Diary
August 22nd — 6:13 a.m.
Delhi
I don’t even know how to explain this without sounding insane. Maybe I already am. But I swear to you — whoever reads this, if anyone ever does — last night, it wasn’t the wind. It wasn’t the street.
It was inside.
The sound was soft at first, like someone dragging their fingertips along the wall. Scrchhh… scrchhh… A pause. Then again.
I sat up in bed. My phone was still in my hand, the screen gone dark. The city outside was quiet — too quiet for Delhi, even at 2:47 a.m. I wanted to call Vanya, but she was already on the train to Indore. Arush would panic if I called him, and Bangalore is too far for him to do anything except worry.
So I just… listened.
The sound moved. From the corner of my room, toward the study table. And then — my chair creaked.
I whispered, “Bajrang Bali, raksha karo…” under my breath, my fingers clutching the edge of the blanket like it was a shield.
And then… my laptop screen lit up on its own.
I hadn’t touched it. It wasn’t even plugged in.
For a second, the glow caught the mirror on the wall. And in that reflection — just behind my shoulder — there was a shadow. Tall. Motionless. Blacker than the dark around it.
I turned.
Nothing.
The mirror only showed me — pale, hair a mess, eyes wide.
But the greasy mark on the window from the night before… it was gone.
In its place, on the glass, written with a fingertip, were the words:
“I found you, Elowen.”
I froze. My eyes darted toward the window, but I didn’t move. I didn’t dare. There was this faint, shallow sound… like someone trying not to be heard. Slow… deliberate.
I whispered to myself, Don’t look. Just don’t look.
But I did.
And that was my first mistake.
Because there, behind the thin curtain, I saw the shape of a hand — long fingers pressing against the glass from the outside. Too pale, too still.
I couldn’t scream. Couldn’t move. The air felt like it turned to ice around me.
Then, the hand… slid down. Not away — down — leaving a faint, greasy mark on the glass, like it had been there for a long time, just waiting.
I didn’t sleep that night.
And when morning came, I checked the window. Nothing. No prints. No smudges. Like it never happened.
