✨ Chapter 1: The Return
Genre: Indian Gothic • Dark Romance • Psychological Thriller
🌧️ Rain whispered secrets on the windshield.Madhavi Rathore leaned her forehead against the cold glass, eyes tracing the fog-draped hills of Ranikhet as they rolled past. It was the kind of rain that felt intentional—as if it knew she was coming home.
"Bas aa gaye, bitiya…" the driver said softly, slowing down."We're here."
The haveli emerged through the mist like a half-buried memory.🏚️ Tall. Broken. Beautiful.Jharokhas rusted. Ivy wrapped around the ancient walls like arms unwilling to let go. It wasn't just a building. It breathed.
And somehow, it remembered her.
👵🏼 Rajeshwari Dadi stood in the doorway, blind but watchful. Her eyes clouded, but her voice still sharp.
"Chaaya laut aayi hai…"(Chaaya has returned.)
Madhavi blinked. "Dadi?"
"Nothing, child," she smiled. "Thehousehas missed you."
But the moment Madhavi crossed the threshold, the door slammed shut behind her.A gust. A whisper.And in the dusty mirror near the entrance—her reflection paused for just a second too long.🪞Like it wasn't entirely her.
🫖 That evening:
The smell of camphor and tulsi chai filled the air. Dadi chanted mantras softly under her breath.
The old walls groaned like they remembered every story, every betrayal. Upstairs, in her childhood room now cloaked in white sheets, Madhavi unpacked.
On the old study table, she found a photograph inside a wooden box.
A girl in a white lehenga. Standing near the old stepwell. Hair wild. Eyes distant.And though the face was hers... the soul inside was not.
She shivered.
🌙 That night…
She drifted between sleep and shadow, twisted in a dream soaked with water and whispers.
And then…
A voice.A man's voice.Low. Possessive. Too familiar.
"You came back to me… Chaaya."
Her eyes flew open.
The room was still.
But as she passed by the mirror…
🪞 Her reflection hesitated. Just a second.Like it didn't want to leave.
🔔 At dawn, temple bells rang in the hills.
But the real sound—was silence.
And somewhere beyond the mist, beneath the sacred banyan tree…🌑 A man watched.With eyes dark as rain-soaked soil.Eyes that had once watched her die.
🌺 "Some memories are not born in this life… they return..."