Ian hates silence. Silence traps him. He always hums for a while before going to sleep. Ian has a cold. His vocal cords ache. He can’t hum. His phone? Dead. He hears something. Deep, laboured breathing. From under the bed. He looks to the side and screams.
Two eyeballs stare back at him. A muscular arm rolls around. But it is the cracked skull lying half-hidden in the shadows that terrifies him most.
Ian wakes up with a start. Sweat drips down his temples. His heart thuds loudly. Was it just a nightmare?
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?
When the lights came back on, everyone in the room was exactly where they had been, except one person.
Rahul was leaning against the window grill, peering out. His hands grasped the bars, his knuckles white. His crutches were resting against the wall. One of them slowly slid down and clattered to the floor.
Even amid the shock, Rahul’s mother rushed to his side and retrieved it for him. The grey-haired lady joined him at the window, absentmindedly handing him the crutch. She squinted into the bright sunlight and asked Rahul, “Do you know him?”
“No,” said Rahul.
The rest of the room came alive now. Seema, his sister, was the next to speak.
Once upon a time, there lived a kingdom called the Bright Candy Kingdom. In it lived a sweet little princess named Sugar. Sugar loved to bake. Her mean stepmother, the Chili Queen, who was forced to stay with Sugar in the kingdom, hated sweets and wanted everyone to eat spicy food instead.
The cell, rather than a room, reeks of the stench springing up from the surroundings beyond its confinement through the single meagre square vent serving as an open window with triple iron bars within. The pervading odour is aggravated in the aftermath of a downpour, reinforced by the relentless trickles from any of the crevices that gradually tend to burgeon into a small flood along its western perimeter, stirring the dried dirt clinging to the floor into turbid paste, as if reviving the wounds to their rampant smell that have already dried up. But all of it has no troublesome effect on me anymore, as I am just a short-term visitor here, awaiting the footsteps of my death.
Quivering hands. A racing heartbeat. Clammy palms.
They were all unmistakable signs of fear.
At that moment, Chloe Maxwell was experiencing every single one of them. Why wouldn’t she be? She had stumbled upon a secret that was never meant to be uncovered – a discovery that could very well cost her everything.
Mason hated silence because silence reminded him that nobody in the house really spoke anymore. Ever since his parents divorced, everything felt dead.
His mother dragged herself home exhausted every morning from hospital shifts, barely able to keep her eyes open long enough to ask how school was. Sometimes she forgot what day it was entirely, staring blankly at the kitchen counter with dark circles hanging beneath her eyes while cold coffee sat untouched beside her.
Funny thing, I used to have this doll when I was six. I used to play with it a lot.
Then the nightmares came.
The same nightmare returned every night. The doll stood beside blood-covered bodies before slowly turning her head towards me. Her eyes were bloodshot and her mouth stained red. Then she would smile and say,
“Daddy, may I have a taste of this murder?!”
Because of this nightmare, I threw the doll away and forgot about it.
Or at least, I thought I did.
Little did I know what would happen twenty years later…
Polly’s room lit up in the shades of the morning sun. Rays slanted through her translucent curtains and fell across the posters taped to her walls, most of them featuring Twinkles the Unicorn from Fluffy Friends Funhouse. Ever since what had happened at her aunt’s house years ago, Polly had been terrified of losing the very essence of who she was. That was why a large framed photograph of herself stood beside her rickety old bed — braces, gap teeth, contact lenses and all. Proof that she was still Polly.
That morning, her foot accidentally knocked the frame off the side table.
Clatter.
Polly jolted awake. “Oh no — my picture!”
The frame lay shattered on the floor, glass splintered around the smiling version of herself trapped inside the photograph. Tears burned her eyes instantly.
Just then, her mother stepped into the room.
“Polly dear, what happened? Oh… the picture broke.” She sighed softly. “It’s okay. We’ll fix it.”
To most people, it would have been nothing. But Polly’s anxiety made tiny losses feel enormous.
Her mother smiled suddenly. “You know what today is, right?”
Polly sniffed. “What?”
“You got selected for the Fluffy Friends Funhouse live stage show! Sweetie, you’re a star now!”
“REALLY?!”
The sadness vanished immediately.
Even though the show was meant for little kids, it had always been Polly’s escape whenever she felt lonely or invisible. And Twinkles had always been her favourite character. She had survived exhausting auditions just to get a role.
Within minutes, she was downstairs gulping cereal straight from the bowl while stuffing spare clothes into a duffel bag.
