather than question.
Aanya nodded, throat tight.
His sigh was long, as though it carried decades of sorrow. “You must understand. Long before the temples, before even this village, the shrine was here. Not built by men, but found. A fissure in the earth where voices lived. The ancients tried to worship what they did not understand. But the worship twisted. It asked for more. It asked for blood.”
Mrs. Rana muttered sharply under her breath, but the priest raised a trembling hand to silence her. “When the famine came, the people made offerings. Not goats. Not grain. People. Families chosen by lot, sealed within the shrine’s shadow. They whispered prayers until their bodies broke, and still it was not enough. The cedar roots grew around them, binding them into silence. That is why we built the doors. To keep the voices inside.”
Aanya’s stomach churned. “Then why are there still families missing now? Why the Vermas? Why the Duggals?”
The priest’s eyes flickered to the window, where the rain smeared the glass. “Because the seal weakens with time. Because some among us still believe the shrine must be fed, or the valley will starve again. And because outsiders—like you—wake what should remain forgotten.”
The wind moaned through the shutters. Aanya’s grip on the diary tightened until her nails dug crescents into the leather. She wanted to call them mad, superstitious, clinging to myths. But she had seen the figures. Heard their whispers. Felt the bell inside her bones. Logic had no foothold here.
The priest leaned closer, his voice dropping to a rasp. “The tall one you glimpsed in the forest—it is no spirit. It is the echo of what was once offered. A guardian of hunger. Now that it has marked you, you must choose. Leave this valley tonight… or follow the voices to the end.”
The lamp guttered, shadows leaping across the walls. Aanya swallowed, the taste of cedar and iron heavy on her tongue. She knew she wouldn’t leave. Not yet. Not until she knew what the shrine truly held—and why it had chosen her.
Part 8 – When the Bell Walked
The night fell too quickly, swallowing Bharmour in a darkness thicker than the storm clouds. Aanya sat by her window, notebook open but untouched, waiting for the sound she feared most. It came just after midnight.
The bell.
Not from the temple. This toll came from everywhere at once—low, vibrating, as though the earth itself were a hollow chamber. The villagers stirred, lamps flickering to life behind shuttered windows, doors bolted, prayers whispered into cupped hands. Aanya leaned closer to the glass, heart hammering.
Then she saw it.
At the far end of the lane, rising taller than any man, a shape emerged from the mist. Its body was long, stretched, as if woven from the very cedar shadows. Limbs too thin, bending where they should not bend, a face that flickered in and out of focus like smoke caught in wind. With each toll of the bell, it stepped forward, soundless but heavy, shaking the stones beneath her feet.
Dogs howled, chained and frantic. Lamps blew out, one by one, until only the moonless dark remained.
The thing turned, its head tilting unnaturally, and though its face was blurred, Aanya knew—knew—it was looking at her. Her name uncoiled in her mind, soft and final: Aanya.
She stumbled back from the window, pulse crashing. Mrs. Rana banged at her door, voice trembling. “Don’t open it! Don’t look at it!”
But it was too late. The walls quivered with the weight of its steps, dust raining from the rafters. The whispers she had heard in the forest now swelled through the village, seeping under doors, filling every room.
She grabbed the diary, flipping to the marked page: If it leaves the shrine, it will not stop until it is fed again.
The bell tolled once more, louder than before, and the window cracked down its center.
Aanya screamed.
And in the silence that followed, the shifting presence moved closer.
Part 9 – The Circle of Ash
The cracking of the window jolted Aanya to the floor, the diary clutched tight against her chest. Before she could rise, the door burst open and Mrs. Rana, flanked by two men carrying oil lamps, dragged her out into the storm of whispers. “No time,” the older woman hissed, pulling her by the wrist. “If it takes you inside the house, you’ll never come back out.”
They half-ran, half-stumbled through the narrow lanes until they reached the village square. A circle had been drawn in the dirt—ash, crushed cedar bark, and lines of vermilion that glistened wet under the lamps. At its center, the old priest stood, chanting in a language that bent the air around his voice.
The presence loomed at the edge of the square, taller than the rooftops, its limbs swaying like branches in a storm. Each toll of the invisible bell sent ripples through the ground, knocking villagers to their knees. The priest raised a trembling hand. “Inside the circle!” he barked.
Aanya resisted. “What is this? What are you doing?”
Mrs. Rana shoved her forward. “It’s you it wants. If you stand outside, the whole village will burn.”
The circle felt hot under her feet, the ash pulsing faintly as though alive. The priest’s chants quickened, rising in a desperate rhythm. The villagers added their voices, low and trembling, their eyes fixed on the ground to avoid seeing the thing at the edge.
The presence stepped closer. Its face flickered in and out of form—sometimes blank, sometimes bearing the features of the missing families, eyes hollow, mouths whispering. Aanya’s stomach twisted. She heard the Verma child’s voice, soft and pleading, braided into the tolling of the bell.
The diary slipped from her hand, falling open at her feet. The page glowed faintly under the lamp light: A shrine remembers what it is owed. No circle holds forever. The marked one must choose.
The priest’s voice cracked. The ash circle flickered, fading at one point like embers doused in water. The presence surged forward, stretching one thin arm toward Aanya, its fingers longer than her body, curling like roots.
She screamed, stumbling back. The villagers clutched her shoulders, forcing her to remain inside the circle. “Don’t break it!” Mrs. Rana shouted.
But Aanya knew—if she stayed, they might all be crushed. If she left, she might never come back.
The tolling stopped. For the first time, silence fell. And in that silence, the presence whispered into every skull in Bharmour: Choose.
Part 10 – The Forgotten Choice
The silence pressed on Aanya’s chest until she thought her ribs might break. Around her, the villagers knelt, their chants crumbling into sobs, the ash circle dimming with every breath of wind. The presence leaned closer, its blurred face rippling between human and something older, hungrier. The word it planted in her skull throbbed again: Choose.
Her fingers brushed the diary at her feet. The leather cover was slick with rain, but one page shone brighter than the rest, as though the ink itself burned. She read it in a rush, the words etching themselves into her mind: The shrine endures because we believe it must. End the belief, end the hunger. Break the bell.
Her eyes widened. The bell.
The toll had always come from the forest, from the shrine that had bound this valley for centuries. If she could silence it—truly silence it—the cycle might end. But to reach it, she would have to leave the circle.
The priest saw the resolve hardening in her eyes. “No!” he croaked, clutching her arm. “You’ll kill us all!”
Aanya tore free. “You already are,” she said, her voice shaking.
Before anyone could stop her, she broke the circle and ran into the mist. The presence followed, its limbs dragging shadows across the cobblestones, its bell tolling louder with each step. The villagers screamed, some fleeing, others collapsing in prayer.
She plunged into the cedars, the diary guiding her, her breath ragged, feet slicing against roots and stones. The shrine appeared through the fog like a wound in the forest—stones slick with rain, spirals glowing faintly as though alive. And there it was: the bell, half-buried, blackened with age, resting at the shrine’s heart.
The presence towered behind her, its face a shifting gallery of the missing, their mouths whispering pleas. Her chest heaved, tears stung her eyes, but she raised the crowbar high.
The first strike rang hollow, echoing through the valley. The presence shrieked, its body unraveling into smoke. She struck again, the spirals blazing, the forest convulsing with sound.
The third blow shattered the bell.
A wave of silence tore outward, swallowing the tolling, the whispers, the presence itself. The figures dissolved, their shapes scattering like ash into the mist. The forest stilled. For the first time in living memory, no bell tolled in Bharmour.
Aanya collapsed to her knees, gasping, the crowbar slipping from her hand. The diary lay open beside her, its ink running in the rain until the words blurred away. Only one line remained clear, etched as though carved into her mind: Every shrine leaves an echo.
When she returned to the village at dawn, the people stared at her with a mixture of awe and fear. The priest wept silently, Mrs. Rana clutched her children close, and the streets lay heavy in their unnatural quiet. The curse had broken—or perhaps only shifted.
As Aanya boarded the morning bus, mist curling around the cedars, she wondered if silence was truly freedom—or just the beginning of something the mountains would not forget.
