The Night of the Whispering Shadows
It was a bitter winter night, the kind that carried whispers through the wind. In the silent village of Ropad, a storm was waiting behind the calm.
Honorary Captain Jaswant Singh, the youngest captain of his unit at just thirty-seven, was returning home for his winter holidays. His heart was light, unaware of the darkness already nesting inside his house.
The night before his arrival, his mother Darshu awoke to a faint sound—a dull thud… thud… thud.
It was soft, like a small fist hitting a wooden board. The noise came from the room where her daughter-in-law and grandson slept. At first, she thought it was just the wind. But the sound grew sharper… desperate.
Wrapping her shawl tightly, she crept down the hallway and slowly pushed the door open.
The moonlight spilled into the room—cold and pale.
And what she saw froze her blood.
Her daughter-in-law was pressing a pillow down on the little boy’s face. The child’s hands clawed helplessly at the fabric, his small body twisting. A narrow streak of moonlight fell on her face, and Darshu saw her eyes—blood-red, wild, empty. Eyes that no longer looked human.
Darshu screamed. Her voice tore through the silence. She rushed forward, grabbed the woman’s arm with all her strength, and pulled her away. The housekeeper, startled awake by her cry, ran in, and together they saved the boy. When the pillow finally lifted, the child gasped for air—alive, but barely.
That night carved itself into the walls of the house like a curse.
---
The next morning, a soft winter breeze brushed against Jaswant Singh’s face as the bus rolled into Rupert. His chest filled with quiet warmth, unaware of what awaited him at home.
But when he stepped through the gate, the world tilted.
His wife was on the floor, wrists tied with rope, her hair tangled and her face shadowed by madness. Her eyes still burned with that same wild red. She twisted violently, like an animal trapped in a snare.
He turned to his mother, panic rising in his throat.
“What happened here, Maa?”
And Darshu told him. Every sound. Every scream. Every moment.
At first, he refused to believe it. His wife had always been fragile, yes—but this? Trying to kill their own son? No. It couldn’t be real.
But when he faced her, she stared at him with those bloodshot eyes and whispered in a cold, shaking voice:
> “I don’t want children like him. I want silence. He’s not like me… not like his father.”
Her words sliced through him like broken glass.
She was soon admitted to a mental asylum. The doctors could only shake their heads.
> “It’s something unknown,” they said. “No medicine can touch it.”
And just like that, the man who once stood like a wall began to break.
Honorary Captain Jaswant Singh—a soldier of iron nerves—now carried shoulders heavy with silence and eyes hollowed by grief.
---
But the nightmare wasn’t over.
A few hours after she was taken away, Jaswant returned to his son’s room. The house was quiet now, too quiet. As he knelt beside the bed, his eyes fell on the pillow—the same one that almost stole his son’s breath.
Something was odd. The fabric felt heavier than it should.
When he opened it, a small black bottle slipped out, cold as ice. Inside the bottle was a rolled piece of paper—a letter, yellowed and damp as if it had been hidden for years.
Hands trembling, he pulled the note out and read it under the pale winter light.
The message was short, but it was enough to make his blood run cold.
His breath caught. His heartbeat thundered.
And before he could utter a word, the world spun around him.
Jaswant Singh collapsed to the floor—unconscious.
:) (:
"""""""""""""'"
