Mumbai's Golden Boy
The air in Mumbai hung thick with the humidity of a late evening, a familiar, heavy blanket that Rajeev Agnihotri had grown up beneath. He was a pillar of his small suburban society, the kind of man whose mere presence seemed to radiate a gentle, almost old-world decency. He and his friend, Suresh, were more than just neighbors and colleagues at the same financial firm; they were an institution. Their bond was legendary—a perfect picture of unwavering loyalty, two shadows tethered by a shared, innate goodness.
Rajeev was a man who lived to give. He'd pause his walk to help an elderly woman with her groceries, spend his free evenings kicking a football with the neighborhood kids, and volunteer at the local shelter. He was famous for his smile, but beneath the genial mask, a profound, unshakable sorrow resided—a grief that had hollowed him out two years prior.
His perfect life—the one with his spirited wife, Anjali, and their five-year-old bundle of curiosity, Anaya—had been shattered on a sun-drenched afternoon that was meant to be a celebration. It was their wedding anniversary.
The Day the Music Stopped
Anjali, vibrant and full of life, had been buzzing around their apartment, directing Anaya on where to hang the glittery streamers. A quick call from the cake shop settled their last-minute detail.
"We need to grab the cake, honey," Anjali had said, her voice lilting with excitement.
"Yuppie! Let's go for a ride, Mommy!" Anaya had cheered, clutching her favorite teddy bear, Mr. Snuggles.
The drive was twenty minutes of pure, domestic joy. Anaya chattering, Anjali humming, the highway stretching out before them, promising a beautiful evening. Anjali left Anaya strapped in the passenger seat, promising to be back in five minutes with the surprise.
The transaction at the cake shop was swift—the final payment, the receipt, the pristine white box. Anjali returned to the car, a joyful secret gleaming in her eyes as she showed the box to Anaya. "Daddy will be so surprised!"
What happened next was an act of brutal, indifferent fate.
On the opposite lane of the highway, a massive commercial truck veered wildly. The driver had lost control, the steering column locked in a horrifying, irreversible turn. The truck didn't just cross the median; it swerved diagonally, transforming the quiet stretch of road into a kill zone.
Anjali saw it—a metallic titan hurtling toward her small sedan. She had time for one single, terrified scream, a sound instantly drowned out by the grotesque shriek of crumpling metal. The impact was merciless, a collision so violent it seemed designed to annihilate.
Rajeev was in an important meeting when his phone began to vibrate relentlessly. He ignored it, then ignored it again, until the caller's persistence—a desperate, machine-gun burst of rings—forced him to excuse himself.
"Hello, this is Rajeev," he answered, his tone curt.
"Mr. Rajeev, this is Sub-Inspector Chandra Patil. I have terrible news. There's been an accident. Your wife and daughter…" The officer's voice was professional, but the words were a hammer blow.
Rajeev drove to the location in a blinding haze of tears and disbelief. When he arrived, the scene was a tableau of horror. The car was unrecognizable, a mangled husk pressed against the truck's undercarriage.
Inspector Patil guided him toward the ambulances. Two figures lay covered by blood-stained sheets.
With a trembling, almost non-existent will, Rajeev knelt. He first lifted the cloth covering Anjali. He didn't just see his wife; he saw a ghastly, anatomical impossibility. Her body had been severed at the waist, a brutal tear inflicted by the sheer force of the collision and the splintered metal of the car's console. The shock was physical, a jolt of ice water directly to his heart.
Then, the second sheet.
He lifted it slowly from his daughter's body. Anaya's small, fragile head had been crushed, separated from her neck. It lay near her body, her face already cold, a silent, final scream in her wide, lifeless eyes. In her tiny arms, still stained crimson, was Mr. Snuggles, the teddy bear she insisted on taking for the ride.
This vision didn't just cause grief; it caused a catastrophic mental fracture. Rajeev sat there, holding a piece of his wife's hand and a piece of his daughter's, unable to utter a sound. His body was seized by convulsions, the silent testimony of a soul that had just died.
The Mail at Midnight
Two years passed. Rajeev had crawled out of the deep, suffocating trench of clinical depression only by telling himself the same lie every day: It was destiny. He funneled his sorrow into furious acts of charity, the same helping hand, but now with a haunted emptiness in his eyes.
It was a quiet Saturday evening. Rajeev sat on his balcony, the city lights shimmering below, a mug of tea in one hand and a framed photo—Anjali, Anaya, and himself—in the other. He spent hours tracing their smiling faces, resurrecting happy ghosts.
Around 11:30 PM, after cleaning the remnants of his solitary dinner, he settled into his usual nightly routine: checking social media. He opened his laptop, the blue light illuminating his weary face.
Then, the notification: New Mail Received.
Rajeev frowned. Midnight wasn't a time for professional correspondence. Curious and mildly apprehensive, he clicked open his inbox. The sender's name froze the blood in his veins.
Sender: Anonymous Death
The name was lurid, the subject line empty. He hesitated, his thumb hovering over the trackpad. A prank, surely. A malicious joke from a bored hacker. He opened it anyway.
The message was brief, stark, and terrifying.
Subject: (Empty)
Hello Mr. Rajeev.
My name is Anonymous Death. Since you've opened this mail, you are now a participant in my game.
The rules are simple: A series of unexpected events will occur in your life. You have to survive them by making the 'perfect decision.' Let me be clear—these events will scare you, they will make you suffer, but only the perfect decision will ensure your survival.
Your first event is tonight.
When you are in a deep sleep, you will hear a distinct sound coming from your kitchen. The choice is yours: Will you investigate the source of the noise, or will you ignore it and continue your rest?
Consider this a warning: A small wrong step will cost you a big, irreversible loss.
Best of luck, Mr. Rajeev. I truly hope you have a good night's sleep.
Rajeev's heart began to hammer against his ribs. Who is this? What does this mean? His mind screamed through a fog of rising panic. Then, a defense mechanism clicked in. It's a prank. It has to be.
He slammed the laptop shut, the click echoing too loudly in the silence of the apartment. He went to bed, but the words—The game is simple... unexpected events... irreversible loss—had burrowed deep, poisoning his peace.
The Child's Whisper
Sleep was slow in coming, fractured by images of the mail and the horror it promised. Finally, exhaustion took hold, dragging him down into a shallow, fitful rest.
Then, a sound.
It wasn't a dream. It was a faint, yet distinct, scra-a-ape from the direction of the kitchen, followed by a soft, stifled whimper.
Rajeev's eyes snapped open. His first instinct was to rationalize: The fridge settling. The building shifting. A rat.
He tried to go back to sleep. Ignore it. That was the choice. But the noise—the sound of something small and vulnerable—had been too real.
He sat up. His mouth was dry. He reached for the glass on his nightstand, only to find the water jug empty. I have to go to the kitchen anyway.
He swung his legs out of bed, his every muscle tense. He took a cautious step toward the bedroom door.
That's when he saw it.
In the faint spill of moonlight from the balcony window, a small, child-sized shadow detached itself from the wall and began to follow him.
Rajeev froze. He lived alone. He swallowed a lump of pure terror, took a shaky breath, and spun around with a sudden, desperate movement.
Nothing.
The hallway was empty, the shadows just shadows. Hallucination. Stress. He tried to tell himself, but the image was imprinted on his retina: the slight figure, the small head. It was the size of a five-year-old.
As he turned back toward the kitchen, a voice, high-pitched and utterly heartbreaking, ripped through the silence.
"Daddy! Help Me, Please!"
It was a girl's voice. Anaya's voice.
Rajeev lurched backward, pressing his spine against the cool wood of the bedroom doorframe. "Who's there!?" he bellowed, his voice cracking. "Answer me! Who are you!?"
"Calm down, Rajeev. This is the game. This is the choice. Hallucination, that's all. It's a trick to make you go there," he mentally argued, trying to override the paternal instinct screaming at him to run to the voice.
He forced himself forward, his bare feet padding softly on the cold marble. He reached the kitchen entrance, his entire body rigid. He reached for the refrigerator, pulled out a bottle of chilled water, and sank onto a dining chair, trying to ground himself in the mundane.
As he unscrewed the cap, lost in the frantic puzzle of the mail, a huge, looming form cast a massive, distorted shadow across the tile floor, spreading from the kitchen entrance. It was massive, shapeless, and menacing.
Rajeev slowly, agonizingly, raised his gaze.
The shadow disappeared.
There's nothing there. There's nothing there!
He stood up, grabbing the water bottle, deciding to flee back to the sanctuary of his bedroom. As he took his first step, a voice, chillingly close and intimate, breathed a word directly into his ear.
"This. Is. Not. A. Joke. Rajeev."
The sheer proximity, the cold rush of air, and the whispered malice were too much. His control snapped. He stumbled backward, the water bottle flying from his hand, and his head struck the sharp corner of the dining table before hitting the unforgiving marble floor with a sickening thud. A blinding white light flashed behind his eyes, replaced immediately by absolute darkness. He lost consciousness, his body sprawled in the pool of spilled water.
The Morning After
The relentless ringing of the doorbell and furious pounding woke him.
Rajeev groaned, his whole world a pulsing ache centered on his forehead. He was dizzy, nauseous, and deeply confused. He slowly put a hand to his head, and his fingers came away sticky with a thick, dried substance. He squinted through his blurred vision.
Blood.
The panic was immediate and primal. "Oh, my God! Oh, my God!" he muttered, a hoarse, ragged sound.
Outside, the knocking intensified. "Rajeev! Are you alright?! It's Suresh! Rajeev, answer me!"
Suresh, hearing the distressed cry, didn't hesitate. He raced back to his flat, grabbed the spare key to Rajeev's apartment—a relic of their deep friendship—and sprinted back.
The lock clicked, and Suresh burst in, shouting, "Rajeev! Where are you?!"
A weak, strained voice drifted from the back of the apartment. "I… I'm in the kitchen…"
Suresh found him on the cold floor, pale and bleeding, a crust of dried blood on his temple and a small smear on the floor beneath his head.
"Oh, buddy," Suresh murmured, kneeling instantly. "What happened? Come on, let's get you up."
It took immense effort, but Suresh managed to lift his friend and carry him to the bed. Rajeev, eyes fluttering, could only manage a single, whispered phrase, repeated like a broken prayer:
"The mail… the mail…"
Suresh was instantly worried. Rajeev was clearly in shock. He called the doctor, then his own mother, Mrs. Sharma, a kind woman who was practically Rajeev's second mother.
While Suresh cleaned the gash on Rajeev's head and waited for the doctor, Mrs. Sharma started cleaning the kitchen.
"Something happened here, Mom," Suresh murmured, looking at the pattern of the blood splatter and the knocked-over chair. "Something weird."
"You better wait for him to wake up, son," Mrs. Sharma advised gently. "Don't jump to conclusions."
The doctor arrived quickly. After examining Rajeev, he confirmed the shock. "He's physically injured and his mind isn't stable. He keeps murmuring about a 'mail'. Do you know anything about it, Suresh?"
Suresh shook his head. "No, Doctor. I've no idea."
The doctor stitched the wound, administered a sedative to force proper rest, and gave instructions. "He needs to sleep. The shock has exhausted him. When he wakes, keep him calm."
Later, as Suresh returned with the medicines, Rajeev woke up with a sharp, gasping jolt, his limbs twitching as if escaping a nightmare.
"Hey, Rajeev, it's me. Suresh. You're safe. Just breathe, man."
Rajeev took the offered glass of water, his hand shaking so violently he almost spilled it. After a long, shuddering drink, he looked at his friend and his surrogate mother, his eyes wide with a terror that transcended the physical pain.
"It wasn't a dream, Suresh. It was a game. I got a mail. An email from Anonymous Death."
Rajeev explained everything: the horrifying mail, the choice, the child's shadow, the chilling whisper. The whole narrative spilled out in a torrent of frightened words.
"Bring me the laptop, Suresh. You have to see it. You have to see the evidence."
Suresh retrieved the laptop. Rajeev quickly opened his inbox. "There, look! The mail from 'Anonymous Death'! It's right before the bank notification!"
Suresh leaned in, his brows furrowed in confusion. He scrolled, then scrolled again.
"Rajeev… buddy, there is no mail from anyone named 'Anonymous Death'. There's the bank notification… and then the one before that is just spam."
Mrs. Sharma peered over his shoulder. "He's right, beta. There's nothing like that here."
Rajeev snatched the laptop back, his panic spiking. "No! It's here! Look!" He pointed frantically at the screen.
And for him, it was there. Clear as day.
"How can this be possible?" Rajeev cried out, the shock from the night before returning in a devastating wave. "I see it! I swear on Anjali and Anaya, the mail is right here!"
Suresh placed a calming hand on his shoulder, his face etched with worry. "I believe you believe it, Rajeev. But we… we honestly can't see it."
The chilling reality hit Rajeev with the force of a physical blow. The game was not just psychological; it was something uniquely, terrifyingly his. The threat, the shadow, and the rules of Anonymous Death were visible only to him.
Whose shadow was there in Rajeev's house?Why was this mail not visible to others?
The questions hung in the air, a malevolent promise. The game had begun, and Rajeev Agnihotri, Mumbai's golden boy, was its unwilling and utterly alone player.