TRIGGER WARNING: PSYCHOLOGICAL HORROR

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Shruti sat beside Roshan in college. They shared notes, laughter, and lips. They would sneak into
the library to steal kisses, in his dead world she was a beacon of hope. He wanted to give her the
ultimate gift, he thought her smile was better than sex. For him, love was strange but all he knew
was that he enjoyed her company. They would walk home together every day from college and
speak about all kinds of things. “I want a shawl for the winter!” she said. He smiled.

August had begun and so have the rains, rains which drove a particular man crazy, whenever it
rained he had a fetish of digging up holes. The softened up soil give him a hardon as he plowed
through it. But the fetish did not end there, whenever he finished a hole, he had to bury
something inside it before closing it. Sometimes it would be an animal, a bird, but mostly it
would be people. He liked burying people in soft muddy soil. Just before he buried them, he
would peel off a piece of skin from their body and wrap it in a paper and shove it into his pocket.

Raghuram was a teacher in a college who loved to prey upon his students, one afternoon he
rubbed a girl’s shoulder as he was helping her solve a problem. He would touch girls
inappropriately and walk around the class like nothing was wrong with that. One afternoon while
he was walking home it began to rain and a car stopped beside him. “Come in sir I’ll give you a
gift!” the man inside said. The teacher, who was relieved now boarded the vehicle and it vanished
into the rain. Raghuram felt a sharp prick in his neck, and the next thing he knew he could not
control his spine anymore, and his face crashed into the dashboard.

When he came to his senses he was tied to a chair, and his feet have been nailed to the ground.
He tried to scream but his mouth was gagged. The guy who gave him the lift approached him
and sat beside him smiling. “Your hands move a lot!” he said. And slowly picked the teacher’s
palm up and began to break the fingers one by one. He then took a butcher knife and softly
sliced off the teacher’s calves. The teacher almost fainted by now, but he kept him awake by
giving him slight shocks with a wire. He then began to hit the teacher’s kneecaps with a hammer,
every time the teacher tried to scream he screamed for him. The night was full of screams and
terror, but as the sun began to rise, everything was quiet. Just a man sitting beside a grave in the
rain, slicing the skin off the teacher’s face. He then quickly filled the grave up and ran away.
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Shruti came to Roshan’s house earlier than she usually would. He lived alone as his parents both
lived in Chennai. She saw that the door was unlocked and sneaked into his room. He was still
sleeping. She kissed him softly on his cheek and he wrapped his legs around her and hugged her
tightly. She screamed saying that he will ruin her outfit for college. “Then let’s remove it and
place it aside carefully.” He said. They took a shower together and he made her breakfast.
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As they began to leave for college, he said, “Just a minute” and ran inside and came back with a
cover. “What is this?” she asked. “Check it out.” He said. She put her hand inside the cover and a
smile popped up on her face. “Shawl?” she questioned. “My greatest work of art till now.” He said.
She then removed it from the cover to notice a shawl made of different shades and tones but
predominantly brown. She wore it and as she touched it she said, “this is an amazing feeling, it
feels so smooth, it almost feels like touching another person. What cloth is this?” She asked. “A
cloth of love.” He joked. “Do you know that our Maths teacher is missing?” she said. “He is right
here with us.” He replied. “What?” “In our memories.” He said and smiled. His eyes did not have
any emotion.