"Shadow of the Unknown"

The moment the light hit the shadowy figure, it recoiled slightly, its form flickering like a disrupted signal. For a fraction of a second, Tushar thought he saw something beneath the darkness—something skeletal, something hollow.

And then, suddenly, he was falling.

Not backward, not forward—but into darkness itself.

A suffocating void swallowed him whole, and his screams were lost in the abyss.

Part 3: The Depths of Fear:

Tushar’s body plunged through the darkness, his senses disoriented as the air around him became thick, heavy. He could feel himself falling endlessly, as if the very fabric of reality had warped beneath his feet. His stomach churned, and his mind raced, trying to make sense of what was happening.

Was this a dream? A hallucination?

The thought flickered in his mind, but it was quickly drowned out by the overwhelming sensation of vertigo. The coldness gripped him, seeping into his skin, his bones. It wasn’t the chill of night air; this felt different—unnatural, as if the very essence of the world was rejecting him.

His feet suddenly met solid ground with a thud, and he stumbled, regaining his balance. The dizziness didn’t subside, but the disorienting sensation of falling did. The darkness remained, thick and suffocating, yet there was something else now—a faint, pulsating light in the distance.

It beckoned him.

Tushar didn’t want to move, didn’t want to take another step. Every instinct in his body told him to turn back, to run back to the porch, to the light that had once been so comforting. But the strange pull from the light was undeniable, its quiet force overpowering any shred of rational thought.

He began walking toward it, each step slow and heavy, as though he was trudging through thick mud. His thoughts were muddled, his mind struggling to process the reality of his situation. He had to be dreaming. This couldn’t be real.

As he walked closer, the light grew brighter, sharper, revealing its true form. It wasn’t a single source of light—it was a sphere of glowing energy, pulsating like the beating heart of the forest itself. It hung suspended in the air, as if gravity had no power here. The light flickered and shifted, casting eerie shadows on the ground around it.

Tushar’s eyes widened as he approached the sphere. He could see faint shapes moving within it, shifting and warping as if the light was alive, breathing. Within the sphere, there were faces—screaming faces, twisted in agony, contorted in forms that no human being should ever endure.

His heart skipped a beat.

The faces—these weren’t just any faces.

They were people he recognized.

His grandfather. His father. Even his own face, distorted and frozen in terror.

He stumbled backward, his breath coming in short, panicked gasps. The air around him seemed to thicken, pressing in from all sides. The light swirled, and the whispers returned—louder now, echoing in his mind, gnawing at his sanity.

"This is your fate, Tushar."

The voice was unmistakable. It was the same one that had spoken to him on the porch, that cold, hollow presence that seemed to be everywhere at once. He wanted to run, to escape, but the pull of the light was too strong. His feet wouldn’t move. His body refused to obey.

"You’ve seen too much."

The faces within the light twisted even further, their screams growing louder, more desperate. He could hear his grandfather’s voice, distorted, pleading. “Get out, Tushar! Run! Don’t stay here!”

Tushar shook his head, his body trembling. "No… no, this isn’t real!" He tried to scream, but his voice was drowned out by the sound of the wailing faces.

Then, just as suddenly as the light had appeared, it began to flicker and fade. The faces, the voices—all of it—vanished. The pulsating sphere collapsed inward, leaving only darkness in its wake.

Tushar was alone again.

The oppressive silence was worse than the screams.

He couldn’t breathe. He felt suffocated by the weight of the forest, the weight of the darkness that pressed against him from all sides. Every instinct in his body screamed at him to escape—to flee—but his legs felt like lead. His feet remained rooted to the spot, paralyzed by fear.

And then, as if summoned by his terror, the shadow reappeared.

It emerged from the edges of the darkness, its form flickering in and out of existence, like a broken image struggling to hold itself together. It was not human, yet it was not entirely alien. It was something in between, something that existed outside of the natural world. Its presence radiated an ancient, incomprehensible power, a force that bent reality itself.

It moved toward him, its form becoming more solid with each step, until it was standing before him, towering over him.

"You shouldn’t have come here."

The voice echoed in his mind, inside his very soul. He tried to back away, but his feet remained stuck, unable to move.

The shadow raised its arm, its elongated fingers stretching toward him, and Tushar felt an icy coldness seep into his chest, spreading outwards, freezing him from the inside. The world around him blurred, fading into nothingness. The last thing he saw was the shadow’s outstretched hand, and then—nothing.