I live in a small village in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by dense forests on all sides. I’ve always enjoyed the peace and quiet that comes with living in a place like this, but lately things have been… strange. It started about a month ago when the power went out.
It was a clear, sunny day, with not a cloud in the sky. I was sitting in my living room, watching TV, when everything suddenly went dark. At first, I thought it was just a temporary outage, it was not out of the normal in my country to have long bouts of loadshedding so I was just chilling at my home waiting for the power to come back, but as the hours ticked by, it became clear that something was seriously wrong.
I tried to call the electricity supply board’s customer care, but my phone was dead too, more like hanged to be precise. I picked the phone to dial but the screen was frozen and unresponsive, and then the screen brightness kept increasing until it was very bright, I tried to turn it off but it wouldn’t and I really started to miss my old phones with removable battery.
Anyway, the phone stayed like that for a few minutes and then it went completely dead. So, I did what any rational person would do: I grabbed a flashlight and headed outside to see what was going on. The first thing I noticed was how quiet everything was. No birds chirping, no wind rustling the leaves, nothing. It was as if the entire world had suddenly gone still.
As I made my way through the village, I noticed that nobody else was around. The streets were empty, the houses dark. It was like everyone had vanished into thin air. And then I heard it: a faint, muffled sound, coming from the direction of the forest.
I hesitated for a moment, but my curiosity got the better of me, and I started making my way towards the sound. As I got closer, it became clear that it was some kind of mantra chanting. I couldn’t make out what they were saying, but it was rhythmic and almost hypnotic.
The chanting seemed to be coming from a clearing in the forest, so I pushed my way through the undergrowth to get a better look. What I saw there will haunt me for the rest of my life.
In the center of the clearing was a group of people, all dressed in black robes, chanting around a bonfire lit before a human sized statue of what looked like Kali, the goddess of death, destruction, time and space. The contours of the idol gleaming with the orangish hue of the fire.
In the flickering light, I could see that their faces laden with the ashes of the ghats and were twisted into grotesque masks, with eyes that seemed to glow in the darkness. And then, one of them turned and looked right at me.
I froze, terrified, as the chanting abruptly stopped. The figure started walking towards me, its eyes fixed on mine. At the same time the distance between it and me isn’t decreasing I turned to run, but my feet wouldn’t move. It was like something was holding me in place. The next thing I know I feel like the ground beneath me feels like it’s wobbling and waving like water.
I started to feel like I was losing my sense of balance and this weird sensation come over me as the mantra chanting grew louder and engulfed me, smothering my consciousness. I started feeling vertigo and the world around me started spinning and I lost my footing and fell on all my four.
I lifted my head up, terrified, to check whether it was still coming towards me. It was. Yet the distance is not decreasing. Then I started falling and sliding along the ground that was as flat as a tennis court like I was rolling off the side of a very steep hill. But I’m not getting near to them either, it’s like I was falling in the same place for a long time. All this while the ground continued to sway up and down.
Then the plants and trees around me started appearing to be rearranging themselves like a moving maze. Then the figure stopped running towards me abruptly. The ground between us started to feel like shrinking.
The figure was getting closer and closer, until I could see its face clearly. It was like nothing I’d ever seen before - twisted, distorted, almost inhuman. And then, just as it was about to reach me, everything went black again.
When I woke up, I was lying in my bed, with no memory of how I got there. The power was back on, the phone seemed to be working again and the world was moving again. I never wanted anything more than all of it being a bad dream. But I knew that something had changed. That night, I had stumbled upon something dark and terrifying, something that I was never meant to see.
As the days went by, I started to notice strange things happening around me. I would hear whispering voices coming from the shadows, see flickering lights in the corner of my eye. And every time I closed my eyes, I could see the twisted faces of the tantrics, chanting their mantras that sounded like muddled voices. Constantly haunted by the hum of those hymns.
But the worst part was the feeling of being watched. Every time I was alone, I could feel their eyes on me, watching my every move. I would often feel their breath on the back of my neck.
One day, I was preparing lunch at home and when I was reaching for the sambar masala powder, I suddenly felt a faint whisper in my ear, I jolted in reflex and the jar slipped out of my hand and fell on the counter which lead to some of the sambar powder getting into my eye. I immediately ran to the backyard and dunked my face into the drum of water and let my eye open under water to rid myself from the pain of chilly powder and spices in my eye.
That was the moment it all came back. Until then I had been convincing myself that I had a really vivid nightmare and I was just having a tough time processing it. But my luxury of feigning ignorance ended at that moment.
As I held my face submerged in water looking at the bottom of that barrel, I felt a hand at the back of my neck holding me down. Chill ran down my spine like a million volt electric shock and I started flailing all my limbs trying to push back and break myself out of the water.
I was failing and I started to feel like drowning and fading out as the view under water started turning into an abyss. That was the moment when all the memories of that day came rushing back and I felt like I got hit by a bus. This ignited something in me at that moment and I exerted all the energy I had to push myself up and the hold abruptly disappeared and I fell on my back to the ground due to over exerting myself.
I just sat there for a while, water dripping down my face, just contemplating over everything that happened and trying to put a leash on all the overwhelming emotions that were bubbling up from inside me. When I got back up, I was bone dry. And I started noticing the weirdness around me even more, every waking moment in my life. It was like they had marked me, claimed me as their own.
One night, I decided to confront them. I made my way back to the clearing in the forest, determined to find out what they wanted from me. But when I got there, it was empty. The bonfire had burned out, the idol nowhere to be found, and the ground was cold and damp. There was no sign that anyone had been there.
As I turned to leave, I felt a hand on my shoulder. I spun around, but there was no one there. And then I heard it: the chanting, echoing through the trees. It felt like I had made a mistake, I don’t know how to put it, but I just knew I wasn’t supposed to be there. So dread came over me and my heart started racing.
I started running, but the chanting followed me. It was like it was coming from inside my head, growing louder and louder with every step. I stumbled and fell, and that’s when I saw them.
They were all around me, their twisted faces inches from mine. I tried to scream, but no sound came out. And then, one by one, they started to vanish, like they were never there at all.
I managed to make my way back home, but I knew that I was never going to be the same. The tantric cult had marked me, and there was no escaping them.
From that day on, I could hear their whispers in the darkness, feel their eyes on me wherever I went. It was like they were always with me, just out of sight.
And then one night, I woke up to find one of them standing at the foot of my bed. Its twisted face was inches from mine, and it was chanting in that same rhythmic, hypnotic muddled voice. I tried to move, but my body was paralyzed. I was trapped, helpless, as it continued to chant.
And then, just as suddenly as it had appeared, the tantrik vanished. I was left alone, shaking and terrified, wondering what it all meant.
I kept trying to rationalize everything, trying to convince myself it’s all in my head. But deep down, I knew the truth. They were real, and they had claimed me as their own. And there was nothing I could do to stop them.
From that day on, I lived in constant fear of the cult, always looking over my shoulder, always wondering when they would strike again. I often find myself in places I never remembered going to, hours went missing without any recollection, objects I don’t remember holding, things I can’t explain going amiss.
And even now, as I tell this story, I can feel their presence, just out of sight, waiting for the moment when they can claim me once and for all.