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Chapter 1 – The Village
“We’ll reach by evening,” Navya said excitedly as the auto moved along the empty road.
The sky was orange, slowly turning dark. Trees surrounded both sides of the road, and the village ahead looked unusually silent.
There were six of us.
We laughed, took pictures, and joked the entire way. Nobody knew this trip would become the worst night of our lives.
As soon as we entered the village, my friend called me from behind.
“Wait! Pick me up,” she shouted.
I walked back toward her, and together we caught up with the others.
By then, it was almost 6:00 PM.
The entire village suddenly felt darker than it should have.
That was when we saw the pink house.
It stood alone near the edge of the village, its faded walls glowing strangely in the evening light.
“Why does it look so creepy?” one of my friends whispered.
Nobody answered.
Near the road, two unknown men sat quietly under a tree. They stared at us without blinking.
Navya awkwardly smiled and handed her lunch box to them.
“Maybe they’re hungry,” she said.
The men accepted it slowly.
But neither of them thanked her.
Their eyes remained fixed on us.
A cold feeling crawled down my spine.
We quickly walked toward the pink house.
The front door was already open.
Inside, the house was completely empty.
No furniture.
No lights.
No people.
Only one thing rested in the center of the floor.
A dark bag.
I moved closer carefully.
The bag looked old, but strange silver zips covered every side of it. One zip was hidden inside another zip… and another inside that.
“What kind of bag is this?” my friend asked nervously.
Nobody touched it.
But suddenly, one of my friends slowly stepped forward.
Then another followed.
Before we could stop them, they disappeared into the darkness near the bag.
Just like that.
Gone.
We screamed their names and searched every corner of the house, but they were nowhere.
Panic spread through us.
As we ran outside, we saw another man standing near the road.
“Please help us!” we begged.
We sent him toward another house to search for our missing friends.
A few moments later, the same two men from before appeared behind us.
“We will also help you,” one of them said softly.
Something about their smiles felt wrong.
Very wrong.
Fear took over us.
We quietly moved away from the pink house and hid inside a thick bush nearby.
Nobody spoke.
The village was completely silent.
Then suddenly—
My phone rang loudly in the darkness.
At the same moment, footsteps began moving toward our hiding place.12Please respect copyright.PENANAmwwYBTvXef


