The Enigma of Chitterpari

Chapter 18 - "A Nightmare"

Ali found himself standing in a narrow alleyway, the air around him thick and suffocating. The walls towered on either side like looming sentinels of decay, narrowing in on him, almost as if they were alive constricting, pressing down with a claustrophobic weight that made it hard to breathe. His chest tightened, his lungs desperate for air, but the rancid stench in the atmosphere forced itself inside him, heavy and repulsive, as if the alley itself was trying to invade his very being.
He could have sworn that just moments ago, he had been standing outside Abdullah's house, feeling the cool evening breeze on his skin. But now... this? Ali blinked, trying to shake the confusion from his mind, but all that greeted him was darkness endless, suffocating darkness. The shadows along the cracked, crumbling walls slithered and writhed, like serpents made of night. They moved with purpose, deliberate and sinister, as though they were watching him. Waiting. Ali's skin crawled with the sickening realization that he wasn't alone. A cold sweat slicked his brow, and his heart pounded in his ears, the silence around him amplifying the drumming inside his chest.
"What... where am I?" he muttered, the sound of his own voice alien in the oppressive void. He spun around, desperate to find something familiar, but the alley seemed to stretch on into nothingness, as if the world beyond had vanished, swallowed by this suffocating, rotting purgatory.
Then, through the dense silence, a faint sound reached his ears. Something was moving. Slowly. Methodically. Dragging across the ground with a deliberate, eerie rhythm.

Shhh... shhh... thump. Shhh... shhh... thump.

It was coming closer.

Panic tightened its grip on his chest. His eyes darted wildly through the alley, searching, pleading for an escape that wasn't there. And then, like a whisper carried on the foul breeze, a voice broke through the darkness.
"Why did you leave me?"
The question was soft, barely more than a murmur, but it struck him like a physical blow. His breath hitched in his throat as his blood ran cold. The voice—its sorrowful tone, its unbearable sadness—wrapped around him like a cold, spectral hand, squeezing his heart with icy fingers. He whipped around, his eyes wide, scanning the alley for the source, but there was nothing. Only shadows. And yet, the voice lingered, hanging in the air like a curse.
"You... left me..." the voice repeated, slightly louder now, filled with a childlike innocence that made Ali's stomach churn. But there was something beneath the innocence, something twisted, something dark and wrong.
"I—I didn't..." Ali's voice came out in a shaky whisper, but the words died on his lips. His pulse quickened as memories began to stir, crawling up from the recesses of his mind like vile things he had tried to bury.
Then it came again, this time clearer, more demanding. "I didn't do anything wrong... I was just hungry. Why didn't you help me?"
Ali's breath caught in his throat. A cold shiver raced down his spine as the realization hit him with the force of a sledgehammer.
"No..." Ali shook his head, stepping backward as if the act itself could somehow erase the truth. But the voice persisted, growing louder, more insistent.
"I wanted an apple. Just one apple... You didn't help me."
A sickening wave of dread swept over him, bile rising in his throat as the memory clawed its way to the surface, vivid and horrifying. The boy's hollow gaze, the blood pooling beneath his frail frame, the sound of bones snapping beneath cruel fists. Ali had done nothing.
His legs trembled, but they wouldn't move. He was trapped, frozen in place by terror, his body betraying him. A desperate plea formed on his lips, but before he could utter a word, the shadows seemed to shift. Slowly, unnaturally, a figure began to emerge from the suffocating blackness.
The boy.
But he was not the boy Ali remembered. What stood before him was something far worse.
The child's face was a grotesque, twisted mask of horror. His skin, pale and stretched thin over sharp, protruding bones, seemed almost translucent. And his eyes—dear God, his eyes—were gone, replaced by gaping black voids that swallowed what little light remained in the alley. From those empty sockets, a thick, oily black liquid oozed down his gaunt cheeks, trailing decay and rot in its wake. The stench of death clung to him, overwhelming, rancid.
Ali gagged, his entire body trembling uncontrollably. He wanted to run, to escape, but his legs were glued to the ground as if the alley itself had claimed him.
The boy's mouth twisted into a macabre grin, lips stretched unnaturally wide, cracked and torn, revealing jagged, bone-like fangs. The sound of bones snapping filled the air as the boy took a step forward, his limbs bending in ways they shouldn't, like a marionette controlled by some unseen, malicious force.
"I wanted an apple," the boy's voice slithered out from his grotesque mouth, now dripping with venom, his once innocent plea turning into a monstrous demand. "Or... maybe I want you."
A grotesque gurgling laugh escaped the boy's lips as his body convulsed, his spine bending and cracking audibly. His fingers elongated into sharp, twisted claws, dripping with the same black ooze. His head jerked to the side, the hollow voids where his eyes should have been locking onto Ali's own wide, terrified gaze.
Ali's heart pounded in his chest, each beat a scream, but no words came. His body was paralyzed, his soul suffocating under the weight of terror that gnawed at his mind. He could only stare as the creature—once a boy, now something far darker—took another step closer.
"I want you... now."
The words slithered through the air, heavy with ancient malice. The boy's grin widened even further, splitting the skin at the corners of his mouth until the black ooze spilled freely. His twisted form loomed closer, towering over Ali.
For a heartbeat, the world froze. The silence between them was unbearable, as if the very air around Ali had thickened, choking him. The boy stood there, eyes hollow, face twisted into something unspeakable. Then, without warning, the silence shattered, replaced by a voice that slithered into Ali's ears, slow and venomous.
"I just want a bite."
The words dripped with malice, each syllable crawling over his skin like ice. It wasn't a plea—it was a threat, a grotesque parody of innocence turned into something primal, something dark. The boy's teeth gleamed, jagged and inches from Ali's flesh, the nightmare closing in around him.
Suddenly, Ali jerked upright with a sharp gasp, his chest heaving as he struggled to breathe. His heart raced, thudding violently against his ribs, and every muscle in his body was tense, as if still locked in the nightmare's grip. Sweat soaked his skin, clinging to him like the shadows that had haunted him moments before. His eyes darted around, wild and searching, struggling to separate the lingering dream from reality.