The Curse

It all started when I was twelve.

I was born and raised in Tokyo with my parents and twin sister. We were a well-to-do family, with no financial problems to mention, and were living a relatively normal life. My mother was a homemaker, and my father worked as an english teacher in a high school nearby. He didn't make anything too impressive, but he made enough to keep a roof above our heads and our stomachs full. For 12 years we lived a life one could call 'peaceful'.

To understand how it all started, you'll need to understand my father, Rahul Das. See, my father isn't Japanese, he's Indian. He graduated in India and moved to Japan to study in a university here. After that, he met my mother, got married and settled here.
Normally you might think he came here for the betterment of his education, that he came here out of his own wishes. But he didn't.

He came here to escape from the hell that was his household.

One day, we got a letter addressed to my father, from his hometown in India. The letter contained a paragraph that looked hastily scribbled down. My father opened it up that morning as he sat down on his armchair as usual, coffee in hand.

I wish he'd never opened that letter.

A few days later we were on a plane to New Delhi, India. Our father's village was a few hundred miles away from the airport, so we were to get on a bus that would take us there. Only one bus travelled to a stop near the village, and from there we would be picked up by my a rickshaw to take us to the village.
The village was called Kaala Gaon (Black Village), a sinister name, but my father explained it was because the village was situated next to an abandoned coal mine that had shut up many years ago. He didn't say why but a quick search on google revealed it was because of an accident that had taken place. I didn't dig into it past that.

The plane landed unexpectedly smoothly on the runway as the sun was beginning to set. I took the plugs out of my ear, the noises of the people around me becoming louder as the plane rolled down towards the terminal. The female flight attendant walked down the cabin, collecting trash as she thanked people for flying on the airline. I bent over my seat and picked up the empty red bull can, the only thing I had drunk, and handed it to the flight attendant with a smile, nodding as a response to her thanks. A familiar voice came from behind me as the attendant moved on to the next seat.

"You like her, don't you?"

It was my twin sister, Kaori, who loved teasing me.

"Oh shut up, Kao. She's not even that good-looking."

"Oh really? I can see the blush on your face!"

My mother, hearing this, turned behind from her seat in front of me.

"Kaori, Hiroshi, stop fooling around. You know why we're here, right?"

I nodded in silence.
The letter was from my father's family. It informed him about his mother, who had committed suicide the day before the letter was written. It went on about how her mental illness had gotten worse and worse, finally reaching the point of making her kill herself.

My father wasn't the least bit disturbed about this letter. In fact, I think he was relieved in a way. He simply folded up the letter before informing my mother. Like always, the news came to us children through her.

I looked up at the bright reading light above my seat. This would be my first time at a funeral. And my first time in a different country.

I wonder what awaits me here, I thought.

The bus stopped at the nearest stop to Kaala Gaon at midnight. The 'stop' was a single streetlamp in the middle of a few large unlit paddy fields. It was a new moon and there wasn't a single light for miles, it looked like it was in the middle of a black abyss. Only one road led deep into the fields, the road which led to Kaala Gaon. However, the road was too narrow for the bus to traverse through.

The bus journey here was rather uneventful. There was no one on the bus except my family and the driver, who wasn't one for small talk. He had so many given monotone single-word replies to my father's attempts to start a conversation that at one point my dad just gave up. Not a word was spoken after.

I spotted the rickshaw approaching from a mile away. It was lit by a few torches, and the light grew bigger as it approached, emitting a ghostly halo that illuminated the paddy in it's vicinity. The driver of the rickshaw was a servant that worked at my father's family home, and he too, like the bus driver, wasn't the talkative type. My father didn't even try to converse much with him, learning his lesson as we boarded the rickshaw. I looked over at Kaori's face. For someone so lively, it was uncanny to watch her deadpan expression. I poked her in the cheek to get some life into her, but she just brushed me off without saying a word.

The rickshaw was pulled by the servant, a rickety wooden contraption that barely supported the four of us, into the black abyss of the fields. The air was ice-cold, the breeze sending chills up my spine, the only sound being the rustling of the paddy in the wind. I looked into the black abyss surrounding me. As I zoned out, my surroundings began to melt away in my vision.

All of a sudden, it was only me. Only me alone, in this silent, cold and dark abyss. It wasn't long before I would melt into it, and join it. I closed my eyes and opened them again, seeing the same thing as I did both.

When my eyes adjusted, I could see only one thing, far in the distance. A short hunched-over figure holding a single lamp, just staring at me with a blank expression. From this distance, it looked like an old man. He bobbed in the wind like a scarecrow, almost as if he was going to float off any moment.

"Hiro, you okay?" came my mother's voice from next to me, knocking me out of my reverie. I looked up at her face with weary eyes, adjusting to the torches in front of me.

"Huh?" I managed to mutter.

"Hiroshi, did you learn that somewhere online? Or are you repeating something I said?" came my father's voice from my other side.

"What do you mean?" I asked, confused.

"Hiroshi, didn't I tell you to stop fooling around?"

"No, I don't know, what happened?"

My mother sighed as she spoke. "You said something in Hindi. What did he say, honey?"

"He said 'Jadoogar', or 'Magician'. And damn, that was some perfect Hindi."

I stared at my father, a blank expression on my face.
"I saw someone."

"What?" exclaimed my mother in confusion.

Surprisingly, the rickshaw driver finally decided to speak, saying something to my father in Hindi. "Kya kaha woh?" (What did he say?)

My father turned to him and replied. "Hiroshi ne kaha ki woh ek aadmi dekha." (Hiroshi is saying that he saw a man.)

The rickshaw driver went silent. He held it for a few moments before speaking again. "Sahab, toh chinta karne keliye koi zaruri nahi hai. Woh sirph ek bhatakatee huee aatma hai." (Sir, there's no need to worry then. It's just a wandering spirit.)

My father said nothing in return.

"Honey, what did he say?"

"He said we've almost arrived."

I looked in at the road ahead of me, and in the distance I could see a few houses faintly illuminated by oil lamps. It was Kaala Gaon.

We got off the rickshaw and started walking towards the village. It was a small mud path from here on.

The houses were all illuminated by a single oil lamp, which glowed dimly in the night. As I looked around the cluster of houses, I noticed something weird about them. On every door, there were some Hindi letters inscribed on them in bright red.

"Dad, what do those words on every door say? Why are they on every house?"

My father replied distantly, as if he was reminiscing about something. "Kal aana. Come tomorrow."

Come tomorrow? 
I didn't say anything else.

"We're here."

The huge mansion loomed in the near distance, towering above the entire village by a few floors. Giant windows stared like vacant eyes, as if looking over the entire village. As my dad walked towards the door, I noticed something that unsettled me.

This was the only house in the village without the red sign on the door.