CHAPTER 1: THE GHOST ON PLATFORM 3
I have never been shot, but my bones remember the sound of metal tearing through flesh.
It was a ridiculous, intrusive thought to harbor while standing in the suffocating, humid underbelly of Madgaon Railway Station. The vintage radio sitting on the flour-dusted counter of The Starfish Café—my little sanctuary just down the road—had been crackling with strange news all morning, but I had brushed it off.
“...and astronomers confirm that the so-called ‘Comet of 2026 ’ is nearing its peak orbital alignment,” the broadcaster’s voice had droned through the static. Tonight, this rare celestial body will pass directly through the shadow of a total lunar eclipse. Scientists are calling it the Red-Shift Convergence, a once-in-a-lifetime event that will turn the moon a deep, bruised crimson. While astrologers warn of thinned boundaries and altered realities...”
“Altered realities,” I scoffed to myself, aggressively twisting the dial to cut the broadcast mid-sentence. “As if reality isn’t chaotic enough!!!!!!”
Yet, here I was, dressed in a white lace dress with dramatic, vintage bell sleeves, hidden beneath a tailored canvas pinafore apron, smelling faintly of the vanilla bean, burnt sugar, and the comforting, domestic safety of my bakery.
Hello, I’m Tara Mukherjee . I own a bakery , a café or rather a chill cozy environment where people come to dump their daily tiredness and timeout with their lives a bit and live for a moment. To the world I basically am the definition of unbothered—a cynical free spirit who rides a battered scooter, laughs too loudly, and lives fiercely in the moment. It is a survival tactic. Having lost my parents tragically young, and now caring for my paralyzed, non-verbal grandfather, Dadoo, life has taught me a brutal lesson early on: Everything beautiful is temporary. If you don’t attach yourself to anyone, no one can leave you. Nothing is more petrifying than human attachment .So as usual I did not get a chance to even live childhood ,had responsibilities very early on , so I dealt with flour, yeast, and the simple chemistry of joy, I wasn’t supposed to be haunted. But as I navigated the dense, sweating sea of commuters on the station platform, desperately clutching a heavy cardboard catering box filled with pastries and almond croissants, my lungs suddenly locked.
Thud....( a deep sound)
A few tracks over, a dusty, salt-crusted passenger train from the northern lines groaned to a violent, hissing halt. Its faded red-and-blue metal carriages shuddered, spilling a chaotic torrent of humanity onto Platform 3.
Suddenly the skies turned murky, the universe experienced a systemic glitch. The first tremor of the Red-Shift Convergence struck.
It’s happening ! It’s happening ( the inner Tara growled inside).
The blinding midday sun didn’t just dim; it fractured. An unprescheduled, bruised violet twilight bled across the sky like ink spilled on silk. The ambient roar of shouting porters, heavy machinery, and barking stray dogs flattened into an absolute, terrifying vacuum. The comforting scent of caramelized sugar and fresh-crushed cardamom from my world suddenly felt sharp, almost metallic. A physical ripple warped the air right in front of my face. My knees buckled. The heavy catering box slipped from my fingers, pastries scattering across the grimy, oil-stained concrete. I couldn’t care. My throat violently constricted, a phantom agony ripping through my chest right over my heart.
Behind my eyelids, a sudden, blurry image flashed with violent clarity: snow. Blinding, blood-stained snow. A deafening roar of a gunshot echoed in my ears—the exact kind of sudden, loud noise that had caused me unexplained panic attacks since childhood. Within a heartbeat, my mouth filled with the sharp, metallic taste of coppery blood, burning rock salt, and the biting scent of gunpowder. For one terrifying, overlapping second, I wasn’t standing in the Goan heat. I was choking on freezing air and ancient dust, a phantom bullet tearing through my chest. Short, frantic breaths escaped my parted lips
Breathe, Tara. Breathe. You are safe. You are okay , Everything is fine , I can do it ! My chest was panting, fighting to get oxygen into the burning lungs.
I clutched my throat, gasping for oxygen as the tropical heat violently rushed back into the space. My heart hammered against my ribs like a trapped bird. Tears blurred my vision, but beneath the panic, an ancient, instinctual certainty sparked to life. My soul screamed at me that someone is here. Someone who belongs to me. Someone I lost a thousand years ago, across six different graves.
“Who is there?” I whispered, my voice cracking as my eyes wildly swept the shifting sea of strangers. “Who’s there?”
A guy stepped off the rusty iron carriage, his heavy grey hoodie pulled low over his eyes to shield his face from the station’s surveillance cameras. His jaw was clenched so tight the muscles in his face ached.
The exact millisecond his heavy combat boot struck the dusty concrete of Platform 3, A violent wave of vertigo hit him. He seemed like he couldn’t breathe , he clawed at his collar , tearing a button from his shirt . It bounced away , his mouth wide opened , the edges of his vision blurred .It felt as if he had shoved his bare hands directly into a burning clay furnace.
“What the hell!!!!” he muttered, ripping off his black leather gloves in a panic.
He turned, his gaze locking onto mine. For a heartbeat, the station fell silent.
As his eyes finally locked onto me , the world went violently silent.
As my gaze landed on him, an inexplicable jolt—sharp and terrifying—coursed through my veins. I didn’t know who he was; I had never seen this man in my life and yet , my heart slammed against my ribs with the force of a frantic homecoming. It was a recognition that bypassed my mind entirely, settling deep into the marrow.
His hair was slightly windswept, falling in a way that made my fingers twitch with a phantom urge to reach out and brush a stray lock from his forehead. His eyes were the true catalyst. They were deep, dark, and heavy with an unspoken weariness, as if he were carrying the weight of a thousand storms. When they locked onto mine , I felt an agonizing tug, as if an invisible thread, frayed and ancient, had suddenly been pulled taut. They were eyes that seemed to know my secrets, eyes that looked at me with a profound, aching gravity that defied logic. A mix of bewilderment and raw, unfiltered longing , a connection so deep it defied every rational thought I was possessed I didn’t know his name. I didn’t know his story ,but as the space between us pulsed with that inexplicable energy, I felt the terrifying, beautiful sensation of being recognized by a soul I had no business knowing.
“Hey! Watch it, mate!” a gruff voice yelled making me come back to reality .
A porter shoved a massive, iron-wheeled luggage trolley directly between them, completely severing the line of sight.
The electric trance shattered. The first glitch of the Red-Shift Convergence receded, leaving their sensory boundaries raw.
Ducking his head, he turned his back to the platform, and vanished into the dense crowd of boarding passengers.
By the time I finally broke through the wall of bodies to the exact spot where the magnetic pull had been strongest, the space was entirely empty. The violet twilight had vanished, replaced once more by the oppressive afternoon glare. Outside, unnoticed by the bustling crowd, the midday sun caught a faint, ghostly reflection of a twin-tailed comet tearing through the upper atmosphere.
But as I stood there alone, my hands shaking with a terrifying, unwanted urge to give chase, the humid, tropical air of Goa suddenly carried the faint, impossible scent of a freezing winter storm.
“ Who was he? Why did he feel so familiar? Where have I seen him? Why did he look at me like that?”
“ Why did I feel this weird sensory spark?”
"How could a complete stranger leave behind the lingering chill of a frozen world in the middle of a sun drenched street?"
I stood paralyzed for a moment longer , the spectral scent of ice and fire warring against the humidity .I felt as though a fracture had opened in the world, and I was the one who caught the glimpse of the lay beneath .
a sharp nudge against my shoulder jarred me back to reality.
"Stop daydreaming Tara. I have been calling you since so long ..You already wasted one catering box full of croissants Bring the pastries inside the trunk."
It was my café manager , his face flushed from the afternoon heat .He shoved the heavy wicker bucket of pastries into my arms .the sudden weight forced me to shift my focus from the empty mundane task .
Without a word, I turned and stepped into the flow of crowd, my feet moving automatically along the familiar route.
The weight of the pastries felt grounding ,yet my mind remained trapped in the wake of the stranger . Every face that I passed was an echo of his , every shadow a potential ghost. A phantom chill of winter storm clung to my skin. I didn't know what destiny had in store for me, but as I walked , I couldn't shake the feeling that the ordinary life I had known only moments ago had been irrevocably altered.
