The night was falling, spreading the red colour through the sky. There was a wide emptiness over the road and sidewalk, and yet there were a few unconsidered figures moving silently through the mist. This was the hour of the defeated. Men & Women who have had fought and lost, with their shabby clothes, bowed shoulders and unhappy eyes pass unnoticed. Even the birds sang merrily and were flying home. But I had nowhere to go. Lost in the world, alone I sat there on the banks of the river, figuring out what to do with my life. There was nothing I wanted to do but wait for a miracle to happen with me.
“What’s the matter buddy? You seem a little disturbed!” asked the guy sitting next to me.
I was in no mood to talk. Filled with frustration and anger, I shouted out “My whole life is a problem. I am a 26 year old music composer and all my life I have been working hard to get a job in the Bollywood industry. But all my works have been rejected. Now when I got a chance, I can’t even come up with a single song. And I just have three more days left for the submission. I have no idea what to do with my career and my life.”
I realised I spoke too loud, actually I was screaming and everyone was staring at me. Embarrassed, I just stood up and walked away from that place, into the woods. As I went in, I heard a soft music coming out behind the bushes in the corner. I went through the bushes and cleared the leaves to see three men sitting on the stones and singing the song. It was so dark that their face couldn’t be seen. It was like three shadows sitting on the stones. The music was so soft that even I started humming with them unaware of the fact that I could be clearly seen standing there.
“The Sun sets in night,
And the stars shun the day.
But glory remains when the lights fade away.
Begin Mortal, thou threats are in vein,
For the song of death shall never complain.”
That’s when I realised they had stopped singing and were staring at me. I quickly hid behind the tree and peeked from there. To my astonishment, there was no one. They vanished in thin air within a fraction of second. I was terrified and ran towards the road. I took a cab and went home.
Next day, I went to my studio and thought of composing that song. It was not a bad idea. The song was kind of old and tribal, I was sure no one would have ever heard of it earlier. After composing the original song, I went home. As I went in I heard the same song coming out of my room and those three shadows again, singing and dancing all around my house. I was terrified and ran to my friend’s house who lived across the street. I spent the night in his house. In the morning I didn’t have the balls to pay a visit to my own house, so I went to my studio. I worked on that song, modified the tunes and added some beats and the song was ready.
Now it was time to go home. I was frightened to go home alone and so I took my friend over a sleepover. As I entered, again I saw them singing and dancing all around my house. I panicked and started screaming for help. But I couldn’t help noticing my friend staring at me confused about what was happening. It was then that I realised only I can hear that music and those shadows were visible only to me. I understood the connection, the song was some kind of portal between the worlds of living and the dead & unfortunately I opened it. I ran into my studio to delete the song. I could see those three shadows standing in front of the gate of my studio, nodding their heads saying not to delete the song. I stormed inside and switched on my desktop. The shadows started running across the room violently destroying everything in my studio. And then something unfortunate happened. As I deleted the song, the whole studio caught fire and I was trapped in it.
When I woke up, I saw those three shadows sitting beside me. I couldn’t see or feel my skin. It was all black like a shadow. And then I realised the bitter truth. I was trapped between the worlds of living and dead. I was being haunted and now it was time to haunt others.
Waiting for the next prey to fall in their trap, there were four shadows singing and dancing in the woods, the song of death.
“The Sun sets in night,
And the stars shun the day.
But glory remains when the lights fade away.
Begin Mortal, thou threats are in vein,
For the song of death shall never complain.”
-Shreyansh Saurav & Vidu Ranjan
SHREY ANSH 