The hall-end

In the hallway he looked at the door, still wondering if he should enter. The sign in the hallway clearly stated to not come in this direction, but that rule had already been broken as he had entered anyway.

So why was he hesitant now. Maybe because he wanted to know about the secret behind the door, yet was not sure if he wanted to find out.

Michael reached for the door knob. He looked towards the other end of hallway to check that no one was watching.

Before he had completely turned the knob, he heard a click sound from inside. The door wouldn’t open.

Michael asked,”Who is there?” and there was no sound. Not even a little snap.

He repeated again, and was met by a giggling sound this time.

“Why have you locked the door? What’s inside?”, he questioned.

The giggling stopped and a voice replied, “Nothing of interest to you.”

Michael wanted to break open the door but knew that he would only end up hurting his leg. He tried to peep thorugh the keyhole, but was startled to see another eye at the other end. Startled, he fell backwards and shouted, “Let me in!”

The voice replied, “okay. But first listen to this:

There are things that shouldn’t be seen,
Things that shouldn’t be made public;
Because such stuff can change the time,
And turn peace into a cruel war.”

“okay. Now open!”, said Michael.

“Have you no sense, boy?”, the voice replied again, “Listen to more:

As the boy approached the ring,
It’s power and his curiosity merged;
They both became entangled in each other,
Until the hobbit destroyed them both.

There was no reply. The eye inside the room peeped through the keyhole again but all it could see was the backdrop of an the colored wall.

“Where did the boy go?”, the voice whispered to itself.

All that was to be heard was a muffled snoring sound in the hallway.

Does your shadow talk?

#ShortStory #shadow #mystery #family #home

He stared again, looking behind him for a complete ten seconds. The voice of his mother got him back to the present.

What had just happened. What was that.

He went downstairs for dinner, shrugging it off.

The light was brightly lit at the center of the table, as usual, and today it was salmon. Well having a mom that is a highly respected chef certainly has it’s perks.

His mom came and sat next to him, his sister and father were already sitting in their usual chairs. Everyone prayed, and started their meal. It was a usual meal, with the usual conversations.

But something was pricking his mind. He looked behind himself, and there it was. Again. He kept staring at it for a good sixty seconds, all the noise had dulled in the background. It was only after his dad tapped his shoulder that he was back. His dad asked him if he is alright, and he gave a slight nod.

Though he was still wondering. What just happened. What was I thinking again. From other’s expression I seemed to have gotten lost. It was the same feeling when I was coming out from my room upstairs. I suppose I am just too tired today. Then again, I don’t think I have solved so many mathematics questions in homework ever. It felt like thousands.

He didn’t speak anything after that during dinner. After finishing the meal, he got up, bowed to everyone and told them he is going to sleep now.

His parents were a bit confused. They had never seen him bow after a meal, usually he just gets up and runs off to playing a console game, or on some days when he was too tired, he goes to sleep without a word. But a bow? His parents thought that their might be something going on in his mind, maybe some new anime he is watching. They didn’t care since it was a nice thing to learn and wasn’t going to cause any harm.

He went to his room and he felt that the same feeling was coming at him again. Without wasting a second, he rushed off towards his bed and lay by his stomach, his face hard against the pillow. He heard a voice, “Hi.”

He looked around if his dad had come to his room. There was no one. Where is the voice coming from. What the hell.

The voice repeated “I am here. Down here.” He looked down on his pillow, this time it was more like a whisper. He was startled.

The room light was on, and it was casting his shadow on the bed. The shadow was moving and speaking. It repeated, “Hi.”

He jumped from his bed and ran out of his room. But the shadow had disappeared as soon as he had jumped out. The shadow followed him near his feet.

-Siddarth

The Giants beneath

#Story #mystery #giants #house #friend #love #drama

Ravi hadn’t told her yet. He had invited Fiona to his apartment on her day off but hadn’t been able to speak a single word about it.

Looking at her he couldn’t help but think How much time has it been? Three years right? Three years since we have known each other. Should I ask her now? Is it the right time? But she doesn’t know about the gia…. Oh, I can tell her after we are married, it might scare her but it won’t be that scary. It’s not that important. Maybe telling her out of the blue will scare her and make her leave. I will try to tell her. Let me just get the ring for now.

Ravi went out of the room telling Fiona that he will get some snacks and something to drink. Fiona replied with a ‘hmm’ still going through the science magazine in Ravi’s collections.

After Ravi was out, She waited for a few seconds and then stood up. She scanned the room and thought This is my n-th time in this room, Yet it still feels new to me every time. It feels like something is there that I can’t see and that makes me all the more curious about it. But what is it exactly!? I can’t tell it. Let me search this. Again. I have just been able to search it twice before because Ravi rarely leaves his room with someone in it. Thankfully the housemaid didn’t come again today. Let’s just start searching now.

She went towards the drawers, I wonder if anything has changed anything here. What could it be? But a secret won’t be hidden in that obvious a spot. And she didn’t find anything different.

Fiona scratched her head, Something else, something that happens in movies maybe.

She kept looking around the room, right and left, up and down, On second thought this carpet…, I think Ravi has it all time long, whether it is summer or winter. People usually move the carpet off during summers but he doesn’t. Why is that? Can there be something beneath this?

She goes to the edge of the carpet to lift it up. Sliding her hands under the rug, she pulls it up and throws it across her, revealing more than half of the floor that was covered earlier.

Looking at it she thinks, Just the floor. Of course what was I thinking. Is it going to lead to an underground cellar. Ha. Sure. But still, the floor seems too clean. Hasn’t the carpet not been removed since a long time? Maybe Ravi or the maid cleans the floor beneath the carpet too.

Not caring about it she walks across the floor to get the carpet back in place, But all marble and shiny. It looks so beautiful and yet he covers it with the carpet all the time. That is stupid. I will ask him to change this.

Creak! pschschsh!

What was that sound? Did it come from the floor? how can any sound come from a marble floor? Moreover, I am just wearing socks. Let me try this again, maybe I just imagined something.

Creak! pschschshshch!

What the hell is this? This time it felt like it was going to break. She bends down to get a touch of the floor. It is just marble. I knew it.

She moves her hand around to check again, Wait a minute. This part doesn’t feel like marble. What is this. Paper? Cardboard? But it’s marble everywhere else.

She moves her hand along the surface to check if she can find the edge, Ah! I knew it. Pulling the surface from the edges, she finds a half-foot by half-foot piece of cardboard in her hand, It is painted in the same color as marble, and given such reflection & effects that anyone will mistake it as marble on just seeing it. But why go through such trouble? Why not just replace the marble? Given his condition, it doesn’t seem that he can’t afford a marble tile.

Fiona was looking at the cardboard when her eyes fell on the partition on the floor, Aren’t the edges too straight to be called broken. This seems more like an intentional hole having been made by someone. Does Ravi know about this? Of course he does. It’s his room after all. He has been here since the day I first met him, probably even before. But why? Is he hiding something inside this?

She tries to look inside but wasn’t able to see anything even in the bright light of the room. She switched on the flash on her phone and pointed it inside the hole, Still nothing, How deep is this hole really? I can’t seem to find the base. He can’t hide anything in such a deep hole, there won’t be any way to pull the object out.

As she was pulling out her hand, something in the hole pinched her and her phone fell inside, Ouch! What was that? An insect living in the hole? What the hell? Where is my phone? I can’t loose it. My dad just bought that for me on my birthday. I can’t risk losing such a present.

She peeked inside the hole to see if she could still see the flash from her phone, Where the hell did it go? I can’t even see the flash. Fine. I can’t wait for this. I need to take it out.

She inserted her hand once again, and continue to go deeper. She was arms-length down and still hadn’t reached the bottom. As soon as she reached shoulder-length, her shoulders almost touching the floor now, she felt weird and collapsed.

When Fiona opened her eyes, she was lying against a wall. Another woman was crouched beside her with what-appeared-to-be a glass of water. The woman introduced herself, “So you are finally back. Hi, I am Diane.”

Fiona was startled, What is going on? Where am I? Who is this woman? Wasn’t I at Ravi’s? She doesn’t seem to be Ravi’s maid. Who is she? What is she doing at Ravi’s place. Wait a minute.

She looked around and was shocked. The interior of the room was grand and not the same as Ravi’s room. The walls rose high, like in a castle. There was just one window on the wall to her right, Where am I? What is this place? Thousands of questions popped in her head, and her heart started breathing fast.

Diane said, “Please calm down. You don’t need to exert yourself. I suppose that you came here by mistake. You don’t seem to understand this place, nor does it seem that you knew about this earlier.”

Fiona didn’t say anything. She was still scanning the room, looking at the high ceiling, the one big chandelier in the middle of the room. There was just one desk and chair across from her with a Laptop and printer placed neatly on the desk. The chair was rotated to the side, as if someone had suddenly got up from there, So I assume that this woman works here.

There had been a rhythmic sound in her ears since she had regained conscious, and now the sound had increased considerably, as if something big was coming towards her.

Fiona turned towards her left, and was shocked. It wasn’t that that thing wasn’t there before, but she had been too startled and shocked to look closely.

She had been trying to stand up all this time, but now all that courage, all that strength had suddenly turned to dust. She just kept her mouth open and pointed the index finger on the figure approaching from behind Diane.

“Wh-What is th-that?”, She asked Diane, still shaking due to fear, “What the hell is that?”

Please Share if you like this! It means a lot 🙂

1Q84, worth a read?!

1Q84 is one of the best books I have read. The story has a good amount of romance, mystery, murder, family, history and tragedy. The author Haruki Murakami divided the story in three books in which the first two parts were published on May 29, 2009 and the third part on April 16, 2010.

The story takes place in 1984 in Tokyo with each book having a in-story time period of three months each, starting from April to December. The story has two main characters: Aomame, a 30 year old female, and Tengo Kawana, a male opposite Aomame. Through the entire three books, Murakami switches the story from the viewpoint of Aomame and Tengo (and sometimes Ushikawa, a private detective). The book starts with Aomame cataching a taxi, after which certain events make her go to a parallel world. She realizes this when she sees two moons in the sky, a white round moon and a smaller green lopsided moon besides it. At some point of time Tengo also switches track to this parallel world.

The story is about these two people realizing their love for each other from years ago, and trying to find each other in this strange and eventful world. They face several obstacles, many of which are life-threatening, but still manage to reach out to each other in the end.

I liked the flow of the story, though in my opinion the writing in the first book was the best. The story seems to flow slowly in the second book but regains the sped in the third book. However, the character description in the first two books is much better than that in the third book. The author described everything about the two main characters till the end, and in the end you would have the question, “What happend to them after this?”. It made you want to read more about them. However, I was disappointed how the author completely disregarded the supporting characters (except Ushikawa) at the end of the book. You would have the question about what happened to Fuka-Eri, or Tamaru, Nurses at the hospital, Komatsu and Professor Ebisuno. But besides this, I think the story is worth a read and I will surely recommend it to others.

For now, I will be reading The Art of War (Sun Tzu) but I will be back to other books by Murakami after that.