Chapter 1
The sound of the alarm broke the thread of my sleep. The incomplete dreams slowly faded away behind me. I got out of bed and, without wasting a moment, headed straight toward the stairs.
“Mom… I’m awake,” I said loudly while
coming down the stairs. I thought the voice must have bounced off the walls and reached the kitchen. But in response, there was only silence.
While brushing my teeth, I looked at myself in the mirror. Same face as every day, but today, the eyes were saying something. There was a hollowness in them—a loneliness. Freshened up, I got dressed and ran toward the kitchen for breakfast.
“Mom, give me breakfast!” I shouted, but
there was no reply.
Now I was starting to get annoyed. I was getting late, and no one was listening. In anger, I picked up the glass next to me and threw it on the floor. It shattered into pieces—but mom…
she just stood there, as if there was no reaction at all.
“Is she upset with me?” Thinking this, I went to the drawing room.
Dad was sitting on his chair, as usual, buried in the newspaper.
I walked up to him and said, “Papa, I needed
two hundred rupees for the science project…”
But there too, silence. No glance, no movement of the newspaper. Now an uneasiness began to rise in my mind. Without eating breakfast, without
picking up my tiffin, I left the house. At the bus stand, a few students were already standing. After a while, the bus arrived, and without saying anything to anyone, I got on and took a window seat.
The bus started moving, and I kept looking out the window, lost in thoughts about home.
Why is mom ignoring me like this?
Why isn’t dad listening to me?
The line of questions kept going, when suddenly, the loud horn of the bus startled me. We had reached school—I hadn’t even realized it.
The bus was turning back. I hurriedly got down and angrily started saying something to the driver.
Maybe he couldn’t hear me over the bus’s engine noise,” I thought.
I went to the class and sat at the very back. My mind was restless. No one was talking to me today—neither the teacher nor my friends.
My best friend, who joked with me every day, didn’t even look at me today. “Am I still dreaming?” I asked myself.
To be sure, I pinched myself hard. It hurt. And that pain made it clear—this isn’t a dream… it’s real.
#psychological #horror #story #fictionstory #paranormal #mystery
