Aarav Sen
Episode 1: The Wrong Turn
The air thinned as the trail rose, a slow, needling cold that found the seams in jackets and the cracks in bravado. Rhea Banerjee kept her camera slung against her ribs like a warm heart she could press to; every few minutes she paused to frame a ridge, a smear of cloud, the ant-line of pilgrims far below. Aditya Malhotra walked ahead with his hands in his pockets and that steady, skeptical pace that made him look like he was measuring the mountain and finding it slightly overrated. Tara and Naman, their friends from Delhi, traded jokes that snagged and unraveled in the wind. And at the front, Prakash Chauhan, their guide, kept glancing back as if counting heads at the mouth of a cave.
They had started at dawn from the cedar-shadowed hamlet where the road ended and the footpath began, a contour of stone steps and rooty switchbacks the locals climbed without breathing. Prakash had given them the usual warnings: don’t stray, don’t touch the shrines, don’t whistle after dark. Then, with an odd heaviness, he had added—“We will not take the eastern ridge. Even if the sky looks clear. We keep west.” When Rhea asked why, he shrugged. “Old stories. People lose their way there. Compass turns rude. Phones stop being phones.”
By noon the sky changed its mind. The blue turned milky, the sun a rumor behind gauze. The path threaded a slope of broken slate and dry grass; below, a river rattled its stones like teeth. Rhea photographed the way a single prayer flag, long faded to ghost colors, clung to a pine with the stubbornness of a vow. Aditya touched his phone, frowned at the missing signal bars, and said, “We’re still on the route?” Prakash nodded and tapped a battered milestone half sunk in earth—KANDHAR TOP 5 KM. “We reach the ridge by three,” he promised, and then the mountain answered with a noise like a giant exhaling dust.
The landslide did not arrive as a roar but as a shrug. Stone loosened and slid, a lazy curtain. The path ahead slumped away, leaving a bite mark on the hillside and a cloud of powdered rock. They stood and watched their intended future dissolve. When the dust cleared, the way forward ended in a fresh scar of scree and emptiness. Prakash squatted, pressed the ground with his palm, and didn’t speak for a while. Tara said, too brightly, “Detour? There’s always a detour,” and Rhea saw the guide’s jaw tighten at the word.
“There is a shepherds’ line,” he said at last. “Lower. It crosses an old stream bed, then climbs to meet the ridge again. It is not marked now. We should go back and camp.” Aditya looked at the bleached sky and the ridge they could almost taste. “How long if we detour?” he asked. “Before dark?” Prakash hesitated. The hunger to keep moving pressed at the group like a hand between shoulder blades. Rhea felt it, too—the tug of the unseen view, the little private pride of being the sort of person who reaches it. When Prakash finally nodded—“We try the lower line, but stay close”—it felt like relief passing from one body to the next.
They switched back down through scrub, ankles biting at the tilt, and found the faint groove where feet once made a habit. It was a suggestion of a path more than a path itself. The forest closed in: damp soil, the faint metallic tang of rain not yet fallen. Somewhere far off a cowbell clonked, bastardized by distance into something almost melodic. Twice Prakash stopped, faced the slope as if listening to it breathe, and adjusted their course by degrees. Once they passed a little stack of flat stones daubed with vermilion, a shrine so old the paint looked like dried blood. “Don’t touch,” he said quietly, though no one had reached.
The sky slid toward afternoon without letting them know when it had crossed over. The light went pewter. Shadows gathered in the hollows like animals crouching. The shepherds’ line sloped into a narrow valley where the ground remembered water; their boots sank in places with a sly sigh. “Stream bed,” Prakash said, voice clipped. “We cross fast.” At the center, the soil trembled minutely, as if reconsidering solidity. Rhea stepped where his foot had been a second ago and felt the skin-prickle of being tolerated by the earth.
On the other side the trees grew strange. Their trunks leaned inward as if gossiping. Lichen made pale continents on bark. A ribbon of fog drifted through, no source, no hurry. Tara asked, low, “Do you hear that?” They all paused. What Rhea heard at first was her pulse. Then—something like a wind chime with no metal, a tinkling that could have been water if water knew how to laugh. Naman grinned shakily. “Just air in the leaves,” he said. “Just your imagination,” Aditya supplied, but the way he angled his chin told Rhea he was trying to convince the air as much as them.
They walked on. The trail, if it was a trail, tugged right when their instincts said left. Rhea tried to drop mental pins with each odd landmark—a stump that looked like a crouching dog, three stones stacked by no hand they could name, a tree with roots like splayed toes. But after half an hour, when she glanced back, the forest behind seemed to have traded places with a cousin; nothing looked like it had looked, and the air had the faint chalk taste of classrooms left in a hurry. She tried her phone. It showed a map with a dot at sea, as if they had hiked into the Arabian.
“Stop,” Prakash said, not loudly but with a finality that made them grateful to obey. He stood very still, squinted up through the lattice of branches, and then—Rhea swore—tilted his head like a dog that hears a sound humans pretend isn’t there. “We should see the ridge by now,” he murmured. “We should see something.” “We see trees,” Aditya said. “Plenty to see. We cut west?” Prakash didn’t answer. He turned in a slow circle, thumb worrying the prayer thread at his wrist. Rhea tasted the first thread of fear, thin and metallic, a hair caught on the tongue.
Fog began to thicken almost politely, as if giving them time to make other plans. The forest did that thing forests do near dusk: every distance shortened, every sound advanced. Their breaths were too loud. The laughter-water sound returned, closer, then disappeared as if it had only come to prove it could. “We go down a little,” Prakash decided. “We are too high for the lower line. Down, and we will meet the old mule road. That road will not be shy.” The relief in the group turned lightheaded. Down meant closer to rivers, to villages, to human certainty. Down meant gravity agreeing with you for once.
They descended into a shallow fold of land and the temperature dropped as if they had stepped into a cellar. The fog became a presence with opinions. Rhea’s breath made small clouds she could not help photographing, absurd little ghosts in a place that didn’t need help with metaphors. Then, through the white—warmth. Not the warmth of air, not the warmth of bodies stacked together, but the particular, buttery warmth of flame on glass. A point of amber burned ahead. Another answered it to the left. Lanterns, Rhea thought, before her mind could veto it as too easy. Lanterns in 2025.
“Not the ridge,” Aditya said softly, and his skepticism sounded softer, too. Prakash’s shoulders lowered a fraction. “If there is light, there are people,” he said, and he wanted it to be true badly enough that the sentence bent under the wish. They followed the lights as they multiplied, becoming a beaded string in the fog. The ground underfoot turned from leaf-rot to hard-packed earth. The trees stepped back like curtains drawing away from a stage. A shape arranged itself out of the white: a wooden gate with a lintel carved in a pattern too worn to decipher; a prayer flag in colors that should have died and hadn’t; a little bell with a tongue that did not move in the wind.
Beyond the gate lay a village cupped in the palm of the valley, houses crouched close as if keeping a shared secret. Roofs tiled with wooden shingles gleamed with fog-dew. Windows glowed with a patient amber. Smoke rose with decorum from chimneys, undecided between going and staying. A narrow lane ran between low walls where marigolds leaned. Somewhere, very near, a goat made the questioning throat-noise goats make, as if it, too, had only just discovered the place and was trying to learn its vowels.
They paused beneath the gate without meaning to, all five, as if some rule required witnesses to consider what they were about to enter. “See?” Naman said, relief loosening his grin into something genuine. “Village. We’ll get chai, and someone’s aunt will insist we eat, and we will be the story they tell about idiots from the city who almost missed the ridge.” Tara laughed, a small, unsteady shard of sound. Rhea lifted her camera and lowered it again when she realized she didn’t want to filter the first sight through glass. Prakash touched the lintel with his fingertips and murmured something in Pahari that could have been thanks or apology.
A man appeared at the lane’s near end, as if conjured by the thought of hospitality. He was not old, not young, wearing a wool cap pulled to his eyebrows and a shawl thrown with ease. He had the face of a man who had smiled often enough for it to leave a habit, but now he merely regarded them with a steady attention that felt like clean water. “Namaste,” he said, voice low, as if meeting travelers in fog required quiet. “You are late for the ridge and early for the night. Come. The weather decides foolish things up there. Down here, we argue with it less.”
“Thank you,” Rhea said, and the word left her mouth as mist. The man lifted his hand in a polite welcome and turned toward the lane as if the invitation were already accepted. The lantern nearest him swayed a fraction, though the air where they stood was still. Aditya leaned closer to Rhea and whispered, childish and delighted despite himself, “Saved by chai.” Rhea smiled, but the smile stuck when she noticed, above the door of the house nearest the gate, a painted sign whose letters had almost drowned in years of weather. Close enough to read, she made out only three—their shapes patient and stubborn under layers of flake: H—O—L. The rest was moss.
They stepped under the gate together. The bell gave a single, delicate note, though no hand had moved it. And because dusk in the mountains is a magician, the fog rose from the lane like a curtain going up, and the village, in its warm, unargumentative way, opened its arms.
Episode 2: The Village of Lanterns
The lane into the village seemed narrower than it first appeared, cobbled with uneven stones that gleamed wet under the lantern glow. The five of them walked close together, their boots clicking softly, as if loud noise might shatter the fragile welcome. Windows watched them—warm, golden eyes cut into timbered walls—but no one leaned out, no curious children giggled, no old men smoked. The air carried the smell of woodsmoke and boiled rice, of something faintly sweet, like burnt sugar.
Their host, the man in the wool cap, moved ahead at a steady pace, not once glancing back to check if they followed. His shawl trailed the air like a dark wing. “You must be tired,” he said at last, his voice low but distinct. “The mountain path takes more than it gives.”
Prakash cleared his throat, his voice subdued. “What do we call you, bhai?”
The man slowed, then offered a small smile. “Harish,” he said simply. “This village has no need for long names. They fade here.”
Rhea felt Aditya’s eyes on her, a flicker of skepticism in the half-light, but she only nodded. “We’re grateful, Harish. We lost the ridge trail.”
“Yes,” Harish said, as if he had expected nothing else. “The ridge does not keep its promises in fog.” He gestured toward a row of low wooden houses that leaned against each other like confidants. “Here, you will rest.”
They were shown into a long, low hut with walls of dark pine. Inside, the air was warmer, though it smelled of smoke and resin. Oil lamps hung from wooden beams, their flames steady and too bright for their size. Mats were laid out neatly, bowls stacked with care, wool blankets folded in anticipation of guests. Rhea touched one—rough, handwoven, carrying the faint smell of goat hair. It felt more prepared than hospitable, as though someone had known they were coming.
Tara whispered, “This is… cozy.” She forced a laugh that didn’t reach her eyes. Naman knelt by the bowls. “Rice. Dal. Chapatis.” He grinned. “We’re really in luck.” He reached to uncover one and stopped, startled. The food steamed—fresh, waiting.
Harish said, “Eat. The village believes in sharing with travelers. After your meal, you may sleep. Tomorrow, perhaps, the ridge will return.”
Aditya frowned. “Do you often have travelers?”
Harish looked at him with those patient eyes. “Not often. Only when they need us.” Then he inclined his head, stepped back into the lane, and closed the wooden door. The sound of the latch settling was softer than a sigh, but final.
For a long time, no one spoke. Rhea’s camera lay on her lap, cold and inert, as if reluctant to frame this place. Prakash lit a match and added it to a lamp though it burned already—some instinct to test flame against flame. Both burned the same, but the lamp’s glow seemed thicker, almost liquid.
They ate quietly. The rice was soft, the dal earthy, the chapatis warm as if just taken from a fire. But the food left no aftertaste. It filled their stomachs without filling their mouths. Tara chewed, swallowed, then blinked. “It’s fine. It’s just… plain.” Yet Rhea knew she was right—the food had weight without flavor, substance without life.
After the meal, blankets unfurled like invitations. The hut had no windows, only slats that breathed the fog in sighs. Outside, lanterns glowed in a rhythm, as if some invisible hand had aligned their flicker. From somewhere deep in the village came the soft sound of a flute, slow, mournful, weaving the fog tighter around them.
Aditya sat against the wall, arms crossed. “No electricity. No phones. No signboards. A whole village pretending time stopped.” His voice was low, sharp. “But where’s the chatter? Where are the kids, the gossip, the radios?”
Prakash muttered, “Mountain people are quiet.” But the stiffness in his voice betrayed him.
Rhea lay down with her blanket pulled to her chin. She felt sleep coming in small, treacherous waves, tugging her under. The flute outside slowed, then stuttered, then ended mid-note. Silence filled the hut like water flooding a bowl. In that silence, she heard something else—a whisper, soft as breath, curling against the slats. Not words, not quite sound, but something that recognized her.
Her eyes snapped open. The lantern on the far beam guttered once, though no wind moved. She held her breath. Nothing stirred. She turned her head toward the others: Tara asleep, Naman curled tightly, Aditya glaring at nothing, Prakash sitting rigid, his eyes fixed on the slats. He had heard it too.
No one spoke. Outside, the fog pressed closer, lanterns burning like patient eyes. The village seemed to wait, breathing with them, until at last the weight of exhaustion dragged Rhea into uneasy dreams where doorways opened into endless lanes, and every window was a watching face.
Episode 3: Whispers in the Wind
Rhea woke in the middle of the night to a silence so complete it felt deliberate. For a long moment she lay still, staring at the timbered ceiling, her body heavy but her mind oddly sharpened, as if the darkness itself had pressed a hand over her chest. The hut was filled with the long, uneven rhythm of sleep—Tara’s faint snore, Naman’s restless shifting, Aditya’s occasional grunt. Only Prakash was wakeful, his silhouette rigid near the door, as though carved there.
Then she heard it. A sound that was neither wind nor dream: a thread of voices drifting through the slats. Not conversation—closer to chanting. Low, broken syllables that carried like smoke, curling into her ears without permission. She held her breath, waiting. The cadence rose and fell, and with it came the unmistakable scrape of bowls or vessels being carried. She sat up. The blanket fell, the air cool against her skin.
“Prakash?” she whispered.
His head turned slightly, just enough to acknowledge he’d been listening too. “Don’t,” he mouthed, finger against his lips. His eyes gleamed faintly, wide, taut.
But curiosity pulled harder than caution. She moved to the slats, pressing her face against the cold wood. Outside, the lane was pale with fog, lanterns glowing as though dipped in milk. Shapes moved there—villagers, half-seen, their outlines softened to silhouettes. Each carried a shallow bowl cupped reverently, and from each bowl rose a faint gray trail, like smoke from ashes. They filed toward the village center, silent except for that strange chant, the words dissolving before they reached her.
Her camera was within reach. Instinct had her fingers curling toward it. But something in the rhythm of their walk—something solemn, processional—froze her hand. She thought: this is not for strangers’ eyes. She thought: if I capture it, they will know.
The procession gathered by the well, the one she had glimpsed in daylight but dismissed as any other village well. Now it glowed with an inner pallor, fog coiling tighter around its lip. The villagers circled it, each one stepping forward to tip the bowl into its mouth. Ash spilled in dark streams, vanishing into water unseen. Each time, the chant hitched, deepened, as though fed by what was given.
Rhea’s throat tightened. Ash. The thought rooted with awful certainty. Not grain, not herbs—something burnt, something consumed.
One of the children broke the line, slipping from his mother’s hand. He stood for a moment at the edge of the well, looking straight toward Rhea’s hut, though he could not have seen her in the slit of wood. His eyes gleamed pale, too pale, as if the fog had filled them from the inside. He opened his mouth. No sound came—only a whisper that wasn’t air, wasn’t voice, but entered her head like a chill: Don’t stay till sunrise.
Rhea stumbled back, her breath catching loud enough for Aditya to stir. “What?” he muttered, half-asleep.
She shook her head quickly. “Nothing. Dream.” Her own voice sounded strange, too thin.
By the time she looked again, the lane was empty. The fog lay as though nothing had walked through it, the lanterns steady, the well no more than a dark pit in the square. The villagers were gone, vanished like smoke swallowed by its own fire.
Prakash rose silently and came to crouch beside her. “You saw,” he murmured. Not a question. His breath smelled faintly of clove. “This place… it does not belong to the mountain anymore.”
“Then what is it?” she asked.
He shook his head. “A hollow. A pocket where something stayed that should have gone.” His eyes darted toward the others, still sleeping. “We leave at first light. Even if the ridge is gone, we climb. Do you understand?”
She nodded, though her body felt suddenly foreign, her limbs too slow.
Sleep, when it came again, was not sleep but a fall. Dreams chased her down corridors that bent and split like roots, every door she opened leading her back to the well, every window revealing villagers with their bowls, their smiles patient and wrong. The child was always there, whispering into her ear with no breath, Don’t stay till sunrise.
When morning seeped through the slats, pale and reluctant, Rhea woke with her heart already pounding, as if it had been running all night. The hut smelled of smoke and damp wool. Tara yawned loudly, oblivious. Naman stretched, groaning about his back. Only Aditya frowned at her, noticing something unsettled in her eyes.
“You didn’t sleep,” he said flatly.
“No,” she admitted. “Neither did you.”
He didn’t argue. He just pressed his lips thin, the skeptic’s armor beginning to crack.
Outside, the village waited, its lanes neat, its fog thinner, its silence somehow deeper than night. The villagers went about their business—or seemed to. When Harish appeared at the door, shawl folded neatly, smile soft as dawn, he asked them how they had rested. His eyes were calm, almost tender. Only Rhea thought she saw the faintest trace of ash beneath his nails.
Episode 4: The Pact of the Hollow
The fog did not lift with morning; it only loosened its grip enough to let them see farther into the valley. The houses crouched close together, each with its timbered bones and roofs that sagged under dew. Smoke unfurled from chimneys in slow, deliberate coils. Yet the air smelled of nothing—no spice, no hearth-fire, no life.
Harish brought them bowls of warm milk and flatbread. His hands were steady, his smile patient. “You will eat, then perhaps walk. The ridge sometimes returns by afternoon,” he said, as though the ridge were a guest with moods.
Naman tore bread eagerly. Tara bit into hers, chewing with exaggerated relish. But Aditya only stared at the bowl of milk, swirling it with suspicion. “Tell me, Harish,” he said finally, “how old is this village? We didn’t see it on any map.”
Harish’s eyes flicked toward him, then away, as if measuring how much to answer. “Older than maps,” he said gently. “Newer than the mountain.” He set a hand on the doorframe and inclined his head toward the lane. “When you are finished, go to the well. The elder will speak with you.”
The words settled with the weight of command, though his tone was soft.
Prakash muttered under his breath, “We should leave now.” But the others, curiosity stronger than caution, followed the invisible thread leading them to the square.
The well stood at the center of the village, its rim slick with moss, its stones darker than the ones around them. A circle of marigolds had been laid fresh at its base, petals vivid against gray stone. Beside it sat an old man in a wool coat patched a dozen times. His beard was white and thin, his eyes sharp in a way youth could not claim. He looked at them as though they had been expected.
“You came down in fog,” he said, his voice brittle as twigs. “The mountain sent you here.”
“No,” Aditya said quickly. “We were detoured by a landslide. We’ll be gone as soon as the weather clears.”
The elder’s lips twitched, almost a smile, almost pity. “The weather will not clear for leaving, only for staying.” He lifted one bony hand and pointed at the well. “Do you know what it holds?”
“Water?” Tara offered weakly.
The old man chuckled, dry and humorless. “Once. Long ago.” He leaned closer, his eyes narrowing. “You are outsiders. But if you must walk here, you should know the story. Else the hollow will eat you without your understanding.”
The villagers began to appear, drifting into the square without hurry. Women with veils, men with shawls, children with wide eyes. They stood in a semicircle, silent, listening, as if they too needed to be reminded.
The elder spoke:
“There was famine. The mountain closed its fist. Our fields cracked, our children wept, our goats died with ribs like cages. We prayed. We begged. The gods did not hear, or they were busy. Then we turned to the mountain itself. Not the gods above it, but the bones of it. The hollow deep under stone.”
His voice grew lower, roughened by memory.
“We made a pact. Give us food, we said, give us survival. The hollow answered. The rains returned. Our harvest swelled though the sky stayed dry. But the pact had a price. We would remain here, unseen by the world. The mountain would keep us—but also keep us in.”
His hand trembled toward the well. “And each year, when winter comes, the hollow hungers. We must feed it what is left of us. Ash, memory, voice. Else it takes more.”
Rhea felt the words coil cold around her spine. She remembered the bowls in the night, the gray trails poured into the dark mouth of the well. “Ash,” she whispered. “You mean—”
The elder’s eyes snapped to hers, bright as a hawk’s. “Not your concern. Not yet.”
Aditya barked a sharp laugh. “This is nonsense. Folklore.” But his voice was thinner than usual, his arrogance dulled. “You keep your people here with ghost stories.”
The elder smiled then, wide and toothless. “If it is only story, why are you here? Why can you not leave?”
Aditya faltered, his jaw tightening.
The villagers murmured then, a ripple of sound like leaves stirred by a draft. Rhea looked at their faces—calm, too calm, eyes flat as mirrors. Children clutched their mothers’ hands but did not fidget. No one’s lips moved, but the murmur persisted, echoing from nowhere.
Prakash stepped forward, his voice urgent. “Baba, let them go. They do not belong.”
The elder’s gaze slid to him. “And you do, boy? You knew the old path, and still you led them here. Perhaps the hollow called through you.”
Prakash flinched, color draining from his face.
Rhea’s stomach turned. A pressure grew in the air, heavy, expectant, as if the village itself leaned closer. She felt the weight of unseen eyes, hundreds of them, all inside the fog.
The elder’s voice dropped to a whisper: “At sunrise tomorrow, the hollow will ask. Decide before then whether you are guest or offering.”
Silence closed like a lid. The villagers parted soundlessly, melting back into lanes and doorways. Only the fog remained, thickening around the square, and the well’s mouth yawning black, waiting.
Episode 5: The Endless Paths
The fog thinned by afternoon, but the sense of suffocation did not. It was as if the valley had shrunk around them, the houses pressing inward, the air tightening like a throat that refused to swallow. After the elder’s warning at the well, they returned to the hut in silence, each thought heavy, unsharable.
Naman broke first. “This is insane. They’re just… mountain people with old stories. We’ll leave right now. Ridge or no ridge, there’s always a way up.”
Aditya nodded, seizing on the plan. “Exactly. Enough of this ghost-theater. Prakash, take us out.”
Prakash sat hunched, his face shadowed. He looked older by years since the elder’s words. “The valley bends when it chooses. But yes—we try. Better to die on the rocks than wait for… whatever this is.”
Rhea glanced at Tara, who hugged herself tight, eyes wide as though she could still hear the whispering child. Rhea herself felt split—half of her burned to leave, half to stay and photograph everything, as if proof would shield her.
By late noon they gathered their packs. The lanes of the village were hushed, though the sense of being watched did not abate. Villagers stood in doorways, still as mannequins, faces expressionless. Harish was among them, his shawl neat, his smile mild, as if he were seeing them off after a pleasant visit.
“You are free to walk,” he said quietly. “But the hollow keeps its own map.”
They ignored him. Prakash led them along a narrow trail climbing the slope. The air grew thinner, harsher; stones rolled treacherously underfoot. The fog shifted in slow curtains, hiding, revealing, hiding again. After half an hour they reached a ridge of black rock and followed it eagerly upward.
Then the trail bent left, dropped into a shallow ravine, rose again. Rhea’s heart lifted when she glimpsed the broken stone of a milestone half-buried in mud—something human, something real. She rushed ahead. But when she brushed the moss away, her stomach lurched. The carving was faint, eroded—but she recognized the same letters she had seen painted above the village gate: H—O—L. The rest was gone.
“We’ve looped,” she whispered.
“No,” Aditya snapped. “We’ve climbed. Look, the air’s thinner. We’re higher.” He pushed forward, breath loud.
They walked for another hour. The path narrowed, twisted, widened. At last it spilled into a clearing of dark firs. The lanterns were the first to give it away—small amber beads glowing in the fog, strung in familiar rhythm. Beyond them, the wooden gate. The same carved lintel. The same patient bell.
Tara sobbed. “No. No, this can’t—” She gripped Naman’s arm. He looked pale, ready to argue, but his voice died. The truth was unavoidable.
“We’ve come back,” Rhea said softly.
The bell gave a single note, without being touched.
They tried again at dusk, more desperate, less careful. This time they struck west, forcing their way through thickets, scraping skin on bark, tumbling down muddy slopes. They clambered over a gully where water whispered under stones. Their boots squelched in unseen streams.
When they finally broke through a line of twisted oaks, the fog thinned for an instant, and relief surged—there was a path, cobbled and straight, lined with small shrines. Civilization.
But as they walked it, the silence grew uncanny. The shrines were too identical, the same crack in each idol, the same smear of vermilion. The path wound gently downward, and lanterns emerged again from the fog, swinging slightly though no wind stirred them.
The gate awaited them, unchanged. The bell whispered its greeting.
Naman swore violently. Aditya kicked at the stones, his rationality collapsing into rage. Tara clung to Rhea, whispering, “We’ll never get out.”
Prakash fell to his knees, pressing his palms to the ground. His lips moved in prayer, though no sound came. His shoulders shook, but whether with rage or grief Rhea could not tell.
They returned to the hut in darkness. Villagers watched them pass, their faces illuminated by the strange amber lamps. No mockery, no pity—only calm, as though watching fish tire themselves in a bowl.
Inside, Aditya slumped against the wall, shaking. “This is a trick. Some… some optical illusion. Valleys bend, ridges repeat, that’s all.” His voice cracked at the edges. “Tomorrow we’ll mark the trail. Carve trees. We’ll know.”
Rhea touched his arm. “We did leave. The land brought us back.” She said it quietly, because naming it made it harder to deny.
Tara sat shivering in her blanket, eyes hollow. Naman drank greedily from his bottle until it was empty, then threw it at the wall where it bounced harmlessly.
Prakash finally spoke, voice raw. “The hollow keeps what it is given. The elder was right. If we stay past sunrise…” He did not finish.
Silence closed over them, thick as fog. Outside, the lanterns burned in their slow, impossible rhythm, as if marking time not for them but for something waiting deeper in the valley.
And Rhea, sleepless again, thought she heard the child’s voice through the slats, soft as breath in her ear: You should have listened.
Episode 6: The Hollow Faces
By morning the fog had not lifted but thickened, clinging to the hut’s slats like cobwebs. The air inside smelled of damp wool and smoke, but under it was something sharper, metallic—like blood drying on stone. Rhea opened her eyes to the sound of Tara whimpering in her sleep, her face pressed to the blanket. Aditya sat by the door, his hair unkempt, his eyes bloodshot from a night without rest.
“They’re not… normal,” he said as soon as he saw she was awake. His voice was brittle, every word a fragment. “I watched them. At dawn. They just stood there. Stood in the fog for an hour, not moving, not speaking. Like statues. Then they all walked away at the same time. Exactly the same time.”
Before Rhea could answer, the door creaked open. Harish entered, carrying bowls of porridge. His shawl was perfectly folded, his smile patient, calm. “Eat,” he said. “Strength is needed.”
Aditya’s jaw tightened. “Strength for what?”
Harish’s eyes lingered on him a moment too long, then slid to Rhea. His gaze was steady, unnervingly kind. “The mountain keeps those who accept it.” He placed the bowls down and left without waiting for thanks, the door closing gently behind him.
Naman spat into the porridge, muttering, “I’m not eating their filth.” Yet his stomach growled loud in the silence.
Later, when they ventured outside, the villagers were waiting—not gathered as a crowd, but dispersed through the lanes, watching. Rhea noticed their faces more clearly now. What had seemed calm before now looked flat, as if something essential was missing. Their smiles stretched but never touched their eyes. Their skin had a sheen, not sweat, not oil—something that reminded her of wax.
A woman carrying a basket of wood walked past, her eyes fixed on nothing. For a second, as the fog shifted, her face rippled—not the way a face changes with emotion, but like water disturbed by a stone. Her cheekbones blurred, her mouth bent unnaturally, then returned.
Rhea froze. “Did you see that?” she whispered.
Tara nodded quickly, clutching her sleeve. “It was wrong. Like her face wasn’t… fixed.”
Prakash’s voice was grim. “The hollow eats them piece by piece. What you see is not the villagers anymore.”
They walked on, but the stares followed. Children stood in doorways, their eyes wide, pupils pale. One boy smiled, and the skin of his face stretched too far, pulling at his ears. Another lifted his hand to wave—five fingers, but the thumb bent backward, impossible.
Rhea’s stomach churned. Her camera felt like lead in her hands. To raise it, to frame these people, would feel like sacrilege.
At the square, the elder sat by the well again. His eyes glimmered in the dim light. “You see it now,” he rasped. “The pact shows itself. We remain because the mountain keeps us. But we are less each year. Shadows of our own faces.”
“Why not end it?” Aditya demanded. His voice shook, anger disguising terror. “Why not leave? Burn this place to the ground, scatter into the world?”
The elder smiled without mirth. “You cannot leave what does not exist. Beyond this hollow, there is only stone. We belong here, as you now do.”
Naman snapped. “We don’t belong. We’re not staying. We’ll find a way out, even if we have to climb until our legs give out.”
The elder’s eyes flicked to him. “Try. The hollow will show you your own face, and then it will take it.”
Rhea felt the words settle like frost in her veins. She turned away, unable to bear the gaze of the villagers any longer. But as she did, she caught sight of Harish again, standing a little apart, his smile too steady. His face blurred in the fog for a heartbeat, becoming something featureless—no eyes, no mouth, only smooth skin stretched over bone. Then it flickered back, his familiar expression returning as if nothing had happened.
She gasped. He inclined his head slightly, as though he knew what she had seen.
That night, they barred the hut door with furniture, though it felt absurd against villagers who never seemed to knock. Rhea lay awake, every nerve humming. Through the slats came faint sounds: the scrape of feet, the murmur of voices. Once, a face leaned close to the wood—too close. Pale skin pressed against the slat, eyes wide and white, staring in. The lips moved soundlessly, opening too wide, the jaw stretching farther than human.
She bit her hand to keep from screaming.
The face withdrew, vanishing into fog. The lanterns outside burned steady, indifferent.
Prakash whispered in the dark, “Tomorrow we try again. One last time. Before sunrise.”
But Rhea could not shake the feeling that the villagers were not watching to keep them in—but to wait for the hollow to finish its work.
Episode 7: The Feast
By the time dusk swelled across the valley, the fog had thinned just enough to let the lantern light bloom wider, warmer, as though the village were preparing for celebration. Rhea sensed it before she saw it: a gathering, an expectancy, the air itself prickling like static. When Harish appeared at the door of the hut, his shawl folded neatly across his chest, his smile stretched taut and unbroken, none of them were surprised.
“The village invites you,” he said. “Tonight, we feast.”
Naman barked a hollow laugh. “Feast? On what? Ash and smoke?” But the tension in his voice betrayed hunger. Their rations were nearly gone; the stale biscuits in Rhea’s pack had turned to powder.
Aditya crossed his arms. “We’re not interested in your rituals.”
Harish’s smile didn’t waver. “It is not ritual. It is welcome. The hollow asks nothing tonight. Only that you sit with us.” His eyes lingered on Rhea again, steady, oddly tender. “It is better to accept hospitality. Refusal makes the hollow restless.”
That last sentence landed heavy, a subtle warning. Tara whimpered, “Maybe if we join them, they’ll let us leave after.”
Prakash looked grim, but he nodded once. “We go. We sit. We eat what we must. Then we leave before dawn.”
The square had been transformed. Lanterns hung from ropes strung between houses, glowing amber like captured suns. Mats were spread in concentric circles, bowls laid neatly in front of each space. The villagers sat waiting, silent, their faces blurring faintly at the edges in the shifting fog. As the outsiders entered, the villagers turned as one, smiles blossoming too wide, too synchronized.
Harish guided them to places near the elder. Rhea’s stomach twisted at the smell—an earthy aroma, meaty, spiced, rich. Too rich for a village with no livestock in sight, no smoke from kitchens, no harvest fields around. She sat reluctantly, the mat rough beneath her.
A woman carried in a great brass platter, steam rising from it. She placed it at the center. Another followed with clay pots, the lids rattling softly. The villagers leaned forward as if on cue, a collective inhalation.
The elder raised his hand. “Tonight, the hollow rests. Tonight, we honor the mountain’s gift. Eat, and be part of us.”
The platters were uncovered. Food gleamed under the lantern glow—rice heaped white and soft, lentils glistening golden, bread puffed and charred just so. Meat stew bubbled thick, red, aromatic. It looked wholesome, abundant. It looked impossible.
Rhea’s mouth watered despite herself. Tara reached first, tearing a piece of bread, dipping it into stew. “It’s… good,” she murmured, chewing too quickly, desperate to taste life again. Naman followed, stuffing rice into his mouth, groaning at the sensation of warmth filling his belly.
Rhea hesitated. She scooped stew into her bowl, lifted it to her lips—then froze. The taste that touched her tongue was not meat and spice, but dust. Ash. The texture gritted between her teeth. She gagged, spitting it back. In her bowl, for a fleeting moment, she saw not stew but gray sludge, flecked with charred fragments that could have been bone.
She dropped it with a cry. The bowl clattered, spilling gray slurry onto the mat.
Aditya shoved his bowl away. “This isn’t food. What the hell are you feeding us?”
The villagers turned their heads in unison. Their smiles remained, but their eyes glittered, hollow and pitiless. Harish leaned close to Rhea, voice soft, almost gentle. “You see too clearly. Most do not.”
Tara stared at her half-eaten bread, horror dawning. Naman gagged, clutching his stomach. “It—changed—” he gasped. He bent over and vomited, black fluid spilling onto the mat, steaming in the lantern glow.
The elder’s voice rose, brittle but strong. “Do not resist. What you eat is what remains. The hollow makes feast of what it takes. You have been given its gift.”
Aditya surged to his feet. “We’re leaving. Now.”
But as he turned, the villagers moved—slow, steady, rising together, their blurred faces stretching into grotesque mimicries of smiles. Their eyes shone pale in the fog. A hundred hollow faces watching, waiting, as if amused by the outsiders’ refusal.
The elder lowered his hand. “Leave, then. The hollow follows. At dawn, it will ask. You cannot change the asking.”
Rhea gripped Aditya’s arm, pulling Tara upright. Prakash shoved Naman onto his feet, though he staggered, retching. They stumbled back through the square, the villagers parting soundlessly to let them go. Not one hand rose to stop them. Yet the weight of the stares clung like chains.
As they reached the hut, the bell at the gate chimed once—delicate, deliberate. A promise. A warning.
Inside, the silence was unbearable. Tara wept softly. Naman lay curled, shivering, muttering nonsense between fits of nausea. Aditya paced, fists clenched, eyes wild.
Rhea sat against the wall, her throat raw, the taste of ash still coating her tongue. She realized then that the feast had not been about food—it had been a rehearsal. A way for the hollow to see who among them was ready to be claimed.
Episode 8: The Midnight Ritual
The night had teeth. Every gust that seeped through the cracks of the hut walls bit cold and sharp, carrying with it the faint metallic tang that Rhea now recognized: ash, bone, something burnt that should not be burnt. The lantern outside their door glowed steady, its amber light seeping through the slats like a watchful eye.
Inside, the five of them huddled, none able to sleep. Tara clutched her knees, rocking slightly. Naman lay pale and shivering, sweat plastering his hair, the memory of the feast still in his gut. Aditya paced in tight circles, fists balled, muttering fragments of curses that dissolved into silence. Rhea sat near the door, her camera heavy against her lap, her body taut with a dread that had nowhere to go.
Prakash finally whispered, “Listen.”
They all stilled.
From the square, faint at first, came the sound of chanting. Low, rhythmic, neither song nor speech. It pulsed like a second heartbeat beneath the fog. Then came the scrape of bowls, carried reverently, the shuffle of dozens of feet moving as one.
“They’re at the well,” Prakash said, his voice taut. “It begins.”
Rhea rose before she could argue with herself. “We have to see.”
Aditya grabbed her wrist. “Are you insane?”
“They’ll ask for us at sunrise,” she said, her voice trembling but steady. “Don’t you want to know what we’re fighting?”
Prakash met her eyes and gave the faintest nod.
They slipped into the fog, moving quietly between huts, the air damp and cold against their throats. The square glowed ahead, lanterns swaying faintly as though stirred by the breath of the chanting.
The villagers were gathered in a perfect circle around the well. Each carried a bowl cradled like a child, filled with gray ash that seemed to shimmer faintly in the lantern light. As one, they moved forward, tipped their bowls into the well, and stepped back, the chant rising in pitch with each offering.
The well itself seemed alive. Its darkness pulsed faintly, as if something beneath stirred, answering the rhythm. Fog poured thicker around its rim, spilling outward like breath from a hidden lung.
Rhea’s hands shook as she lifted her camera, but she couldn’t bring herself to click the shutter. The moment resisted capture; to frame it would be to invite it closer.
Then, something shifted.
A woman stepped forward, her face serene, her smile fixed. She held not a bowl of ash, but a bundle wrapped in cloth. The bundle twitched. A sound rose—thin, muffled, heartbreakingly human.
Tara’s hand clamped over her mouth to stifle her cry.
The woman lowered the bundle into the well. The chant swelled, vibrating through the air, shaking the boards beneath their feet. The cloth slipped aside for a breathless instant. Rhea saw a child’s arm, limp, small. Then it was gone, swallowed by darkness.
The fog convulsed, thickening, then recoiling. A sound rose from the well—wet, guttural, a sucking exhale that was not wind. The villagers bowed as one, their faces blurring into pale smears, their voices no longer human but a single, cavernous note, as though the hollow itself had learned to speak through them.
Aditya staggered back. “We have to go. Now.” His voice cracked high.
But as they turned, the fog shifted. Between them and the huts stood Harish. His shawl draped perfect, his smile calm. Only now his face wavered like water, eyes pale pools, features flickering as though undecided.
“You see,” he said gently. “You understand. The hollow must be fed. It always hungers. It will ask for one of you.”
Naman whimpered, stumbling against Prakash. “No. No, we’re not—we’re not part of this.”
Harish tilted his head, sympathetic, like a teacher soothing frightened pupils. “You entered. You ate. You breathed our air. The hollow knows you now. You are already part of it.”
Behind him, the chant deepened. The well exhaled, and the fog surged outward like arms spreading wide.
Rhea felt her knees weaken. The child’s whisper from her dreams returned, threaded through the air, clear this time, chilling in its intimacy: Don’t stay till sunrise.
They fled.
Back through the lanes, the fog pressing against their chests, the villagers’ voices pursuing them like a tide. Lanterns blurred, houses doubled, paths folded back on themselves. Every corner was the same corner. Every door was the same door.
At last they collapsed inside the hut, slamming the wooden latch, piling blankets and packs against it though they knew it would not hold anything determined.
Naman curled in a corner, shaking violently, muttering: “It’ll take me. It’ll take me.” Tara wept soundlessly. Aditya stared at the floor, his rational mind shredded, his lips moving without sound.
Prakash sank beside the door, his face gray. “We leave before dawn,” he whispered. “Even if the mountain kills us. Better the stone than the hollow.”
Rhea lay back, her breath harsh, her skin damp with cold. She closed her eyes and still saw the well, the ash, the bundle sinking into darkness. And she knew—the hollow had marked them. At sunrise, it would choose.
Episode 9: Flight Through the Hollow
The lanterns dimmed toward midnight, their amber glow thinning into pallid smears against the fog. Inside the hut, no one slept. Naman’s fevered muttering filled the air—“It’ll take me, it’s already in me”—while Tara whispered prayers under her breath, broken syllables of forgotten childhood chants. Aditya sat rigid against the wall, his eyes wild, stripped of skepticism but refusing surrender.
Prakash rose suddenly, his decision stark. “We leave now. Before dawn. If we wait, the hollow will not ask—it will take.”
“Where?” Aditya hissed. “We’ve walked in circles. Every road leads back.”
“Not roads,” Prakash said. His face looked carved in shadow, older than his years. “We climb. No paths. No shrines. Straight up the mountain. The hollow can bend trails, but not the stone itself.”
Silence held a moment. Rhea felt the pulse of her fear hard and fast, but also a flicker of hope—stone was real, unyielding, untrickable. Perhaps. She tightened the strap on her camera and whispered, “Then we climb.”
They slipped into the night, the fog wrapping them like wet cloth. The village square lay quiet, the well at its center breathing faintly, its rim glowing with a soft pallor. No villagers stood guard, yet Rhea felt eyes pressing from every shutter, every lane.
The bell at the gate rang once as they passed beneath it. The sound was soft, delicate, but it rang inside her skull like iron. Tara whimpered, clutching Naman’s arm.
Then they began the ascent.
There was no path. Prakash led them up a slope of tangled roots and jagged stone, the incline steep, the soil treacherous. Branches clawed at their arms. Fog thickened, tugging them back, muffling their breaths until it seemed they were drowning on dry land.
Rhea climbed with hands and knees, her camera thumping against her ribs, the taste of ash still in her mouth. She dared a glance down—lanterns glowed far below, impossibly steady, as if the village hadn’t shrunk with distance. No matter how high they climbed, its lights clung beneath them, patient and waiting.
“Don’t look,” Prakash snapped. “Only up.”
Hours blurred. The forest thinned. Rocks tore their palms, mud smeared their clothes. Tara stumbled, sobbing, pulled up by Aditya’s furious grip. Naman lagged, his body faltering under fever, until Prakash half-dragged him, half-carried him.
At last, the ground leveled slightly. A ridge lay ahead, sharp against the shifting fog. Relief surged. Rhea almost sobbed with it.
But then—voices.
From the fog ahead, the villagers emerged. Dozens of them, shapes solidifying into familiar faces, smiling with waxen calm. They stood in a perfect line across the ridge, lanterns in their hands, their eyes glowing faintly white.
Harish stepped forward, his shawl neat despite the climb, his smile fixed. His face flickered once—featureless skin stretched smooth—then snapped back. “The hollow has chosen. You may struggle, but it is kinder to accept.” His voice was soft, coaxing. “One of you must remain.”
“No!” Tara cried, clinging to Rhea. “We’re not—we’re not theirs.”
The elder appeared beside Harish, impossibly, as though carried by the fog. His eyes gleamed. “The pact cannot break. You came, you ate, you breathed. You are part of us now. The hollow will have its offering.”
Aditya snarled. “You’ll take none of us!” He charged forward, shoving through the line, punching at blurred faces that gave way like mist yet left his fists burning cold. The villagers did not strike back; they only swayed, their smiles widening.
The fog convulsed. The ridge trembled underfoot.
“Run!” Prakash shouted.
They bolted along the ridge, the villagers drifting after, not running but appearing wherever the fog thickened. The path split and doubled back, stones shifting beneath their feet. Rhea clutched her camera to her chest as though it could anchor her to herself.
Behind them, Naman stumbled and fell to his knees, retching black fluid onto the stone. His scream was raw, broken. “It’s inside me! Go! Just go!”
Prakash hauled at his arm, but the villagers closed in, their faces shimmering blank. Hands stretched, not to strike, but to beckon.
“No!” Tara screamed. She ran toward Naman, but Aditya grabbed her, dragging her bodily forward. “We can’t—he’s gone—”
Naman’s cries twisted into laughter, high and wrong, echoing from the fog. His body convulsed, spine bending, face rippling until features dissolved. His mouth gaped wider than bone should allow, black fog spilling out.
Rhea screamed, her legs buckling. Prakash shoved her forward. “Don’t look back!”
They ran blind, the ridge unraveling beneath their feet, the fog folding and folding until it seemed they were caught in a spiral with no end. The lanterns followed, steady, patient.
At last, exhausted, they collapsed against a boulder jutting like a tooth from the mountain. The fog pressed close, muffling everything except their gasps. Naman was gone.
Prakash’s face was ashen, streaked with dirt and blood. “The hollow has taken its offering,” he rasped. “Perhaps it will let us go.”
But Rhea knew, with a certainty colder than stone, that it was not finished. Dawn had not yet come.
And the hollow always asks again.
Episode 10: The Silver Anklet
The night stretched impossibly long, as if dawn itself feared to enter the hollow. Rhea crouched behind the boulder, every muscle stiff, her chest raw from breathing fog. Tara clung to her arm, trembling so hard that Rhea felt it through her bones. Aditya sat slumped, his fists bloody from striking stone, his face twisted with grief and rage he could not shape into words. Only Prakash remained upright, his eyes scanning the shifting whiteness, lips moving in silent prayer.
Naman’s last laughter still echoed in her head, shrill and broken, swallowed by fog. The image of his face dissolving, his body convulsing, gnawed at her until she felt hollow herself, scraped out from within.
Then—the sound.
Soft, deliberate, patient: the toll of the bell at the gate. Once. Twice. Each note impossibly clear though the village was far below. The fog pulsed with each chime, thickening, drawing close like fabric pulled tight.
Aditya cursed under his breath. “It’s not enough for them. One isn’t enough.”
Prakash’s eyes shone with despair. “The hollow is never sated. Every dawn it must be fed.” He turned to Rhea, his face lined with exhaustion. “If it calls again, one of us must stay. Only then the others might leave.”
“No,” Tara whispered fiercely, her nails digging into Rhea’s arm. “We’ll go together. We’ll fight if we must.”
But Rhea knew the truth. She felt it in the marrow of her bones. The hollow did not bargain, it demanded.
They staggered upward once more, the ridge crumbling beneath them, the fog shifting like a living thing. Shapes loomed in the whiteness—the villagers, drifting, their waxen smiles glowing faintly, their faces rippling. Harish appeared ahead, lantern in hand, his shawl draped neatly. His features blurred into smooth skin, then returned, his smile unchanged.
“You cannot leave,” he said softly. “The hollow remembers. One more. At sunrise, it will have its due.”
Aditya hurled a rock at him, screaming, “Get out of our way!” The stone passed through Harish as though through mist. His smile did not waver.
The ridge forked suddenly, paths opening left and right. Prakash hesitated, then pulled them left. They stumbled forward, lungs tearing, hearts pounding. Yet when the fog lifted for an instant, Rhea saw the village below again, its lanterns steady, its square waiting. No matter which way they turned, it watched.
At last the gray light of dawn bled faintly into the fog, so thin it seemed the sky itself was reluctant. But with it came a terrible stillness. The villagers stood in rows along the slope, their pale eyes fixed, their mouths curved in their endless smiles. The elder waited by the outline of the gate, hands folded, as though presiding over a ritual already written.
Harish stepped forward, lifting his lantern. “It is time,” he said gently. “One must remain. The hollow asks. Choose.”
“No!” Tara cried. She ran forward, her voice raw. “Take me, then! If it will end this, take me!”
Rhea caught her, dragging her back, tears blurring her sight. “No! Don’t say that!”
The elder’s voice rose, brittle and cold. “The hollow does not take volunteers. It takes what is marked.”
The fog convulsed, swirling around them. A shape appeared at Rhea’s feet—a small silver anklet, half-buried in the mud, glimmering faintly. Her heart jolted. She bent instinctively to lift it. Cold radiated from the metal, as though it had lain in shadow for decades.
Prakash paled. “That… that belonged to a girl who vanished. Years ago. The hollow marks its own.”
The anklet burned in Rhea’s palm, though the metal was icy. Tara screamed, clutching her. “No! It’s chosen you!”
The villagers began to chant, their voices rising in a single note that shook the air. The ground trembled. The well far below exhaled, fog surging upward like smoke.
Rhea’s heart hammered. She knew with a certainty that if she remained, the hollow would be appeased, and the others—Tara, Aditya, even broken Prakash—would be allowed to leave. But the thought of surrendering, of vanishing into ash and fog, ripped through her.
Aditya grabbed her shoulders. “Don’t! Don’t you dare! We’ll find another way!” His eyes were wild, desperate, love and fury tangled.
But Rhea heard the whisper again, the child’s voice, softer now, almost tender: Don’t stay till sunrise.
She understood then. The warning was not to survive—it was to deny the hollow its cycle.
She closed her fist around the anklet, lifted it high, and hurled it into the fog. “No!” she screamed. “You will take nothing from me!”
The chant faltered. The villagers swayed. The fog convulsed violently, shrieking through the air like a wounded animal. The ridge shuddered, cracks tearing through stone. The bell at the gate clanged wildly, over and over.
Prakash dragged Tara, Aditya pushed Rhea forward, and together they ran—through splitting earth, collapsing paths, screaming wind. The villagers blurred, their faces stretching into featureless masks, then dissolving into the fog itself.
When Rhea stumbled awake, the sun was bright. She lay on a rocky trail, her body bruised, her lungs raw. Tara crouched beside her, weeping with relief. Aditya lay nearby, unconscious but breathing. Prakash stood at the edge of the slope, staring down the valley.
The village was gone. Only forest stretched below, innocent, untouched, as though no lanterns had ever burned there.
In Rhea’s palm lay the anklet. Mud clung to its edges, but it gleamed cold in the sunlight. She stared at it, her heart hollowing. She had thrown it into the fog. Yet here it was, returned.
Prakash’s voice was low, reverent, and afraid. “It let us go. But it marked you.”
Rhea closed her fingers around the anklet. She felt the mountain’s silence pressing against her. The hollow had not ended—it had only waited.
And in that silence, so faint it might have been memory, she heard the whisper again: Next dawn.
End of The Hollow Village
