Chasing In The Dark

The night was dense with fog and silence. Officer Karan Mehra tightened his grip on the flashlight as he stepped onto the damp gravel road leading to the abandoned farmhouse just outside the city limits. It was here, three nights ago, that Nisha Verma, a young woman with a known history of drug use, was last seen. Since then, she had vanished—without a single clue.

Karan knew Nisha. They had crossed paths during his narcotics investigation last year. She was clever, erratic, but not suicidal. This wasn’t just another case of overdose and disappearance—something felt disturbingly different.

Inside the house, the air was stale with the scent of mold and something else—an unfamiliar chill that crept along his spine. The flashlight flickered once, twice, then steadied. Karan scanned the empty halls, the peeling wallpaper, the footprints that ended at a locked door. He kicked it open.

The room was dim, illuminated only by moonlight slipping through broken slats. A red scarf lay on the ground. Nisha’s. He picked it up, heart racing, but then something shifted. A shadow moved—not from his flashlight. From the corner.

"Who's there?" he called.

Silence.

He moved slowly, steps deliberate. As he reached the far wall, the air turned icy cold. And then—a whisper. Faint, almost like breath against his ear:

"She didn’t leave..."

Karan spun around, but no one was there. Just the empty room and his own heavy breathing.

He chalked it up to exhaustion. But as he made his way down the hallway, the whispers followed—taunting, leading. He entered the cellar beneath the house. There, he found it—scratch marks on the stone floor, as though someone had tried to claw their way out. Blood dried in the crevices.

Suddenly, the door behind him slammed shut.

His flashlight died.

Darkness swallowed everything.

In that void, something moved. He could feel it—circling. Watching. A voice, louder now, rasped:

"She called me. Now I’m here."

Karan stumbled back, clutching his gun, but nothing responded to the beam of his backup torch. Just shadows. But in the corner—Nisha. Pale. Wide-eyed. Not moving. Not breathing.

He reached for her, but his hand passed through her.

A realization hit him like ice: he wasn't alone. Not in the way he'd thought. Nisha had vanished because she had found something... or something had found her.

And now, it had him too.

The next morning, locals found his patrol car parked near the farmhouse. Engine still running.

But Karan Mehra was gone.

All that remained was his badge. Lying beside a red scarf.