A. K. Murugan
The Forgotten Path
Tamil Nadu in June was a furnace of forgotten ruins and rustling palms, but for Meera and Tara, it was another tick on their growing list of offbeat travel destinations. They had been crisscrossing India for over a year now, documenting haunted forts, strange folk rituals, and abandoned villages on their blog, Whispers Unheard. What started as a quarantine boredom project had become a modestly successful travel page with a dedicated audience eager for the eerie and unexplained.
But nothing they had seen so far compared to what Tara found one night on a creepy subreddit dedicated to “lost temples.” A single post. No image. Just text.
“Deep in the forests near Kumbakonam lies Mouni Amman Kovil. Speak not a word there. If a voice says ‘Come with me,’ do not respond. If you do, it will follow.”
That was it. No GPS pin. No comments. No upvotes. The post vanished within a day.
Tara’s eyes gleamed with mischief. “Tell me that isn’t the most exciting lead we’ve had in months.”
Meera frowned, brushing her thick curls away from her face. “It could just be a prank. Or worse, a trap.”
But Tara was already emailing local guesthouses in the region, asking vague questions about “unlisted temples” and “ancient shrines in the forest.” Most didn’t reply. One old caretaker at a crumbling Chettinad mansion did.
He emailed back:
“There is one such place. Villagers don’t go. You shouldn’t either.”
That only made Tara more determined.
They arrived in the small town of Thirunaraiyur after a five-hour bus ride from Chennai, their backpacks dusty, skin sticky with sweat. The homestay was basic but comfortable. Their host, Mrs. Kaveri, offered lemon rice and skeptical eyes.
“You’re here to see the temple, aren’t you?”
Tara paused mid-bite. “Which temple?”
Kaveri didn’t smile. “The one people don’t name. It’s not on any tour. Not even locals go. Bad things… linger there.”
Meera looked up sharply. “Do you know how to get there?”
Kaveri sighed and wiped her hands on her cotton saree. “You take the eastern road from the village. Cross the old mango orchard. After two dried-up wells, the forest thickens. There’s a stone arch. If you find that, you’ve gone too far.”
That night, Meera couldn’t sleep. The air buzzed with the drone of insects and an unsettling silence between the trees outside. Tara snored softly on the other bed, her phone still open to notes and maps she had cobbled together. Meera stared at the ceiling fan turning slowly, shadows from its blades flitting across the walls like hands.
She thought of all the stories they’d heard—the woman in Bhangarh Fort who heard her name whispered in the wind, the children in Meghalaya who played hide and seek with shadows. But this felt different. Heavier.
At dawn, they packed lightly: water bottles, snacks, flashlights, and a DSLR. Meera brought a string of rudraksha beads her grandmother had once given her. Tara scoffed, but Meera slipped it into her pocket anyway.
They set out on foot. The village was still asleep. Dogs barked in the distance. A rooster crowed somewhere behind a crumbling wall. The eastern path was barely more than a dirt trail, winding past shrines overtaken by roots and time. The mango orchard came and went, its fruit rotting in the grass. The two dry wells stood like broken teeth in the earth.
After an hour, the forest thickened, the light dimmed. No birdsong. No wind. Just the soft crunch of their boots on dead leaves.
Then they saw it.
A massive stone arch, moss-covered and cracked, its inscription faded by centuries. Beyond it, steps led up to what looked like a temple buried in the forest’s ribs. The air shifted. Meera could feel it in her lungs—thicker, colder, almost reluctant. The trees around them had stopped moving, as though holding their breath.
“This is it,” Tara whispered, awe in her voice.
Meera hesitated. “We shouldn’t go further.”
But Tara had already crossed the arch.
The temple itself was not large—just a central sanctum and a few smaller shrines scattered around. Vines crept across its blackened stone. Statues of forgotten deities stood with eroded faces. The main sanctum was open, the door long gone. Inside was a rusted iron trident and an altar covered in ash.
They didn’t speak. Some instinct, primal and ancient, held their tongues.
Meera reached for Tara’s arm, but her sister had wandered into the inner sanctum, peering at something in the far corner. A breeze swept through the doorway. Cold. Out of place.
Then came the whisper.
Low. Male. Thick with breath.
“Come with me.”
Tara turned, wide-eyed. “Didi?”
Meera shook her head. “I didn’t—”
But Tara smiled. “Okay, let’s go then.”
And that was when Meera’s blood turned cold.
She hadn’t said a word.
A Whisper in the Wind
The smile on Tara’s face made Meera’s stomach twist. It wasn’t her usual grin—the mischievous, “I’m about to do something stupid” look she wore before every impromptu climb or ghost-hunting dare. This one was strange. Soft, glazed, as if she were listening to a voice only she could hear.
“Tara,” Meera said, stepping closer. “We need to go. Now.”
But Tara didn’t move.
She stood in the middle of the sanctum, staring at a broken stone idol behind the trident. Her fingers brushed the air, not touching anything—just slowly tracing shapes, like she was trying to feel something invisible. The air had grown heavier. Meera felt her breath catch in her chest, the weight of something unseen pressing down, not hard—but watching.
She grabbed Tara’s wrist. “Let’s go.”
Tara blinked and looked at her, the spell broken. “What? Why? We just got here.”
“You answered,” Meera whispered.
“What?”
“You said ‘okay, let’s go.’ But I didn’t say anything to you.”
Tara frowned. “What are you talking about? You said something just now—”
“No, Tara,” Meera said, her voice lower. “I didn’t. But something else did.”
A gust of wind blew through the sanctum—sharp, cold, unnatural. The leaves outside didn’t rustle. No branches moved. Just a wind born from nowhere.
Tara’s smile vanished.
They left the temple, fast. Neither of them spoke the entire walk back. The sun was high, the heat returned, but the chill clung to their skin like a second layer of sweat.
When they returned to the homestay, Mrs. Kaveri was standing at the door, staring at them like she had been waiting all morning.
“You went there,” she said flatly. “Didn’t you?”
Meera didn’t answer. Tara walked past her with a shrug and disappeared inside.
Meera lingered. “She heard a voice. It said ‘come with me.’ And she answered.”
Kaveri’s face paled. She muttered something under her breath, then turned without another word and went into the kitchen. That night, she left turmeric water and neem leaves outside their room.
Tara was quiet during dinner. No sarcastic comments, no teasing. Just silence. Meera noticed her staring at her phone like it was a mirror, not a screen. After dinner, Tara went to bed early.
Meera stayed up, journaling, sipping a glass of hot water. The fan hummed overhead. Outside, the night air returned to its usual rhythm—distant dogs barking, a lizard chirping on the windowpane.
Then Meera heard it.
A whisper. Faint. Close.
“Tara…”
Her eyes shot up. Tara was asleep, facing the wall.
“Tara,” the voice said again.
Only it wasn’t Meera speaking.
The whisper was inside the room.
Meera stood slowly, heart pounding. She walked over to Tara’s bed and leaned down. “Did you hear that?” she whispered.
Tara turned to face her. Her eyes were open. But she wasn’t blinking.
Meera’s breath hitched. “Tara?”
Tara smiled, wide and vacant.
“He came with me,” she whispered. “He’s here now.”
And then she closed her eyes and went back to sleep.
The next morning, Tara acted like nothing had happened. She woke up cheerful, made jokes about the weather, asked for strong coffee. Meera stared at her in disbelief. “Do you remember what you said last night?”
Tara looked genuinely confused. “No. What did I say?”
Meera hesitated. “You said… he came with you.”
Tara laughed. “Sounds creepy. Maybe I was dreaming.”
But Meera wasn’t laughing.
Over the next two days, strange things began to happen.
Tara developed bruises on her wrists and ankles—finger-shaped, angry red marks that she dismissed as “mosquito bites.” She complained of cold drafts in the room, though no windows were open. She stopped eating much, saying the food tasted like ash.
One night, Meera woke up to the sound of whispering again. This time it was Tara’s voice. She was sitting on the floor in front of the mirror, murmuring to it like a child telling secrets to an invisible friend.
Meera crept closer. Tara’s eyes were glassy. Her lips moved fast, too fast. She was whispering in a language Meera didn’t recognize. Then she started laughing—quietly at first, then louder, until it turned into a low, guttural chuckle that made Meera’s skin crawl.
“Tara!” she shouted.
Tara snapped out of it, looked up at her sister, and burst into tears.
“I don’t know what’s happening to me,” she whispered. “I hear him even when I’m awake. I think… I think he touched me last night.”
Meera felt ice in her spine. “Touched you?”
Tara nodded. “He was beside me in bed. I couldn’t move. My chest felt crushed. His hands were cold. He said he wanted to take me somewhere.”
The next day, Meera did what she always swore she never would—she went to a local priest.
But the priest refused to help.
“That place is cursed,” he said, eyes wary. “The spirit you woke was a sadhu, once a man of penance. But he died full of unfulfilled desire. His soul is not at rest. He wants companionship—but not love. Possession.”
“Then help us!” Meera cried.
He shook his head. “Only a tantric can deal with such things. Go to Ayyanar. He lives by the river.”
Meera didn’t waste another hour.
She found Ayyanar that evening, a gaunt man in saffron robes with skin like weathered bark and eyes that had seen too much. He listened quietly. Didn’t interrupt. When she finished, he nodded once.
“I will come. But you must be prepared. This ghost is not just a spirit. He is a will. He does not ask. He takes.”
Meera returned home, praying it wasn’t too late.
She opened the door and found Tara sitting at the edge of the bed, staring at the wall.
Her wrists were bleeding.
And someone had written on the wall above the bed, in dark red streaks:
“She said yes. Now you will too.”
The Haunting Begins
The blood on the wall wasn’t fresh, but it hadn’t dried either. Meera stood frozen at the doorway, heart hammering like a drum. The words glistened: “She said yes. Now you will too.” She didn’t realize she was holding her breath until her lungs ached.
Tara turned slowly, eyes hollow, face pale. “I didn’t write it,” she said before Meera could speak. Her voice was soft, flat. “I woke up and it was just there.”
Meera crossed the room in two strides, pulling her sister’s wrists toward her. The skin was marked by small, deliberate cuts—not deep, but sharp, as if someone had etched a message onto her through pain. “What happened?” Meera whispered, dabbing at the blood with the edge of her dupatta.
“He was angry,” Tara murmured. “I ignored him all night. He didn’t like that. He said I needed to listen.”
“Listen to what?” Meera asked.
Tara looked at her like the answer was obvious. “To him. To his stories. His loneliness. He doesn’t want to be forgotten.”
Meera couldn’t take it anymore. She wrapped her arms tightly around her sister and whispered, “You’re not alone. We’ll fix this.”
Tara didn’t respond.
Later that night, the wind picked up. Leaves slapped against the windowpanes, though there wasn’t a single storm warning in the forecast. The air inside the room turned dense again. Meera couldn’t sleep. She sat upright on her bed, rudraksha beads clenched in her hand, eyes fixed on Tara, who lay shivering under her blanket.
At 2:13 a.m., the power went out.
The fan stopped spinning. The room turned pitch black.
Then Meera heard it—footsteps, slow and bare, padding across the floor. But Tara was still in bed. Meera could hear her faint whimpers, her breath coming in quick bursts.
The steps stopped next to Meera’s bed.
A hand, ice-cold, brushed her face.
Meera screamed.
The lights flickered back on. Tara shot up, gasping. Meera backed against the wall, heart slamming in her ribcage. Nothing there. No one. Just the echo of something foul, something male, something ancient that had been in the room.
The next morning, Mrs. Kaveri saw the terror etched on their faces and offered what little she could. She brought incense, sprinkled turmeric water along the doorframe, muttered mantras under her breath. But none of it helped.
Tara wouldn’t eat.
She sat by the window all day, talking to something only she could see.
Sometimes she’d smile and nod.
Sometimes she’d cry.
That evening, Meera noticed bruises on her own arms. Faint. Finger-shaped. As if she’d been grabbed in her sleep.
The haunting was no longer just about Tara.
It was spreading.
Meera reached out to Arjun.
Her boyfriend of three years, Arjun was a practical man—a biomedical researcher with zero patience for the paranormal. But he loved Meera deeply. When she called, voice trembling and full of fear, he didn’t ask questions. He took the night bus from Chennai and arrived the next morning.
Arjun was furious when he saw Tara’s state.
“What the hell is going on?” he asked, pacing their room while Tara sat in the corner, swaying.
“I told you,” Meera said, eyes bloodshot from lack of sleep. “Something followed us back from that temple.”
Arjun shook his head. “It’s probably psychological. She’s been under a lot of stress. Maybe even… I don’t know… disassociating.”
“Then what about this?” Meera lifted her sleeve, showing the bruises.
Arjun stared. His jaw tightened. “Okay,” he said finally. “Then let’s get out of here. Come with me to Chennai. We’ll take her to a hospital.”
But as night fell, Meera realized it wasn’t going to be that easy.
Tara started screaming again around midnight. Arjun and Meera rushed to her bedside. Her body twisted in unnatural angles, her eyes wide but blank.
“He’s here,” she gasped. “He says I betrayed him. He says you’re trying to take me away.”
Arjun tried to calm her. “It’s okay, Tara. We’re here. You’re safe—”
Then Tara’s hand shot out and grabbed his throat.
Her grip was inhumanly strong.
Arjun gasped, clawing at her fingers, but her face didn’t change—no malice, no rage, just a calm detachment, like she was watching someone else do it.
Meera screamed. “Let him go!”
It took both of them to pry her off. Arjun collapsed, coughing, red marks already forming around his neck. Tara blinked once, then fell back on the pillow, unconscious.
Meera sobbed. Arjun lay on the floor, eyes wide in disbelief. “That wasn’t her,” he croaked. “That wasn’t your sister.”
“No,” Meera whispered. “It was him.”
Later, as they sat huddled on the porch, Arjun finally asked, “You said something about a tantric?”
“Yes,” Meera said. “His name is Ayyanar. He lives near the river. The priest told me he’s the only one who can help.”
“Then what are we waiting for?”
That night, Meera left Tara in Arjun’s care and walked alone to the river. The moon was thin, the sky bruised with clouds. Frogs croaked in the distance. The village was asleep, but the forest seemed to watch her with one open eye.
Ayyanar’s hut was tiny, built of clay and thatch, lit by a single oil lamp. He was sitting cross-legged outside, as if expecting her.
“You’ve seen him now,” he said, before she even spoke.
Meera nodded, her voice catching in her throat. “He’s hurting her. He’s trying to possess her. And now he’s after me.”
The tantric looked into her eyes for a long time. “He was once a man of silence. A penitent. But he died with his desires unfulfilled. He seeks union, but he knows only taking. You entered his temple. Your sister answered his call. Now you are both marked.”
“Can you help us?” she asked, trembling.
“I can try. But know this—some spirits cannot be reasoned with. They must be bound, not banished.”
Meera didn’t blink. “I’ll do whatever it takes.”
Ayyanar nodded slowly. “Then return before the moon is full. And bring fire.”
He Wants Me
The next two days blurred into one long, stretched-out breath that Meera couldn’t release. The air around her was always thick, as though the world had dipped underwater. Tara hardly moved from bed, her skin pale, her eyes heavy-lidded and distant. When she did speak, it was in fragments—disconnected words in unfamiliar tongues. Sanskrit. Tamil. Something older.
Arjun stayed close, keeping vigil over the sisters. But even he was beginning to change. He flinched at sudden sounds. He stared too long into corners. On the second night, he woke screaming, eyes bloodshot, clawing at his arms.
“He was inside me,” Arjun gasped, eyes wild. “He was inside my body. I felt him trying to get in through my spine.”
Meera could no longer pretend this was anything but possession.
The spirit—this sadhu who had once meditated in silence—now invaded with hunger. A hunger for bodies, for control, for the living. And now he was looking at Meera not with idle curiosity—but longing.
It began subtly. A warm breath down her neck when she was alone in the kitchen. Fingers that brushed her shoulder in the middle of the day. Her name whispered in the shower—drawn out like a lover’s sigh.
“Meeeerraaa…”
She started locking the bathroom door, then the bedroom too. But it didn’t help.
One night, Meera dreamt she was back in the temple, the stone walls around her humming with a dark heartbeat. She stood alone in the sanctum. The iron trident glowed. The ash-covered altar pulsed faintly.
Then he stepped from the shadows.
He had no eyes—just hollow sockets dripping shadow. His mouth was not a mouth but a rip in space, curling like a grin. He reached for her, and his fingers were long, black, wet.
He placed one hand over her chest.
“You came into my silence,” he whispered. “Now carry me into yours.”
Meera woke up with her shirt soaked in sweat—and the unmistakable scent of burnt incense hanging in the air.
She didn’t tell Tara. She didn’t tell Arjun. But she knew now: this ghost didn’t want Tara anymore.
He wanted her.
By the third day, Tara stopped speaking altogether. She curled up like a child and stared at the wall for hours. When Meera asked if she was hungry, she shook her head. When Arjun said they were going to fix this, she laughed quietly and said, “He’ll never let me go.”
That afternoon, Ayyanar returned.
He walked into the house without knocking, holding a cloth bundle tied with black thread and smeared with red turmeric. His face was drawn, his eyes red-veined. He looked at Tara for five seconds, then nodded once.
“It is worse than I feared.”
He set the bundle down and opened it on the floor. Inside were things Meera couldn’t name—bones of birds, dried herbs, iron nails, strands of hair coiled like worms. At the center was a small clay doll covered in vermilion and ash.
“We will do the binding ritual tonight,” Ayyanar said, looking at Meera. “But you must understand. He is inside your house now. Inside you. He does not want a gateway. He wants a bride.”
Meera flinched. “A bride?”
Ayyanar didn’t blink. “His soul still believes it walks in the body of a man. In death, that belief has festered. Twisted. Now he thinks if he can bind himself to a living woman, he can live again. Through her flesh. Through her womb.”
Arjun stepped forward. “How do we stop him?”
“We bind him to a symbol. An anchor. Something that will hold his essence. Then bury it far from here. But we must complete the ritual before the full moon. If we fail—” Ayyanar looked at Meera again, “—he will enter her fully. And she will cease to be herself.”
The ritual was to take place in the backyard, under the open sky.
Ayyanar drew a circle with crushed rice, turmeric, and blood. Four corners were marked with oil lamps. Tara was placed in the center, her limbs weak, body limp. Meera sat beside her, holding her hand. Arjun stood watch, holding a bowl of salt and chanting the mantras Ayyanar had given him.
As darkness fell, the wind rose.
The trees shuddered. A foul smell drifted in—the stench of rotting flowers and old metal. Ayyanar began to chant. Low and rhythmic. He placed the clay doll on Tara’s stomach. Then he drew symbols across her forehead in ash.
Suddenly, Tara’s body jerked.
Her mouth opened, and a voice—not hers—spoke.
“She called me,” it said. “But it is you I want.”
Meera gasped.
The voice laughed. “You came willingly. You held my silence. You whispered in the dark. You are mine now.”
Tara’s hand gripped Meera’s wrist tightly.
“You cannot stop me. Not with fire. Not with salt. I am already inside her bones.”
Ayyanar’s chant grew louder, faster. He sprinkled black ash around the circle, drawing the spirit’s voice into a frenzy.
Tara thrashed, eyes wide, mouth open in a silent scream. Her body arched, and from her chest—through her skin—poured a black mist, thick as oil, writhing like snakes.
The mist lunged toward Meera.
But Ayyanar slammed the clay doll into the center of the circle.
The mist hit the edge of the rice-line and howled, a cry that shook the ground. The lamps flickered violently. The mist circled once, then darted into the doll with a shriek.
Silence.
Tara collapsed.
Meera breathed. Arjun dropped to his knees.
Ayyanar’s face was pale. He picked up the doll with gloved hands and wrapped it in a black cloth. “It is not over,” he said. “This body must never touch the earth again. It must be sealed, thrown into moving water. Alone.”
Meera nodded.
Ayyanar looked at her for a long moment. “He still lingers near you. Even now. Be careful. He may be bound—but he remembers.”
That night, Meera dreamed of the temple again. Only this time, it wasn’t the sadhu who stood in the sanctum.
It was herself.
Draped in white.
Whispering.
Blood on the Floor
The doll was gone. Ayyanar had sealed it in layers of cloth, wrapped it in chain, and taken it to the Cauvery River before sunrise. He said nothing during the journey, only hummed an ancient tune as the boat cut across still waters. Meera watched as he dropped the bundle into the river. It vanished without a splash. Ayyanar whispered a final prayer and turned away.
Back at the homestay, everything felt quieter—dead, almost. Tara was sleeping deeply for the first time in days. Her skin was still pale, but the dark circles around her eyes had faded. Arjun made tea for everyone, trying to pretend normal had returned.
But Meera knew better.
The silence wasn’t gone.
It had moved.
That night, Meera decided to shower for the first time in days. She stood under scalding water, scrubbing her skin until it turned red, trying to erase the memory of cold fingers on her body, of invisible breath on her neck. As she reached for the towel, she caught sight of herself in the fogged mirror.
Except… her reflection wasn’t fogged.
It stared clearly back at her, dry-faced, eyes wide, lips curled into a faint smile.
She stumbled back, gasping.
The mirror cracked.
A sharp line split her face in two.
Downstairs, Tara screamed.
Meera ran, towel barely clutched around her, heart pounding. She found Tara in the hallway, curled in a ball, blood pooling beneath her hands. Arjun knelt beside her, trying to staunch the bleeding. Her palms were covered in deep slices, like she’d clawed at something invisible.
“She was sleepwalking,” Arjun said, panicked. “She slammed her hands into the floor again and again. And she was whispering something—‘Let me go, let me go…’”
Tara opened her eyes, barely conscious. “He’s still here,” she breathed. “He left a piece behind. He’s still inside.”
Meera shook her head. “But the doll—Ayyanar said it would contain him.”
Arjun’s jaw clenched. “Then it wasn’t enough.”
The next morning, Ayyanar returned.
He stepped into the house, stood in the living room, and closed his eyes. After a moment, he opened them slowly. “There’s blood on your floor,” he said. “And blood speaks.”
He walked into the hallway where Tara had bled and crouched. The floor had been wiped, but a faint red tinge remained in the cracks between tiles. Ayyanar traced his finger along the stains. “He left his mark here. A tether.”
“A tether?” Meera asked.
Ayyanar nodded. “Like a splinter of the soul. Not strong enough to possess—but strong enough to cling. He needs a final vessel to pass into. Someone who accepted him willingly.”
Meera paled. “You think he’s trying to enter me?”
“He already has,” Ayyanar said gently. “Not fully. But his voice is inside you. Haven’t you heard it?”
Meera hesitated. She remembered the dreams. The whisper in the mirror. The moment she felt herself smile in the dark, though she hadn’t meant to. “Yes,” she admitted.
“Then we must act before the moon turns,” Ayyanar said. “Three nights. That’s all we have.”
They began the cleansing immediately.
Ayyanar placed ritual symbols on every doorway and window—ash, salt, oil, and crushed seeds. He lit sandalwood and ghee in a copper bowl and had Meera sit in the middle of the room while chanting filled the air.
It worked for an hour.
Then the fire turned black.
Smoke twisted upward, forming a tall, human-like shadow. Tara screamed. The smoke rushed toward Meera like a windstorm. The flame burst. Glass shattered. Lamps fell. The chanting faltered.
Ayyanar shouted, “Don’t break the circle!”
But Meera felt herself moving, her own legs walking forward against her will. Something inside her laughed. Her mouth opened but the voice wasn’t hers. It spoke in low, rhythmic tones that made her ears throb.
“You called me. You opened the door. Now walk through it.”
Arjun grabbed her arm, pulled her back. Ayyanar threw salt into the fire, reigniting the flame. The shadow screeched and dissolved into a gust that rattled the windows before vanishing.
Meera collapsed, shaking.
Tara held her hand, crying silently. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “It’s my fault. I shouldn’t have answered him that day.”
“No,” Meera said, her voice hoarse. “It was never your fault. He chose us.”
Later that night, as they lay in the same room—two sisters and a boyfriend guarding them with a knife and prayer beads—Meera whispered into the darkness.
“If you want me, come for me. Leave her alone.”
The silence answered, not with sound, but with a sudden drop in temperature. The breath left her lungs.
Meera smiled, bitterly. “I knew you were listening.”
She didn’t sleep that night.
Instead, she wrote a note.
If anything happened to her, it said, Arjun and Tara must leave Tamil Nadu immediately. No funerals. No temples. No final visits. Just go.
She left it under her pillow.
Because somewhere deep inside her, Meera knew—
This story would not let go of her so easily.
Circle of Fire
The day of the full moon began with silence—too still, too quiet, the kind of hush that didn’t soothe but watched. Even the birds, usually restless in the mornings, had disappeared. The banyan trees outside the homestay didn’t rustle. No dogs barked. Even the river down the hill, normally gurgling in the distance, seemed to hold its breath.
Meera didn’t speak much that day. Neither did Tara. They sat side by side on the steps, sipping black tea, watching the sunlight filter through leaves that no longer danced. Arjun packed their bags without a word, just in case. No one mentioned the note Meera had left under her pillow. She assumed Arjun had found it, but he said nothing, just held her hand tighter whenever she started shaking.
Ayyanar arrived at dusk.
He carried only a single object: a large brass bowl covered with a black silk cloth. Meera noticed the veins in his hands looked darker, more sunken, like something had been drawn out of him.
“Tonight is the final night,” he said softly. “He has chosen you. If we fail, he will enter through your breath, live behind your eyes, and speak through your lips.”
Meera nodded. “Then we won’t fail.”
Ayyanar took them deep into the forest this time—not near the temple, but far from it, into an ancient clearing surrounded by twisted neem trees. “This is ground older than the curse,” he explained. “Here, the earth still remembers fire. And fire is the only thing he fears.”
He began the preparation.
The circle was drawn with rice flour mixed with turmeric, ash, and Ayyanar’s own blood. Eight oil lamps were placed at equal points. Inside the circle, he placed the brass bowl. From it, he drew ritual items—a thin iron blade, a mirror backed with obsidian, and a small copper idol of a veiled goddess.
“You must sit in the center,” he told Meera.
Tara protested. “Why her? Why not me?”
“Because he has chosen her,” Ayyanar said gently. “And now, she must choose whether to let him in or cast him out.”
Meera stepped into the circle and sat cross-legged. The earth beneath her felt warm. Too warm.
Ayyanar began chanting, his voice low and deep, not like before. This was older. He spoke in a tongue that made the skin on Meera’s arms rise. Arjun stood outside the circle, holding Tara tightly. They watched, unable to interfere, helpless in their hope.
The chanting grew louder.
The lamps flared.
Then Meera felt it.
Something crawling behind her eyes.
A pressure—not physical, but intimate. Like a breath on the inside of her skull.
“You came back,” the voice whispered.
She kept her lips shut.
“You sat in my silence. You heard me. You felt me. I gave you touch, breath, voice.”
Her body trembled. The rudraksha beads in her fist cracked one by one.
Ayyanar drew a circle of flame around her, lighting a trail of camphor that burned blue. The fire surged around her in a ring. Smoke rose, thick and heavy.
Suddenly, Meera’s head jerked back.
Her eyes rolled.
Her voice—no longer hers—spoke:
“I am here. And I will never leave.”
Arjun tried to run toward her, but the fire leapt, blocking him. Ayyanar shouted, “Do not cross the flame!”
Meera’s body twisted. She laughed—deep, guttural, wrong.
Then she stood.
Inside the fire.
Her eyes glowed faintly.
She walked slowly toward the edge of the flame. The fire parted, responding to her like it knew her.
Ayyanar’s chants rose louder, desperate.
Then Meera paused.
She looked up at the moon—full, pale, watching.
And she whispered, “He wants me to go to him.”
“No,” Ayyanar said. “He wants to be you.”
But Meera was already stepping forward.
The flame didn’t stop her.
She crossed the ring.
Her feet touched the ground outside the circle.
And that’s when the earth screamed.
A rush of wind tore through the trees. The lamps exploded. The circle of rice and ash blew apart. The ground trembled. A howl—human and not—echoed through the forest.
A black figure formed from the wind.
Tall.
Skeletal.
Cloaked in darkness.
It reached for Meera.
And she—arms trembling—reached back.
Tara sobbed. “No! Don’t!”
But Meera wasn’t surrendering.
She gripped the spirit’s hand—and pulled.
Ayyanar threw the obsidian mirror at her feet.
It cracked.
The spirit’s scream shattered through the trees.
Meera fell to her knees, screaming. The spirit burst into smoke. The mirror sucked it in like a vortex, howling as it drew every ounce of shadow into its cracking surface.
Ayyanar slashed the air with the iron blade and sealed the final chant.
The mirror turned black—and then, it shattered.
Meera collapsed.
Arjun was the first to reach her.
She was unconscious, but breathing. Her skin was cold, but the weight was gone. The pressure that had haunted every breath she took had lifted.
Ayyanar knelt beside her and placed the veiled goddess idol near her heart. “It is done,” he said. “The binding is complete.”
Tara cried openly. Arjun cradled Meera’s head. Ayyanar stared at the night sky, his shoulders slumping.
“She saved herself,” he whispered. “But only just.”
Back at the house, Meera finally opened her eyes.
And for the first time in weeks, they were truly her own.
The Final Offering
For the first time in what felt like a lifetime, Meera slept a dreamless night.
No footsteps. No whispers. No phantom hands grazing her skin. When she woke, sunlight was spilling through the window in thick, golden bars, and the air in the room felt lighter—thinner. Tara sat curled in a chair nearby, her eyes red from crying, but clear. Arjun was dozing in the corner, his arm cradling a cup of half-drunk tea. And Ayyanar… Ayyanar was gone.
He had left before sunrise.
No note. No goodbye.
Just a small brass bowl placed by Meera’s pillow, and inside it—a single black feather and a smudge of red kumkum powder.
Meera sat up slowly. Her body ached all over. It felt like she had run a marathon through fire. But her mind was quiet. Finally.
Later that morning, she and Tara sat on the steps of the homestay once again, watching the dust rise lazily in the distance as farmers passed by with oxen. Life moved on. As if it had never paused. As if the temple, the voice, the terror—all of it—was a fever dream.
But Meera knew better.
“I still feel him sometimes,” Tara whispered. “Not inside me. Just… around. Like a wind brushing my back.”
Meera nodded. “He left a part of himself in both of us. He tried to turn us into stories. Into extensions of his curse.”
“Why us?” Tara asked, not for the first time.
Meera looked out toward the horizon. “Because we listened. Most people ignore whispers. We follow them.”
That afternoon, Arjun suggested they leave.
Go back to Chennai. Go somewhere safe. “You’ve both been through enough,” he said, looking at Meera with eyes that held more worry than love now. “Let’s put this behind us.”
But Meera wasn’t ready.
Not yet.
“I need to go back,” she said. “To the temple. One last time.”
Arjun looked at her like she was insane. Tara didn’t protest.
“I have to make sure it’s sealed,” Meera explained. “I have to leave something there. Something final.”
Arjun refused to let her go alone.
They left in the evening, just as the sun dipped behind the hills. The path to the temple was the same—dry wells, mango orchard, the stone arch still leaning, half-swallowed by vines.
But the forest was different.
Less tense. Less silent.
Even the birds had returned.
The temple stood in ruins as it had before, the central sanctum yawning open like a mouth carved by time. Meera stepped inside slowly, holding her breath.
It smelled of ash and old earth.
She approached the altar, where the iron trident still stood, rusted but firm.
And she placed the brass bowl at its base.
Inside it, she had left something: a page from her journal, soaked in river water and sprinkled with turmeric, folded tightly around her rudraksha beads. A part of herself—a witness, a seal, a promise.
She lit a single match and dropped it in.
The flame caught quickly. Silent. Steady.
Tara stood outside, watching. Arjun lingered at the arch.
Meera whispered to the flame, not a prayer, but a farewell.
“I carried your silence,” she said. “But I will not carry your curse.”
The fire flickered once, then died.
As they turned to leave, Meera paused one last time and looked back at the temple.
This time, no voice called out.
But she felt something.
Not menace.
Release.
That night, they checked out of the homestay. Mrs. Kaveri pressed something into Meera’s hand as they left—a bundle of neem leaves wrapped in red thread. “Just in case,” she said softly. “Even when ghosts leave, memories linger.”
They boarded the bus at dawn.
As the vehicle rumbled to life, Tara fell asleep almost instantly, her head resting on Meera’s shoulder. Arjun stared out the window, lost in thought.
Meera clutched the neem leaves tightly.
She didn’t cry.
She didn’t speak.
But as the bus pulled away from the village and the temple faded into forest and distance, she did one thing.
She breathed.
And for the first time since that whisper in the dark,
The breath belonged entirely to her.
The Cost of Silence
Months passed.
Chennai’s chaos returned to Meera like a blur she wasn’t ready for. Honking traffic, coffee-fueled deadlines, the city’s heavy, living rhythm—it all seemed too loud, too fast. She moved back into her old flat, but things felt smaller now. The walls closer. The mirrors less trustworthy.
Tara went home to their parents in Pune. She needed space. Therapy. Sleep without fear. Sometimes they spoke on the phone late at night, voices quiet, as if afraid the spirit might still be listening.
Arjun stayed for a few weeks. He helped Meera unpack, cooked dal and rice, left gentle kisses on her forehead. But something in him had changed too. He never said it out loud, but she could see the toll in his eyes—the unease of having witnessed something the rational world couldn’t explain. Love became hesitation. Protection turned to distance.
And then one morning, he left.
A short note on the fridge:
“You’re stronger than I’ll ever be. But I can’t live in a world where this is real. I hope someday we can be just Meera and Arjun again. Not survivors.”
He never called after that.
Meera didn’t cry.
She wandered her apartment like a ghost herself, often staring at the mirror above her dressing table. She’d painted its edges with turmeric and tucked a string of tulsi around it. Just in case.
There was no whisper. No shadow.
But sometimes, she felt the breath of memory brushing against her neck.
She stopped writing the blog.
Whispers Unheard was abandoned—last post dated three weeks before the temple. Her inbox filled with fan messages, concerned comments, unanswered interview requests. But she couldn’t go back to being someone who chased shadows for entertainment.
Because now she knew—they could chase back.
Instead, she wrote something else.
A memoir. Private. Handwritten. Pages and pages of what she and Tara had endured. Of what it meant to carry something ancient and malevolent. Of silence that spoke louder than screams.
She titled it The Silent Temple.
Not for publication. Not for fame.
Just to remember.
Because forgetting was dangerous.
One night, while organizing her drawer, Meera found something strange: a single black feather tucked between the pages of a book she didn’t remember reading.
She stared at it for a long time.
It wasn’t the first time this had happened.
There were little signs. A whisper of wind on a closed balcony. Cold fingers on a hot summer afternoon. Her name murmured in the hum of the fridge.
But she’d made peace with it.
Some things don’t go away. They retreat. They wait.
And if you’re lucky, they remember you not with hunger, but with respect.
Still, just in case, Meera began to plant basil on her window sill. Burn incense before sleep. And she never answered voices calling from empty rooms.
Then, one day, she got a letter.
A real one. No stamp. No return address.
Just a single folded paper with smeared red ink.
Inside it:
“Not all bindings last. Some seals crack. Some doors creak.”
And beneath that, in a script that made her skin crawl:
“Would you come with me now?”
Meera burned the letter.
She didn’t sleep that night.
She sat up with a lamp lit beside her, the neem bundle in her lap, and her grandmother’s rudraksha beads looped around her wrist.
She waited.
But nothing came.
When the sun rose, Meera walked outside.
She breathed in the morning.
The wind was gentle. The world still hers.
She smiled.
Not because she was safe.
But because she understood now.
You don’t survive horror by forgetting it.
You survive by learning t
o live beside it.
By not answering.
By walking forward—when the whispers follow.
THE END
