Whispers of Miani Sahib

The air was heavy with dust and abandoned prayers as Hamza walked through the broken gates of Miani Sahib Graveyard. The air held the smell of dry roses and incense, and the distant thrum of city sounds disappeared behind the walls. Within this sprawling necropolis more than 1,200,000 graves deep time had folded into stillness.

Hamza did not believe in ghosts, curses, or myth that had been told by gravekeepers and tea men. A professional journalist, he had visited looking for the real reasons behind the rumors: stories of voices in the dark, of graves changing by themselves, and of an underground room claimed to be the tomb of aobliterated Mughal prince.

The tale was centuries old, lost like the rest of Miani Sahib's forgotten dead.

A lantern to light his way and recorder in his backpack, Hamza walked down a twisted, broken road with leaning gravestones and roots that pushed through the ground. Somewhere in the deepest part of the cemetery's oldest area beyond the British tombs and Mughal mausoleums he would discover what he sought.

His escort, an elderly gravedigger named Baba Faiz, had cautioned him first thing that morning.

"Some graves talk," he'd hissed behind rotting teeth. "Some don't want to be found."

Hamza had smiled at the time, but now the smile had died.

He walked past a line of weathered stone, and something changed in the quiet. He stopped.

A gentle murmur. Like whispering. Low. Rhythmic.

He spun around nothing. Simply trees swaying softly in the breeze.

He arrived at the Dara Pathan Quarter, the oldest part of the cemetery. Tombs here were centuries old names eroded by time, graves sunk in. At the center was a strange octagonal tomb, vines crawling over it. No name was inscribed on it.

This, said Baba Faiz, was it the Tomb of the Nameless Prince.

Legend had it that the prince had plotted against his Mughal brother, trying to usurp the throne. Punishment was exile, disownment of his name, and secret burial in order to wipe him out of memory. But there were said to be loyalists who had placed a book of prophecy and retribution with him. An accursed book.

Hamza went down on his knees beside the grave, tracing his fingers along the rock. There at the base was a tiny symbol carved into the stone: a crescent moon with an arrow thrust through it.

The same symbol had been the key to reading letters his grandfather used to hide in the attic. That's how he ended up here.

Abruptly, the wind began to blow. Not raw, but artificial circular, as if a spinning column was encircling him.

And then he heard it plainly this time.

Whispers. Voices upon voices, talking in long-forgotten Persian, Arabic, and something else than human. Chanting.

His lantern bobbed. The fire spat wildly, and the shadows of the tombs writhed and contracted.

He attempted to move, but his legs were leaden. The earth under him was sinking, dragging him down.

And then he saw it a figure.

It stood opposite the graveyard path, wearing a long tattered Mughal robe, face obscured in shadow. The figure carried a lantern of its own, the flame an otherworldly blue.

Hamza's throat dried up.

The figure extended its hand slowly and pointed to the tomb.

The wind stilled. The whispers stopped.

Hamza pushed himself forward and shoved against the bottom of the tomb. It moved.

Behind the stone was a thin spiral of a stairway, leading down into darkness.

He should have turned around. He should have fled.

But wonder was a more insistent voice than terror.

He went down.

Air chilled to ice and light scraped only a few feet. The room below was small, round, and walled with inscribed couplets. At the room's center, a half-opened stone sarcophagus.

Upon its lid was an ancient text, sealed in black wax.

Hamza grasped for it but before he could reach for it, a voice hissed behind him.

"Do not awaken what the empire silenced."

He spun around. The figure stood there, no longer in shadow. It had no face just skin, pulled taut over bone, and vacant sockets blazing with blue fire.

Hamza screamed but nothing emerged.

The figure advanced and laid a bony hand upon his chest.

Suddenly, visions flashed before Hamza's eyes cities aflame, thrones overturned, blood treachery, a prince's shriek as he was walled alive.

The final vision: Hamza's own face, white and lifeless, in the same tomb.

He reeled away and ran up the stairs, letting go of his recorder. He didn't slow down until he ran through the graveyard gate and fell to the street.

He was found there by people, shivering, bathed in sweat. He never went back to Miani Sahib.

The tale never went to print. The recorder, found later by a gravedigger, held only one recording: layers of whispering voices, reciting one sentence over and over.

"He will rise when the last name is spoken.".