Chapter 1: The Road That Bites

Chapter 1: The Road That Bites

The rhythmic thrum of the engine was the only constant in a world of swaying shadows. Outside our old sedan, the headlights clawed at a road that twisted back on itself like a wounded serpent. My father gripped the steering wheel, his knuckles white, his usual easy-going confidence strained by the endless hairpin turns of Saanp-ghātī—Serpent’s Pass.

“I told you we should have left earlier, Bhuvan,” my mother murmured from the front passenger seat, her voice tight with a familiar anxiety that always surfaced when my father’s optimism met reality. “The elders always say not to travel this pass after sunset.”

My father chuckled, a hollow sound that didn’t quite fill the car. “Superstition, Radha. Just stories to scare children. We’ll be at your brother’s place in an hour, sipping his terrible, sugary tea.”

I scoffed from the back seat, earning a half-hearted glare from my mother in the rearview mirror. At twenty, I was a man of science and code, a university student who believed in logic, not local legends about ghostly tigers and vanishing travelers. Still, I couldn't deny the oppressive atmosphere of the pass. The ancient trees crowded the narrow road, their branches reaching over us like skeletal fingers, blocking out the last vestiges of twilight. The air grew colder, heavy with the scent of damp earth and something else… something wild and unsettling.

My younger sister, Priya, who had been dozing against the window, stirred. “Are we there yet? My phone has no signal.”

“No one’s does, sweetie,” I said, lowering my own useless brick of a smartphone. “We’re in the middle of nowhere.”

The middle of nowhere felt like an understatement. We hadn't seen another car for over an hour. The darkness outside wasn’t just the absence of light; it felt like a presence, a heavy blanket smothering the world. The only sounds were our car, our breathing, and the whisper of wind through the dense foliage.

Then, the engine coughed.

It was a small, stuttering sound, easily missed, but in the tense silence of the car, it was as loud as a gunshot. My father’s knuckles went from white to translucent.

“What was that?” Radha asked, her voice sharp.

“Nothing. Just a bit of a… hiccup,” Dad replied, but his foot pressed a little harder on the accelerator. The car responded with another violent shudder, the headlights flickering like dying embers.

Desire turned to dread in an instant. Our goal was the warmth of our ancestral home. The obstacle was now the very machine meant to get us there.

Sputter. Choke. Whine.

With a final, metallic gasp, the engine died. The headlights blinked out, and we were plunged into an absolute, suffocating blackness. The silence that followed was profound, a physical weight pressing in on us. The car, our little bubble of civilization, was now just a cold metal box, dead on a forgotten road.

“Bhuvan?” my mother’s voice was a trembling thread.

“It’s alright,” my father’s voice was strained, the facade of control cracking. “Probably just the alternator. I’ll take a look.”

The click of his door opening was a violation of the silence. A wave of cold, pine-scented air rushed in, carrying with it a chilling stillness. I watched his silhouette fumble with the torch on his keychain, its weak beam a pathetic challenge to the immense darkness. He popped the hood, and the beam disappeared under it, leaving us in the car as blind as before.

Priya started to whimper softly. “Mom, I’m scared.”

“Shh, baby. Papa will fix it.” But her hands, as she held Priya’s, were shaking.

I strained my ears, trying to hear anything beyond my own frantic heartbeat. The familiar sounds of the jungle at night—the chirping of crickets, the rustle of small animals—were completely absent. It was a dead silence, an unnatural void. It felt like the entire forest was holding its breath. Waiting.

My father’s cursing from the front of the car did little to reassure me. The weak torch beam flickered and danced. “Damn it! I can’t see a thing. The battery’s completely dead.”

He slammed the hood shut. The sound was swallowed by the darkness, leaving no echo. He got back in the car, bringing the cold with him. “No signal,” he announced, confirming what we already knew. “We’ll have to wait. Someone is bound to drive by eventually.”

But as the minutes stretched into an hour, that hope began to feel as flimsy as his torchlight. We were utterly, completely alone. Trapped.

That’s when the first sound came.

It wasn’t a roar or a growl. It was a low, guttural noise that seemed to come from everywhere at once. It was a sound that vibrated deep in my chest, a frequency of pure dread. It wasn't the sound of any animal I had ever heard or read about. It was distorted, like a recording played at the wrong speed, a mix between a cough and a strangled howl.

Priya yelped and buried her face in Mom’s shoulder.

“What in God’s name was that?” my father whispered, his face pale in the faint moonlight that now filtered through the canopy.

My logical mind scrambled for an explanation. A langur monkey? A sick leopard? But the sound was too heavy, too resonant. And it was followed by a chilling, deliberate snap of a twig, just beyond the edge of the road. It was close. Far too close.

My breath caught in my throat. My tech-savvy, rational brain shut down, replaced by a primal instinct that screamed one word: Predator.

I stared out my window, into the wall of impenetrable black. I couldn't see anything. But I could feel it. The way you feel a stare in a crowded room, the way your skin prickles when you know you’re not alone. The silence had been broken, but the new sounds only served to amplify the terrifying truth.

We weren’t just stranded.

We were being watched. Something was out there in the ink-black jungle, listening to the frantic drumming of our hearts. And it was waiting. The road hadn't just stranded us; it had served us up on a platter.