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The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/BuddhaTheGreat on 2024-10-15 18:26:03+00:00.

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It just would not go away.

While Ram Lal was busy cooking, Bhanu and I busied ourselves in attempting to get the sludge from the man outside off my clothes. While it wasn’t debilitating any longer, the smell was like someone had stuffed a dead rat inside used gym clothes and left it there for a week. The slimy marks seemed almost alive under the dim light, shifting and wriggling as they attempted to eat through the fabric. However much we attempted to wipe them off, they wouldn’t budge.

“Leave it, babu,” Ram Lal called from the stove. “It will disappear by itself in a few hours though it will damage the clothes. Your father also had many run-ins with those things in his time. Ruined more than fifteen perfectly good kurtas.”

I touched my shoulder, still iced over. The massive ragged hole in the shirt left by the creature had already consigned it to the waste pile, so I supposed it didn’t matter anymore. “This was pretty expensive.”

Ram Lal waved a hand dismissively. “Oh, money’s dirt. You can buy ten thousand like it any time you want. Your life is what is important. Irreplaceable, in fact.”

“That’s what they keep telling me.”

Ram Lal finished stirring and put a lid on the pot, standing and crossing over to us. “The food will be ready soon. It is my honour to feed you in my humble abode.”

I raised a hand to supplicate him. “Please, don’t embarrass me anymore. Take a seat.”

He nodded and began to sit on one of the cushions.

“Hold on.” I got off the chair, leaving it to him. “It’s your house, after all.”

He and Bhanu looked at each other. “You are the Thakur, babu. We are your subjects. How can we sit on a chair while you sit on the ground? It is not right.”

I shrugged. “Alright. I’ll stand then.”

Ram Lal let out a shocked choking noise and fell at my feet. “Please don’t make me commit this sin, babu. You are my guest, my jajman. How can I make you stand in my house while I sit?”

“Okay, okay.” I extricated myself and resumed my seat. “Happy? I’m just not comfortable with towering above you like this.”

“Then you will have to get used to it, babu.” Ram Lal sat down, finally satisfied, and folded his hands together. “You have stood as a wall between us and… them, for centuries. Your sacrifices, your victories, are the stuff of legend. Your presence towers over us, and it always will.”

I sighed. “I don’t know if I can live up to your expectations, Ram Lal.”

He chuckled a little. “I have heard this exact sentence from your father, my father from your grandfather, and my grandfather from his father before him. You will rise to the occasion. I am sure of it.” His smile turned into a slight frown. “But sending you here, unprepared and unguarded… Maybe your family is not aware yet, busy as they were with your grandfather’s last rites.”

“Not aware of what?” I frowned. Beneath his easygoing exterior, my uncle was extremely methodical. I did not expect that anything had escaped his notice.

“The estate boundaries, my lord. Someone keeps vandalizing them. Stealing charms, scratching out sigils. Once or twice, we even found symbols of dark rites being conducted. The lathials repair the damage as and when they can, but the boundaries have been steadily weakening with time. Creatures like that pisach would not be able to enter this deep into your lands while your grandfather was still alive.”

Strange people have been entering the village, like my uncle said. Maybe they were responsible for this too. “Was the family not informed?”

“Maybe the guards wanted to avoid a scolding, babu. After all, they are responsible for regularly patrolling the walls. But they often sleep on duty or miss the patrol timings.”

“I see.” I would have to raise this issue with my uncles. “Thank you for telling me about this, Ram Lal. I want you to keep an eye out going forward. Anything goes wrong anywhere, you’ll come straight to me.”

He nodded. “Of course, babu.” He glanced momentarily at my injured shoulder. “Do you… feel fine? I can send Bhanu to the doctor and get some medicine for the pain.”

The makeshift bandage had dulled the pain completely by now. All I felt was a slight chill, like pressing an ice pack against a bruise. “I’ll be all right. Do you know anything about… that thing?”

“The villagers call it the bhuka pisach, Thakur. Hungry ghoul. I do not know when or how it came here, but my great-grandfather used to tell me stories about it. It has been on the land for a long time. But it usually hunts in the early morning or in the evening. This is the first time I have seen it during noon. I was chopping some wood outside when I saw it coming down the road, so I quickly tied the wheat to my door and hid inside. Then, a few minutes later, I saw Bhanu and you. I wanted to warn you, but before I could, it was upon you.”

The rules were changing. Everything was in upheaval. Just as the Ferryman had said.

“I survived because of you, and because of Bhanu. Thank you.”

Bhanu folded his hands. “We will lay our lives down for you, Thakur. I only regret that I could not return sooner. You were injured in my care.”

Ram Lal nodded. “If you must thank anyone, thank the lady, babu. We were merely doing our duty.”

“The lady, yes!” I practically jumped on the thread. “What can you tell me about her?”

Before any of you start your Lady in White x OP fanfics in the comments, I was just eager because I wanted to know where exactly she stood. Was she going to backstab me? Did she have an agenda? Was she actually, legitimately in love with me or something? That would be creepy, given she knew me when I was a kid. Either way, I just didn’t know. Any information would be useful.

Like any good old person, once Ram Lal got to talking, it was difficult to stop him. Apparently, the Lady appeared relatively recently in the village, during a particularly cold winter in the 19th century. No one is sure if she’s a ghost or some other monster wearing a human form, but what is known is that she stalked the village from dusk till dawn every night, hunting and killing humans.

“What kind of humans?” I asked, “Anyone she could find?”

“Anyone who was unlucky enough to find her on the streets. And, if a single man living alone ever slept with a window or door unlocked in the house, she would enter and take his life away. Her victims were found in the morning, frozen to death without a sign of struggle.”

“Was there nothing we could do?”

“Your ancestors tried many rituals to placate her, and when those failed, to bind or scare her away. None of them worked for long. The only people she would not attack were the Thakurs and their families, who were protected by their ancient powers. The rest of us had to stay indoors as soon as evening fell, with every door locked and every window barred, lest the lady come for us.”

“But there are people out there on the streets nowadays, even late in the night. What changed?”

Ram Lal smiled. “You did, Thakur.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I still remember the day you were born very well. The birth happened here, on the estate. It was night-time, so there was no way to leave the manor and take your mother to the hospital. Lots of things stalked the village in those days. For a few decades, the tides of power had turned. The other side weighed heavy on our own, and everything was spiralling out of control. The family was stretched thin just making ends meet. Even on that very day, your father was not with his wife, but out on the streets with his brothers, doing what he could to save our lives. Only your grandfather and grandmother were there. And me.” He looked up at the ceiling, almost transported to the scene. “The power had gone out again. I was running the maids back and forth, fetching blankets, water, and candles. Whatever was required. It was a difficult birth. She screamed so loudly that I thought my ears might burst in that small bedroom. Then, at the stroke of midnight, just when I thought it would never end, you were born.”

Bhanu was holding on to his gamcha, almost as attentive as I was.

“Your first cry… It reverberated throughout the land. To this day, every man, woman, and child in the village who was alive then swears they heard it, even miles away. It was as if something in you had shaken the very foundations of the place. Something like that had never happened. Not with your father’s birth, and from what I can tell, not with any Thakur before him.” Ram Lal exhaled. “That night, the lady came to the manor. Your grandparents had left with your mother for the hospital, now that you were safe. Apparently, the entire village was calm that night, calmer than it had been in years. The other servants had also gone to sleep. I was left to watch over you, but somehow, I dozed off from exhaustion. When I snapped awake, it was close to dawn. Frost was spreading over the walls. The window was ajar, its lock somehow broken. And there, over your little cot, the lady was bending down. Reaching for you.”

He touched his chest, his hand trembling slightly. “Even after so many years, I remember the dread that settled in my chest. There was nothing I could do to stop her, nothing in my knowledge that could save you from her. Only one thought ran over and over in my head: I had failed. The Thakur and his sons would return to find their heir dead. All I coul…

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