Damini In Dasada

Chapter 1: Whispers in the Walls

The village of Dasada, nestled in the dry, ancient heart of northern Gujarat, had always carried a strange silence in its wind. It was a silence that felt too heavy, as though it hid whispers that should never be heard.

Twelve-year-old Damini lived in this eerie village with her parents, her elder brother Hiren, and her younger brother Parth. Though Damini was known for being bright and sharp, she was also a bit of a fattu—a scaredy-cat. Every creak, shadow, or odd sound made her heart race, though she tried hard to pretend otherwise. Her two closest friends, Fatema and Ateka, were the only ones she trusted enough to share her fears with.

Their school, located on the edge of the village near the banyan forest, was a crumbling old structure from the time of the British. Rumors surrounded it—about missing children, about a blood-stained blackboard that never stayed clean, and about a room that no one dared to enter. Room 9. It had been sealed long ago after a teacher had gone mad and scratched her own eyes out.

Chapter 2: The First Signs

It started with a dream.

Damini woke up screaming one night, cold sweat soaking her cotton kurti. In her dream, she saw a girl in white, standing under the tamarind tree behind the school. Her eyes were hollow, her mouth stitched shut with black thread. She was holding a torn notebook with Damini’s name written in blood.

The next morning, when Damini walked to school, she found that same torn notebook outside the locked Room 9.

Her fingers trembled as she picked it up. Inside, every page had her name scrawled repeatedly in different styles. The bell rang. Her heart pounded.

That day, Fatema swore she saw a shadow watching them from inside the sealed classroom. But when she pointed, there was nothing there. Just the dim hallways, and the thick smell of old wood and dust.

Chapter 3: The House Knows

The horror wasn’t just at school. At night, Damini heard someone walking in their hallway. But when she opened the door, no one would be there. Her little brother Parth said he saw a woman crawling on the ceiling. Their mother dismissed it as a bad dream, but even she had started lighting extra diyas at night.

One evening, Hiren went to fetch water from the well and didn’t return. They found him two hours later, curled up near the neem tree, his eyes wide open, lips blue. He wouldn’t speak for three days.

When he finally did, he whispered, “She’s under the well. She wants Damini.”

Chapter 4: Room 9 Opens

A week later, the girls dared each other to sneak into Room 9. It was Fatema’s idea. Armed with torches and nervous giggles, they broke in through the back window during recess.

Inside, the air was ice cold. Cobwebs hung like curtains, and the room smelled of iron and something dead. On the blackboard was a message:

"Damini... you saw me first. Now see me forever."

Ateka screamed. The door slammed shut behind them.

The windows wouldn’t open. The lights went out. And then the chalk lifted on its own, slowly writing: “Damini, your blood will end the curse.”

They escaped—barely. But that night, Fatema was found in her home sitting in a circle of ashes, rocking back and forth, her nails torn, muttering Damini’s name.

Chapter 5: Dasada’s Curse

An old woman named Rambha Dadi, who lived at the edge of the village, came to visit Damini’s family. She said something ancient had returned. Decades ago, a girl named Chandrika was accused of witchcraft and burned alive under the tamarind tree—exactly where Damini had seen the ghost.

Chandrika had sworn to return and claim the soul of a girl born on the night of the red moon.

Damini was born on a red moon.

Chapter 6: The Possession

Parth disappeared next. They found his shoes near the banyan roots, but no trace of him. Damini began losing time—finding herself in places she didn’t remember going, holding objects she didn’t recognize: a burnt doll, a rusted nail, a jawbone.

Her reflection in the mirror would smile when she didn’t. Her voice would echo in her room long after she stopped speaking.

Hiren finally spoke to her: “You’re not Damini anymore.”

And she laughed.

Chapter 7: The Night of Screams

On Amavasya, the village heard screams from the school.

Every diya blew out. The walls of every home began to bleed. The tamarind tree split open, revealing a skeletal face.

Damini was seen walking into Room 9, barefoot, wearing a white saree that dragged behind her like a shroud. Her eyes were stitched.

Then she vanished.

For weeks, silence returned to Dasada. But people began to disappear. Fatema was found hanging from the school’s ceiling fan, mouth full of black sand. Ateka lost her mind and kept drawing eyes on every wall of her house.

Chapter 8: The Wind Carries Her Name

Villagers say when the wind howls in Dasada, it says her name—"Damini"—in a voice too low to be human.

Children are born mute. Dogs don’t bark anymore. The tamarind tree is always wet with something sticky.

And at night, if you pass the school, Room 9’s light flickers. There’s always someone standing at the window.

Sometimes, it’s you.

But mostly…

It’s her.

The End...or the Beginning!!?

– The Peace That Followed… Or So They Thought

The winds in Dasada had gone quiet. Not still—but eerily quiet.

Weeks passed since Damini had returned and turned her wrath upon the village. But strangely, after the night of the thirteen screams and vanishing shadows, the village began to feel... lighter. Almost like someone had opened a sealed window after decades.

The trees outside the school no longer swayed like they whispered secrets. The old peepal tree near the well had stopped bleeding sap. Children started playing in the narrow gullies again. Temples reopened, bells echoing hope.

Fatema, now thinner and haunted, dared to step out with Ateka during the daytime. Her voice had returned, though trembled often. She whispered to Ateka, “Do you feel it too? It’s like... Damini has done something.”

Ateka nodded. “She stopped the screams in my dreams. I see her sometimes—she’s watching us. But she’s... not angry anymore.”

One day, the village council met again. For the first time in decades, they discussed rebuilding the school’s west wing. The wing that had collapsed years ago. The wing where Damini used to sit. The workers broke the floor and unearthed something strange:

An old, cracked slate. On it was etched in blood-red chalk:

> "You gave me no peace, but I gave you peace. Keep it safe. Or I will return, and this time, I won’t leave anyone behind."

The slate vanished the next morning. No one spoke of it again.

The sky over Dasada changed. Blue, with soft orange sunsets. Crops grew lush. Babies were born without shadows clinging to them. Hiren, who had stopped speaking since his disappearance, laughed one morning after breakfast. Parth chased butterflies again.

Damini’s old house became a shrine. People left milk, flowers, and drawings by children. Her photo was hung in the school office—a girl in two tight braids and fearful eyes.

Years passed. Dasada became a place people wanted to visit.

But late into nights—on the 13th of every month—some villagers still heard anklets in empty alleys. A girl’s soft laugh carried in the wind.

They say Damini still walks the village. Not to hurt—but to protect.

Because Dasada may have forgotten what it had done.

But Damini never would.

Years passed in Dasada. The air was sweeter, the trees greener, and the haunting a forgotten tale.

But on a bright winter morning—when the sky was a glassy silver and the wind smelled of incense—Damini returned. Not as a ghost. Not as a scream in the dark.

She returned, alive. Human.

A rickety jeep pulled up near the old banyan square. A girl stepped out—now 15, taller, but unmistakably Damini. Clad in a simple cotton kurta, hair tied loosely, she looked ordinary—except for the faint silvery bruise-like ring on her neck.

She had returned. And Dasada didn’t shudder.

Children ran to greet her. The villagers watched in awe. Some whispered blessings. Others, apologies. Hiren and Parth ran to her, tears falling in waves. Her parents fell to their knees.

“Where were you?” Fatema finally asked the question.

That night, under the same peepal tree that once wept sap, Damini began to speak. Her voice trembled—not from fear, but from memories far too real.

“I wasn’t just gone,” Damini whispered, her eyes locked on the dancing flame of the lantern. “I was taken.”

The crowd held its breath.

“On the day I vanished... I was dragged into something. A world under this one. Dasada has a shadow, a mirror. And in that mirror village, everything is twisted. Dark. Bleeding.”

She described the Other Dasada:

The sky was always blood-red.

The houses stood upside down, with screams leaking through cracks in the roofs.

The school was made of bones and fingernails.

Every villager there had stitched mouths and hollow eyes. They mimicked the real villagers—mocking their faces, replaying their regrets.

“In that world,” Damini continued, “I saw all our sins—our village’s sins. The girl in the well. The hanged woman behind the school. The teacher who vanished. The goats that bled on Navratri.”

She survived by hiding in mirrors. She drank water from puddles that reflected the real world. Ate insects that whispered secrets. Spoke only when the wind screamed.

“But there was one thing that kept me alive.” She looked at Parth. “You.”

He blinked, startled.

“Every time you cried for me, I felt it. That emotion kept the Other World’s Master from eating me.”

“Who... who was the master?” Hiren asked, voice trembling.

Damini paused. “He has no name. Just a sound. A breath.” She inhaled. A sound came out—not quite a growl, not quite a hiss.

Everyone shivered.

“He offered me a deal. Stay, rule the Other Dasada as his bride. Or return, and close the gate forever. I chose... return. And seal him inside.”

“How?” Ateka asked, voice a whisper.

“I offered him my fear. I stopped fearing. I made it bleed. I turned it into bravery. It hurt—it changed me. But it sealed him.”

She pulled her kurta aside. On her chest, over her heart, was a glowing sigil—an ancient circular symbol etched in fire. The villagers stepped back.

“It’s done. Dasada is free. Forever.”

The next month, Damini and her family packed their belongings. They moved to Ahmedabad, where Damini enrolled in a new school. Her bravery was featured in a local newspaper as “The Girl Who Came Back From Nowhere.”

Fatema and Ateka visited her often. Hiren and Parth slept peacefully now.

But sometimes, when Damini touched mirrors, they shimmered. And if she looked too long, her reflection smiled a second too late.

One evening, before bed, she whispered to herself:

 “Even if it comes back... I’ll be ready.”

And in the darkness of her new room in Ahmedabad, the mirror glowed faintly.

"Sometimes, the darkest paths lead us to the brightest strength."

"Fear doesn't define you—what you survive does."

"Damini didn’t escape the darkness. She became its light."

THE END