Phobia

26. A Tale of Two Cities

I moved into my cousin's apartment in Mumbai on the 25th of May. Holidays were going on, and I planned to stay for three months. We unpacked my things together and as a way to pass some time, we started looking out of her window and peering at the immense skyline. My cousin's window directly faced the windows of a bedroom in the apartment in front of us. No net or glass was covering it, the window was quite bare. It only had a curtain which closed it halfway.

One day, as we were peering out of the window yet again, a curious sight greeted us. A woman was in the room with the window, and she was undressing herself without bothering to close the curtains. For a few seconds, we were both too startled to do anything, but then my cousin came to her senses and called out to the woman. "Excuse me, can you please draw the curtains?"

The woman looked back, and once she saw us, her cheeks went bright red as she mumbled a feeble reply and closed the curtains. 

We found the incident highly amusing. As my cousin was still in high school, she was living with her mother, to whom we narrated the tale in the evening. She was baffled. "But that apartment has been vacant since November...."

I looked at my cousin with horror as a chill went down my spine. We bolted immediately and looked out the bedroom window. The curtain was fully drawn. 

We never saw anything in that room after that. No one else saw her when the upper floor could have easily sighted her too. No one saw her, except us.

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We were playing hide and seek in the dark. I admit that it might not have been the best idea at night involving a bunch of teens with overactive imaginations, but cut us some slack. We were bored, and no one was young enough to be scared of the dark. Or should I say, no one was smart enough to stay away from the dark.

The floor above my friend Sia's house had been recently vacated. She lived in an individual house and the floor above had been given up for rent. The renters had recently vacated the property and the spacious floor had become our group's unofficial hangout. That night, we were bored. Someone suggested hide and seek in the dark, and we all approved of it with enthusiasm. Switching off the lights, we all went and hid in the dark corners of the room. I was just settling in when I heard Sia scream, but I chose to stay where I was, assuming a bug must have scared her. However, in a few seconds, I emerged from my spot and went to where some of my friends were huddled around her. She was visibly unnerved as she spoke. " I- I was going to hide in the washroom with Sara but then we both saw a f- face." I looked at Sara, as she could never pull off a prank without breaking under the pressure and giving it away, but her face looked spooked. Switching the lights back on, we all edged towards the washroom.

Overactive imaginations were at work again.

There was a polythene bag in the bathroom.... not a face. My friend started laughing and we all joined in, relief evident on our faces. Laughing, we all peeked in one last time for confirmation, and the laughter immediately cut off as we all stared, wide-eyed.

The polythene bag was gone. There was no way it could have flown away; there was no window or balcony. It couldn't have been a prank either, because we all were huddled together.

So who was it? Or rather, what was it?

(Note: Both the stories are based on true events and two different people were involved in each individual tale.)