3 AM

It was a year ago when the incident happened. My family along with my maternal uncle’s family was going on a trip. It was a usual family trip. We had set off with much excitement and expectations from the journey. It was a night train journey. The scheduled time for the train was 10 PM and we had reached the station by 9. We had no other option than to wait for an hour. We were lucky to find the platform very less crowded. We comfortably found ourselves waiting for seats on the platform but my cousin Sejal won’t sit quietly.

She was a 12-year-old child who was tough to control. Enough of love and affection had made her troublesome. She would hardly sit at a place for more than a minute. Sometimes she would go running across the platform or would start unpacking the bags. Her parents too didn’t mind these mischiefs of her. I didn’t like her much. I knew the journey was going to be a very irritating one. I was mentally prepared for it.

The train arrived at the mentioned time and we boarded to find the seats. We had reserved a full berth. Everyone settled down and the train began to move. As I had expected, the journey was irritating. Sejal continued the drama she had been doing for the last one hour. She wanted to eat samosas. Train journey meant nothing more than a stomach full of samosas to her. She wanted it at any cost. It was difficult to find fresh samosas at that hour of the night but why would she care? All she needed was her favorite samosas. It was supposed to be our headaches of how we were gonna get it for her.

Her mom tried to distract her but she was one hell of an adamant child. The last condition she agreed upon was that – her father would go down to the next station and get her samosas. She agreed finally and thankfully. But only we knew the next station was 4.5 hours away. As it was a superfast train, it stopped at very few platforms. We knew she would sleep within the next hour, following which, we, at least I, too could get some peaceful sleep.

As expected, it was before an hour when she slept and her mother put her to sleep on her reserved sleeper – the middle one. After that, within a span of half an hour, everyone slept one after another. I was the second last to go to sleep. My sleeper was the top right one. Initially, I wasn’t able to sleep, shifting side to side but eventually, when the noise and movements of the train got me used to them, I fell asleep. Everyone slept peacefully but who knew some movement would happen after everyone was in their world of dreams.

The train was coming to a halt. The sudden frequent braking of the train made Sejal’s head hit against the supporting iron rod that woke her up. She was about to cry when her emotions changed. Her pain turned into anger when she remembered the promise of samosas she was given.

She peeped outside. She realized that the train was slowing down and a platform was ought to come. And platform meant samosas to her. She was excited. Within a couple of minutes, the train halted at a platform whose name could not be seen to her. It didn’t matter to her though.

The train stopped completely. She peeped out again. To her surprise, a samosas vendor stood right outside the opposite window to her. She could contain her excitement. She climbed down the stairs. As she stepped down, the person began moving ahead. She called him but he didn’t notice. He was carrying a lot of samosas on a big plate, placed in the shape of a pyramid, kept on his shoulder such that it didn’t allow her to see his face.

She was too hungry to resist herself anymore and too angry to take anyone else with her. She picked her purse and decided to go alone. She would not share her samosas with anyone, she decided while walking ahead. As she reached the door, she looked out for the vendor. He was standing at a distance from the train. She called him but he didn’t listen. His face still couldn’t be seen. He was carrying a huge load of unsold samosas.

The smell of samosas invaded her little nostrils and this was the last trigger moment for her. This was just too much for her to resist. She looked around herself. All she could see was the complete vacant platform and the samosas vendor. Sejal rummaged through her purse and found a fifty-rupee note. She clenched it in her right hand and stepped down the train. Taking little steps, she approached closer to the man. She called him once again. He didn’t listen this time either. He stood as still as a rock. She didn’t stop.

‘Uncle, please give me 5 samosas,’ she said stretching her hand out holding the fifty-rupee note.

There was a mere silence for a couple of seconds, after which he turned towards her and as he did, she was just a dot away from a heart attack.

The man had no ... head! Instead, the big plate containing the samosas was placed on his neck and not his shoulders.

She screamed with all the energy she had and ... she fainted.

Almost all the people in the coach woke up and ran out, only to see Sejal lying on the platform. Everyone surrounded her body and her parents and I were down near her. I sprinkled water at her face but she didn’t come to her senses. She was alive, just unconscious. The train honked to inform its departure. All the passengers ran back into the train and we also had no other option than to carry the unconscious body of Sejal back to the train and try our fate there.

Sejal came back to her senses after long 15 minutes. She was in deep shock. She wasn’t able to speak a word for an hour. She would just try to cover herself with anything like a blanket and she was now hell scared to look at the window.

It was after she came back into the condition to speak, she narrated the story.

The strangest thing was – no other person than Sejal was present there on the platform. There was no trace of any man there.

Well, did I tell you that the time when this incident happened was between 2:30 and 3:30 AM? This is such time when it is next to impossible for a vendor to roam around the train platform with such amount of eatables. And the ones who have even some knowledge of horror and paranormal, know the significance of 3 AM.

One year has passed but the mystery of that night remains unexplained.