Chapter 1
It was a dark night, black clouds covered the sky-not a star to be seen. The trees shook their branches, dancing in anticipation of the upcoming storm. The breeze was freezing- chilling him to the bone. Manu a 27 years old Mechanical Engineer, was travelling to visit his Hometown. It had been over 7 years since the last time he visited his hometown.
He was driving in a car, all alone on a main highway. His destination was his hometown which was situated in Uttar Pradesh. After a total 10 hours he had finally reached his hometown Rai Bareli. He took his car to his old house which was not in a bad condition. He had no relatives here as his parents had already died 5 years in the past. He then heard a voice calling him 'Manu' he then looked where this voice was coming from.
It was a old woman likely in her 60s. he then asked her what business she had with him. She explained that she was his grandmothers friend, and that she heard about him from his grandmother. He was a bit shocked as his grandmother passed away when he was only 2 years old, but decided not to ask the old woman about how she recognized him as it would make her feel sad. She then invited Manu over to her house as he was new there and his house was on the verge of collapsing.
Manu at first resisted but then decided to stay at her house. Manu asked the old woman about her name the woman then replied that her name was 'Rehana'. She then told him to follow her, they reached her place. There he was greeted in a respective manner. He wondered why he was given so much respect after thinking for a while he came to a conclusion that this was because he was a brahmin [People who were born into this group in ancient times were expected to devote their lives to holy pursuits].
Rehana had a son named Ashok who was a married person. His wife was named 'Mohini' she was expecting a child in about 2 months as said by the doctors. The time was 7:00 pm and Dinner was ready, Manu ate the dinner and thanked the family for their hospitality, he was then warned by Ashok not to go out after 9:00 pm as it was believed that a ghost was roaming around the town at that particular time. Manu did not listen to it carefully and thought there was no such thing as ghosts and everyone was just being delusional. He then watched some movies and at around 9:30 decided to eat some snacks.
Everyone at the house was asleep except him, and he did not want to wake anyone up. He decided to go outside to buy some snacks. He was then reminded of Ashok's word's, but he did not pay any attention to it and stepped outside the house.
