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| The Haunted Deepawali |
The year was 2017, and the festival of Deepawali was just a day away. Arun’s shift was over an hour ago. Still, he wanted to capture all the pending payments of his clients’ debtors. All his teammates were already on their Deepawali vacation, except two young girls, who were still under their training tenure. They both were doing nothing productive for the last three hours except scrolling their smartphones. Arun gestured them to leave, and they gladly collected their stuff, wished him happy Diwali, and went home. It took Arun another fifteen minutes to wind up everything and consider it a day.
Magenta Pvt. Ltd. was almost vacant at that time. A handful of people were working half-heartedly. Arun worked there for more than five years now and recently got promoted and became one of the payables department team's leader. Also, he just got married. So the upcoming Deepawali was undoubtedly very special for him.
Though he didn’t mind working overtime, the last shuttle towards the metro station was about to leave. He was really not in a mood to book a private cab and spend money unnecessarily. He quickly shut off the system and came down to the ground floor, all the way from the sixth floor, without waiting for the elevator.
The shuttle was standing right in front of the corporate complex's exit gate, which had three identical buildings. The shuttle was already in ignition mode. Arun quickly jumped into the shuttle and grabbed the seat somewhere in the middle of the bus. The shuttle started moving, and it took him a couple of minutes to discover that he is all alone on the bus (of course, except the driver). He kept his head against the window’s glass and closed his eyes for a while. He quickly entered into a state where he was thinking nothing at all. His closed eyes were only sensitive to street lights' rhythmic passing, which took him into a hypnotic state. The M.G. Road metro station was good twenty minutes away. The shuttle took a right turn towards a kaccha road behind the tall buildings, between the bushes and weeds. The twists and turns of the road brought him out of his nap. He could now see bushes, weeds, and crooked trees, after a patch of vacant land. He checked his cell phone and looked again outside the window. Suddenly he saw a figure running with the bus at a matching speed.
He tried to adjust his eyesight and saw a woman wearing something white, looking directly towards Arun and running at an inhuman speed. He held the handle in front of him and stood up with a thud.
‘Bhaiyaa…” he almost cried and called the driver.
The driver looked back to see the reason for this young man crying like a maniac. He saw nothing but a pale-white face of Arun looking out of the window. He ignored him as he wasn’t in a mood to have a word with another literate psychopath, who is good for nothing except sending emails to the organization's transportation department, filled with the driver's complaints. He concentrated on the beedi between his lips.
Arun saw the figure becoming thick white smoke and disappearing all of a sudden. He came near the window to see backwards but saw nothing except crooked trees and weeds. He grabbed his bag and stood near the driver. His heart was thumping against his chest like an old railway engine. The driver looked at his face through the mirror as he took out another tobacco rolled beedi from his pocket.
In a couple of minutes, the bus took a turn towards the main road. The metro station was on the other side of the divider. The bus took a U-turn, and Arun jumped through the bus. He punched his card on the first level of the station. He started feeling a bit safe as he entered the station complex. He ran towards the platform, and a handful of people were waiting for the metro. The other platform was completely vacant as the train terminates after two stops at the hudda city centre station. So there was utterly no one for a ride up to the last station. The frequency of the trains at this time of the day is extremely slow. There were still eight minutes left for the next train towards Vishwavidhalaya. He could even listen to the voice of his heartbeat. He was avoiding eye contact with everyone around him.
There were still around three minutes left in his metro's arrival when he saw a lady wearing a white top and a long blue skirt, standing alone on the opposite platform. He was walking towards the left side of the platform. Arun smelled something fishy, so he also started walking towards the left side.
Now, the girl started running, and to match her speed, Arun also started running. The train towards the Hudda city centre was about to arrive on the platform's opposite side when that lady suddenly jumped in front of the train.
‘No…’ Arun cried as he sat on the floor, with his hands tightly shutting his eyes.
When he opened his eyes, he saw around fifteen people were surrounding him through his blurry eyes. He looked downwards and came to the centre of the platform. Everyone boarded the train when it arrived at the platform.
In the metro’s cart, there were few people present. He grabbed a seat near the door and sat with his face between his hands. He was not able to distinguish between reality and his imagination. Everyone around him was busy with their cellphones, but he was shivering with fear. His shirt was all drenched with sweat, which made him shiver more as the air vent was just above his head. He ignored all that, took out his mobile phone, and started typing a WhatsApp text message to his wife, explaining whatever happened to him in the last half an hour. He explained every minute detail of the woman who ran near the shuttle and the lady who jumped before the train. It was hard to vouch for the incidences' details, but he tried his best to compel his wife about the incidences.
Suddenly, the lights in the metro started flickering. Arun's attention got diverted while he was framing the sentences. He looked towards the glass in front of him. He saw a circular area covered with frost. He found something strange about that. He was looking at the frost with all his attention when he saw it clearing up.
The next moment, he saw a pale face, stick to the glass, with his eyes popping out of the socket and tongue coming out of the mouth. That feminine face was disfigured with something sharp and strong enough. The face was looking directly into Arun’s eyes.
Arun was on the cart’s floor, with the phone on his side when he breathed his last.
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Nav Bharat Times
29th October 2016
Meera Sharma, a resident of Pashchim Vihar, New Delhi, committed suicide by jumping before the metro train at M.G. Road metro station. She was an I.T. Professional by profession and worked in a well-reputed multi-national company for four years.
According to sources, she suffered from an acute stage of depression and took heavy sedatives before committing suicide. The reason for suicide is still unknown. The forensic department of Haryana police is working on the post mortem report of the body. There is fear in the air of Gurugram this Deepawali.
1st November 2018
The last thing Vijay saw was a white figure on the floor of the metro train going towards Samaypur Badali before he collapsed on the ground. The ghost of the white lady still haunts the city of Gurugram. This is not the first time Haryana Police received the reports of some mysterious figure haunting young people. Though, Police call this a result of mass hysteria and the spreading of unnecessary rumours. The locals are still afraid of going out when every other city in the nation is celebrating Deepawali.
HRN
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