The Game of Horror!

Dreamgirl

Piu leaned forward, an almost sly smile on her face. “Alright, you guys want a real story? This one’s not just a story—it’s about my cousin Shyam. It’s... well, let’s just say it’s bizarre.”

Reena looked at her with concerned eyes. She in return just nodded at her with assurance.

We all leaned in. Piu rarely spoke about her family. This had to be good.

“So, Shyam—he’s always been a bit of an oddball. Not in a bad way, just... weird. The kind of guy who knows more about latitudes-longitudes and river systems than he does about basic human interaction. He’s the quiet, brooding type—like the hot professor in a rom-com that nobody talks to because he’s so mysterious. Except he’s actually that weird in real life. The guy's got an entire student fan club at St. Xavier's College where he teaches geography. The girls are obsessed with him. But the thing is—he's never been interested in anyone.”

She paused for a bit, then added dryly, “Well, anyone real, anyway.”

That piqued our curiosity. Wasim leaned back. “Wait, are we talking about, like, a catfishing situation or...?”

“No, no. Worse,” Piu replied, deadpan. “Shyam fell in love with a dream. Yep. I know it sounds like one of those Quora posts about ‘dating an ethereal being from another dimension,’ but this was different. This dream changed his entire life.”

She leaned back and took a breath, her tone shifting slightly.

“This was back in January 2010. Shyam was in a rough place—he’d been looking for a job for a year, with zero luck. You know that phase in your twenties where you feel like the world is one giant rejection letter? Yeah, that. Every day he’d wake up, tell himself, ‘Today’s the day I’m going to land that perfect job’, and by nightfall, he was drowning in disappointment. He was exhausted, physically and mentally. So, one night, after a long day of job hunting, he just crashes. Like, face-plant, fully clothed on the bed kind of crashing.

Anyway, he’s dead asleep when, out of nowhere, he wakes up. But not to an alarm or anything—no, it’s because he smells something. Something sweet. Like, really sweet. Like... feminine-sweet. And when he opens his eyes, there she is. Standing next to his bed.”

“Wait,” Sayan interjected, eyes widening. “There was an actual girl in his room?”

Piu smirked. “ Dunno, but to Shyam, she was real. She was... well, perfect. In that weird, out-of-this-world kind of way. She had this face that was too pretty to be real—you know, flawless skin, sparkling eyes, the whole deal. Her figure? Let’s just say that Shyam described her body like it was sculpted by the gods. Think curves that could make a geography obsessed person forget the spellings of the seven seas.”

We all chuckled, but Piu's tone became a little more serious. “She had this vibe—like what I got from him, she wasn’t just some random girl. She was there for him. She leaned in and kissed him. And yeah, he says it was that kind of kiss. The kind that sticks with you for days.”

She paused, letting it sink in. “Shyam woke up in a panic, searching for her around his room. But of course, there was no one there.”

Reena interrupted, raising an eyebrow. “So he really thought this... dream girl was real?”

““Oh, 100%,” Piu replied, dead serious but with a deadpan edge that made you question whether she was messing with you or not. “He was dead convinced. From that night on, he couldn’t stop thinking about her. He believed she was watching over him. He even tried to sketch her, but we never got to see the whole picture. I often found him piling up crumpled sheets, pencil shavings, and scraps. His life was becoming increasingly shut off. At one point, he even hired professionals at his own expense, but was extremely dissatisfied and frustrated with their work. At his worst, he would be found talking to her as if she were actually in the room. My aunt was worried. We all were. The guy was losing touch with everything.”

“Damn,” Wasim said, rubbing his chin. “What did your family do?”

“Well, first, we tried reasoning with him, which—shockingly—didn’t work. Then things got worse. He wouldn’t sleep without talking to her first, and we found him on multiple occasions just... having conversations with thin air. At one point, I caught him reciting poetry to her, like some lovesick Romeo.” Piu shook her head. “He’s my cousin, and I love the guy, but I couldn’t help thinking, Bro, this is the stuff of Reddit horror stories, not Shakespeare.

Eventually, we had to get him help. Dad took him to a therapist, who tried to tell him this dream girl was just a manifestation of his loneliness and stress. And for a while, Shyam played along. He got better—sort of. Spent two years and eight months in therapy, came out, got a decent job at the college, and now teaches bored teenagers about glaciers and mountain ranges to the hook.”

She paused again, this time her eyes narrowing. “But here’s where it gets weird. Like, weirder than it already was. Last year, I visited him at his apartment, and... well, I smelled it.”

We all looked at her in confusion. “Smelled what?” I asked.

“That same sweet, feminine scent he talked about. It wasn’t overpowering, but it was there, like perfume that had just been spritzed in the air.”

“No way,” Sayan said, clearly sceptical.“I’m serious,” Piu replied, her voice deadpan, but her expression serious. “I asked Shyam about it. You know what he said? He looked at me with this smirk—like he knew something I didn’t—and said, ‘There are things in this world we don’t understand. Things we can’t explain. But that doesn’t mean they aren’t real.’

Then—as if this wasn't enough—he started humming this old song. You know the one , Wasim...

Kisi shayar ki ghazal, dreamgirl…
Kisi jheel ka kanval, dreamgirl…
Kahin toh milegi, kabhi toh milegi
Aaj nehin toh kal.....Dreamgirl.

And then, just like that, he went back to grading papers, as if he hadn’t just dropped a paranormal bomb on me. I suddenly ‘remembered something’ I needed to take care of at home, so I stood up abruptly, almost knocking over the chair in my haste and headed out in a rush.”

The room fell silent as we absorbed Piu’s story. We all knew she wasn’t one to spin a fiction and call it a real incident, especially when it involved her own family. Even Reena didn't protest its authenticity. Wasim leaned back, visibly unsettled, while Sayan struggled to process it.

Piu, holding my hands to comfort me as I was visibly scared, said, “See, ghosts are real!” Sayan shot me a warning glance, making me feel intimidated. I decided to stay silent and not say anything more.

“Wow,” Wasim finally said, breaking the silence. “That’s... messed up. So, you think the Dream Girl is still... hanging around?”

Piu shrugged, not letting go of my hands. “I don’t know, man. I’m not really into ghost stories, but Shyam? He’s convinced she’s real. Whether she’s just in his head or if there’s more to it, I can’t say. But sometimes, things are real. Maybe it’s all in his mind, or maybe... there’s something more.”

“Like a real Dream Girl,” Sayan quipped with a smirk.

Piu shot him a sideways glance. “Yeah, right. Spare your brain the drama. I don’t know if it is real or if Shyam’s imagination just got out of hand. But Wasim’ve read about these kinds of incidents, haven’t you?”

The room was thick with an uneasy silence as we all wondered—what if Shyam’s Dream Girl was real after all?

Sayan broke the tension with a whisper, “If only... you were in my arms in real life, O’ my Aishwarya!”

I mocked him, “Oh you wish!”

Everyone burst into laughter. Then we turned to Reena, our anticipation palpable.

“What?” she blurted out, her confusion evident.

Sayan, with his sarcasm, smirked, “ Oh, don’t you worry, Reena. We’re TOTALLY not expecting you to follow that with a ghost story or anything. Unless, of course, you’ve got a tale written on those of your self-declared haunted homework or cursed textbooks!”

Reena rolled her eyes but couldn’t help her smile as she prepared to share her story..