C for CHOICE...

Close your eyes for a moment and repeat with me, 'A' for apple, 'B' for Ball, 'C' for ... and so on. I believe that you might have said 'C' for cat, 'D' for Dog and so on. The alphabets A to Z of English grammar have the potential to carry our lives.

Let's shed this cliche alphabets game and learn something interesting. 'A' for after, 'B' for birth, 'C' for ... and 'D' for death. Don't be frightened, it's just a story of my friend from a different perspective.

My friend Kalpit was travelling to his home town in Odisha from Bangalore, which is famously known as the Silicon Valley of India. Kalpit had started working in an IT firm as a software engineer recently. He had been earning a decent salary to sustain his livelihood. He had been enjoying his bachelor life as he had been celebrating his daily life with his friends in the apartment, which he shares with 2 of his peers. (PS..I work in a different city). Here the enjoyment for a newly employed youth means going out after work, drinking, partying ...etc (you can guess), but still, he is a virgin (what a loser). Coming from a small town to a place where the standard of living is high and people generally live lavishly will certainly implant the seeds of euphoria in anyone, in this case that euphoria turned into wild enjoyment due to which, Kalpit was living from hand to mouth. He also had a habit of travelling and exploring places, he loves this that is why he prefers road or rail over plane. Now, Kalpit was travelling to his home town by rail since it grants a balance of travelling exploration and economics. He was travelling in a normal sleeper coach, since the journey takes nearly 2 days. With just a medium sized back pack, carrying not so valuable items like a water bottle, one pair of trouser and jacket, toothbrush, etc., he boarded the train on a Sunday afternoon at around 1 pm. The train passes through 3 states, viz., Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Odisha. Everything was looking fine and he occupied the lower birth seat as mentioned in the ticket. Since the autumn season was prevalent and feeling little exhausted, Kalpit, after sitting for a while entered into a hibernation mode. After getting up in the evening at around 7 pm, he decided to have dinner at the station, since the food provided in the train had not earned a good name due to hygiene related issues. However, due to a very short duration of stoppage at a station, less than 2 minutes, it did not allow him to buy dinner from the station, leaving him with no choice, but to eat a packet of snacks which he brought with himself (at least better than a food which will make you poop even if you don't want to). That night, however, went well (without any unintentional puking or pooping). In the morning, he woke up at around 7 am, frustrated by the monsters of hunger who were wreaking havoc in his stomach, finally the train stopped at a station granting him at least 5 minutes to purchase breakfast for him to satiate. At the same station, a family of 6(six) boarded the train and entered into the same coach, where Kalpit had just concluded the breakfast. Barring his seat, other 5 seats were booked in the name of the family members who just showed up. One member of that family, an elderly man, had his seat allotted in the next coach. The family was in a dilemma, whether to ask Kalpit to exchange the seat or not. Nevertheless, they asked and, Kalpit could not help it and agreed to swap the seat. He knew that travelling alone has its highs and lows.

The train rattled on, cutting through the stillness of the night. Kalpit had been restless since swapping seats with the elderly man earlier in the journey. The man had been polite, explaining he wanted to sit closer to his family, and Kalpit had obliged. An eerie sense of unease crept over him as he sat in his new spot.

The seat felt colder than the rest of the train, almost unnaturally so. Trying to distract himself, Kalpit leaned back and stared out the window. Suddenly, he noticed something wedged between the seat cushions—a diary, its leather cover cracked and worn. Intrigued, he opened it and found pages filled with messy, frantic writing. The entries described strange occurrences on this very train: whispers in the dark, shadowy figures, and passengers who had disappeared without a trace.

One entry sent a chill down his spine:

"I should never have swapped seats."

Kalpit froze. The handwriting was shaky, almost deranged. His heart began to race as he scanned the pages. The writer seemed to grow more paranoid with each entry, describing how the shadows seemed closer, how the temperature kept dropping, and how the other passengers wouldn’t meet their gaze.

The final entry was barely legible:

"It’s here. Watching. If you find this, don’t look back."

A sudden thud jolted Kalpit from his reading. He looked around; the compartment was quiet. Too quiet. The other passengers seemed oblivious, staring out windows or dozing off. A flickering light in the corner of the carriage caught his eye. For a split second, he thought he saw something—a dark, indistinct figure—standing at the far end of the compartment, staring at him.

He blinked, and it was gone.

The train screeched to a halt at a deserted station. The clock on the platform read 3:00 AM. No one got on or off. Kalpit’s unease grew. He wanted to get up, to find the elderly man and his family and demand an explanation for why he’d asked to switch seats. But his legs wouldn’t move, as though the cold had seeped into his bones.

The train began moving again, and the flickering light returned. This time, the figure was closer. Its features were obscured, but Kalpit could feel its gaze boring into him. He clenched the diary tighter, as if it could somehow protect him.

And then, the whispers started. Low, guttural, unintelligible murmurs that seemed to come from every direction. The other passengers sat still, as if frozen in time. Kalpit’s breath came in ragged gasps as he looked back at the diary, flipping through the pages frantically. One word was scrawled across the last page in large, jagged letters:

"RUN."

Gathering every ounce of courage, Kalpit leapt from his seat and ran toward the next compartment. The whispers grew louder, turning into screams that echoed in his ears. The lights flickered wildly, casting distorted shadows that seemed to reach for him.

He burst into the next carriage, only to find it empty. Completely deserted. The train, once bustling with life, now felt like a tomb. The whispers were behind him, growing closer.

Desperate, Kalpit turned to look back.

A single, horrific face stared back at him, inches away. Its mouth twisted into a grotesque grin, eyes hollow and endless. The last thing Kalpit felt was an icy hand closing around his throat.

The train pulled into its final stop in Odisha the next morning. Passengers disembarked, chatting cheerfully. The elderly man who had swapped seats with Kalpit gathered his bag and left the train.

In Kalpit’s seat sat his bag, untouched. But Kalpit was nowhere to be found.

Weeks later, railway workers cleaning the train discovered a diary under the seat. Its final entry read:

"It’s here. Watching. And now, it has me."

So, it was his choice that Kalpit made when he decided to visit his hometown, it was his choice that he decided to travel by rail, and it was his choice that he made when he decided to swap his seat. It was his choice that he followed the instructions engraved in the diary.

Finally, it is your choice to decide the fate of the character by searching for the meaning of the name of the character.