Theandric Thursday : It's Scary

                'a cross between fiction and reality, related to personal life and its happenings'

In response to this prompt, rather a meme by Ashna Banga, this post gives an account of a horrific event of my life. Trust me, its really horrifying.

© Ashna Banga

I am nine and look slender and gawky. A lot different from my elder avatar. I am in my older home, the one I call my real home. The date is May 31st and the weather is hot, like stay-in-the-bathtub kind of hot. To top it, our colony like most other parts of our city, is getting its share of one of the power cuts which come so hand-in-hand with summer every year.

There's been two hours since the power went off at 8pm and we are at the dinner table eating ..err.. dinner,  in the candle light. The inverter doesn't pump much power up and gets juiced within half an hour these days. Talks of getting it fixed are on, among other household chatter. I am obviously not paying any attention and look busy deciding what to do with the spinach mom put in my plate. The windows and door of the main sitting-cum-drawing room are left wide open and cool breeze from the peepal tree in the opposite house's yard is coming in through. The candles idly stand at a strategically chosen location after being moved thrice.

Once I am finished forcing the spinach down my throat with the help of at least three glasses of water, I move towards the bed by the windows and jump on it like an Olympic swimmer diving in a pool, rolling in the air. With a carefree motion I spread all fours on the bed promptly signifying that it has been claimed. Okay, even if not the full bed, then at least the better, airy part of it. Rest of the family retires into sofa and on my claimed bed after dinner and get busy with themselves. Mom working with the hand pankha, dad reciting some verses from the Quran as he often does in serene moments like these, brother busy with some kind of cards. Me, just looking out the window at the ruffling branches of the tree. Soon, I go to sleep.

I wake up, thirsty somewhere in the middle and see the fan moving. There is no one in the hall/room. It seems everybody went to their bedrooms when power came back and when I didn't wake up when they tried to take me, they left me here. I look out, some leaves of the tree are shining in the yellow street light. The street itself sounds deserted, even by the stray dogs. The silence is eerie.

A chill starts to draw suddenly, and I try not to look at the clock while I move towards the fridge. I drink from the bottle, (the glasses are too far) and go to my shared bedroom. My senses have become extreme sharp in the past few minutes and my heart beat has risen. It would all sound too lame if I didn't had an indisputable thought that someone or something is watching me silently from over the television in the corner, standing in the dark. 

We are sleeping on the floor this summer and the mattress is so placed that if I look to my left I see the open door and hall from its right half and the staircase from its left. Though a little far, the stairs are still the most threatening place to look at night. I try to lie on my right side first facing my brother, turning my back towards the threatening stuff. But, I cannot shake off the feeling that the thing which was standing by the television earlier is now standing at the doorway looking right at me. So, I gather courage and turn on my left shoulder facing the stairs, knowing that my brother has my back.

Just as few minutes pass, I hear the iron door at the roof creaking, slowly. Somebody must have left it open today. Why? Why today? As the door stops to creak, the clock announces with three loud tings a 3am. Holy crap, that's why I wasn't looking at the clock. Whatever sleep left in my eyes, is totally gone now. Just as the clock finishes, I hear someone walking on the roof with a clear distinct sound of a payal. My heart skips two beats and I launch into a frantic prayer session as I try to ignore what I just heard. Following the prayers, a reassuring silence ensues. 

Only a few moments pass when I hear that sound again, those payal feet are running now and the voice of it clicks hard in my brain. The door start to creak, again and bad. Suddenly those feet are now at the stairs, going down and climbing up, again and again. But, I don't see any shape or anybody, just the sound. I try to open my mouth to ask who is it so that maybe it would go away but no voice comes out. I try very hard ... to no use, my throat is choked dry. I decide to do something, to go and close the roof door at least. But I can't move my hand, I can't even lift my head up. 

After trying very hard and long, my hand suddenly jerks off the mat, I realize that I am not glued to bed anymore. Gathering up whatever courage I could, in a moment such as this, I stand up and walk slowly towards the stairs. The sound of payal has stopped but the door still creaks slowly. Climbing, I reach at the bend of stairs, but as weird as it is, the landing at the end of stairs looks peculiarly far, when its just 7 steps. I climb those 7 steps, but I don't reach the top. I am still at that bend and there are still 7 steps left. I climb again, and again and keep climbing, but the remaining steps always stay 7. 

I am soaked in cold sweat now and its 20 minutes at least since I started climbing those stairs. I stop, and after a minute, as I notice there is something different about the landing and the door. They look more real now and for some reason, darker than usual. I climb and this time I reach the top. Just as I am about to touch the door a very bright, blinding white  figure appears in front of me, for maybe a quarter of a second, just enough to see its whitest of white robes, emitting a very bright dazzling light and black hair covering its face totally. I recoil in fright and fall from the stairs.

But the stairs are gone and I am falling in nothingness, I don't know where I am, it is pitch dark with just a tiny white dot, the size of a needle tip, in the middle. The dot is slowly getting bigger and I realize that I am going to be hit real bad. There is nothing to hold on to and my heart beat is growing faster and faster and  as the dot gets bigger, I see my house floor at the end of it. In a split second, when I am just a few feet from ground and going to be splattered all over the floor, I wake up. It is morning!

P.S: I am sure my sleep won't come easy today. :P