Chapter 10: The Price of Silence

Chapter 10: The Price of Silence

My foot scraped against the salt line, the granules a faint, gritty protest against my surrender. The steam from the phantom samosa caressed my face, a lover’s touch promising an end to all suffering. My starving body screamed its assent, my muscles coiling to take that single, final step. The world had narrowed to this one, perfect, golden triangle of fried dough. It was salvation. It was oblivion.

“ARJUN!”

My mother’s voice was a physical blow, a shard of glass in the soft, seductive illusion. It shattered the spell. The divine scent of spices was ripped away, replaced by the gut-wrenching stench of river mud and decay. The beautiful samosa dissolved into a wisp of foul-smelling vapor. The hunger, denied its prize, returned with the force of a physical evisceration. I cried out, doubling over, the pain a white-hot poker in my stomach.

The Jal-Pishach, its subtle temptation thwarted, let out a low, guttural hiss. The phosphorescent glow in its eye sockets flared with cold fury. The protective circle my mother had drawn, which had seemed so absolute moments before, began to fail. The line of salt and iron dust sizzled, the sacred barrier dissolving as if being doused with acid. The diya flame, once steady, whipped back and forth, casting long, dancing shadows that made the night writhe.

I knew, with a certainty that chilled me deeper than any fear, that the mantras and the salt were not enough. I was the anchor for this creature’s rage, and my will was a fraying rope.

In a final, desperate act, I ripped the silver amulet from my neck. The chain snapped. Clutching the tarnished metal in my fist, I lunged forward, not out of the circle, but towards the creature. I slammed my hand, amulet-first, against the invisible barrier of the ritual space.

“Get out!” I roared, the Sanskrit verses forgotten, replaced by a pure, primal command.

The effect was instantaneous and violent. Where the silver made contact with the failing ward, a flash of brilliant white light erupted, searing the darkness. The Jal-Pishach recoiled, letting out a shriek that was not a sound but a psychic shockwave of agony and rage. It was the sound of tearing water, of something ancient being scalded. The faces within its body, Rohan’s included, contorted in silent, shared torment.

But its power was immense, rooted in the ancient river itself. The creature staggered back, its form dissolving, but it did not flee. It began to draw on the river, and the water behind it churned violently, black liquid surging up to reinforce its wavering shape. It was healing itself. My one desperate gambit had wounded it, but it had only made it angrier. The amulet in my hand was now searingly hot, the protective magic spent in that one blinding flash. I dropped it, a useless piece of heated metal.

I was defenseless. The circle was nearly gone. The creature was reforming, larger and more menacing than before.

It was then that my mother moved. I saw the decision in her eyes, a terrible and absolute sacrifice made in the space of a single heartbeat. She had watched history try to repeat itself—her son, mesmerized, steps from being claimed by the same entity that took her brother. Her preparations, her knowledge, her shield… they had failed. There was only one thing left to give.

With a calm that was more terrifying than any scream, she took a deliberate step forward, breaking the sacred circle herself. She walked past me, placing herself between her defenseless son and the coalescing monster.

The Jal-Pishach paused its reformation, its glowing eyes fixing on this new, unexpected offering. It seemed confused. This was not the marked prey it craved.

“You are a creature of hunger,” my mother said, her voice clear and strong, ringing with an authority that defied the monstrous presence before her. “You feed on desire, on life, on memory. You took my brother’s life. You fed on his simple craving for a festival sweet.”

She closed her eyes. “But that was an appetizer. A fleeting taste. I have a memory you have never known. A meal you cannot comprehend.”

She stood utterly still, her hands clasped before her. The air around her shimmered. I could feel a palpable wave of energy emanating from her, not of magic or ritual, but of pure, concentrated emotion. She wasn't reciting a mantra. She was remembering.

“I remember his hand in mine,” she whispered, her voice taking on a distant, dreamlike quality. “The warmth of the sun on our faces as we ran through the mango grove behind our old house. He was laughing, a loud, wonderful sound. He had just stolen a ripe mango, and the juice was dripping down his chin. He smelled of sunshine and fruit, not of fear and river rot.”

As she spoke, a faint, golden light began to glow around her. The foul stench of the river was pushed back by the phantom scent of ripe mangoes and warm earth.

The Jal-Pishach hesitated. It was a creature of base, negative emotions—fear, pain, despair, craving. This pure, radiant offering of love and joy was utterly alien to it. It was drawn to the raw power of the memory, the sheer life force it contained, but it also seemed repulsed by its purity.

“I remember the color of his favorite kite,” my mother continued, her voice growing stronger, the golden light intensifying. “It was blue, the color of the sky on a perfect day. I remember the pride on his face when he finally taught me how to make it dance in the wind. That feeling… that perfect, weightless joy. That is what you hunger for, isn't it? The life you can only steal, never create. Take it. Choke on it!”

With a final, sharp intake of breath, she pushed the memory out from herself. The golden light surged from her and struck the creature.

The Jal-Pishach could not resist the offering. Its primal hunger was its undoing. It opened its formless maw and drank in the memory, consuming the potent, radiant life essence.

For a moment, it seemed to swell, its phosphorescent eyes glowing with the stolen golden light. Then, the overload began. The pure, complex emotion was a poison to its simple, predatory nature. The faces trapped within its body began to scream, their features contorting not in terror, but in agony, as if they were being burned from the inside out. Rohan’s face was the last to appear, his mouth wide in a silent, final shriek before dissolving into light.

The creature itself began to convulse violently. It let out a piercing, unearthly wail that was part shriek, part steam whistle. It was the sound of a being fundamentally unmaking itself. Its watery form began to boil and evaporate, its substance dissolving not into the ground, but into a foul-smelling mist. With a final, explosive hiss, the last of its form collapsed, the remaining black water flowing rapidly back into the river, which churned once before falling silent.

It was over. The oppressive presence was gone. The air was clean again, filled only with the smell of the damp earth and the lingering smoke of the incense.

I rushed to my mother, who swayed on her feet, the golden light gone, leaving her looking impossibly old and frail. I caught her just as her knees buckled.

“Ma,” I breathed, my voice choked with relief and awe. “You did it. You saved me.”

She leaned heavily against me, her eyes clouded and unfocused. She looked around the empty riverbank as if seeing it for the first time. “It’s gone,” she murmured.

“It’s gone,” I confirmed, tears streaming down my face. “Because of you. Because of Kiran.”

At the mention of his name, a flicker of confusion crossed her face. She pulled back slightly, looking at me, her brow furrowed. “Kiran?” she asked, the name an unfamiliar word on her tongue.

A cold dread, worse than anything I had felt facing the monster, coiled in my gut. “Your brother, Ma. You saved me with the memory of your brother.”

She stared at me, her eyes wide and blank. I could see her searching the depths of her mind, trying to grasp the concept I was offering her. The fierce grief, the decades of sorrow that had defined her, the haunted look that had been her constant companion—it was all gone. Her eyes were empty.

“My… brother?” she said slowly, a deep, painful line of confusion creasing her forehead. “I… I don’t remember having a brother.” She looked down at her own hands, then back at me, a lost child in the darkness. “I can’t… I can’t remember his face.”

The price had been paid. The river was silent, but it had claimed one final victim after all. It had taken my uncle all over again, this time not from the world, but from the one heart that had refused to let him go.