QUEST IN THE DARK -THE URBAN LEGENDS

The Walking Dead

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It was back in 1950s when India was just out from the clutches of British East India Company and gone was the richest, prosperous powerful land and remained was just a country which lost all it's wealths, riches and possessions to discrete rulers.

It was mid December, winter was on full frosting mode. The burning cold was spine chilling, Especially the grey winter nights cold.

Raghav who was living in Chennai, was still working late night in office to finish the left over piles of files as he wasn't planning to get fired anytime soon. It was almost 12:30 am at night when he was done with his work. He closed his cabin door and made his way towards the exit, the narrow passage of the office was looking more scary in the dim light of the tungsten bulb hanging from the seiling roof, the whole office was as silent as the grave.

Raghav climbed down the stairs and made his way out of the building as he bid his goodbyes to Ramu Kaka the old guard of his office building.

It was pitch dark outside, clearly indicating the godly hours of midnight. Chilling cold breez outside was making Raghav shiver badly. Raghav took a Kashmiri Shawl which was folded inside his bag and wrapped himself with it to shield from the burning cold.

There were barely any vehicles moving on the road and the pin drop silence surrounding the area was deadly. As he was making his way towards the bus stand, he saw the last bus for the night had already arrived, before he can cross the road to board the bus, the bus left. He tried running behind the bus but no luck, it was long gone. 12:45 pm ST bus was the last bus to go home, just his luck he missed that. His house was almost 4 miles from his office. Instead of sitting in shivering cold and waiting for the next bus till the morning he thought it was better to walk home as the next day was Sunday so reaching late wasn't a constraint.

He walked almost for a half an hour when he felt someon behind him. He turned back and saw a dark silhouette figure few steps behind him near the electric standpost. Face of that person wasn't clearly visible as it was very dark. He could only see some shiny thing in the hand of that person in the gloomy street light.

The figure started moving towards him slowly. He felt rooted on the ground. He was so scared to even move an inch. Sweat beads started forming on his skin even in the
chilling cold. As the figure came nearer the face was more visible in the dim moon light. It was a middle aged woman holding a big plastic bag in her hand. Raghav felt relieved after seeing a faint smile on the intruder.

She smiled lightly at Raghav and asked what was he doing at the late night on the middle of the street. Raghav was startled by her sudden question. She was speaking to him like she knew him and the sense of familiarity he felt when he saw her was kind of confusing, he couldn't put his finger on where he had seen her before.

He thought his brain was thinking too much as he was too tired to deal with anything in the middle of the night. He let out a small sigh and told her about his late night shift at office and they both started walking ahead. He started wondering that what an alone woman was doing in the middle of the night in such a deserted road, he kept his thoughts to himself.

" I went to the the main centre of the city to sell vegetables. There was too rush to buy vegetables today so I got late and missed the bus and then started walking" she replied as if she read his mind.

To say he was shocked was an understatement. He started feeling uneasy suddenly but still he kept walking. Finally they reached a cross where they met with two roads. The road on the right led to Raghav's home. Suddenly the woman stopped walking. Raghav turned to her and asked "What's wrong ?!"

"Actually, I live nearby. My home is on the other road. I guess we need to part our ways from here,so see you" she bid her good byes and turned towards the left road and went.

Raghav took a right and started walking towards his house Suddenly he heard a very strange laugh, which was very scary. Without wasting anytime and thinking about the weird noise Raghav literally ran towards his house.

He was almost near the doorstep of his house when he suddenly realised something which made him sweat in a fraction of second. Suddenly he realised that the left road from the cross earlier led to the graveyard and there were no houses on that road anywhere, even no one lived in that area near by. So many questions started clouding in his head "why that woman went by that road? When there are no houses??" Now he knew the answer, his gut feeling was telling him something so strongly but he wasn't ready to accept that. His brain was jumbled in a mess. He started knocking his door loudly but no one opened the door.

After a few minutes of continuous knocking someone opened the door and he was greeted with the worried face of his sister in law. She sighed in relief once she saw Raghav at the doorstep. "Raghav, how irresponsible of you? Can't you atleast call from the office telephone and let us know you will be late today? You know how worried we all were" she continuously started scolding her brother in law who was more like a little brother to her. Raghav was too scared to utter anywords.

Hearing all this fiasco Raghav's elder brother and his mom came into living room. After a round of interrogation, and getting a mouthful from everyone still Raghav kept quite and this made everyone wonder what's wrong with him and why he is behaving so differently. Even after asking so many times Raghav din't tell anyone anything and left from there.

Raghav went upstairs to his room to freshen up. He was still thinking about that weird lady he met a few moments ago and the things he analysed weren't just summing up. He thought he was too tired and he needs rest. He was about to sleep on his bed something caught his eyes. It was the window opposite to his bedpost which was open and was making creepy noise due to the wind outside. He got off the bed and went near his window to close it.

As he was about to close the window, the scene unfolding infront of him caught him off-guard. He was already so scared and he couldn't take this. There was a big Guava tree in their backyard which was clearly visible from his window and he saw the same woman from earlier sitting on that tree with an evil smirk on her face. She slowly stretched her hands forward motioning towards Raghav. Raghav screamed loudly at the top of his lungs. His brother, sister, sister in law, mother all came running to his room when they heard his loud pitch scream but he was already on ground by then, and unconscious.

Next morning, when Raghav woke up it was already late. He saw he was in his mother's room and slowly he started remembering the events from previous night. He came to living room after freshening up and sat near his mother who was reading news paper.

His mother sensed his presence and started continuously throwing questions about last night that why he screamed like that and why he fainted. His brother and sister in law also came to living room to check how Raghav was feeling after the stressful night. Before Raghav can answer anything. He saw something on the newspaper.

There was an obituary column in the news paper and something was posted in that column. He took the newspaper and started looking at the photo in that column gawking. His body started shaking, he was stuttering and was breathing uneavenly. His mother saw at what he was looking and told "Ohh, she was the vegetable monger of this area, but sadly yesterday evening she died in an accident" and this made his breath hitched because the lady in the picture was none other than the lady he met yesterday night and everything was clear to him now. He narrated the whole story to his family members at which all were stunned finding it difficult to believe.

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I hope you all are doing fine. A very happy Christmas in advance, may this festival bring loads of love and happiness to you and your loved ones. Merry Christmas Folks Xx

Stay Tuned, for the second part. Hope you are enjoying my work soo far. Be Curious "what's gonna happen next ?"
Well let's wait and find out.

Take Care and Stay Safe.

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Much Love
~ GK ❤️