“Power cut,” I groaned. That was a common problem in this part of the city.
I checked on Arti. She was still unconscious. I wondered what would have happened to the wedding, how Samit would have reacted and what people would have said. It didn't matter to me anymore. I had her with me and nothing else was the key to my happiness. I promised myself to confess everything to her when she woke up in the morning. I sat on the wobbly chair opposite the bed, intending to watch over her. I don't remember how long I sat there but I narrowed my eyes when my reverie was broken by a sound. Slow and soft, it seemed to be the jingling of bangles.
The Other Side
167 Strangely it sounded similar, almost as if I heard that before. Somewhere… I walked gingerly to the door and looked out of the room but the darkness was a deterrent to my vision. I heard the sound again. It seemed to come from somewhere above me. The attic? I looked up but couldn't see anything in the meager moonlight coming in through the ventilator. The sound repeated, the jingle echoing across the hall.
“Mice,” I reasoned with myself and went back to my chair. Hardly had I parked myself when the sound reached me again, this time it was accompanied by whimpers and wails that made me stand up and hold the chair for support. The hair at the nape of my neck stood at an end. 'This surely can't be mice,' I told myself and slowly walked out of the room again.
I peered into the attic and immediately backtracked. There was someone squatting near the bars, holding their head between the legs. I could just about see their shadow in the limited moonlight. The first thing that came to my mind was that it was some drug peddler who had made this vacant apartment his hideout at night. I picked up a sturdy vase lying nearby and slowly advanced towards the attic, climbing the steps without a sound. The sobs sounded louder, almost feminine now.
“Who is it?” I shouted as soon as I crept inside the confined area.
The sound stopped as soon as I spoke. Something stirred, I could see the shadowy figure lift its head and all of a sudden it turned towards me. I staggered back and fell onto the floor; the vase went crashing out of my hands. The bones in my body started clattering against each other, their jitters strangely sounded similar to the clanking of bangles. The face… that face… those red charcoal like burning eyes… in a subdued form… they belonged to... I couldn't think clearly. No, it couldn't be.
The meager amount of moonlight too vanished. A cold gust of wind blew in my face, unsettling me and suddenly the faint light entered the attic again. The cloud had moved on and so had the figure in the attic. There was no one near the bars. As I stood up, my legs still shaking a loud thud made me skip a heartbeat.
I quickly ran towards the bedroom. The door was shut.
“It must have been the wind,” I convinced myself though the wind had been blowing in the opposite direction. I wanted to get inside the room. Arti was alone inside. I tried to push the door open with both my hands, banging my body against it. Furiously, I twisted the knob to the left and right. Just as I was about to kick it, the door opened slowly, almost as if someone was letting the curtain drop inch by inch to reveal the darkness inside.
I watched my steps, holding onto the wall as I entered inside. The room seemed darker than before almost as if dark shadows had swallowed the entire space. The moment I had both my feet in the room, the door banged shut behind me. I turned to twist the knob once more. No use, mysteriously it had jammed again. I pulled out my cellphone from the pocket of my jeans and through the white light, I surveyed the room. There was no one on the bed, I gasped.
A slow rasping sound made me turn. I jumped back, the cell phone leaving my hands and smashing against the concrete floor. Someone was seated on the chair, rocking back and forth. Through the fallen light, I could see those hands placed on the arms of the chair, two gruesome wrinkled limbs with ugly boils plastered over the black skin. The red bangles on its wrists shone in my eyes,
The Other Side
169 momentarily blinding me. That thing and I call it a thing because I could sense it wasn't human as no human could have such a hideous form, as vile an existence as the one seated opposite to my horrified self.
That thing twisted its abominable head my way, its long dirty hair hiding the devilish face beneath but I could see those eyes, those red charcoal eyes burning right into my soul. And then my eyes fell on its body. The thing wore a green bridal lehenga, there was no mistaking where I had seen that before. I screamed but my rapidly pacing heart could not supply enough intensity to the sound. The thing got up from the chair and slithered down, its hideous body stooped over at an angle as it dragged its webbed feet over the ground. It crawled towards me, arms twisted in a horrible manner. The red bangles clanked every time the beast took a step on all its four limbs. I backed up as far as I could, my back touching the wall in the corner. A long forked tongue emerged from the thing's mouth tasting my fear from a distance in the surrounding air. Those blackened lips seemed to smile in a sinister manner, revealing blood-soaked chipped teeth. And suddenly, the thing moaned, wolf-like, rooting me to the spot as I crumbled down, covering myself with all the prayers I could remember. Through the corner of my eyes that were unwilling to look at the monster again, I could see the two gruesome hands with those red bangles on their wrists, clanking, their sound hurting my senses as they made their way towards my throat. I followed the phone onto the floor in a crumbled mess.