The cursed boy

d

GCEK Horror Stories Case-II

Very few believe in legends of curses and blessings, though I strongly feel that these matter in our day to day life. From the childhood days, we all are taught to stay in the good books of everyone so that their blessings bring us prosperity. Similarly, if anyone falls into the clutches of curses then the person may get into unending doom. One may not believe in black magic and stuff, but when one finds a sealed pot in vast open fields near the college campus, nobody dares to fiddle with them.

Ratan is an enthusiastic student of Electrical Engineering Department at GCEK. In his childhood days, he used to play around his household with two girls from the neighboring house. They were good friends till a long time until the sisters and their family were thrown out of the village. When Ratan was about ten years old, the mother of the two sisters called him home for lunch one day. After few days, he started vomiting irregularly and his health relentlessly began deteriorating. Despite all sorts of medical treatment, his condition didn’t improve. Ratan’s family was tensed from head to heel at this condition of him.

During that period, one day, one of the two sisters came running to the street crying and begging for help. When interrogated, the young girl said that her mother was going to kill her sister. A crowd broke open the door of their house and rushed inside. A bonfire, some mystic drawings and charts in odd scriptures, bowls comprising of unknown items, a sharp knife-like object and the unconscious sister was recovered. The woman practicing black magic was beaten mercilessly by the women of the neighborhood. Then she was tormented to undo all the curses which she kept active and magically, Ratan’s fever went down.

Later that day, when the village walked her away outside of their borders, Ratan joined the mass. The two sisters were put to an orphanage. As everyone stopped and the woman proceeded with her little baggage, she turned around.

All she said from a distance that he could hear was, “I will follow you”.

Nobody could decipher its meaning but Ratan realized years later, when news came that the woman had died. He had dropped that year for engineering entrance examination preparation at a coaching institute in Bhubaneshwar. One fine evening, when Ratan woke up from his afternoon nap, he realized that something was holding his hands firmly and was terrified at his inability to get up. Despite several attempts of shouting for help, the only voice that escaped his mouth was a feeble squeal. His roommates were startled by the noise and rushed to him for help. Very soon, Ratan was able to feel free on his senses.

“Definitely a sleep paralysis. It happened once with me as well”, exclaimed his roommate. This brought a sense of comfort to Ratan’s ears. But as soon as the sentenced dropped, there began a pleading squeal from the next room. The coaching institute had hostel rooms lined in long rows and after the squealing of the next room guy stopped due to a similar feeling of arms being tightened while he laid on the bed, more terrific noise rose from the room beside it. This continued till one person from every room in that line of hostel rooms were haunted by an unknown force trying to possess…

The following year, Ratan took admission in GCEK. He lived in room 106 in Visvesvariya Hall of Residence. His roommates were the coolest of atheists whom even ghosts will fear. Even when Ratan was narrating the incidents till now on a horror topic discussion, the roommates first enjoyed with seriousness and then laughed away saying the ghost was in desperate need of sex like the ghosts in Vikram Bhatt movies. When vacation started, Ratan and his other roommate, Sumit left for home.

The third roommate, Anil, preferred to stay back at hostel as going to home will bring disturbances to his studies. The winter vacations of December it was and Anil was alone in the room. At night 1, after completing his study schedule, Anil switched off the lights and went to sleep. There was utter silence in the hostel as it was vacation so most inmates were home and the few who remained were tucked beneath their blankets. In the eerie silence, Anil felt that a shadow cast on the ceiling from the window present few meters away from his bed. He raised his hands and they searched the table above his head to get the mobile.

Turning the flashlight on and swaying it around the room, he got satisfied that nobody had crept in for creepy pranks. He went back to sleep again. Eyes closed. Postures changed. Swoosh…Swoosh! There emerged a succession of sounds all of a sudden. Anil tried to identify them with closed eyes. There he heard the sound of his wrist watch on the table as it passed each second. Swoosh! Again! Pages of an open book were being turned over slowly as if someone was reading them. His thoughts grew like hurricane. He had confirmed there was nobody in the room. The windows and everything are well closed and gaps are sealed to prevent passage of cold air. The ceiling fan is off then how the pages are being turned? Several questions but no courage to open eyes or lift head. And finally, when he opened his eyes, he heard the bottle on his table fall and in front of his eyes, in the dim street light from the window, the bottle was lifted and put back to position. No heartbeat skipped in fear. Then as loud as normal, the cap of the bottle whirled open and fell loud on the ground. Scared to death, Anil woke up and ran from the room growling like a man being hunted by lions.

After this incident, Anil stopped disbelieving in the existence of the paranormal. Not only this, it was him who came to the conclusion from all incidents that his roommate his cursed. Several researches were made. I communicated with my friend at the Indian Paranormal Team about Ratan’s curse. An ex-faculty of physics who is currently pursuing his PhD in Russia also brought the same conclusions as IPT and following some of their instructions of cancelling the negative energy in different ways like meditation and charity, Ratan or his surroundings have never been disturbed by anything such ever since. Ratan is now happy with the fact that the forces bothering him aren’t doing so any more. But there were spirits in hostel already, who might have disliked the people staying at their place. And they were coming, this time leaving their imprints in the form of physical marks.

To be continued…

[All names have been changed for obvious reasons]

Pic credits - Tapas Ranjan Mahanto, Samim Akhtar & Sanjam Padhi