Chapter 4: The Push
It was a Friday night, the sort that settles gently on a restless week, and Saurav had left for a family function, leaving the apartment just a bit quieter than usual. Nitin stood by the window, watching the evening deepen outside, an idea already brewing in his mind. He sent a message to Shivam and Anay: “Let’s grab a few beers and unwind tonight.”
The response was quick, almost eager, but with one caveat. Shivam added, “We’ll have to start a little late. Need to call home first or there’ll be trouble.” Anay echoed the sentiment—family calls came first, rituals of checking in before the night could truly begin.
So the plan was set in that unspoken way friends agree on things: a late gathering, cold beers, and stories to tell under the uncertain shadow of their last rooftop encounter.
Nitin, beer in hand, leaned back against the cool edge of the parapet. After the calls, Shivam and Anay joined him, their faces lit by the yellow spill of a nearby bulb.
Shivam, wedged between Anay and Nitin on the roof’s boundary wall, nursed his disappointment over not making the college cricket team. His friends consoled him, their voices weaving in and out of the night breeze, until the joking and sympathy melted into a comfortable silence. Then, without warning, a sudden force jabbed Shivam from behind. With a startled cry, he tumbled forward from the narrow ledge, landing awkwardly on the roof’s gritty floor.
Angry and shaken, Shivam sprang to his feet, glaring at his friends. “Who pushed me?” he barked, rubbing his elbow. “Is this your idea of a joke? I could’ve been hurt if I’d fallen wrong.”
Their faces, half-lit by the glow of the city below, split into mischievous grins. “We didn’t push you,” Nitin replied, his voice tinged with mock innocence. Anay snickered. “Seriously, man. You must be more drunk than you think.”
Shivam scoffed, but he couldn’t shake the uneasy feeling that twisted in his gut. Muttering under his breath, he clambered back onto the boundary, determined not to let their laughter get the better of him. The bottle felt cool and solid in his hands, a small comfort against the uncertainty prickling beneath his skin.
Minutes passed. The night air seemed to thicken, folding closer around the three friends. Suddenly, Anay yelped as he was shoved from behind—hard enough to topple him from his precarious perch to the flat, tarred surface of the roof.
Startled, Anay spun around. “Shivam! What the hell, why did you push me?”
But Shivam only stared back, shaking his head in bewilderment. “I didn’t touch you,” he insisted, his tone now edged with genuine fear.
The laughter had faded, replaced by a tense, questioning silence. For a moment, all three stared at one another, the same thought forming in each of their minds: if none of them had done it, who—or what—had?
The bottle was nearly empty, and the three friends agreed—best to finish up and get back to the safety of their rooms. But as they gathered the thought, an unexpected force shoved all of them at once, sending each sprawling onto the hard surface of the roof. Shock rippled through the group; panic and fear tangled in their throats as realization dawned—none of them could have pushed the others. There was something else up there with them.
Hearts pounding, they scrambled to their feet and fled down the stairs, not daring to look back. In the verandah’s dim light, breaths still ragged, they gathered to make sense of what had happened. Nitin’s voice trembled as he broke the silence. “Was it a ghost pushing us on the roof?” Anay, still shaken, tried to make a joke, but his voice faltered. “If it was, did it have friends? We were all pushed at once.”
They searched for reason, for any logical explanation, but none could recall feeling a hand—or any touch at all. It was as if the wind itself had lashed out, invisible yet deliberate. As their hushed discussion spiraled, the bizarre reached a new peak: the bottle caps from their beers clattered down from the roof, landing in a neat pile at their feet. The message felt chillingly clear. Whatever dwelled above wanted them gone—and their things with them.
It was the kind of shock that left questions hanging in the thick night air—no gust of wind could have swept those bottle caps all the way down from the roof. The very logic of the world seemed to twist and buckle, leaving the friends staring at the impossible, hearts pounding with the weight of the unexplained.
When the adrenaline finally ebbed, fear lingered, stubborn and restless. Nitin was too unnerved to sleep alone, and neither Shivam nor Anay felt any braver. That night, the three of them huddled together in a single room, seeking comfort not in explanations, but in each other’s presence, as if the warmth of familiar voices might keep the strangeness at bay—at least until morning. The next day dawned heavy with the weight of unspoken questions. Over breakfast, the group found themselves circling the strange events of the night before, but no explanation revealed itself. Their confusion slowly curdled into a silent agreement: the roof was off-limits from now on. Seeking comfort, they relayed the story to the senior residents of the PG. Their hopes for understanding were dashed—laughter erupted instead, the seniors brushing it off as a joke or the product of too many late-night tales. The mystery lingered, unresolved, as life pressed forward.
Ink of Dread 
Leave a comment