Failure tastes like dust and cheap coffee.
At twenty, I was supposed to be climbing the IT ladder—pushing commits, flexing salaries, showing off job offers on LinkedIn. Instead, I was unemployed, broke, and dangerously close to being irrelevant.
But I wasn't the type to mope. My armor was sarcasm. If the world was going to crush me, I'd at least laugh while suffocating.
I didn't believe in ghosts, curses, or folklore. My brain was wired for logic and code. Ghosts weren't real—until they were.
It started on a Sunday evening.
The Train
The station was a mess of noise and bodies. Hawkers shouted over one another, children wailed, stray dogs barked, and the air was thick with the oily stench of fried snacks mixed with human sweat.
Clutching my cheap ticket, I braced for the cattle-rush, when the speaker above crackled with static:
"Train number 142… now departing… Platform 1."
But I was standing at Platform 3.
"Seriously?" I muttered, before sprinting. I pushed through bags and legs, leaping over puddles of spit, until I caught the train just as it was pulling out. My feet slammed onto the metal steps, and I stumbled inside like a last-second action hero.
Victory lasted about three seconds.
The coach was empty.
A Sunday train should've been packed—sweaty shoulders pressed together, people arguing over inches of space. Instead, there was nothing. No chatter. No movement. Only the sickly flicker of old tube-lights buzzing overhead, strobing shadows across the floor like something alive was crawling beneath.
"Lucky me," I muttered. "Leg space at last."
But then I saw him.
A boy, sitting alone by the window. My age, maybe.
"Hey, move over. Window's mine," I said.
No response.
"Hello? Earth to statue-boy. Slide."
Slowly, his head turned. His eyes… empty. Not tired. Not bored. Just hollow. As if glass marbles had been shoved into his skull, reflecting light but not life.
Goosebumps rippled up my arms.
And then I noticed something worse.
Every passenger in the coach—dozens of them—looked the same. Blank faces. Lifeless eyes. Bodies frozen mid-gesture, like mannequins left waiting for a puppet master who had forgotten them.
I tried to breathe normally, pretending this was fine. I sat down, pulled out my phone, and scrolled reels. Memes, cringe dances, cats screaming into microphones—my digital shield.
But the reels didn't change. They looped endlessly, audio warping into static. Then the screen flickered. Safety instructions began to play:
"In case of derailment, do not panic…"
The voice distorted, repeating, stretching, breaking into whispers that weren't words anymore.
My eyelids sagged. I blinked.
And when my eyes opened—the train had stopped.
The coach was empty.
Outside the window: a rotten platform. Cracked concrete. Rusted rails slick with something dark and red. The air pressed in through the open windows like it wanted to crawl down my throat and choke me.
My phone buzzed. The reels were gone. Now, only grotesque clips played—screaming faces distorted beyond recognition, bones twisting like broken machinery, blood dripping into endless black voids. My pulse synced with the whispers bleeding from the speakers.
I turned back to the boy.
"Hey… where the hell are we?"
His lips moved. Not words. Static.
"English? Anything?"
Silence.
I sighed, forcing a grin. "Fine, at least share the window."
That's when his head snapped toward me. His hollow eyes locked onto mine.
And for the first time, he spoke.
"No."
My throat closed. "…Selfish much."
Movement caught my eye. At the far end of the coach, two figures sat rigid. Not staring into nothing—staring directly at me.
Not blinking. Not moving.
The whispers returned. Louder. Their voices overlapping, a low chant, rhythmic, like something ancient and wrong.
I blinked again—
And the coach was full of life. Crowds yelling. Vendors shouting. Children fighting.
Too normal. Like a stage play put on just for me.
I stumbled off at my stop, legs shaking, sweat clinging to my spine.
But relief never lasts.
The Road Home
My father's old bike rattled like it was stitched together with rust and prayers. The headlight had died months ago, so we'd taped his phone flashlight to the handlebar.
It threw a weak, trembling beam into the black countryside road.
"Hold it steady," my father said, his voice calm, steady. "Don't let it shake."
"I'm not scared," I muttered. "Just… cautious."
He gave a dry chuckle. "You talk too much. If there are ghosts, they'll run just to shut you up."
"Good strategy," I said. "Sarcasm as ghost repellent."
The night pressed heavier around us, swallowing the world beyond that fragile cone of light.
And then—
THUD!
The bike slammed into a pothole. My stomach lurched as the beam swung wildly, twisting trees into monstrous shapes. For a heartbeat, every shadow looked like it was leaning forward, waiting.
The air grew colder.
Then came the sound.
"Jhum jhum jhum"
Anklets. Soft at first. Then faster. Louder.
Running.
Keeping pace with us.
My chest tightened. "Dad… do you hear that?"
"I hear it." His jaw locked. "Don't look back. Keep the light steady."
But instinct is cruel.
I turned.
Something was chasing us. A figure, impossibly fast. Long hair whipping behind it like black smoke. Anklets slamming against the asphalt.
But it had no face.
Just a smooth blur where features should be.
The sound it made—half laughter, half metal tearing—shredded my spine.
"Faster!" I shouted.
The bike's engine sputtered, coughing like it was mocking us. The faceless shadow was gaining, closing the distance inch by inch.
The flashlight trembled in my hands. Sweat slicked my grip.
"Dad," I whispered, voice breaking, "if we die, tell Mom I… I finally had a girlfriend. Even if she had no face."
His knuckles whitened on the handlebar. "Shut up and hold tight."
But I saw it. The twitch at the corner of his lips. A sliver of grim humor trying to survive the terror.
The laughter behind us grew louder, scraping metal echoing through the night.
And then—
My hand slipped.
The flashlight fell.
The beam spun away, smashing against the dirt.
Darkness swallowed us.
Only the anklets remained. Dancing. Running. Closer.
The last thing I heard before silence swallowed everything was the sound of something breathing right behind me.
Cold. Wet. Hungry.
I always thought I'd die coding, buried under a bug I couldn't fix.
But no.
My end came on a forgotten road, chased by something faceless that should not exist.
Because I looked back.