Dry leaves crunched under Rupa's feet as she walked down the narrow path cloaked in the mist of a cold winter night. Her black scarf fluttered gently in the breeze, and her eyes, deep and searching, reflected both sorrow and determination. After twelve long years, she had returned to her childhood village—to the abandoned, crumbling house her mother once called home.
But she hadn't come for nostalgia.
She had come for the truth.
Rupa's mother, Salma Khatun, was once the subject of whispers and fear. The villagers called her "the woman who spoke to shadows." They claimed she could see what others couldn't—spirits, djinn, the remnants of the dead.
When Rupa was just ten years old, her mother vanished one stormy night. No body was ever found. Only a blood-stained scarf was discovered near the edge of the bamboo forest, fluttering like a lost memory.
Rupa was sent away to live with distant relatives in the city. But the whispers never left her—the memory of her mother's warnings, the half-heard cries in her dreams, and that eerie voice she had heard since childhood, always calling her:
"Come back... come back..."
The door creaked open. The house was soaked in decay and silence. Dust clung to every surface, spiderwebs draped the corners like mourning veils, and the air smelled of forgotten wood and grief.
Rupa stepped inside, her heart pounding. She knew her mother had kept a diary. A book of secrets. Some said it contained forbidden knowledge—spells to summon spirits, words never meant to be spoken aloud.
But Rupa believed it held something else. An explanation. A confession. A clue.
She rummaged through the house and finally found an old metal box under the bed. The lock had rusted off long ago. Inside were faded letters, an old photo of her mother smiling with haunted eyes, and beneath them—the diary.
She opened it with trembling fingers.
"Rupa, if you are reading this, know that I had to disappear… to save you."
Her breath caught in her throat.
She turned the page.
"A shadow followed me. I didn't call it. It came... on its own. It said I brought it back from the dead."
Suddenly, the temperature dropped. A coldness wrapped around her like a fog. From the corner of her eye, she saw movement—a shape, standing by the door.
Not a man.
Not even human.
A dark, shifting silhouette. No face. No eyes. Just presence. Heavy. Silent. Watching.
"Who's there?!" she cried.
No answer.
Only a whisper drifting through the air, close and cold:
"You opened the diary, Rupa... Now you've been chosen."
To be continued...