Chapter 1: What Rises from the Water

Chapter 1: What Rises from the Water

The air by the Ganga was thick enough to drink, heavy with the scent of marigolds, damp earth, and something else—the river’s own slow, sweet rot. For generations, the elders in our town had warned us away from this particular bend after sunset. They called it the Ghat of the Hungry, a place where the water held its breath and waited.

Of course, we thought we knew better. At eighteen, you’re invincible. You’re smarter than superstition.

“To us,” Vikram declared, raising a warm bottle of Kingfisher. He was always the leader, his confidence a gravitational force that pulled the rest of us into his orbit. “For being brave enough to piss on ghost stories.”

Sameer laughed nervously, his eyes darting towards the inky black water. Rohan, the youngest of our group at seventeen, took a long, clumsy swig of his own beer, trying to look older than he was. I just watched, perched on a smooth, cold stone, the river’s quiet lapping against the bank a steady, unsettling rhythm in the dark. My mother’s warnings echoed in my mind, stories of spirits drawn to the laughter of the young, but I pushed them away. They were just stories.

“My grandmother says a bride drowned here a hundred years ago,” Sameer offered, his voice a little too high. “They say she pulls boys in, looking for her groom.”

Vikram snorted, kicking a loose pebble into the water. “Your grandmother also says eating fish on a Tuesday will make you fail your exams. It’s nonsense, all of it.”

We fell into a comfortable silence then, the kind born of shared rebellion. The moon was a sliver, offering little light, and the distant glow of the town felt a world away. It was just us, the darkness, and the river. It was perfect.

That’s when Rohan, emboldened by the beer, stood up and hurled his empty bottle towards the center of the river. “Take that, ghost bride!” he yelled, his voice cracking.

We expected a splash, a satisfying plonk as the glass surrendered to the depths.

It never came.

The bottle hit the surface and just… stopped. It bobbed there, perfectly still, on water that was suddenly as placid and black as polished obsidian. The gentle current that had been nudging the bank all evening had vanished. The air grew cold, the chirping of crickets abruptly ceasing, as if a switch had been flipped.

“What the hell?” Sameer whispered, scrambling to his feet.

We all stared, frozen. A ripple started to form around the bottle, but it wasn't moving away from it. It was moving towards it, a perfect, slow circle contracting on the glass. Then another ripple started, further out, moving against the non-existent current, heading for the same spot.

“It’s just… it’s the current,” Vikram said, but his voice lacked its usual certainty. He sounded like he was trying to convince himself.

My heart began to hammer against my ribs. A primal fear, cold and sharp, cut through the haze of the beer. This wasn't natural. This was wrong.

Then, the water where the bottle floated began to bulge upwards. Not with a bubble of gas, but with a thick, syrupy slowness. A column of darkness rose from the river, shedding water and mud in thick, viscous sheets. It unfolded itself, gaining height, resolving into a shape that was a horrifying mockery of a man—tall, impossibly thin, its limbs long and skeletal.

It was made of the river. Dark, swirling water, tangled weeds clinging to its form like rotten flesh, and thick, black mud giving it a horrifying solidity. Where a face should have been, two hollows glowed with a faint, cold, phosphorescent light, like angler fish luring prey in the deepest ocean.

The smell hit us then, overwhelming the gentle scent of marigolds. It was the smell of river-rot and decay, of things that had died in the water and been forgotten for a century.

None of us screamed. The sound was trapped in our throats, choked off by a terror so pure it was paralytic.

The thing took a step towards the bank. The sound it made was not a footstep. It was a wet, heavy squelch, followed by a constant, sickening drip, drip, drip as pieces of itself sloughed off and were instantly reformed. It moved with an unnatural, gliding purpose, its glowing eyes fixed on us. Not on all of us. On me. I felt its gaze like a physical touch, a cold spike driven into my soul.

That broke the spell.

“RUN!”

Vikram’s shout shattered the silence, and we scattered like startled birds. I didn't look back. I just ran. My athletic build, honed by years of street cricket, served me well. My lungs burned, my legs pumped, and the only sound in the world was the frantic pounding of my own feet on the dirt path and the horrifying, rhythmic squelch, drag, drip behind me. It wasn't running. It didn’t need to. It was simply walking, and it was keeping pace.

I risked a glance over my shoulder. It was closer now, its gaunt silhouette framed against the distant town lights, a walking nightmare of mud and water. The cold light in its eyes seemed to bore right through me, promising a cold, wet eternity. Panic gave me a fresh burst of adrenaline. I pushed harder, my vision tunneling, the path blurring beneath me until the familiar streetlights of my neighborhood broke through the trees.

I didn't stop until I slammed through the front gate of my house, fumbling with the lock, my hands shaking so violently I could barely fit the key. I threw the bolt, leaning against the solid wood of the door, gasping for air, my body trembling uncontrollably.

Silence. The dripping, squelching sound was gone. I was home. I was safe.

Slowly, the terror began to recede, replaced by a desperate need to rationalize. A trick of the moonlight. A hallucination from the cheap beer. Some local fisherman playing a prank. Anything but the truth.

As my breathing slowed, a new sensation took root. It started as a dryness in my throat, a hollowness in my gut. But it wasn't thirst, and it wasn’t normal hunger. It was a craving. Specific. Powerful. Overwhelming.

My stomach twisted into a knot of sheer, desperate need. I needed something hot, something greasy, something fried in oil. The phantom scent of spices and sizzling gram flour filled my senses, so real I could almost taste it. Saliva flooded my mouth. I had to have a samosa. Right now. Not wanted, needed. It was a gnawing, maddening beast clawing at the inside of my stomach.

“Arjun?”

I jumped, spinning around. My mother stood in the doorway to the kitchen, a silhouette against the dim light. She wasn't holding her reading glasses or a cup of tea. Her hands were clasped tightly in front of her, and her face, usually so warm, was a mask of cold, stark fear. She wasn't looking at my disheveled state or my breathless panting. She was sniffing the air, her sharp eyes wide with a terror that mirrored my own.

“What is that smell you’ve brought with you?” she whispered, her voice trembling. It was the smell of the river, the faint, foul odor of rot clinging to my clothes.

“Ma, I… we were just at the river,” I stammered, my mind racing for a lie.

She took a step closer, her eyes scanning me from head to toe, not like a mother checking for injuries, but like a priest searching for a sign of desecration. Her gaze was so intense it felt like she could see right through my skin, right to the frantic, gnawing hunger in my belly.

“What are you feeling?” she demanded, her voice low and urgent. “Right now. What does your body want?”

The question was so bizarre, so specific, it threw me off. “Nothing, Ma, I’m just… I’m hungry.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Hungry for what, Arjun? Tell me.”

The craving was roaring now, a physical pain. I couldn't think of anything else. The word tumbled out of my mouth before I could stop it. “Samosas… I need a samosa.”

My mother flinched as if I had struck her. All the color drained from her face, leaving it a sickly, ashen grey. The fear in her eyes blossomed into something far worse: horrified recognition.

“Samosas,” she breathed, the word a death sentence. “Or pakoras? Something hot. Something fried in oil.”

My blood ran cold. How could she know? How could she possibly know the exact, insane craving that had just taken root in my soul?

She reached out and grabbed my arm, her grip surprisingly strong, her knuckles white. Her voice dropped to a barely audible whisper, a sound more terrifying than any scream.

“You fool,” she hissed, her eyes locked on the dark space behind me, staring at the front door as if she could see through it. “You utter fool. You let it see you. You let it choose you.”

“Ma, what are you talking about?”

She turned her gaze back to me, and what I saw in her eyes would haunt me more than any monster made of water and mud. It was the terror of a nightmare she had already lived once before.

“You didn't run fast enough,” she whispered, her words sealing my fate. “It followed you home.”