Chapter 1: The Fading Faces
The air in Lucknow was thick with excitement. The festival season was around the corner, and the campus buzzed with energy. Kajal’s laughter echoed across the courtyard as she sat with her friends, their conversations spilling over with jokes, gossip, and plans for the weekend. There was a warm, familiar rhythm to their gatherings, a sense of belonging she always cherished. But today, something felt off. It was subtle at first, like a barely noticeable shift in the wind, but it gnawed at her.
“Where’s Arti?” Kajal asked, glancing around the usual spot where Arti would have sat. She hadn’t been in class today either, which wasn’t like her. Arti was never the kind to skip class, especially during finals season. Kajal expected one of her friends to offer a casual explanation—maybe Arti had gone home early, or perhaps she was caught up in some last-minute assignment. But instead, her question was met with blank stares.
“Arti who?” Rhea asked, her brows furrowed in genuine confusion. The others exchanged puzzled looks.
Kajal blinked, her smile faltering. “Arti. You know, our friend. Short, curly hair? Loves those neon-colored scrunchies?”
More blank stares. A pit of unease began to open in Kajal’s stomach.
“Kajal, are you okay?” Ananya asked, a hint of concern in her voice. “I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone named Arti.”
Kajal let out a nervous laugh, waving it off. “Very funny, guys. Come on, I’m serious.”
But as she scanned their faces, she realized they weren’t joking. They weren’t playing one of their usual pranks. They genuinely had no idea who Arti was. The conversation moved on quickly, her friends chatting about their plans for the weekend, as if nothing had happened. As if Arti had never existed.
Kajal’s fingers gripped her phone, a cold sweat prickling her skin. She typed out a quick message to Arti, something light, asking if she was okay. The message didn’t deliver. A red exclamation point appeared next to her text, as if her number had been disconnected. Frowning, she opened Arti’s Instagram. Or at least, she tried to. Arti’s profile was gone. No photos, no traces, no friends in common. It was like she had been wiped clean from existence.
By the time Kajal returned to her room that evening, the unsettling feeling had wrapped around her like a vice. She scrolled through her contact list again, searching for any mention of Arti. Nothing. Her name wasn’t there. Her texts were gone. Heart pounding, Kajal called a few friends from high school, hoping someone would remember Arti, someone outside their college circle. But they too responded with the same confused silence.
Had she imagined her? Was she going insane?
No. Arti was real. She had been with them just yesterday, joking about her terrible math scores and asking for notes. Kajal could picture her clearly, hear her voice, even smell the strawberry-scented perfume she always wore. But now, it was like the world had forgotten her.
The next morning, Kajal half-expected everything to be back to normal—that this strange lapse in reality would somehow correct itself. But as she stepped into the classroom, the empty chair where Arti usually sat sent a chill down her spine. The others seemed oblivious, as if they hadn’t noticed anything was wrong.
“Hey, have any of you talked to Rishi today?” Kajal asked during their lunch break. “I didn’t see him in class either.”
Silence.
Her heart skipped a beat. The air around her felt heavy, oppressive. Rishi had been there at the start of the semester, hadn’t he? He was part of their group, laughing with them just last week. She had known him for two years. She tried calling him, but like Arti, his number was no longer in service. She searched for him on social media—his account was gone too.
Kajal’s pulse quickened as she stared at her friends, who continued chatting like nothing was wrong. Like Rishi wasn’t real.
“Guys!” she snapped, louder than she intended. “Rishi! Arti! How can you not remember them? They’re our friends! We’ve spent every day together since college started! This doesn’t make sense!”
Rhea and Ananya exchanged uneasy glances. “Kajal,” Ananya said softly, “I think you need to take a break. You’re stressed.”
“I’m not stressed!” Kajal’s voice wavered. “They’re disappearing. Our friends are disappearing, and no one else seems to care. How is that possible?”
“Kajal…” Rhea hesitated, her eyes soft with sympathy. “You should really see someone. Maybe it’s anxiety.”
An icy dread settled deep in Kajal’s chest. They thought she was losing her mind.
She stood abruptly, her legs trembling. “I need to find them. I have to.”
Without another word, she grabbed her bag and left the cafeteria, her vision blurring with panic. The world around her seemed to pulse with something dark, something insidious. It felt like reality itself was shifting, erasing people, memories, lives.
Racing across campus, she headed toward the administration office. She would check the class records, the attendance sheets. There had to be proof—something to show that Arti and Rishi existed. But when she got there, the clerk gave her the same confused look she had seen on her friends’ faces.
“There’s no one by those names in the system, miss.”
Kajal’s world spun. Her breath came in ragged gasps. She stumbled out of the office, her mind racing. What was happening? Who was doing this? And why?
Her phone buzzed in her hand, startling her. A text from an unknown number flashed on the screen:
"Stop looking."
Kajal’s blood ran cold. She looked around, but the campus seemed ordinary. Students walked by, laughing, chatting, living their lives as if nothing was wrong. As if her world wasn’t unraveling around her.
But she could feel it now. Something was watching her.
Chapter 2: The Empty Desks
The following days blurred into a whirlwind of confusion and growing terror. Kajal's footsteps echoed unnervingly through the hallways, and every door she pushed open felt heavier, the air thicker. More faces had vanished. More laughter had died.
She rushed into her classroom, her breath coming in short, panicked bursts. The room was filled with students, all chatting animatedly, but something was wrong. Terribly wrong. There, in the back row where Arti and Rishi used to sit, two unfamiliar students now occupied their seats. Two new faces Kajal had never seen before. Her stomach dropped.
"Who are they?" she muttered under her breath, her fingers trembling as she clutched her bag. She couldn’t take it anymore. Ignoring the strange looks from her classmates, Kajal marched straight to the front of the class, confronting the professor.
“Where are Arti and Rishi?” she demanded, her voice strained, barely holding back panic.
The professor—a grey-haired, tired man who barely looked up from his notes—didn’t even blink. “I don’t know who you’re talking about, Miss.”
Kajal’s pulse thundered in her ears. She grabbed the attendance sheet from his desk, scanning it furiously. No Arti. No Rishi. Instead, the names of the two strangers glared back at her, mocking her. Her hands shook so violently she almost dropped the paper.
"They were here last week!" Kajal cried. "They’ve been part of this class for months!"
But the professor just gave her that same tired look, as if she were the one losing her grip on reality. “Please, Miss Kajal, return to your seat.”
Her legs felt weak as she stumbled back to her desk, barely registering the curious glances of her classmates. The world was closing in on her. The chatter around her sounded muffled, distant, like she was trapped underwater, unable to break the surface. Her chest tightened. The walls seemed to creep closer, suffocating her.
That afternoon, she went to Arti’s house. Her knuckles rapped against the door over and over again until a middle-aged woman answered. Arti's mother—who had always greeted Kajal with warmth—now stared at her with blank, unknowing eyes.
“Can I help you?” the woman asked, her tone cold, unfamiliar.
Kajal blinked, confused. “Aunty... it’s me, Kajal. Is Arti home?”
The woman’s face twisted in bewilderment. “I don’t know anyone named Arti. You must have the wrong house.”
“No, no, I’ve been here a hundred times!” Kajal insisted, her voice rising, desperation clawing at her throat. “Arti is your daughter! She’s my best friend!”
But the door slammed in her face, leaving Kajal standing alone on the doorstep, trembling, her heart sinking into a pit of despair. She ran to Rishi’s house next. Same result. His family didn’t recognize her. Didn’t know him. There was no trace that he had ever lived there. No photos, no memories, nothing. It was like they had never existed.
As she stumbled back toward her hostel that night, tears burning her eyes, something caught her attention out of the corner of her vision. A shadow. Tall, misshapen, watching her from across the road. Kajal froze, turning sharply to face it—but the figure was gone. Her pulse quickened as she scanned the street. Empty.
She hurried inside, locking the door behind her, her heart racing. The silence of the hostel room was deafening, pressing down on her with an oppressive weight. She collapsed onto her bed, exhaustion and terror overwhelming her senses.
Then came the dreams. Night after night, Kajal found herself in an endless black void. Arti and Rishi would appear at first, their voices distorted, calling out to her from the darkness, their faces slowly fading into the blackness as they reached for her. No matter how hard Kajal tried to run toward them, the distance between them stretched farther and farther until they disappeared completely, leaving her alone in the suffocating void.
Help us... find us...
The voices haunted her. Every time she woke up drenched in sweat, gasping for breath, she felt like she had left a piece of herself behind in that dark space. And every morning, as she walked into class, the reality she knew seemed to warp more. The laughter of her classmates rang hollow, their faces blurry at the edges. The air was thick with something—something wrong, something evil.
Kajal couldn’t escape the growing paranoia that gripped her every waking moment. She could feel it now—the weight of unseen eyes on her back, watching her every move. Whenever she turned, she caught fleeting glimpses of shadowy figures, always in the corners of her vision. Tall, dark forms standing just out of reach, waiting. Waiting for what? She didn’t know.
She confided in her professors, her classmates, even the hostel warden, but each time she did, she was met with blank stares and nervous smiles. They all said the same thing: "Maybe you’re just stressed, Kajal. It’s nothing." But Kajal knew it wasn’t nothing. Something was happening. People were disappearing. Their lives, their very existence, were being erased as though they had never been.
And then, one night, as she lay in bed, her phone buzzed again. That same unknown number from before.
"Stop searching."
Her blood turned to ice. She dropped the phone, her hands shaking uncontrollably. She could barely breathe as the darkness in the room seemed to stretch and bend around her. Slowly, she forced herself to pick up the phone again, her fingers trembling as she typed out a reply.
"Who are you? What do you want?"
The reply came instantly.
"I’m watching you."
The phone slipped from her hand, clattering to the floor. Kajal’s breath hitched, her heart pounding against her chest like a trapped bird trying to escape. She glanced around her room, her eyes darting from shadow to shadow, but everything was still. Too still.
The silence was suffocating. The weight of it pressed down on her like a heavy fog, pulling her deeper into a spiral of fear and confusion. She felt the walls closing in, the shadows creeping closer. She wasn’t safe. Not here. Not anywhere.
And then she heard it—a faint whisper, barely audible, like a breath against her ear.
"You’re next."
Kajal bolted upright, her pulse thundering in her ears. The room was empty, but the shadows danced in the corners, taunting her, waiting. She was running out of time.
She knew now that whatever this was, it wasn’t going to stop. Not until she was gone too.
Chapter 3: The Vanishing World
Kajal sat in her room, staring at her reflection in the cracked mirror. Her eyes, wide with fear, darted between the lines on her face as if she were searching for something she had lost. Something important. But what?
Her hands trembled as she fumbled through her desk drawers, her fingers brushing against old notebooks, pens, and a faded photograph. She yanked it out, holding it up to the dim light. It was a yearbook photo of her and her friends—Arti, Rishi, and a few others, laughing at some forgotten joke, arms slung over each other like they’d never let go.
But something was wrong.
Her breath caught in her throat as she scanned the picture again. The faces were blurred, indistinct, like a smudge on a glass. Arti’s face, once so familiar, was now a hazy silhouette. Rishi’s grin had faded into an empty void.
Kajal's hands shook harder. She flipped the picture over, hoping to find something—anything—to prove they were real. A date, a scribbled note, a memory. But the back of the photo was blank, as if they had never existed at all.
Her chest tightened, a suffocating dread gnawing at her. She grabbed her phone, scrolling through her messages, searching for the texts she and Arti used to exchange daily. Nothing. Every chat, every call, every trace of Arti’s existence had vanished. Even her own texts from just weeks ago were gone, leaving behind empty threads, like frayed ends of a rope cut too short.
In a panic, she opened her contacts list. Rishi’s number—gone. Arti’s—gone. She scrolled faster, her eyes widening as more and more names disappeared, like they were being plucked out of her phone one by one, erased from her memory. Her breath came in shallow gasps, the room spinning around her.
This isn't real. This can’t be real.
She needed answers. Desperately.
There had to be a reason. A pattern. Something connecting these disappearances. Scrambling for any clue, Kajal rifled through her notebooks, flipping through pages filled with scrawled notes from lectures. Most of it was useless, mundane, but then her eyes caught on a name she had scribbled weeks ago—Professor Dhar. A chill ran down her spine. He was known for his cryptic, unsettling lectures on “memory and existence,” and something about his words had unsettled her before. Maybe... just maybe, he knew something.
Without a second thought, Kajal grabbed her bag and rushed out of her room, racing through the hallways of her hostel and into the suffocating streets of Lucknow. The city around her felt different. Twisted. Familiar landmarks seemed out of place, distorted in ways she couldn’t fully comprehend. Streets that once led to her favorite spots now branched into unfamiliar alleys. Shops she used to visit appeared run-down, or worse, gone entirely.
Her heart pounded as she ran through the campus gates, her footsteps echoing unnervingly loud against the eerily quiet buildings. No one was around. It felt as though the world itself was... vanishing. Or was it her that was slipping away? She couldn't tell anymore.
Professor Dhar’s office was at the far end of the campus, tucked away in a dark, forgotten corner of an old building. The walls seemed to close in on her as she made her way down the narrow corridor, her skin prickling with unease. She reached his door, a faded wooden sign barely readable above it: Dr. Dhar – Memory Studies.
Kajal hesitated for a moment, her hand hovering over the doorknob. Her entire body screamed at her to run, to turn back and forget about this, but she couldn’t. Not now. Not when her world was unraveling.
She twisted the knob and pushed the door open.
Inside, the room was dark, lit only by a single flickering lamp on the professor’s desk. Books were stacked haphazardly everywhere, dusty and yellowed with age. The air smelled of mildew and forgotten things. And there, behind the desk, sat Professor Dhar, his skeletal figure hunched over, scribbling in a leather-bound journal.
He didn’t look up when she entered, but Kajal could feel his presence bearing down on her like a weight. She swallowed hard and stepped forward, her voice barely more than a whisper.
“Professor... I need to know what’s happening. My friends... they’re disappearing.”
Dhar paused, his pen hovering in the air, before slowly lifting his head to meet her gaze. His eyes were sunken, hollow, and unnervingly still, like they had seen far too much.
“You’ve noticed, haven’t you?” he said softly, his voice like dry leaves rustling in the wind. “The world forgetting. People fading.”
Kajal nodded, her throat tightening. “What is this? What’s happening to them?”
Dhar leaned back in his chair, his bony fingers steepling together. “Once the world forgets you,” he began, “you cease to exist. Memories are fragile things, Kajal. They are the only thread that keeps us tethered to this reality. When that thread is cut...”
He trailed off, letting the implication sink in.
Kajal’s heart pounded in her chest. “But why? Why are my friends disappearing? Why am I the only one who remembers them?”
The professor’s eyes narrowed. “Because you are still tethered. You remember. But the world...” He gestured vaguely around the room. “The world is moving on. Leaving them behind. And soon... it will leave you behind too.”
A cold dread settled in Kajal’s stomach. “No... I refuse to forget them. I won’t let this happen.”
Dhar’s lips curled into a faint, joyless smile. “Ah, but it’s not that simple. You can fight it, struggle against it all you want, but once the world decides to forget you... there is no escape.”
Kajal shook her head violently. “No! There has to be a way. A way to stop this. To save them!”
Dhar’s expression darkened. “There is no salvation. Only acceptance.”
The room seemed to close in on her, the weight of his words suffocating her. But Kajal wasn’t ready to accept it. She couldn’t. There had to be something. Some way to stop this madness.
She turned on her heel, running from the room as Professor Dhar’s voice followed her, low and chilling: “You’re running out of time, Kajal. Soon, you too will be forgotten.”
The world outside felt even more alien than before. Shadows loomed larger, buildings seemed to twist and shift when she wasn’t looking directly at them. And worse, as she ran through the streets, Kajal realized something terrifying.
She couldn’t remember her way home.
She paused, panting, her mind racing. Which street led back to the hostel? Where was the familiar bus stop? Nothing looked the same anymore. She stumbled through the streets, her hands gripping her phone as if it could somehow anchor her to reality. But even as she stared at her phone, she noticed something horrifying.
Her own name, saved in the contacts, was... missing.
Her vision blurred, her hands shaking uncontrollably. Her name. Her identity. It was slipping away. Just like Arti. Just like Rishi.
I’m next.
The thought consumed her, a cold terror spreading through her veins. She had to do something—anything—before it was too late. Before she too faded into nothingness.
Chapter 4: The Final Vanish
Kajal’s heart raced as she tore through the empty corridors of the college campus. The buildings loomed above her, shadowy and distorted, as if the very fabric of reality was unraveling. Each step echoed unnaturally, too loud, too sharp, as if the world around her was thinning. She needed answers. Now.
Panting, she reached Professor Dhar’s office, her fingers trembling as she grasped the doorknob. Without hesitation, she shoved it open, her mind spinning with desperation.
But the room was empty.
Not just empty—the desk, the books, even the chair were gone. The walls were bare, devoid of any trace that anyone had ever worked here. Kajal stood frozen, her breath catching in her throat. Her vision blurred as her heart slammed against her chest, dread blooming in her stomach.
“No... no, no, no!” she muttered, spinning around, scanning the room for any sign, any proof that the professor had been real. But there was nothing. Not a scrap of paper, not a shadow of memory. The room was sterile, cold, empty.
She staggered back, her mind reeling. Her nails dug into her palms as panic surged through her. Her voice trembled. "This can't be happening. It can’t."
The corridor outside the office was deserted, unnaturally quiet. The kind of silence that presses in from all sides, suffocating. Kajal’s thoughts spiraled as her feet dragged her out of the building and into the suffocating dark of the campus grounds. She had to get back to her dorm. She had to find something familiar—anything to remind her who she was. Who she had been.
Her pace quickened, fueled by sheer terror, her legs shaky but determined. The world around her shifted, streetlights flickering as though reality itself was faltering. It was as if the universe had forgotten how to keep its own shape.
When Kajal finally reached her dormitory, her heart sank. The door to her room stood ajar, the dim light spilling out into the hallway like an open wound. Slowly, cautiously, she stepped inside.
Her breath caught in her throat. Everything was gone. Her bed, her books, her clothes—all of it, vanished. The room was stripped bare, as though no one had ever lived there.
But it wasn’t just the absence of her belongings that horrified her. On the desk sat a stack of books, neatly arranged. But they weren’t hers. She picked one up, her trembling fingers tracing the cover—it wasn’t hers. None of it was. There was a name scrawled in neat handwriting inside the cover. A name she didn’t recognize.
She turned to the wall, where a photo had once hung—a picture of her and her friends from last year’s festival. But the frame was empty, the glass cracked. The only reflection staring back at her was one she didn’t recognize.
Her head spun. She stumbled toward her wardrobe, her hands trembling as she yanked the doors open. Nothing. All her clothes—her entire existence—had been replaced with someone else’s. Dresses, shoes, bags, all of them unfamiliar, alien.
It was as though she had never lived here.
"No," she whispered, her voice breaking. "This... this isn’t real."
Her chest tightened, her breath coming in short, panicked gasps. Her world was slipping away, unraveling thread by thread. Who was she? Where had she gone?
Kajal rushed to the bathroom, her footsteps loud and erratic against the cold floor. She leaned over the sink, gripping its edges as she stared into the mirror.
Her reflection stared back.
But it wasn’t her.
The face looking back at her was hazy, blurred like a fading memory. Kajal reached up, her fingers trembling as she touched her face. But the reflection didn’t match. The features in the mirror were softening, the edges blurring, her eyes losing their sharpness. It was as though she were... fading.
“No, no, no!” Kajal screamed, backing away from the mirror in terror. She stumbled out of the bathroom, her mind racing. Her hands clawed at her hair, her breathing ragged.
Suddenly, the walls around her seemed to close in. Her vision blurred as the dorm room twisted and shifted. Familiar objects flickered out of existence. The bed, the chair, the photos. Gone.
She was disappearing. Just like them.
And then, the most chilling thought struck her like a hammer: Was I ever real?
A flash of memories surged through her—Arti’s laughter, Rishi’s smirk, the festivals, the group outings—but they all felt... distant. Faint. Fake. Her mind struggled to hold onto them, but they slipped through her fingers like sand. Every detail she clung to crumbled into oblivion, dissolving into the ether.
A dark, suffocating weight pressed down on her chest as the truth began to settle in. Her heart hammered against her ribs, the final realization crashing down on her.
She was never real.
She wasn’t Kajal. She was nothing more than a projection—a figment, a fleeting memory of someone else. Perhaps she had been created to fill a gap, a void left by a mind that couldn’t handle the emptiness. She wasn’t sure whose memories had given birth to her, or why she had existed at all. But she knew, deep down, she was never supposed to be.
The realization was like ice in her veins.
Reality trembled around her, warping, breaking apart. The air grew thick, heavy, like something was pulling her down into a deep abyss. The world outside the dorm windows collapsed, the sky turning black, stars winking out one by one, as though the universe itself was forgetting her.
Kajal tried to scream, but no sound came. She fell to her knees, clutching her head, as her thoughts, her memories, her entire self unraveled.
And then, in one final, terrifying moment, the world went silent.
There was nothing left. No Kajal, no friends, no reality. Only darkness.
As the last flicker of her consciousness dissolved into the void, her final thought echoed into the emptiness:
Did I ever exist?
And with that, Kajal—the idea of Kajal—was gone.
Only silence remained.
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