Chapter 1: The Midnight Call

At 2:13 a.m., the control room phone shrilled through the sticky Mumbai night, jolting Sushil awake beneath the lazy spin of the ceiling fan. Sweat clung to his back as he groped for his half-finished chai, now cold, and glanced at the faded wall clock, rubbing his eyes. "Arrey, kaun pareshaan kar raha hai abhi?" he grumbled, stretching his legs beneath the battered desk.

The hum of a distant news channel played on mute, punctuated by a sudden WhatsApp notification ping on the operator’s phone. Sushil almost dismissed the call as a late-night prank, but the voice on the line was trembling, insistent—laced with a fear that made even a seasoned constable sit up straight.

"They've been swinging all night," the caller whispered. "They haven't stopped."

Sushil could hear the strain, the kind that seeps into your bones when you see something that shouldn’t exist. He scribbled the details in a register marked by chai stains, repeating the report aloud. The senior on night duty exchanged a glance with him. "Chalo, inspector sahib, let’s see what new story is brewing tonight," he said, masking his unease with a forced chuckle.

When they reached the colony park, the little girl on the swing was already gone—her tiny form slumped beneath the jaundiced tube-light, the night air thick with dread.

The colony park was silent, the swings glinting under the yellow tube-light, moths swirling lazily. The usual rickshaw honks and barking dogs seemed distant, muffled. Under the flickering lamp, a little girl sat stiffly on the swing, her head lolling forward. An old woman, her white hair knotted in a messy bun, pushed her back and forth, her movements mechanical, wound too tight. The humidity suddenly felt icy against Sushil’s skin.

The old woman kept putting the little girl back onto the swing, again and again, her hands shaking as she arranged the girl's dress, murmuring a lullaby under her breath—"Chanda mama door ke..."—her voice quivering as she adjusted a pink hairclip, hands trembling so badly the clip nearly slipped. She pushed the child once more, a tired mother stuck in a terrible loop, trying to coax happiness back into a body that would not respond. The steel chain creaked, echoing into the emptiness.

The little girl had been scared to death.

Even in a city hardened by accidents and tragedies, this scene made Sushil’s skin crawl. The girl’s body looked frozen, her eyes wide and glassy, mouth twisted in a silent scream. It was the face of someone who had glimpsed something worse than death itself.

But as we stood there, watching the old woman’s hands move like clockwork, I couldn’t shake the feeling that something even darker was at play.