When the lights came back on, everyone in the room was exactly where they had been, except for one person. There were clear signs of intimidation on their faces. They exchanged petrified glances and their eyes widened, revealing that they had a premonition of this imminent event.
Ratul, Mihir, Sanjay and Mohan were alumni of a reputed university in Kalyani Township, West Bengal. Besides being college union leaders, they were also notorious raggers. In their aghast state, they recalled the heinous deed they had committed that day: how they had ragged Parimal, a first-year student, and disgraced him to such an extent that he had committed suicide. His lifeless body had been found hanging from the ceiling. Since then, an eerie sense of dread had followed them everywhere. And now, Mihir was mysteriously missing from the college union room.
What could have happened to him? Whose turn would be next?
A cold gust swept through the room, though every window was shut. Ratul’s phone vibrated. An unknown number had sent a single message: One confession. Four names. Three remain. Before he could show the others, the screen flickered and went completely black.
Mohan stumbled towards the door, but it refused to open. Sanjay looked up as a rope creaked softly above them. Hanging from the ceiling fan was Mihir’s college identity card, swaying as if someone had just let go of it. Then a familiar voice echoed through the room.
“You laughed when I begged. Will you still laugh now?”
The unearthly voice continued menacingly. “Do you remember the dirty, disgusting game you forced me to play that day, even though I fell at your feet, begging you to let me go?
“It’s my turn now! Your game is this: whoever kills the rest escapes!”
The three trembling men stood confounded, struggling to process the cryptic command, when the lights went out again, plunging the room into pitch darkness.
But what followed froze every drop of blood that still flowed in their veins.
There was a thunderous bang on the door, followed by a croaking voice. “Open the door immediately, you depraved idiots! I need my ID card.”
It was the unmistakable voice of Mihir!
Sanjay turned on his phone’s flashlight, cutting a beam through the darkness. In the faint light, Ratul grabbed the ID card hanging from the fan just as the banging grew louder. Mohan’s knuckles turned white as he twisted the knob, but the door remained shut while the voices outside grew louder.
Mihir.
And someone else.
Familiar. Yet forgotten.
Sanjay’s voice trembled. “No one was supposed to know about this. Did either of you tell anyone?”
“Come on, yaar. This is not the time to doubt each other. Whoever this is wants us to turn on each other.”
Ratul flipped the ID card. It wasn’t Mihir’s face staring back at him. It was Mohan’s, with the eyes gouged out. The card slipped from his frozen fingers just as the door swung open.
The sudden burst of wind that swept through the doorway smelled sinister. Darkness scudded across the corridor, through which a figure with an unhinged frame appeared.
Mohan’s retreating steps faltered. A shudder ran through Ratul and Sanjay.
The apparition was accompanied by another wraith. His face was disfigured, but still recognisable.
“Mihir!”
Mohan’s parched throat had barely managed to utter the name when Sanjay’s phone battery died.
The next moment, Ratul and Sanjay heard the door shut with a bang.
Ratul reached for his phone with hands as cold as frozen meat. He switched on the flashlight, only to find that Mohan was nowhere in the room.
Ratul’s flashlight swept across the room. He saw Mohan lying beneath the ceiling fan, twisted unnaturally, his eyes wide open and his mouth stretched into a silent scream. Blood seeped from his ears, nose and mouth, staining the floor beneath. But there was something far worse.
His mangled fingers were clutching a photograph of the four friends—with Parimal.
Sanjay stared in dismay. “But… Mohan was with us.”
A low chuckle echoed. They turned. Mihir stood uncannily, his face mutilated, with empty eye sockets dripping blood.
He asked, “Was he?”
As a bloodcurdling scream resounded, Ratul’s phone suddenly lit up.
One Confession, Four Names. Two Remain.
Another message followed:
Who said Parimal died?
“Why would I need anyone to tell me Parimal died? I saw his lifeless body with my own two eyes,” Ratul typed in reply.
He received an emoji in return. ☠️
Before he could decode the message, there was a knock on the door.
His hands dropped the phone, which crashed to the floor, its screen cracking into a hundred pieces.
“Good riddance,” he thought. “No one can catch up with me now.”
He pulled Sanjay and jumped out of the third-floor window. Both fell into the azure, infinity-shaped swimming pool.
“What goes around, comes around,” a whisper echoed in his ears as the water enveloped them both.
Ratul could swim, but Sanjay couldn’t.
One confession. Four names. One and a half remain.
Ratul kept whispering to Sanjay, “Don’t give up,” while dragging him out of the pool. Sanjay’s face had turned blue, and his body was almost lifeless. He collapsed on the edge of the pool, clutching his throat.
“I cannot breathe. Parimal is holding me tightly,” Sanjay gasped.
“You’ll be fine. Please bear with me,” Ratul replied, his voice shaking with fear and fatigue.
Meanwhile, rumours spread that Parimal’s spirit was hunting his tormentors down. One of Parimal’s close friends, Akhilesh, grinned happily as he watched the four boys disappear from the campus. Parimal’s suicide had devastated him. He believed that a mere three-month suspension was not enough. They should face the same cruelty they had inflicted on Parimal.
Who was after the boys? It was a question that haunted the campus.
Ratul tried pulling Sanjay out with all his might, but a stronger force dragged him back. Moments later, Sanjay’s lifeless body surfaced.
“Come out, Parimal! You wretched ghost!” Ratul screamed.
“I’m here. Who said I died?”
Ratul turned. Parimal stood behind him, hale and healthy, a sinister smile on his face.
“You killed them all,” Ratul panted.
Parimal punched him across the face, pinning him down.
“Yes, but ghosts can’t be charged, right? Remember the professor you falsely implicated and defamed because he refused to bow to union demands? He was my father.”
“Our father.”
Another voice rang out as a splash sounded from behind. A man emerged from the pool.
“Phew! I don’t need these anymore.” He peeled off his mangled facial prosthetics.
Mihir!
“He’s your brother?” Ratul asked Parimal in disbelief.
“Half-brother,” Mihir corrected. “I came to know from maa only after dada died. Something died in me that day, Ratul. I felt guilty that I had nudged him towards suicide.”
Ratul laughed like a maniac. “So you decided to seek redemption by pushing us to our deaths. You think you have been absolved of your sin?”
Mihir shook his head. He took out a shiny object from his pocket and plunged it into Ratul’s heart. He turned back to his dada and muttered an apology.
Parimal felt a lump rise in his throat as he watched Mihir slit his wrist and flail. Soon, the water in the pool turned crimson.
“Baba! May your soul attain peace!”
One year later, in a shack in Goa, three men sat with a haversack and a year-old newspaper on the counter between them.
The headline read: College Union Leaders Erased
Gang wars and deaths of union leaders revealed their links to the local mafia and their involvement in nefarious activities like examination paper leaks and ID card tampering…
“Good story. Believable!” the professor nodded.
“Is all the money here?”
“Yes… 80 lakhs in cash and more from the mafia,” Akhilesh replied.
“Any regrets?” the professor asked.
“Manipulation and big money require meticulous planning. No place for regrets,” Parimal scoffed.
“Mihir…” the professor sighed.
“Baba, I am your only son! The rest is just a planted story.”
As the masterminds divided the money, the waves crashed loudly on the beach, bearing mute witness to this twisted and vile deal.
Author Credits
Beyond the Box is the first platform in India to have conducted an Online Write-A-Thon which encourages collaborative story writing. In the months of Sep-Oct 2026, 46 participants made Season 5 of this exciting event a memorable one. They were divided into 4 groups and each participant in the group contributed to the ongoing story in 100 words approximately. The 11 writers of Team 4 (Adults) who came up with this story are: (Names mentioned in the sequence allotted to them for the Write-A-Thon. A line has been used in the story as a separator to indicate change in the writer.)
| Sequence Number | Team 3 (Best Story) |
| 1 | Indrani Chatterjee |
| 2 | Vanishree Venugopal |
| 3 | Gulnar Raheem Khan |
| 4 | Chandra Sundeep |
| 5 | Bhuvan |
| 6 | Lakshmi Ajoy |
| 7 | Umayal Subramaniam |
| 8 | Lolita Bhattacharya |
| 9 | Preethi Warrier |
| 10 | Narayani V Manapadam |
| 11 | Manoshi Bose |
| – | – |