Chapter 7: Mother's Confession

Chapter 7: Mother's Confession

I stumbled home through the oppressive darkness, Vikram's words echoing in my head, a poison far more potent than the creature's whispers. One life. To end this. To make sure the rest of us are safe. The cold logic of his betrayal was a physical weight, pressing down on my chest, making each breath a ragged, painful effort. The Jal-Pishach was a monster of primordial hunger, but Vikram had shown me a different kind of monster, one born of human fear, and it had gutted me. I was no longer just hunted; I was disposable.

The silver nail on our doorframe seemed to gleam mockingly as I slipped inside. I moved like a wraith, hoping to make it to the solitude of my room without being seen, without having to explain the new, deeper hollow in my eyes. But my mother was there, sitting in the faint glow of a single diya, a silent sentinel in the gloom. The ever-present clicking of her prayer beads was absent. She was simply watching the door, waiting.

She saw me, and her breath hitched. Her weary eyes, already shadowed with supernatural fear, widened as they took in the landscape of my despair. This was a new kind of brokenness. This was not the terror of a creature in the dark; this was the soul-deep ache of abandonment.

"Arjun," she whispered, her voice a fragile thing in the thick silence.

I couldn't speak. I just shook my head, the motion a testament to my utter defeat. I sank down against the wall, my strength finally giving out, and buried my face in my hands. The fight was gone. What was the point of resisting a monster when your own friends were willing to lead you to the slaughter?

She rose and came to me, not with frantic questions, but with a quiet, knowing sorrow. She knelt before me, her hand gently resting on my shaking shoulder.

“It is not just the creature that breaks a man, is it?” she murmured, her voice filled with an ancient, bitter understanding. “It is the fear it plants in the hearts of others. The way it turns friend against friend.”

I looked up, my vision blurred with tears I refused to let fall. “How did you know?”

“Because it has taken from this family before,” she said, and the words landed with the finality of a gravestone being set. All the frantic rituals, her immediate knowledge of the craving, her bone-deep terror—it all clicked into a terrible, coherent picture.

“The story of Dev,” I rasped. “It was more than just a story for you.”

“Dev was a boy from the town,” she confirmed, her gaze turning inward, to a wound that had clearly never healed. “But my story is older. Closer to home.” She rose slowly, her movements stiff. “Come.”

She led me to her room, to a small, carved wooden box tucked away in her cupboard, a box I had never been allowed to touch as a child. She unlocked it with a small, tarnished key that hung around her neck, hidden beneath her sari. The scent of sandalwood and old memories drifted out. Inside, nestled on a bed of faded red silk, were a few yellowed photographs and a single, folded piece of paper.

She ignored the photos and lifted the paper, her hands trembling slightly as she unfolded it. It was a child’s drawing, rendered in faded crayon. Two stick figures, a tall boy and a smaller girl, holding hands by a crudely drawn river. The boy had a wide, crayon smile.

“His name was Kiran,” she said, her voice catching. “My older brother. He was sixteen. He was the one who taught me how to fly a kite. He always smelled of sunshine and mangoes.”

She looked at me, her eyes filled with a grief so raw it was like looking into an open grave. “It was a festival day. The mela by the river. We ate until we were sick. It didn't mark him with the scent of samosas, Arjun. The Jal-Pishach is clever. It finds the craving that will sing the sweetest song to its victim. For Kiran, it was jalebis. Hot, sweet, crispy coils of fried dough dripping with sugar syrup. He loved them more than anything.”

My own demonic hunger for samosas felt like a pale echo of this older tragedy.

“The next day, it began,” she continued, her voice a near-whisper. “The hunger. A craving so powerful he couldn't eat anything else. Our mother was frantic. Our father thought he was being stubborn. But I saw it. I saw the look in his eyes. The same haunted, hollow look I see in yours now.”

“What happened to him?” I asked, my own pain momentarily forgotten, lost in the depths of her sorrow.

“For two days, he fought it. But he was just a boy. The pull was too strong. On the third night, he said he was just going for a walk, that he needed air. But I knew. I knew where he was going. I followed him.”

She squeezed her eyes shut. “He walked like a man in a dream, straight towards the Ghat of the Hungry. I ran after him, screaming his name, begging him to stop. I grabbed his hand just as he reached the water’s edge. He didn't even seem to see me. His eyes were fixed on the black water, and he had a terrible, peaceful smile on his face.”

She took a shuddering breath. “Then… it came. It didn’t rise up like it did for you. The water itself seemed to reach for him. A current, a hand made of water and darkness, wrapped around his legs and pulled. I held onto his hand, Arjun, I held on so tightly. But it was so strong. He was slipping away from me…”

Her voice broke. She reached back into the box, her fingers fumbling, and pulled out the last item. It was a small, circular object on a broken chain, so tarnished with age it was almost black.

“He was wearing this,” she whispered, holding it out on the palm of her hand. “An amulet our grandmother had given him for protection. It was silver. They say such creatures cannot abide pure silver. As it pulled him under, the chain snapped. He was gone… but this was left in my hand, burning hot. The creature… it recoiled. For a moment, the water around me hissed, like it had been scalded. It is the only reason I am not at the bottom of that river with him.”

She pressed the amulet into my hand. It was heavier than it looked, and surprisingly cool to the touch. A faint, intricate pattern was carved into its surface, worn smooth by time. It felt ancient, alive with a history of sorrow and survival.

I looked from the amulet to my mother’s face, and for the first time, I saw her clearly. She wasn't a superstitious, fearful woman. She was a survivor. A soldier in a war I never knew existed. Her entire life, every prayer, every ward, every whispered warning I had dismissed as folklore, had been part of a silent, lonely vigil. She had been standing guard over our family, waiting for the day the monster that stole her childhood would return.

And it had returned. For me.

“All these years,” I breathed, the weight of her lifelong burden crushing me. “You’ve lived with this.”

“I have lived in fear of this day,” she confirmed, her voice finding a new strength, a core of tempered steel beneath the grief. “But fear will not save you. Hiding will not save you. Vikram and Sameer have shown you that. Their fear makes you a target.”

She closed my fingers around the amulet, her hand covering mine. Her skin was warm, her grip firm. “This saved me once. It is not a weapon, Arjun, but it is a shield. It is a symbol that this creature can be hurt. It can be fought. The story of my brother is not just a tragedy. It is a lesson. And we will use it.”

In the depths of my despair, betrayed by my friends and marked for death, my mother’s confession became an unexpected anchor. I was not just a random victim. This was not just my fight. It was my family’s fight. A blood feud, decades in the making. Holding the cold, solid weight of the amulet in my hand, I felt a spark ignite in the ashes of my hope. It was a fragile, terrifying thing, but it was a start. We had a history. We had a shield. And for the first time in days, I was no longer just waiting to be eaten. I was ready to fight back.