2|| Whispers in the Wind

2|| one month ago

Kalyani

"YES!" Kalyani heard her mom yell. She sat up, straightening out her increasingly gamerlike posture. Math homework was getting harder day by day, which was depressing considering she'd never gotten a grade below an A in her life. Her legs were falling asleep, but she figured she had to go check what was going on.

Thankfully, the door to her parents' study was just across from her room, so Kalyani took a short hike over. "Mom? Dad? What's happening?"

Devika Chopra opened the door. Although her hair was messy and she had bags under her eyes, her warm brown irises shone with excitement. "Go get your sister, I'll allow her in here today. Not that we need this place anymore..."

Not sure what she was getting at, Kalyani headed to Aria's room. While Kalyani kept everything neat and tidy in perfect angles and shapes, Aria's room was wild. Her dream was to become an interior decorator or a fashion designer, so she was constantly trying something new. Kalyani had to admit her style made her room look beautiful, but often she'd get lazy and leave supplies everywhere.

Once inside, she was hit with a waft of designer perfume. Just as usual, Aria lay sprawled on the fluffy bed with her phone, disregarding the empty plate lying near her or the belongings scattered across the floor. "Aria, mom and dad want to see you in their office," Kalyani said.

She looked up from her phone. "Oh, hey K. Can't it wait, I'm doing something important!"

Kalyani snorted. "Your delusional fanfiction hardly counts as important."

"It's not just fanfiction! I'm starting a story based on our lives. Isn't that cool? You can help if you want to."

Just to keep her sister happy, Kalyani reluctantly agreed to do so later. "Now c'mon."

By the time they got to the study, their mom was pacing the floor impatiently. She beamed and practically pushed the girls into the room. Kalyani spotted a framed photo of their grandma and smiled to herself. Her mom really was quite soft on the inside. She and Aria were too young to remember her, but they'd heard stories.

Devika fidgeted uncharacteristically. "So, sorry for not telling you girls yet, but your father and I have gotten an opportunity for a bigger house. Our agent emailed us today saying we had the highest bid and we could move in! Well, we were the only bidders, but still."

Kalyani knitted her brows. The aspect of a new home appealed to her, and she turned to gauge her sister's reaction.

Aria looked interested as well. "That's great! It's in town, right?"

Mom looked slightly more nervous. "Well... no."

This statement was met with two vastly different reactions. Kalyani excitedly started questioning her about the place, its name, the residents who lived there, and what it was like, while Aria's smile faded completely.

"Well, the place is called Fir Hills, and it's tiny compared to our town. It's still in the state, at least."

Kalyani's grin faded as well. "Wait, but I've never heard of it. We've lived here for ten years, and I know all the cities in Pennsylvania by heart."

Her dad, who was silent until now, shrugged and responded, "Well, you learn something new every day!"

This disturbed her far more then she'd like to admit. It was inevitable that she'd have gaps in her knowledge from time to time, so why did this bother her so much?

Aria had been a ticking bomb. "But you can't! My whole life is here! I can't just throw everything away and move to some random place in the deep dark woods! Why didn't you tell us about it before? This is ridiculous," she shouted, and Kalyani tried not to flinch.

Raising your voice was not tolerated at all in the Chopra household. Compared to some of Kalyani's friends, who always argued with their parents, the twins had it way hard.

"Enough! Try to be happy for the family, Aria, this isn't just about you. Not one more word. I need you both to be packed in three weeks, and that's that." Mom folded her arms, the sign of her final stand.

--------------------

Back in her room, Kalyani opened up a new tab on her laptop. She typed in: Fir Hills, PA. There was Fair Hills, and Hill Farm, but no Fir Hills. She tried a couple more keywords, but nothing was working. Frustrated, she slammed the device shut.

The textbooks she had from school wouldn't help much either. They only talked about the history of Pennsylvania and highlighted major cities on the maps.

There was one final option, however. Kalyani knew it was shattering one of the family rules into pieces, but she had to try. So, grabbed her laptop and opened up Tor. Last time, her dad had gotten a notification saying she'd accessed malware and she had to make some lame excuse, claiming it was just a popup. Visiting the dark web again would probably lead to a severe guilt-stomachache, but Kalyani probably deserved it.

She wasn't planning on sleeping anytime soon, so she pushed making a packing list to the back of her mind. On Tor, she searched for: Fir Hills, PA, and hoped for the best.

The first result itself had a chain discussing it. The contents chilled Kalyani to the core.

People lived in this town, but many users were saying that terrible things happened there. Sooner or later, people died. Not to be dramatic, but they labeled it as a place nobody could come back from alive. What was worse, a user had described strange occurrences back in 2018. One day, they just stopped chatting, and it was right after they'd confessed what they'd seen.

A couple more websites popped up at the bottom, including one for ghost hunting services. She bit back a laugh- probably some kids messing around.

Still, she regretted opening this up at bedtime. Now she was terrified- as a teenager, she would get no sympathy from her parents if she had a nightmare.

To take her mind off of things, Kalyani laid down and tried to access discord web, but google chrome refused to open. She kept on clicking, it kept on buzzing. Thirteen clicks later, it gave a loud buzz.

A hideous, cartoonish, bleeding face popped up and started screaming in a garbled voice, "You shouldn't go..."

Kalyani screamed and shot up in her bed. She checked the alarm clock. It read 12:00 AM. Her laptop lay on her desk. So the face hadn't been real. It had been a bad dream, that was all.

With infinite caution, she checked Tor. All her browsing history was gone. So it had been fake! She was alright.

Aria would snap out of her funk, she was sure. It would be fun to move to Fir Hills. And if there really were Fir trees, they would look gorgeous in the winter. Kalyani tried to calm her breathing, sitting up straight until her heartbeat slowed. Their current house was creepy anyway- Mom and Dad were right to make them move.

Besides, after a lifetime in the same home, anyone would want a change.

And with that, Kalyani forced herself to never think of that moment again. Convinced herself that it had all been her imagination.

But as they loaded the boxes into the U-Haul three weeks later, somewhere deep down, she knew what she had convinced herself had been a lie.