Pareidolic Possessions

As we entered the dingy anatomy lab, the smell of formalin burned our nostrils.

All the four walls of the lab were covered by the eerie-looking specimens and diagrams. The path of sunlight entering the room was clearly visible along with dust particles suspended in the air due to the Tyndall effect. There were five huge bath tub-like tanks for cleaning the cadavers. Nearly all taps in the room were dripping after every 10 seconds and then we could hear the echo of the water drops.

We were divided into seven groups, with each group having three students. Then we were allotted our table, over which the cadavers were waiting to be dissected.

“These bodies are going to be your teachers for the next year. You’ll learn way more from them than from hundreds of books. So, treat them with respect!” said our anatomy professor, Mrs. Bindal.

We offered flowers to the bodies and thanked them for the wise decision they made for humanity and then pledged to utilise the knowledge for the welfare of the humans.

 We removed the pall from our respective cadavers. The smell was indeed unbearable but the sight was also awful. It seemed as if he died in a horrible accident.

I was about to faint but luckily Dishank and Navya handled me. 

“Are you okay?” she asked.

I nodded. Then we wore our gloves and took our tools.

I decided to study the nerves of the lower hands first. I took the blade and as I was about to make the cut, the tattoo on the wrist of the body caught my eyes.

It was a menacing skull tattoo.

A thought stuck me that the cadaver was........ “No, a lot of people can have this tattoo,” I told myself.

I again took the blade to make the cut but couldn’t.

I stared at the body.

It was not a perfectly preserved one as most of its skin had turned black but still, the one around the tattoo was in a decent state. Its head was badly injured. The nails had turned purple.

“Slide away for a second!” I told my group.

I opened the eyelid of the cadaver.

Those dark blue eyes, that skull tattoo and the sharp nose which survived the accident; no..........now, the cadavers seemed so familiar yet so strange.

I glanced at the tag, tied to the foot of the body.

It read, ‘13092013.’

I got a kick in the teeth.

I started to shiver.

‘No! It is impossible.’ I screamed.

“What happened?” enquired Navya.

“Are you okay?” asked Dishank.

“The tag........Those eyes...........that tattoo..........that nose...........He’s my uncle!” I answered in a thin voice.

I fainted.

********************

 “How did you forget me, so easily?” said a voice.

I looked around. I was standing in the middle of a road on a mountain cliff.

I started running as swiftly as I could. The sun set and the wolves started howling from the nearby hills.

I kept on running until I was out of breath. 

“I want to talk to you.” said the voice.

I stopped.

I was gasping when I heard the horn of a bus.

I looked up.

Two buses were approaching towards me from both sides.

They speeded. My heart was pounding so fast that it nearly bounced out.

They horned and speeded again.............and.............

I accepted that I was going to die. I closed my eyes and covered them with my hands.

The horn got louder as the buses were approaching me.

Honkkkkkkk............hooooonk..............hhhhhhhoooooonnnnnnkkkk.......

I opened my eyes.

To my surprise, I was lying on my bed in my room. I got up and looked at myself.

I was alright. There was no mark or scratch.

“Thank God, you finally woke up!” said Navya as she entered the room.

I realised that it was just a dream..............a horrific dream.

“What happened....how did I get here?” I asked.

“You fainted in the lab. So, we bought you here.” Dishank replied.

“So, that cadaver.........he’s your uncle.”

“Yes, he died on 13th September 2013.......That tag also said the same date.”

“But so many people die in a day. It’s not necessary!”

“Yeah, but all do not have that skull tattoo, dark blue eyes, sharp nose..... All these things cannot be a coincidence!”

“How did he die?”

“According to police, he died in an accident. But it cannot be proved as his dead body was never found!”

“Now?”

“We’ll have to talk to Bindal Mam,” I told them.

Next day, we went to Bindal Mam and asked her if she could tell us the history of the cadaver.

“It is none of your business, students. Get back to work!” she told us.

I went back to our table disappointedly.

I was not comfortable dissecting it, so, I kept on pretending to study it closely. 

The cadaver looked different.

His cornea had turned red, puss was coming from his mouth and..............the tattoo.............it seemed not to be engraved but rather as if the nerves have arranged themselves to form a skull.

It was impossible. We exchanged strange looks.

“Bloody hell! How is it possible in this world?” said Dishank.

“Even I’m shocked!”

“Should we tell this to Bindal Mam?”

“She’s not gonna do anything. You saw what she said now.”

“Now, there’s just one way that...............”

“Please don’t say that...............”

“Say what?”

“Yes, Dishank. We’ve to stay here overnight!” I said.

The bell rang.

******************

While everyone was busy removing their gloves, we got successful in stealing the spare key of the lab.

We went to the canteen where I told Dishank and Navya all about my dream.

Then we spent the remaining time in the library and then we went to the record file room to pass the time until the sun set.

The professor came and told us that it was time to lock the room and hence we should leave. So, we had only one place to hide, the toilet.

Once the darkness occupied the campus, we came out and through the gloomy and abandoned corridors, we reached the anatomy lab.

We opened the lock of the lab carefully without making any sound.

The lab was an excellent set for any horror film in the daytime but during the night; it was itself not less than a cemetery.

It seemed as if all the specimens were staring at us.

Dishank hit a table and as I was following him, I hit him. So, we lighted our mobile phone’s flashlight.

The body looked as it was looking during the daytime until we realised that...............it was weeping. It was weeping the tears of blood.

“I.....I....I...think we should leave this place!” cried Dishank.

“Yes!” I replied.

We ran towards the door but as soon as we were about to exit it closed with a bang, trapping us inside.

“This isn’t a good thing. Is it guys?” Navya asked us.

We looked behind at the cadavers.

A beam of light was falling on that cadaver and it started levitating.

All the other bodies stood up and gathered around it and started hailing it.

We couldn’t believe our eyes. We hugged each other as tight as we could, praying to God to save us.

The veins of the cadaver popped out and it screamed...............a painful and deadly scream. The other bodies kept their hands on each others’ shoulders, making a circle around the table and then started revolving around it.

We were trembling and suddenly Dishank screamed. It made all the bodies notice us. They started coming towards us.

We ran.

We knocked on the door as hard as we could but didn’t open.

The dead men approaching us as the cadaver was screaming louder.

We saw the window. Navya got a chair and threw it to break the glass. So, we jumped off from the window.

We went to the hospital area which was still open as patients were admitted in the wards.

The only room which was open for us was the patients’ history room, luckily. We secretly entered it.

It was a small room with books and files piled in all the corners but we were interested only in those which belonged to 2013.

We searched for 13th September everywhere and finally, after hours of hunt, Navya found the file which read-

‘Patient’s name- Mr. Vinayak Rao

Date of death- 13th September 2013

Cause of death- Unknown’

“He’s my uncle!” I told them.

We opened the report and started reading it. It said-

‘The patient named Mr. Vinayak Rao; gender- mal

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e, age-21 was admitted to F.H.S. Medical and Hospital on 13th September 2013.

The patient was dead before he reached the hospital due to unknown reasons. No one claimed his body. The person who brought him, Mr. Tarun Awasthi was given clean chit by the police from any suspicion.’

“Tarun Awasthi!” I yelped.

“Do you know him?”

“He’s Nitin’s father!”

“Nitin..............he died.........”

“Yes, he died on 12th September 2013 when we were in school,” I replied.

We spent the whole night in the patients’ history room.

*******************

Next day, we left it as soon as the sun rose. Without even looking at the anatomy lab, we left college.

We went to our school to solve the pieces of the puzzle.

“So good to see you all!” said our principal.

“Mam, can we meet Priya Mam? It’s urgent!” I enquired.

Principal Mam’s eyes widened, she removed her spectacles and replied, “I’m so sorry to inform you that she’s no more!”

“What do you mean?”

“You know what happened on 12th September 2013, right! It is still haunting us. Firstly, Mrs. Priya and then 3 more students. We’ll ‘ve to close this school!”

“3 students?”

“All the three, you know who!”

“It means...........”

“Yes, you might be next!”

“Is that room still here?”

“Yes, but we’ve locked it.”

“Can we go there?”

“No, it isn’t supposed. It’s a hazardous place!”

“If all this is true, then even this place is also unsafe!” I replied.

She accepted to take us to the room but told us that won’t enter though.

Through the dark and narrow corridors, we reached a huge iron gate.

“I can’t go beyond.” She told us.

So, we left the Principal Mam there and opened the gate. It unlocked to an open ground which had been deserted for years. Weeds were growing from everywhere around the old cottage which stood in the centre.

We opened the door of the cottage.

It was full of cardboard boxes and iron canisters. But we knew that if the place was untouched since that day, then there should be something on the first floor.

With the old ladder, we reached the first floor.

Everything was as it is as it was on that day.

The knife, the blood stains and the materials required for autopsy.

It seems just yesterday when that black day changed our lives.

On 10th September 2013, those three boys were torturing Nitin as they used to do like any other day. But it was enough for Nitin. He couldn’t bear it anymore. He went to the staff room to complain against them to Mrs. Priya. She took action against them but they somehow were pardoned.

They came back to school on 12th September 2013. Nitin complained to Mrs. Priya that how did they get pardoned so early. Priya Mam tried to explain to him that even she didn’t know but he left without listening to her.

While he was getting into the bus, the three surrounded him.

“So, you complained against us!” one of them said.

The arguments began and in the heat of the moment, one of them pushed Nitin out.

The driver unknowingly started the bus and eventually, it crushed Nitin.

We took his body to that cottage. It was the head boy (me), head girl, the three boys, Priya Mam, and my Uncle along with Nitin’s body in that cottage when his father came.

He gave a deadly look at the three boys and took Nitin’s body in his lap. He hugged and then again kept in on floor and then pierced Nitin’s heart with the knife.

We were frightened. He then pierced that knife through the heart of the head girl and said, “You all will pay for it. Your lives will give my son a new life.”

We ran quickly out of the cottage locking him inside but when we returned with police no one was found there.

*****************************

I’ve realized that his father was behind all these murders and now it was my turn.

I decided to keep that knife with me. As we were about to leave the cottage, Dishank’s foot hit a book which read-

‘The generals of Autopsy and black magic’

We took the book as well.

We reached home and read the book.

According to the book, a dead person can be bought back to life with the help of some complex rituals and sacrificing 7 humans, especially those who are responsible for the death.

He had already killed 6 of them, only I was left.

The book also said that the soul must keep on changing its body with those who are sacrificed through possessions to prevent it from being caught by the positive energies. But if the body in which the soul is possessed is destroyed before the next sacrifice, only then the whole ritual can be halted but the body must be destroyed in night time only.

So, it was clear that his soul was in my Uncle’s body.

 We decided to destroy the body that night only. We gathered kerosene and matchbox to burn the cadaver.

We again secretly entered the college’s premises during the night and peeked into the anatomy lab.

The cadaver was levitating as it was on that day and the other dead men were revolving around it.

We had no idea what we were going to do.

The cadaver came down. Its skin was completely healed and his eyes had turned red.

“Come on, don’t hide behind these walls. I know you three are here,” he called and we started attracting towards him.

**********************

We were standing in front of the cadaver, petrified.

He took the knife from my hand and said, “It is not meant for weak people!”

He was about to penetrate it right through my heart but something happened and he screamed.

We got vivified.

He was crying in pain, not like that day. We realised it was due to the pole star that he was becoming weak.

The book said that the light of the pole star is used by the positive energies to search for the bad ones.

Without wasting time, we left the lab. But he was following us.

We went to the same cottage where it all started.

 We were hiding behind the iron canisters, waiting for an opportunity to attack him.

He entered the cottage.

Our heart paced.

Dishank stood up and left. We tried to stop him but he didn’t. In the quest, to ask him where he was going, we hit a canister which clued the cadaver where we were hiding.

I and Navya tried to keep quiet but it was useless.

Next moment he was standing in front of our eyes.

He took the knife and tried to attack Navya but I got in his way and the knife pierced my arm. Navya got a hammer which was lying next to the canister behind which we were hiding.

She threw it on his head.

He screamed.

“Want my help?” Said a voice.

It was Dishank.

He threw some barrels down from the first floor which came rolling down the ladder and made him tumble down.

One of the barrels kept on rolling until it hit the canisters and its cap opened, releasing some sort of oil in the cottage.

Dishank came down and took us out holding our hands.

He was still following us but we exited earlier than him and hence, locked the cottage from outside.

“Now?” I asked.

“Just watch!” Dishank replied.

He lighted a piece of wood lying on the ground and threw it inside the cottage.

“The barrels contained kerosene!” Dishank exclaimed.

The cottage caught fire as the cadavers also got burned while trying to open the door.

 “How did you know that the barrel had kerosene?” Navya asked.

“I smelled it on the first day we were here and today, some of the kerosene spilled on my hand while we were hiding.” He replied.

We waited until the cottage turned completely into ashes.

The Principal Mam thanked us and told us that she will organise holy rituals to completely eradicate any sort of negativity.

Finally, everything became normal and joined our classes.

**********************

One day, Dr. Ajay Kaushik, asked us to bring him the report of a patient.

He told us that the patient’s treatment was started in 2013 and now he was completely fine.

So, we three went the patients’ history room where we found his report under the report of my uncle.

I decided to read the report once again to get a clue of Tarun Awasthi.

But what was written in the report shocked me. It was not the description of my uncle’s death but rather it read-

‘Seventh sacrifice has been made!’