Again, we go back further, to the day when all of this started, to the day I started losing myself in bits and pieces. This is an important part of the story; I can even say that it is the chapter in which the supernatural creatures of the nightmares were released on us.
It was the start of the trip, we were in the lobby of the hotel, accompanied by juniors as a part of a ritual that we were gonna pass the baton of leadership of Sir Stephen school of Higher school to our juniors, choose the appropriate person at our discretion.
Of course, more than us the juniors were excited, because it was their first official school trip out of state but they didn't know now that one of them was going to die, a death that I won't remember, a death that will haunt me.
The trip co- Ordinator was a young man in his early twenty's, explain us a map, itinerary of the whole trip, telling us about a Buddhist monastery in which many monks died of suffocation from smoke when the monastery caught a fire, from there we were gonna go to other places of historic importance and then finally trek back to a village famous as a resting point between the Pataal caves, the cave to hell and a suicide bridge where people have killed themselves. Locally, it is said that both these things are haunted but according the authorities they were great locations to attract tourists because who won't want to see a suicide bridge and be in love with it. We were mixed up in different groups, to make it more fun and interesting.
The monastery was made up of wood purely and smelled of pinecones, it had this small gate for entrance allowing only one person to pass through properly, for some reason the big gate was shut permanently.
Other tourists mainly college students and young couples were also flocking the monastery but we stood out because of our red uniforms and the chaos we were creating while trying to take out decent photos because the monastery had a perfect back view for school photographs.
Me, Vivaan, Ronit followed by Ishita and some other juniors decided to sneak into the closed part of the monastery that was badly burned by fire, it was supposed to be a great hall where young Buddhists used to have their meals.
When we sneaked under the thick ropes closing the way to the great hall, the air went thick as if it was still filled with smoke, one can still see the burned marks on the floor and the tall walls of this hall. The ceiling was completely covered in a thick paste of gray ash and you can smell it as soon as you enter.
One would think that this place, a part of the monastery will be restored as soon as possible but considering the incident took place three years ago, there was no sign of human activity here.
The place was crawling with spiders and a few of them were also living in the ashes. The whole place looked like a remnant of something dark and ashy because the longer we stayed the more difficult it was to breathe.
Few of the juniors complained that they were scared and wanted to go back so we agreed. On the way back Ishita's foot stumbled on a burnt pine cone, it rolled away and hit the wall. The pine cone was anything but its natural color anymore.
We left the place in a hurry as soon as we heard the monastery bells ringing aloud, it meant it was 12 o'clock and it also meant it's time to leave this forsaken hall of ashes.
We went to a nearby restaurant to have lunch, to our surprise the lunch boxes were ready, it was pre ordered. The boxes contained local cuisine of the area.
The coordinator went on to explain the historic importance of dishes and everyone broke out in laughter when he said that a particular dish of sweet fish is offered to lovers as a promise of marriage when leaving for some foreign place.
At this point of time, you must know everything would have been fine if the trip ended there or if we would have decided to not go to places early on.
The next on trip was that haunted bridge, where people supposedly commit suicide because of the supernatural.
The bridge to be honest was nothing special in itself just a broken bridge made of old degrading wood with streams of freshly melted icy water flowing below, to be honest, the view could have been perfect for a suicide for all the different reasons but who would in their sound mind would ignore the caution sign and try to cross it.
From there we had to trek to this village famous for its wooden houses, some of them as old as time. There is this big house on the top of hill, looking all over the village, abandoned by its previous owners and now famous for spooky photographs. Locals say sometimes one can hear the shrieking of the wind on stormy nights.
So, we decided to check it out click some photographs for social but when we got to the house on the hill after a ten-minute climb, we discovered that in fact it is not as big as it seemed on the hill, in fact it was a pretty ordinary house with a pretty ordinary and a pretty ordinary steps that led to a small drawing room. Finding nothing special but just the smell of old wood decaying, we decided it's best to return to the village, gather some supplies before the trek.
In the village we were all gathering in our designated group, with some filling their water bottles and others restocking their food supplies because the trek was gonna eat up all the sunlight. We are supposed to take a pre-designated wooden rod to the bridge. The way to the bridge was nothing but a small road through the thick covers of the pine forest, one can see the crows and the squirrels staring down at you from high up their branches. The smell of pines wrapped around our noses even before we entered the forest.
On our way to trek some groups were way ahead of others but ours was definitely the last one. I was accompanying Ishita at the front, she said she wasn't feeling well and wanted to speed up the trek and increase her speed. I followed her because to be honest I thought she was giving me clues or you can call it mix signals.
Pretty soon we were way ahead of the fastest group, I could hear Vivaan and others shouting to wait for them to catch up but Ishita was now way ahead of me, one could easily lose sight of her now so I rushed.
The knots of my shoe lays were untying themselves from all the rush, I bent down to tie them up properly and hard because I was gonna make a run for it but as soon as I was done and I stood up I found myself engulfed in a gray fog with the smell of the pines replaced by an odor of some dying animal. I watched my steps as I moved forward and quickly stumbled upon a pack of dead crows, murdered crows. The scene looked so ominous that I stumbled back and fell, as soon as I hit the ground the fog started dissipating and with it the surroundings, a bridge was visible with Ishita standing over it.
The bridge looked old but sturdy as if people have been using it for ages and nothing has happened to it, it looked as strong as a wooden bridge could be.
I went over to her to my surprise as I was making my way toward her, I discovered that she was all naked head to toe, her body stinking as if she her insides had been corrupted with some kind of rot, I can see eel like creatures slithering on her now trying to find a way in.
Seeing the scene of nightmares, I stopped in track. A few feet away from her I stood paralyzed, and closed my eyes hoping it would all go away but my eyes opened on its own when I heard the sound of Ishita jumping and her body hitting the water, I quickly grabbed the railing to see below, hoping I would see her floating in a natural river of water, hoping she would be shouting for help and struggling to make her way towards the banks.
But what I saw was worse than that, her body burning being devoured by creatures made of shadows, they had red eyes, and an inhuman round mouth. Though they had human features, they were nothing like us. They walked on all fours, bending, they had no nose or ears only hands with sharp claws.
They were all rushing toward her dead body fighting among themselves to have a bite out of her. Around her body I saw at least a thousand corpses of human bodies all but bones stacked upon each other.
Finally, my eyes met Ishita's eyes pleading for help, in a moment she started struggling and shouted my name, her half-eaten hands extending towards me in a hope that I will save her but more of those creatures covered her and her voice died in silence.
When she was all but over the creatures became agitated and started shouting and crying. At this moment a drop of sweat rolled down my face and it looked up.
At this moment I should have ran but I didn't. I could have saved myself but instead it was like I was held and locked by fear.