An Unforgettable Face

College life teaches you many things, how to survive on instant noodles, how to stretch a single shirt over three days, and how to share everything with your roommates except undergarments.

In 2011, I lived in a cramped 1BHK with my two roommates, Maya and Abhi. We were completely different people with completely different beliefs, but somehow, we worked as a unit. We fought, we laughed, we survived.

And we survived mostly because we were cheap.

Not normal cheap. We were proper penny-pinchers. We kept track of every rupee spent. We shared groceries, toiletries, and even clothes when needed. The only thing we never shared was underwear, because even we had standards.

We had mattresses laid out next to each other in the hall. No beds. No privacy. No comfort. Just three exhausted students trying to stretch the month's budget like elastic.

Even our kitchen was a joke.

The pressure cooker we used was borrowed from our seniors and had been "breathing its last" for ages. The gasket was missing, so we did what broke students do best, we made a jugaad. We wrapped an external elastic around it and used a small brick for support.

Somehow, it still worked.

Most days.

That particular day, it didn't.

It was also the day we hired a cook, our first attempt at adulting, because cooking for ourselves was getting too tiring. We found a guy who agreed to work within our tiny budget, though he clearly wasn't happy with our kitchen supplies.

That morning was his first day.

And it turned out to be his last.

I woke up to a loud bang from the kitchen, sharp and violent, like something had exploded. A second later, the cook came running into the hall, completely panicked.

He tried waking Maya first.

"Sir! Sir!"

Maya didn't move. Not even a blink. It was as if nothing in the universe could disturb his sleep.

Then he ran to Abhi and shook him harder.

Abhi opened one eye. "Kya hua?"

The cook said, "Pressure cooker blasted!"

Abhi nodded once. "Oh."

And went back to sleep immediately.

The cook stood there, horrified, with khichdi splattered on his face, staring at us like we were mentally unwell.

He never came back after that.

By the time we were fully awake, we realized we had no food. No cook. And no energy to fix either problem. Out of pure laziness, we stayed hungry all day, telling ourselves we'd eat later.

But hunger has its own patience limit.

By evening, we couldn't resist anymore. We decided to go out and join a party, hoping we could eat properly there.

And we did.

We attacked the food like barbarians. Plates disappeared. Hunger makes you shameless.

When the party ended and we finally stepped out, it was past 2 a.m.

The streets were quiet. Too quiet. Empty roads, scattered streetlights, and that strange stillness that only exists when the city is asleep.

Like always, we started arguing about who would drive.

Maya pointed at Abhi. "You always drive. Every time you take your girlfriend out, you become the hero. Today you don't drive."

Abhi protested. "I'm fine. I'll drive."

Then Maya looked at me. "Satya, you don't even have a license. And there will definitely be police at this hour."

Abhi was about to sit on the bike when I stepped forward and grabbed the handlebar.

"Both of you are drunk," I said. "I'm the only one sober. So I'm driving."

No more arguments.

So it was me on the seat, Abhi in the middle, and Maya at the back.

And without thinking, like we always did, we took the same route home.

The one that passed the graveyard.

In daylight, it was just another road. Annoying, broken, uneven. But harmless.

At night, it looked like a different place altogether.

The graveyard stretch was darker than it should have been. The air felt heavy. The silence felt unnatural, no people, no vehicles, not even stray dogs.

The only sound was our bike screeching over the damaged road.

That feeling crept over me… the one where you want to get past something quickly, but it keeps prolonging. Like the road is stretching itself just to keep you there longer.

Then Maya leaned forward and whispered, "Dude… is that your girlfriend out there?"

I looked ahead.

A woman stood on the side of the road.

White dress. Motionless. Facing the road.

For a second, my brain tried to rationalize it.

Maybe she's waiting for someone. Maybe she needs help.

Then Abhi scoffed. "No. I talked to her an hour ago. She's sleeping."

He added, half laughing, "Besides… my girlfriend has legs."

That's when I noticed it.

The woman didn't.

There was nothing below her knees. Not darkness hiding her feet.

Nothing.

The road behind her looked faintly visible, like she was see-through, like air had taken the shape of a body.

My grip tightened. My heartbeat rose so sharply I could feel it in my throat.

It was too late to turn around. Turning around would slow us down. And slowing down felt like the worst option.

So I decided to do the only thing my body could commit to.

Go past her.

As we got closer, the air suddenly turned cold, unnaturally cold. Like someone had opened a freezer in the middle of the road. My hands stiffened.

And then the bike pulled.

Not drifted.

Pulled.

Towards her.

I fought the handlebar, forcing it straight, but the pull felt real, as if something invisible was tugging the bike sideways.

For a moment, my mind went blank.

And then I saw her face.

Pale. Cold. Lifeless. Like wax.

And her eyes…

Blood red.

Wide open.

Unblinking.

They weren't angry.

They weren't sad.

They were empty.

And they were looking right at us.

A chill tore through my spine. My entire body screamed to run, but the road was too narrow, and the fear was too heavy.

I forced the bike forward, clenched my teeth, and accelerated.

We brushed past her.

And the moment we crossed her, the cold vanished.

The bike stopped pulling.

The air became normal again.

I didn't slow down. I didn't look back.

I drove at breakneck speed and reached home in no time.

We wanted to talk, but we couldn't. We were shivering too hard. Our words came out broken—stuttering, useless.

We wrapped ourselves in blankets and sat close together like children, trying to convince ourselves we were safe because we were inside our room.

After a while, we called a few nearby friends and asked them to stay with us.

When they arrived, they laughed.

Of course they did.

Three students after a party. Graveyard road. Ghost story.

Even between us, there were different reactions.

Maya looked like she hadn't blinked in minutes, frozen, shocked.

Abhi kept insisting, "It was nothing. We were drunk. We imagined it."

And me?

I was sober.

I knew exactly what I saw.

That thought alone was terrifying.

Time passed. Slowly, we started breathing normally again. People loosened their blankets. Someone even cracked a joke.

And then one of our friends noticed something.

"Abhi… your shirt is torn."

Abhi frowned and looked down. The back of his shirt had been ripped, as if something sharp had clawed at it.

We assumed it got caught somewhere.

But when he removed his shirt, the room went silent again.

There were scratches on his back.

Long. Sharp. Deep.

Four lines, like nails had dragged across his skin with force. Fresh enough to sting.

None of us remembered anyone touching him.

No one had been behind him except Maya.

And Maya hadn't moved.

That was the moment nobody laughed anymore.

Whatever we saw on that road…

was real.

And it had come close enough to leave proof.

Days passed, and college life swallowed the incident the way it swallows everything, assignments, hangovers, heartbreaks.

But the fear didn't fade.

And we weren't the only ones.

Later, when the incident spread in our college, our seniors didn't laugh. They warned us, serious, almost angry, never to take that graveyard route at night.

"Others have felt it too," one of them said. "Not everyone sees her, but everyone feels something."

They even told us a story about the girl in white, something they had heard from their seniors. A story that had been circulating long before we ever moved into that flat.

Whether it was a rumour or the truth… that's a topic for another day, another story.

All I know is this:

That night, we saw her.
And whatever she was… she was close enough to touch us.