08/12/2025
# # # # Paranormal Kiss # # # # #
_______ The Murder _______
Santosh was a third-year college student in Arampur. He lived in a small two-room flat with his elder sister Santoshi. Their parents had died years ago, so Santoshi worked in a big company and paid for Santosh’s fees, books, and food. She loved her younger brother more than anything.
Santosh was a quiet, good boy who studied hard and smiled easily.
He had a secret. For four months he had been in love with Aparna, the only daughter of Apu Vau, the new MLA of Arampur. Apu Vau was rich, powerful, and cruel. Everyone knew he earned money from smuggling as well as from politics. He kept many goons; the leader of the goons was Rehan, a tall man with a thick moustache and cold eyes.
Aparna lived in a big bungalow with guards at every gate. She was afraid to tell her father about Santosh because he wanted her to marry the son of another rich politician. So the two lovers met only in college, always looking for empty rooms.
One afternoon they slipped into an old classroom on the third floor. Dust floated in the sunlight. The blackboard still had sums from the morning class. Santosh took out a small brown teddy bear from his bag.
“This is for you,” he said, little shy.
Aparna’s eyes became bright. She hugged the teddy to her chest.
“Thank you, my love! It is so cute.” Then her face became serious. “But I am very scared. We keep coming here every week. What if someone sees us? Papa will kill you if he knows.”
Santosh pulled her close. “Don’t worry. After college I will get a good job. I will earn money. Then your father will agree. And today my friend Pinu is standing outside the door. No one will come.”
He kissed her softly. Aparna closed her eyes and forgot her fear for some time.
Suddenly the door was kicked open with a loud bang. Rehan entered with four goons. Before Santosh could stand straight, two men caught his arms and started punching his face and stomach.
“How dare you touch Apu Vau’s daughter, you dirty poor boy!” Rehan shouted.
Aparna screamed, “Rehan bhaiya, please leave him! He is a good boy! He loves me!”
Rehan turned to her like an angry tiger. “Go to your class right now, or I will phone your father this minute.”
Aparna cried and ran out. While running down the corridor she saw Pinu leaning on the wall. He was smiling a strange, small smile. Aparna did not understand, she only ran away with tears falling.
Pinu walked into the classroom slowly. Santosh was on the floor, blood on his shirt, still shouting, “Pinu! Help me, bhai! They will kill me!”
Pinu looked down at his friend and spoke softly, “Sorry, Santosh. I am the one who told Rehan yesterday. While we were drinking, you kept talking about Aparna, Aparna, Aparna. I got bored. I got jealous. A poor fellow like you got such a rich girl—how? Rehan promised me a job in the party if I told him. So I told.”
Santosh’s eyes became big with pain and surprise. “Pinu… you… my friend…”
Rehan laughed. “Good work, Pinu. But a job is not free. You must prove you are loyal.” He pulled a long knife from his belt and held it out. “Finish him.”
Pinu’s hand shook. He looked at Santosh, then at the knife, then at the smile on Rehan’s face. Greed won. He took the knife.
Santosh tried to crawl away. “Pinu, please… I love her… I will work hard… don’t do this… we are friends…”
Pinu closed his eyes and pushed the knife in again and again. Santosh’s voice became weaker and weaker until it stopped. Blood spread on the dusty floor like dark red paint.
Rehan patted Pinu’s shoulder. “Good boy. The job is yours. Let’s go. No police will touch us.”
They left the college laughing.
Three hours later Santoshi received a phone call. She ran to the college. When she saw her little brother lying dead, she fell on her knees and cried without sound, only tears falling on his face.
She went to the police station every day. The officers looked away. “Apu Vau is MLA now, madam. We cannot do anything.” Money was sent to the station; the file was closed.
Santoshi spent all her savings on lawyers. Every lawyer took money and then said, “Case is difficult, leave it.”
Weeks became months. No justice came. One night Santoshi sat alone in the small flat. Different occult books, some candles lying near a pentagon drawn on the floor with red blood of her own! The rent of the flat was not paid, her job was lost because she stopped going to office, but her eyes were hard like stone now.
She looked at the photo of Santosh smiling in college uniform and spoke slowly to the empty room.
“I tried the law. The law is dead in Arampur. Fine. Then I will not use the law.”
She wiped her tears, stood up, and closed the photo frame. Started to chant some spells holding the small brown teddy bear in her hands! She said with tears in her red eyes which had not slept properly for months now -
“I promise on your blood, Santosh. Pinu, Rehan, Apu Vau—everyone who touched you will pay. I do not have money or goons, but I have time, occult powers and I have hate. And I am I will destroy them one by one.”
The light in the flat went off, but in the darkness only her low voice was heard.
“They took my brother. Now I will take everything from them.”
And somewhere far away, in his big bungalow, Apu Vau slept peacefully, never knowing that a quiet woman, a secret occult practitioner, a witch had just declared war on him and his whole world.
_______ The Wedding ________
One year passed.
Aparna finished college. Her father, Apu Vau, fixed her marriage with Rajendra, son of a rich politician from the next town. The wedding was grand. Hundreds of guests came. Rehan, Pinu and all the goons drank, danced and shouted the whole night.
After the guests left, Aparna sat alone in the decorated room wearing heavy red lehenga and gold jewellery. Rajendra entered, smiling. He looked at his beautiful bride and came closer, but Aparna moved back a little.
Rajendra understood. “It’s all right. We have many days. Let’s open the gifts instead.”
They sat on the floor and started opening boxes. Clothes, watches, silver plates… and then Rajendra lifted one small packet.
“Look, someone gifted a teddy bear. So funny.”
Aparna saw the little brown teddy and her heart stopped. It was the same teddy bear Santosh had given her in the empty classroom one year ago. Same colour, same button eye missing a little thread.
Her hands started shaking. Without a word she took the teddy, walked to the balcony and clicked the lighter. The teddy caught fire quickly. Rajendra ran after her.
“What are you doing?”
“I hate teddy bears,” Aparna said in a cold voice.
While burning, the teddy gave a strange, sweet-chemical smell. Rajendra bent and sniffed the smoke once.
“Strange smell,” he said.
“Come inside,” Aparna pulled him quickly and closed the balcony door.
They talked for some time, then slept side by side without touching.
Early morning Aparna woke up first. A strong smell of alcohol was coming from Rajendra’s mouth. She shook him.
“You said you never drink. Why is your mouth smelling of alcohol?”
Rajendra opened his eyes, confused. “I didn’t drink. Not even one drop. I swear.”
Before Aparna could ask more, loud shouts came from outside.
They ran out of the room. In the garden behind the marriage lodge, Pinu’s dead body was lying in the grass. His head was broken; pieces of a wine bottle were all around him. Blood had made the ground dark.
Rehan and the other goons stood around the body, faces white.
Apu Vau came running in his night kurta. “Who killed my boy?” he shouted.
No one spoke. Everyone looked at each other.
Aparna looked at Rajendra. Rajendra looked back at Aparna. Both remembered the strange smell from the burning teddy bear. Both remembered Rajendra had taken one breath of that smoke.
But neither said anything.
In the balcony, the teddy bear had turned completely to ash. No one noticed the small piece of human finger bone lying among the grey dust.
Far away, in the small flat of Arampur, Santoshi closed her diary, put on her simple cotton saree and walked out into the morning light.
One name was crossed in red ink.
Four more names were still waiting.
_______ Sleeping Pills _________
Rajendra and Aparna flew to a quiet beach country for their honeymoon. The hotel room had white curtains and the sea outside, but peace never came.
Every night Rajendra’s eyes stayed wide open. He turned left and right on the bed till two or three o’clock. Then, without a word, he put on his shoes and walked out. When he returned hours later, his shirt smelled of strong alcohol and he smiled like a happy madman.
Aparna asked angrily, “You promised you don’t drink! Where do you go?”
Rajendra only rubbed his head. “I don’t remember, dear. I think I slept beside you the whole night.”
In the daytime he spoke very little. When Aparna tried to hold his hand or kiss him, he suddenly started coughing hard, as if something was stuck in his throat. One night he ran to the bathroom and vomited bright red blood. Aparna cried and booked tickets back home the next morning.
They reached Arampur and moved into Apu Vau’s big bungalow. They planned to stay there for some weeks as Hospital facilities were great in Arampur. Rehan and the other goons carried their bags and welcomed them loudly.
Days passed. Rajendra’s cough became worse. The best doctor checked him—heart fine, lungs fine, blood fine. “He is perfectly healthy,” the doctor said, and wrote strong sleeping pills.
At night Rajendra swallowed two pills and still could not sleep.
One morning screams woke the whole bungalow. Servants ran towards the staff quarters. Rehan was lying dead on his bed. An empty juice glass was on the table and many traces of sleeping pills were found in his stomach and blood, as stated in forensic report. Police came, took photos and wrote “someone has forced him to drink juice full of sleeping pills” in the report. The goons looked at each other with fear.
Aparna’s heart beat fast. She remembered how Rajendra walked out every night like a ghost. She opened the drawer beside Rajendra’s bed. The new packet of sleeping pills—thirty tablets for thirty days—was completely empty.
Rajendra was sleeping in the next room, too weak to stand, breathing slowly like a sick child.
Aparna stood alone in the silent corridor. She understood: something was using Rajendra’s body at night, something that hated the men who killed Santosh.
She looked at her sleeping husband and whispered, “Who are you when the lights go out?”
No answer came, only the sound of Rajendra coughing again in his sleep.
________ The Witch ______
One night Aparna could not hold her fear anymore. She went to her father's room in the bungalow. Apu Vau was sitting on his big chair, smoking a cigar. Aparna sat down and told him everything. "Papa, someone has done black magic on us. Rajendra is sick without reason. Pinu died strangely, Rehan took sleeping pills that were not his. I think it is Santoshi, the elder sister of Santosh. She wants revenge."
Apu Vau's face became red with anger. He called his goons on the phone. "Kidnap that woman Santoshi. Bring her to the rooftop room. Now!"
The bungalow was huge, covering a large ground, but only two floors high. On the roof was a small dark room used for torture.
That evening Rajendra woke up from his bed coughing hard. His chest hurt like fire. He looked around the room. Aparna was not there. "Aparna?" he called weakly. No answer. Then a woman's scream came from above, from the roof.
Rajendra stood up slowly. For some unknown reason he walked to the kitchen first. The kitchen was empty, servants gone. He looked at the gas cylinders near the stove. He turned the k***s to open the gas slowly. Then he lit the ovens with a match, but left them burning low. Gas started filling the air quietly. He left without a word and ran up the stairs to the roof.
The small room on the rooftop had thick walls and one dim bulb. When Rajendra pushed the door open, he saw five goons standing around a wooden chair. A woman was tied to it with ropes. Her face was bruised, blood on her lips and arms. The goons were hitting her with belts and fists, laughing.
"What's going on? Who is this woman?" Rajendra asked, breathing hard.
Just then Apu Vau and Aparna entered the room. Aparna looked at the floor, her face pale. She did not like the violence.
Apu Vau smiled cruelly. "Rajendra, my son-in-law, she is Santoshi, a witch! She did black magic on you. Your bad health is her fault!"
Rajendra looked at Aparna. She nodded slightly, still looking down. Rajendra thought for a moment. Then he said, "If that's the case, I would like to kill her with my own hands!"
Aparna's eyes became wide. She never thought Rajendra could kill anyone. He was always soft and kind.
Rajendra walked closer to Santoshi. She was bleeding from the torture, her clothes torn. He asked a goon, "Give me a knife."
The goon handed him a sharp long knife. Apu Vau came behind Rajendra and said, "Don't make it quick! Make her suffer a lot!"
The room became quiet. Santoshi lifted her head and looked at Rajendra with calm eyes. Rajendra held the knife tight. In one fast move, he turned back and sliced Apu Vau's throat deep. Blood sprayed out. Apu Vau fell, holding his neck, making gurgling sounds.
Then Rajendra started stabbing Apu Vau's chest and stomach again and again. Blood covered the floor.
Aparna screamed in horror, "Papa! No!"
Santoshi started laughing loud, her voice echoing in the small room.
The five goons were shocked. Their master was dying on the floor. They pulled out their own knives and attacked Rajendra. But Rajendra kept stabbing Apu Vau's dead body, like he was in a trance.
The goons stabbed Rajendra in the back, arms, and legs. Blood flowed from his wounds. But Rajendra did not stop. He did not feel the pain. His eyes became big and red, like a demon's. He turned and fought back with his single knife.
The fight was bloody and fast. Rajendra moved like lightning, stronger than any man. One goon swung his knife at Rajendra's head, but Rajendra dodged and stabbed him in the heart. Another goon cut Rajendra's arm deep, but Rajendra grabbed his neck and slashed his throat. The other three came together, knives shining under the bulb.
Knives clashed and cut flesh. Blood splashed on walls. The fight lasted more than five minutes. Goons shouted and groaned. Rajendra breathed heavy but did not fall. He stabbed one in the eye, another in the belly, and the last one in the chest. All five goons lay dead on the floor, their bodies twisted.
Aparna was against the wall, screaming for help. "Help! Someone come!"
Other goons from below heard and started running up the stairs.
Suddenly a big explosion shook the bungalow. Boom! The kitchen gas cylinders blasted one by one. Fire spread fast on the ground floor and first floor. Walls cracked, smoke filled the air.
The whole building trembled like an earthquake.
Rajendra with the knife cut the ropes on Santoshi with quick hands. She stood up, rubbing her wrists.
Scared and horrified, Aparna screamed at Rajendra, "Rajendra! Why? Why did you kill my father! Why are you letting that woman free?"
Rajendra turned to Santoshi. His voice was different, deep and unfamiliar. "Sister! You run to the southern corner of the roof! There is a pipe, climb down the building before it collapses due to fire and explosions! Quick!"
Santoshi touched Rajendra's face gently and smiled. "Finish your job, brother! And get back to the after world!"
Before running out, Santoshi turned to Aparna and punched her face hard several times. Aparna fell down, nose bleeding.
On the lower floors, fire roared like a monster. Goons who were coming up screamed as flames burned them alive. Wood and furniture cracked and fell.
Chunks of the roof started falling. Dust and stones dropped from the ceiling.
Santoshi ran out of the room to the southern corner. She found the thick pipe on the wall. Holding tight, she climbed down slowly, her hands slipping on the metal. Explosions boomed below. She jumped the last part and landed on the ground. Without looking back, she ran away from the burning building into the dark night.
Inside the rooftop room, Rajendra walked to Aparna. She was on the floor, scared but amazed. With a trembling voice, she said, "Is it really you? Santosh? I am sorry!"
Rajendra, possessed by Santosh's soul, threw the knife away. He pulled Aparna up and embraced her tight. "I just want to kiss you for a last time!"
Aparna, with tears in her eyes, kissed him deeply.
Just then, the building collapsed. Walls broke, roof caved in with a huge crash. Fire and smoke rose high.
From far away, the witch Santoshi stopped running. She turned and saw the destruction. The bungalow was a pile of burning ruins. Tears rolled down her face as she whispered, "Rest now, brother. Justice Served!"
_________________________
