BookNext.Diaries

Part 1: The Day Everything Changed The wind had a strange softness that morning — the kind that feels like a quiet secret brushing against your skin. In the small hill town of Dharwada, where clouds lazily drift between pine trees and the school bell echoes across valleys, it was just another weekday. Or so it seemed. Aarav was always early. Not because he was studious — but because he liked walking alone. From his house near the old post office, he would take the narrow forest trail to St. Mary's Hill School, tucked on a slope above the market. The trail smelled of pine bark, damp earth, and a hint of distant bonfire smoke. He liked that. It was the only part of the day that felt untouched, unbothered. As he reached the school gate, the bell hadn’t rung yet. The sky was wrapped in morning mist, and only a few students were around. His shoes, a little dusty from the trail, tapped softly on the stone-paved corridor. Then it happened. She arrived. Not with a storm. Not with the sound...

 🕯️ The Rainfall Room – The rain was still tapping on the window, a soft ticking like a clock counting down to something unknown. Room Eleven had fallen into a strange silence, and Arav could feel the weight of that quiet pressing against his chest. He had tried to sleep after the voice faded below the floorboards, but the whisper still lingered in his mind:"Arav... you remember, don't you?" No. He didn’t. But now, he wanted to. The hallway outside was dim. The single lightbulb flickered with a life of its own, swinging slightly as if moved by a breathless presence. Arav stepped out of his room. Behind him, the door to Room Eleven closed without a sound. He didn’t look back. The hallway stretched on, longer than he remembered. At the far end, a tall mirror leaned against the wall—framed in dark wood, old enough to have seen more than just reflections. Dust covered it like a shroud. Arav had passed it the first day, barely noticing it. But now, the mirror was glowing fain...

The rain had not stopped since Arav arrived.It pounded like war drums on the roof of the old lodge, soaking the world in a timeless rhythm that blurred day and night. Room Eleven had become more than a room. It had become a pulse in his mind, and every shadow in it breathed. After the mirror shattered, something changed. The silence wasn't empty anymore. It had texture. It had direction. The kind of silence that carried whispers—so faint, they could be mistaken for wind—but they weren’t. They were names. Whispers of names Arav had never heard before. Yet they scratched at his bones like he was supposed to remember them. That night, the electricity flickered again, but never fully went out. It preferred to die slowly, as if teasing him. The lightbulb blinked in rapid spasms, throwing slices of shadow across the old wooden floor. That floor—he had started noticing it more. Its lines, its patterns, how they seemed to shift slightly each time he looked away. He dropped a coin accidenta...

 Rainfall Room – The rain hadn’t stopped. Not even for a second. It clawed at the windows of the lodge like restless fingers trying to get in. The lodge—silent, still, and yet breathing—watched Arav like a trapped memory refusing to stay buried. The journal he found in Room Eleven still lay open on the bed, soaked slightly from his wet fingertips. The words were half-faded, some crossed out, others rewritten over and over again: “He returns when it rains.” Arav stood now, staring at the large mirror above the old wooden dresser. It was cracked at one corner, and if one looked long enough, it seemed the cracks moved ever so slightly, like veins pulsing in living skin. He didn’t remember this mirror. Not from childhood. Not from any visit. But it remembered him. He leaned forward. The air changed. The room grew colder, not from the rain outside, but from something that had crept in. 1: The Mirror's Game His breath fogged the glass. In that thin mist, a second reflection appeared besi...

सुबह के 4 बजे थे। हर तरफ हल्की नीली रोशनी फैल रही थी। मैं ऋषिकेश में था, एक छोटे से धर्मशाला के कमरे में, जहाँ खिड़की से बहती गंगा की आवाज़ सीधा दिल को छू रही थी। बाहर कुछ भक्त सुबह की आरती के लिए गंगा किनारे जा रहे थे। एक साधु पास से निकले – गेरुए वस्त्र, हाथ में कमंडल, माथे पर चंदन और आँखों में स्थिर शांति। उनके पीछे कुछ युवक थे, जो नंगे पाँव चले जा रहे थे, “हर हर महादेव” की आवाज़ के साथ। "मैं भी उसी सफर पर था – Kedarnath Yatra." बस में बैठते हुए मुझे कुछ बुज़ुर्ग महिलाएं दिखीं, जो साथ बैठीं और कहने लगीं – “बेटा, ये मेरी चौथी यात्रा है, पर हर बार ऐसा लगता है जैसे पहली बार जा रही हूँ।” उनकी आँखों में उत्साह और चेहरे पर थकान भी थी – पर मन में भक्ति। गाड़ी चल पड़ी। ऋषिकेश से श्रीनगर, फिर गुप्तकाशी – रास्ते में ऊँचे पहाड़, गहरी घाटियाँ, देवदार के पेड़ और बीच-बीच में भागीरथी और अलकनंदा का संगम। कहीं कहीं छोटे मंदिर, और हर मोड़ पर एक तिब्बती बाबा की चाय की दुकान। चाय का स्वाद अलग ही होता है वहाँ – दूध कम, अदरक ज्यादा, और उसमें हवा की ठंडक घुली होती है। गुप्तकाशी में पहली रात रुका...

 The Rainfall Room  The storm outside hadn't stopped. The rain fell like it had something to say, pounding on the roof and windows, soaking the town in secrets. Inside the lodge, Arav stood frozen in front of the strange photograph that had slipped out from behind the cracked mirror. A photo of Room Eleven, lit by an eerie orange glow—yet the room, as far as anyone knew, had been locked for years. He stared at the number etched faintly behind the photo. It wasn’t ink—it looked scorched, like it had been burned into the paper: "I see you." Arav’s fingers trembled. The message felt personal. He knew he hadn’t slept much, but this wasn’t a dream. The air in Room 10 was heavy, like it was being pressed down by invisible hands. He could hear something breathing… not loudly, but slowly, almost in rhythm with his own heartbeat. He turned away from the photo and stared at the window—the one that had no view. Rain slammed against the glass from outside, but there was no landscape,...

( Genre: Psychological Horror, Mystery) The rain never stopped. It had been pouring since Arav arrived at the old hill-town lodge, and now it was midnight again—the second night. Thunder rolled like distant growls from the sky, and the wooden beams above his head creaked like something was shifting just above him. But there wasn’t supposed to be a floor above. He had checked. Twice. Arav sat by the edge of the small, rickety bed in Room 10, with only a dim yellow bulb flickering on the wall. He hadn’t slept since the previous night—haunted by the sound of footsteps and that wet trail of footprints that stopped right at his door. He asked the lodge caretaker that morning about it.> “Footprints?” “Maybe water from the roof,” the old man said, looking away. But Arav had seen them—bare feet, pointing inward. The Window.There was something strange about this room. The window. It was large, shut tight, and fogged from the inside—but no matter how many times Arav tried to look out, he saw ...

छोटा सा शहर था — नाम उसका था Tilakpur। आबादी ज़्यादा नहीं थी, पर लोग बड़े दिलवाले थे। गलियाँ इतनी तंग थीं कि दो साइकिलें आमने-सामने आ जाएँ तो एक को पीछे लेना ही पड़ता था। हर दुकान के बाहर पान की पीक के निशान, हर मोड़ पर एक गप्पू टाइप इंसान और हर नुक्कड़ पर एक चायवाला ज़रूर मिलता था। उन्हीं चाय वालों में से एक था Lallan Chaiwala। लल्लन की उम्र रही होगी कोई पैंतालीस के आस-पास, पर मूंछें देखो तो लगता था जैसे चाचा चौधरी के मुकाबले में आए हों। सर पर गमछा हमेशा टेढ़ा लपेटा हुआ, और बोलने का अंदाज़ ऐसा कि “अरे बाऊजी” कहते ही आदमी चाय न पीए तो भी मुस्कुरा ज़रूर दे। उसका ठेला स्टेशन के पास वाली पुरानी नीम के नीचे था। नीम भी अब बूढ़ा हो चला था, पर लल्लन कहता, "जैसे मैं हूँ, वैसे ये भी है — दोनों पुराने, पर मज़ेदार।" सुबह की शुरुआत और चाय की खुशबू हर सुबह छह बजे उसकी दुकान खुलती। रेडियो पर पुराने गाने चलते, चूल्हे की लकड़ियाँ जलतीं, और दूध उबलने की वो आवाज़ — मानो किसी पुराने रिश्ते की दस्तक हो। “ओ चिमन! आज फिर लेट आया बे... अखबार दे, और हाँ, पन्ना उल्टा मत देना — उस दिन तूने खबरें उल्टी...

📖 Genre: Psychological Thriller / Horror The Rainfall Room It rained so hard that even the trees looked like they were drowning. Arav stood at the edge of the narrow road, his jacket soaked through, the hood of his backpack heavy with water. The town, if it could be called that, was more of a scattered memory than a settlement. Five or six wooden buildings slumped against the hillside, fog coiling around them like breath. The sky had been leaking for three days without pause. He had booked the room online. Mountain View Lodge. It had two reviews, both from 2015. One said, “Remote and peaceful.” The other said nothing—just one star and a photo of a foggy window. The caretaker met him at the door with a lantern. “You came in this rain?” the man asked, as if surprised Arav hadn’t drowned. “I had to get away,” Arav replied, his voice swallowed by the storm behind him. The caretaker didn’t ask anything more. The lobby smelled like old paper and paraffin. The wooden floor groaned with every...

Part 1: The First Rainy 🌧️ Windhollow Town  Rainy days and a long time ago—it always begins like that. As if the sky remembers before he does. As if the clouds know the years that have passed and still return, heavy and slow, with the same wet whispers. The boy, who was now a man, stood near the river, the old boots on his feet soaking at the edges. He could still hear it—the sound of water tumbling over stones, the same way it did when he was a boy. The river hadn’t changed, but everything else had. There was sand at the edges of the path. Wet sand. It had a scent—one he hadn’t smelled in years. It was the smell of home, of monsoons, of running down alleys with soaked shirts and loud laughter. Of childhood summers and forgotten secrets buried under riverbanks. He looked up. The town of windhollow—small, wind-swept, half-asleep—was waking slowly with the rain. The shutters creaked open one by one. The street vendors, those who still remained, pulled plastic over their carts and fl...

Genre: Murder Mystery | Psychological Thriller | Hidden Identities > “When someone disappears, they don’t always leave behind silence — sometimes, they leave behind whispers that scream.” The silence of the mansion was pierced only by the ticking of an antique clock. Time felt heavier that night. Inspector Anjana Rawat sat by the library fireplace, reviewing the blurred lines of truth and betrayal that had emerged in the last 72 hours. One man was dead. One woman was missing. And now, a confession hung in the air like smoke — Sandhya had admitted to watching Sushant die without stopping it. She had confessed to witnessing Ramprasad push him. But her silence was deliberate. Her motive? For once, to not be invisible. But something was still wrong. It didn’t all fit. Why had Neela disappeared on the same day the will came to light? Why did she leave a note written in Vivek’s signature style — "Look inside the shadows"? And more chilling: who else knew about Kala Bhavan, the a...