Beneath Mridula’s photograph was a faded landline number and an old Delhi address. Something about it chilled me. I thought, What if it really is her? My classmate Mridula? Or… someone else entirely?
Driven by uneasy curiosity, I picked up the phone and dialed.
"The number you have dialed is not in service."
A hollow tone echoed in my ears, amplifying the silence in my room. My heart sank a little.
The next morning, I decided to go to the address myself. The house looked abandoned—shutters half-closed, dust clinging to the gates like a memory long forgotten. I knocked, waited. No answer. I walked around and asked the neighbors. Most were reluctant to speak, but one elderly man finally muttered, “They moved out long ago. Heard their daughter… died.”
That single word—"died"—struck me like a knife.
A knot formed in my stomach. So it's true… Mridula is gone?
But my instincts screamed otherwise.
That night, I couldn’t sleep. Her image haunted me—those school days, her laugh, her eyes. I needed answers. Real ones. I contacted an old friend from school and asked if he could find Mridula’s ancestral address in Kerala.
A few days later, I had it.
Without wasting a moment, I applied for a month’s leave from work, packed my bag, and began the journey—determined to uncover the truth.
Four days later, I stood before a modest old house nestled in the lush green of Kerala. It looked worn, but not abandoned. A soft wind rustled through the coconut trees as I walked up to the door and knocked.
An elderly man opened it—eyes sunken, face weary, shoulders bent with years of grief. He looked at me silently for a moment, then gestured for me to come in.
After we sat, I hesitated, then finally asked, “Uncle… what happened to Mridula?”
He let out a deep, exhausted sigh.
“I wish I knew, son,” he said. “For seven long years, we tried every possible treatment. Psychiatric care, spiritual healing, specialists in cities far and wide. But nothing worked. She’d suffer terrible seizures—her body would contort in unnatural ways. Sometimes it looked like her bones were being twisted from the inside. No one had answers. The doctors eventually told us... either bring her home or admit her to a mental institution.”
He paused, staring into nothing.
“How could I send my only daughter to a madhouse?” he said bitterly. “We brought her home. That very night… she vanished.”
I leaned in, stunned. “Vanished? How?”
“She disappeared. Just like that. No note, no sound, no trace. It’s been seven years. We searched every corner of the country. We filed police reports. But eventually, the police gave up and declared her dead. Two years ago, we performed her last rites and published the obituary in the paper… hoping maybe she’d see it and return.”
His voice cracked.
“But she never came back.”
Before I could speak, a sudden commotion erupted from inside the house—a woman’s desperate wailing, sharp and raw, like a wound screaming.
Moments later, a woman with wild hair burst into the room, running straight toward me, her eyes wide with panic.
“She’s taken my daughter! He’s taken her! Save her! Save my baby—please!” she cried.
Two women rushed in and held her back, struggling to calm her down.
“My daughter… my daughter…” she sobbed over and over before collapsing to the ground in a faint.
I stood there, shaken to the core. “Who… who is she?” I whispered.
The old man lowered his head. “My wife,” he said. “Mridula’s mother. She never recovered from the shock of her disappearance. Some days she’s quiet… some days, like this. I’ve already lost my daughter. I can’t… lose her too. We live… only with the hope that maybe one day, Mridula will come back.”
I swallowed the lump in my throat. “Uncle… when did this all begin?”
He looked at me and said slowly, “The night Mridula and Vedika were found unconscious… in Michael Cemetery.”
The name hit me like a hammer.
Michael Cemetery.
Just hearing it made my chest tighten. Old, terrifying memories surged back. Things I had buried… things I had tried to forget.
“What night was this?” I asked.
“It was the day of her final 12th-grade exam,” he said. “That night… everything changed. From the next morning, she began having violent seizures. Her body twisted in ways that defied nature. We showed her to every doctor—psychiatrists, neurologists, even faith healers—but no one could explain what was happening.”
His hands trembled as he continued.
“Before she vanished, she would cry constantly. She kept whispering, ‘He’s coming for me… He’ll take me away… Save me, Mama. Save me, Papa… please.’”
I felt a cold sweat forming on my back. “Do you know what happened to Vedika?”
He looked even more disturbed.
“We don’t know. But once, in Delhi, my wife saw Vedika’s mother at a hospital. The moment she saw Mridula… she froze. Then, terrified, she ran away. As she left, she said something we can’t forget: ‘Save your daughter… or he’ll take her too.’”
I felt goosebumps crawl up my arms.
“We tried asking who she meant. Who? But all she kept saying was… ‘He will take her. He will take her…’ like a broken record. And then she vanished.”
“Later, a doctor told us Vedika had also been admitted to the same hospital. Her condition was almost identical to Mridula’s. But her family took her away, and we never heard from them again.”
I had left to uncover the truth behind Mridula’s death. But instead of finding closure… I found more darkness.
Mridula hadn’t died. She had vanished.
Vedika had suffered the same horrors… and then disappeared as well.
But what happened to them? Where is Vedika now?
And then the most disturbing realization struck me—what about Kshitij?
Why hadn’t Uncle mentioned him?
Where was Kshitij?
And more importantly, who is “he”?
The one Mridula feared.
The one her mother screamed about.
The one Vedika’s mother warned us would “take her.”
Who… or what… is he?
My head was spinning with questions, each darker than the last. I knew what I had to do.
The next morning, I left for Delhi—this time, to find Vedika.
And who is the shadowy figure they all feared—the one who “takes”?
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