The bar was dimly lit, its flickering lights casting eerie shadows across the cracked mirror behind the counter. Dust clung to every surface, and the air smelled of stale beer and despair. A single newspaper lay abandoned on a table, the headline screaming: “Serial Killer Strikes Again.”
Behind the counter, Anjana wiped a glass absentmindedly. Her dark eyes stared at nothing in particular, but the tension in her shoulders betrayed her unease. A faint creak from the wooden floor made her glance up, but it was only the wind rattling the door. She sighed and looked back at the glass.
Flashback: The Murder
The room was suffocating, the air thick with alcohol and rage. Young Anjana crouched behind a slightly ajar door, her heart pounding. She watched as Rahul’s father stumbled, his voice a booming roar of insults.
“You’re useless!” he shouted, his words slurred. “Just like your mother!”
Rahul’s hands trembled as he clutched a beer bottle. His knuckles turned white, his breathing heavy.
“Stop it, Papa. Please…” Rahul’s voice was barely a whisper.
“Stop? You think you can tell me what to do?” The man lunged toward him, and in that split second, Rahul swung the bottle.
The sound of shattering glass was followed by a sickening crunch.
Blood gushed from the man’s head as he crumpled to the floor.
Anjana gasped, covering her mouth to stifle her scream. Rahul turned, his eyes wide with terror. Without a word, he bolted out the back door and into the woods. Anjana hesitated for a moment before following him, her small feet crunching leaves and twigs.
“Rahul!” she called out, but the darkness swallowed him whole.
Present Day
Anjana locked up the bar, the keys jingling in her hand. The night was eerily quiet as she walked home, her path taking her past the edge of the woods. She paused, her gaze drawn to the impenetrable darkness between the trees. Memories of Rahul’s disappearance surfaced, sending a shiver down her spine.
“Get a grip,” she muttered to herself, shaking her head and continuing.
Her home was small and unremarkable, a single bulb flickering weakly in the front room.
She pushed open the door and froze.
Someone was lying on her bed.
“Rahul…” The name escaped her lips in a whisper. Tears welled up in her eyes as she approached him.
“You’re back. After all these years…”
Rahul didn’t respond. His face was pale, his eyes distant. In his hand was a beer bottle.
Flashback: The Bar’s Secrets
The bar hadn’t always been so lifeless. Years ago, it had been the heart of the village, bustling with laughter and loud conversations. Rahul’s mother had worked there, her beauty and grace attracting unwanted attention from the patrons.
Anjana remembered the day she stumbled upon the hidden compartment in the storage room. It was purely by accident-a loose floorboard caught her foot. Beneath it, she found broken jewelry, torn fabric, and a notebook filled with cryptic scribbles in Rahul’s mother’s handwriting.
One entry burned itself into Anjana’s memory: “He watches from the woods. He waits for me.”
She hadn’t understood it then, but now the pieces were falling into place.
Present Day: The Confrontation
Anjana’s initial joy at seeing Rahul began to fade as unease crept in. The beer bottle in his hand-it looked familiar. Too familiar. Her mind flashed to the newspaper on the bar counter. It had an image of the same bottle.
“Rahul,” she said cautiously, her voice trembling, “where have you been all these years?”
Rahul’s gaze shifted to her, his eyes hollow and unreadable. His voice, when he spoke, was flat and detached. “I went looking for her.”
Anjana frowned. “For your mother?”
“They weren’t her,” he continued as though he hadn’t heard her. “None of them were her.”
A chill ran down her spine. “Rahul… what do you mean?”
“They reminded me of her,” he murmured, rising slowly to his feet.
“But they could never be her.”
Fear gripped Anjana as she took a step back. “Rahul, I’m sorry about what happened to your mother. I-”
She tried to run. He moved swiftly, smashing the beer bottle against her head. The world spun as she collapsed to the floor, blood pooling around her.
Flashback: Rahul’s Trauma
Rahul had spent countless nights hidden in the woods, watching the bar through a small clearing. He saw how the men leered at his mother, their laughter cruel and predatory. He saw how she forced a smile, her pain concealed behind a mask of indifference. Eventually, she died of humiliation.
Her death shattered their family. His father spiraled into a pit of despair, drowning his sorrows in alcohol and lashing out at Rahul.
For years, Rahul wandered from village to village, searching for a piece of his mother in every woman he met. But his grief twisted into something darker. Each victim became a distorted reflection of her, a futile attempt to reclaim what he had lost. He began lurking in the shadows of bars across different villages, becoming the very man he had once feared — the silent watcher in the woods. Just as he had once waited for his mother to return, he now searched for her in the faces of the women he followed, trapped in an endless cycle of longing and bloodshed.
The bar was silent now, its emptiness oppressive. The cracked mirror was shattered, the counter thick with dust. A lone newspaper lay open, its headline declaring: “Local Bartender Found Dead — Killer Still at Large.”
In the storage room, a torn photograph of Rahul’s mother fluttered gently from the wall. The room was engulfed in a haunting silence as the story faded into darkness.
