Chapter 2: The Past Comes Calling

My heart skipped a beat. Why was everything lately connected to that dried-up well?

All my carefully built walls of success and city life felt flimsy, ready to collapse with one gust from the hills of Kaveripur.

Before I could process it, Kabir continued:

“The hollow where the dried-up well is has been picked by a builder. They want to build a villa there. All of you need to hurry back so we can discuss what to do about Chotu.”

His voice trembled. "Bhai, iss baar toh pakde jayenge. Jaldi aa, please!"

I panicked. If they built a villa, digging up the land would surely expose Chotu’s remains.

Visions of police vans, television reporters, and my mother weeping in shame flashed before my eyes. The sweat on my forehead had nothing to do with Mumbai’s heat.

The secret we buried in the well with him would be revealed.

It wasn’t just about us—it was about our families, our names, our everything. In our country, the past isn’t just a story; it’s a shadow that never lets go.

I hung up and lied to my wife, saying I had a new case and would be gone for half a month.

She fussed over my packing, slipping a Hanuman locket into my shirt pocket. “For protection,” she whispered, as if she knew I was walking into a storm.

That night, I drove straight back to my hometown.

The familiar rhythm of the train tracks gave way to the uneven rattle of the highway as I drove past sugarcane fields and roadside dhabas, heart thudding with every mile closer to Kaveripur.

When I arrived at the dried-up well in the deep hills with my torch, four of the five of us who had done this together had already arrived.

They stood in the moonlight, shadows long and faces tense. Old friends, now older and scared, huddled together in the chill night air.

Only Arjun, the leader who had come up with the idea back then, was missing.

Arjun’s absence was a black hole at the center of the group. We all avoided looking at each other, wondering if he had betrayed us, or suffered some other fate.

We waited a long time for him, but he never showed up.

Someone muttered, “Maybe he chickened out.” Someone else just stared at the ground, scuffing his shoe in the dirt. The silence was heavy with things left unsaid.

“If we don’t act now, it’ll be dawn soon. We can’t wait for him any longer,” Kabir, who had contacted us, said impatiently.

His hands shook as he checked his watch for the tenth time. “Once the workers come, it’s over for all of us.”

We all nodded in agreement. After dawn, the builders would come to survey the land.

We heard the distant rumble of a tempo on the highway. Time was running out, and fear bound us tighter than friendship ever had.

If we didn’t hurry, it would be too late.

I looked up at the sky, the stars blinking coldly, as if watching us from another world.

The four of us worked together to move aside the stone, now covered in moss.

The stone was heavier than I remembered. Our hands slipped on the moss, and someone cursed softly in Marathi under his breath.

The wellhead, sealed for twenty years, let out a chilling low groan, and a puff of white smoke drifted up from the well.

The hairs on my arms rose. “Yeh kya ho raha hai?” whispered someone. The wind carried the smell of old rot and wet stone.

“This is really strange. Dead for so many years, and still causing trouble for us,” Kabir muttered under his breath.

His words sounded like an old filmi dialogue, but no one laughed. The gravity of the moment pressed down on us.

When the smoke cleared, we all crowded around.

Flashlights trembled in our hands. Our breaths clouded in the air, mixing with the mist from the well.

I remembered the dried-up well wasn’t that deep back then.

As children, it seemed barely ten feet. Now, staring into the darkness, it felt bottomless—a black mouth hungry for secrets.

But even with four torches, we couldn’t see the bottom. It was still pitch dark inside.

The darkness was thick, alive, almost breathing. “How deep is this now?” someone asked, his voice squeaky with fear.

We hesitated, unsure who should go down to bring up the remains and those things.

Everyone looked at everyone else. No one wanted to volunteer. The silence stretched, broken only by the rustling of leaves and the distant bark of a street dog.

Kabir pointed at me: “Rohan, you’re an outsider in the town. We did you a favour by bringing you along back then. Now it’s your turn to do the work.”

I stared at him, my anger flaring. “What nonsense! You think you’re better?” But deep down, I knew I had no choice. I was always the one left to clean up.

I was about to protest, but seeing the others’ unfriendly faces, I realised they had already discussed this.

Their eyes were cold, arms folded. I saw, for the first time, the distance that time and guilt had created between us.

With no other choice, I tied the rope around my waist and began to climb down the wall.

My fingers fumbled with the knots, sweat beading on my forehead. For a moment, I thought about running—just vanishing into the night like Arjun. I whispered a silent prayer to every god I could remember.

As soon as I entered the dried-up well, I shivered, a sense of dread spreading through me.

It was like entering a different world—one where every stone was a memory and every sound echoed with Chotu’s screams.

I clung to the wellhead, not daring to go down further for a long time.

The rope bit into my palms. My legs trembled, knees knocking. “Just do it and get it over with,” I told myself, teeth clenched.

“What are you dawdling for? Do you want to get us all caught?”

Kabir’s voice boomed down, harsh and threatening. The others glared down, impatience on their faces.

Kabir raised a hammer, threatening to smash my hand.

“Don’t test me, Rohan. Move it!” he hissed, knuckles white on the hammer’s handle.

I had no choice but to quickly climb down.

The walls scraped my arms. Dust and bits of stone rained down, sticking to my sweaty skin.

The further I went, the more uneasy I felt.

The darkness closed in, pressing on my chest. My own breath sounded loud, as if I were the only living thing left in the world.

When I was still some distance from the bottom, I shone my torch down.

The beam quivered in my shaking hand, tracing the outline of something pale and twisted at the bottom.

A discoloured skeleton lay on its back, mouth agape, staring up at me.

The empty eye sockets glinted back, and for a moment, I thought I saw a flicker of movement—a trick of the torchlight, or something more sinister?

Mera dil muh mein aa gaya, and my hand holding the torch shook.

I nearly dropped it, clamping down hard as my breaths turned into gasps.

Suddenly, I noticed that across from that skeleton, there was actually another skeleton.

Two skeletons! My mind raced—who could the second be? My legs nearly gave way.

What was going on? Something was wrong!

A chill ran through me that had nothing to do with the cold. This was not how it was supposed to be.

“Arrey!”

The word exploded out of me, echoing up the shaft like a gunshot.

I screamed and started scrambling up the rope.

My fingernails dug into the rough hemp, heart thudding wildly. Sweat poured down my face, stinging my eyes.

At that moment, I heard the sound of stones scraping above my head.

Fear clamped my chest. The grating sound was unmistakable—someone was rolling the stone back.

They were sealing me in the well!

“NO!” I yelled, my voice cracking, but my pleas bounced off the stone walls.

I instantly realised that they weren’t here to deal with the remains at all.

Just like that, the old stories Amma told us—of friends turning foe for a handful of silver—came true.

It was all a setup. A surge of betrayal burned through me—my so-called friends, ready to bury me for good.

“What are you doing? Don’t seal the well! I’ll give you whatever you want!”

My shouts rang out in desperation, tears blurring my vision. “Please, I’ll give you anything! Don’t do this!”

“Your death is more important than anything! Once you’re gone, everything you have will be ours!”

Kabir’s voice was cruel, greedy. It cut deeper than any knife.

“Just stay down there and keep them company.”

The words echoed with finality. I clawed at the rope, my mind racing for escape.

With that, they cut the rope. With a thud, I fell heavily to the bottom of the well.

Pain exploded through my body. My head swam as darkness swallowed me up.

The moonlight at the wellhead vanished.

I stared up at the shrinking patch of light, praying for some miracle.

With a rumble, the wellhead was sealed again with a large stone.

Dust rained down. The stone landed with a finality that choked the last of my hope.

Three days later, they even came back to check on me a few times.

Their voices drifted down, mock-concerned, sometimes laughing, sometimes threatening. The days and nights blurred, broken only by the sound of their taunts.

They knocked on the wall of the dried-up well with stones,

The dull thud echoed in the cramped darkness, like a drumbeat of doom.

Pretending to shout inside: “Rohan, are you still alive?”

Their voices were laced with false sweetness, twisting the knife further.

“You might still be alive, but you won’t last long. Didn’t expect this, did you? This is called giving you a taste of your own medicine.”

I wanted to scream, but my throat was raw from shouting. I could only glare up at the stone, fists clenched, rage and despair twisting inside me.

While they were talking, I had already climbed to the mouth of the well.

I had nothing to lose. Blood trickled down my palms as I dragged myself up, inch by inch, using what remained of the rope and the jagged stones.

My hands were worn bloody, my legs broken from sliding down the well wall again and again.

Every inch upward was agony. Each time I slipped, the stones bit deeper. My jeans were torn, skin shredded.

I hoped they wouldn’t be able to resist opening the stone to check, so I could jump out and fight them to the death.

My heart pounded with the last of my strength. If I could surprise them, maybe—just maybe—I could escape.

As I waited, I heard the sound of the stone at the wellhead being moved.

A sliver of light pierced the darkness. My pulse raced with hope and terror.

The gap at the wellhead grew larger.

Their shadows flickered above, faces twisted in cruel delight.

Mera dil muh mein aa gaya.

My whole body tensed, ready to leap.

But in the next second, a bucket of concentrated acid was poured down on me.

The acid burned like the time I’d spilt boiling chai on my arm as a boy, only a thousand times worse. A burning pain unlike anything I’d ever known exploded across my skin. I screamed, the sound echoing until it faded to a hoarse whisper.

The burning pain instantly spread all over my body.

My eyes blurred with tears as flesh seemed to melt away, the world spinning in agony.

I fell straight from the wellhead to the bottom.

Pain crashed through my bones as I hit the earth. For a moment, I thought I’d died already.

The bones of the two skeletons pierced through my chest.

Even through the pain, I felt the cold jab of bone. It was as if Chotu and Arjun—was it Arjun?—were welcoming me to their hell.

“He really is cunning, actually waiting at the wellhead for us.”

Kabir’s voice was cold, mocking. The others laughed, their cruelty echoing in the darkness.

Their mocking laughter echoed from above.

It was the last thing I heard before the world faded away.

Regret filled my heart. I shouldn’t have helped them do evil back then. Now retribution had come for me.

For the first time, I understood what true remorse felt like—a weight heavier than any stone.

But it was all too late. Blood slowly seeped from my body.

The ground grew cold and sticky beneath me. My vision swam, and I felt myself slipping away.

I gradually lost consciousness…

The darkness claimed me, just as it had claimed Chotu all those years ago.