The Black Thread

Chapter 1: The Deaths in Shyambazar

Kolkata’s Shyambazar was a place that wore its history on its sleeve. The labyrinth of streets whispered stories of forgotten lives, and the rain-slicked pavements carried the scent of nostalgia mixed with damp decay. Tonight, though, something felt different—ominous, as if the city itself was suffocating under an unseen weight.

Ayesha Roy pulled her shawl tighter against the cool monsoon drizzle as she stared up at the dim streetlight, its flickering bulb casting fractured halos onto the glistening cobblestones. She had walked these streets countless times in her pursuit of stories, but this one gnawed at her in ways she couldn’t explain.

Five deaths. Five lives cut short.

Each victim had been found hanging in their homes, their faces twisted in agony. There was no suicide note, no visible motive. The police had written them off as coincidental suicides, but Ayesha didn’t believe in coincidences—especially not when all five wore the same thing: a black thread tied tightly around their wrists.

Ayesha flipped through her notebook as she stood outside the home of the most recent victim, Sujata Biswas, a college student who had been the pride of her family. The photograph pinned to the report showed a smiling young woman with bright eyes and a book clutched to her chest. The contrast between that image and the grim details of her death chilled Ayesha to the bone.

A quiet knock on the door brought Sujata’s father, Debashis Biswas, to the threshold. His face was ashen, his eyes hollowed out from sleepless nights.

“Yes?” he asked, his voice hoarse.

“Mr. Biswas, my name is Ayesha Roy. I’m a journalist investigating what happened to your daughter. May I come in?”

He hesitated but stepped aside, motioning her into a small but tidy living room. The walls were lined with photographs—happy family moments frozen in time. Ayesha’s gaze settled on one frame in particular: Sujata, grinning ear-to-ear at her graduation ceremony.

“She was going to be the first in our family to study abroad,” Debashis said, noticing her focus. His voice cracked, and he sat heavily on the sofa. “She was so full of life. We… we still can’t believe she’s gone.”

“I’m deeply sorry for your loss,” Ayesha said, sitting opposite him. “But I need to ask some questions. Anything you can tell me might help uncover the truth.”

Debashis nodded slowly, staring at the floor. “I don’t know what happened. She was fine—no signs of depression, no troubles at college. But a week before… before it happened, she changed. She wouldn’t eat, wouldn’t speak. She said she was hearing voices.”

“What kind of voices?” Ayesha asked, leaning forward.

“She said they were calling her name. Whispering things she couldn’t understand. At first, we thought she was stressed from her studies, but then…” His voice faltered, and he buried his face in his hands.

Ayesha waited, giving him a moment.

“Then we found the thread,” he continued, his voice barely audible. “It was tied around her wrist so tightly it left marks. She said she didn’t know how it got there. No matter how hard we tried, we couldn’t remove it.”

Ayesha felt a chill run down her spine. “Did she say anything else about it?”

Debashis shook his head. “Just that it made her feel… watched.”

He stood abruptly and crossed the room, retrieving something from a drawer. When he returned, he handed her a small, frayed black thread.

“This was hers,” he said. “It fell off her wrist the day she… she…”

Ayesha carefully took the thread, its coarse texture rough against her fingers. It looked ordinary enough, but something about it felt wrong. She couldn’t explain it, but holding it made her skin crawl.

“Do you know if any of the other victims had similar experiences?” she asked.

Debashis hesitated. “We spoke to one of the families at the police station. Their son—one of the other victims—had also mentioned the thread. But the police wouldn’t listen. They said it was all in our heads.”

“Thank you,” Ayesha said, slipping the thread into her bag. “I promise I’ll do everything I can to find out what’s going on.”

As she stepped out into the rain, her mind raced. A pattern was emerging, and it was darker than she had anticipated. The voices, the thread, the sense of being watched—it all pointed to something more than mere tragedy.

Her phone buzzed in her pocket, pulling her from her thoughts. The number was unknown.

“Hello?”

A raspy voice crackled through the line. “If you want answers, come to Basu Bari. Midnight.”

Before she could respond, the line went dead.

Ayesha stood frozen on the street, the rain soaking through her shawl. Basu Bari—the crumbling mansion that the locals called cursed.

The place where everything might begin—or end. 

Chapter 2: The Haunted Mansion

Basu Bari was easy to find but hard to approach. Nestled at the end of a narrow alley, the mansion loomed like a rotting carcass, its windows shattered, its walls cloaked in a web of banyan roots that snaked down like veins. The locals avoided the place; some crossed themselves as they passed, whispering stories of unnatural deaths and ghostly presences. Ayesha couldn’t shake the feeling that the house was watching her as she approached.

Her flashlight barely pierced the suffocating darkness as she pushed the gate open. The hinges groaned like a wounded animal, and the sudden sound sent a flock of crows screeching into the air. Ayesha took a deep breath and stepped into the overgrown courtyard. The smell of wet earth and decay filled her nostrils.

The mansion’s door was slightly ajar. She knocked twice, her knuckles echoing in the silence.

“Hello?” she called.

The door creaked open further, revealing a man standing in the shadows. He was gaunt, with sunken eyes and a face lined with years of worry. He held a flickering candle, its weak light casting jagged shadows across his features.

“You’re the journalist?” he asked, his voice a raspy whisper.

“Yes,” Ayesha replied. “You’re Pranab, right?”

He nodded and motioned her inside without a word. The hallway was cramped and smelled of mildew. The wallpaper was peeling, revealing damp, crumbling plaster beneath. The candle’s light danced on the walls, creating fleeting, grotesque shapes.

Pranab led her to a small room cluttered with books, papers, and a single chair. Ayesha sat down, her recorder balanced on her knee.

“I don’t know why you’ve come,” Pranab began, his voice trembling. “But if it’s answers you’re looking for, you won’t like what you find.”

“I’m not here to like anything,” Ayesha replied. “I want to know the truth.”

Pranab gave a hollow laugh. “The truth? You think the police don’t know? They know. They just don’t want to believe. What’s happening—it’s older than this city, older than all of us.”

“Start at the beginning,” Ayesha urged.

Pranab’s eyes darted around the room, as if checking for unseen listeners. “I knew Nirmal. He was the fourth victim. A kind man, but not strong. The thread found him easily.”

“The thread?”

Pranab reached into his pocket and pulled out a small black thread. It was frayed and coarse, but in the dim light, it almost seemed to shimmer.

“This,” he said, holding it up. “It looks like nothing, doesn’t it? But it isn’t. It’s a mark. A bond. Once it ties itself to you, it doesn’t let go.”

“Are you saying this thread is responsible for the suicides?”

Pranab nodded. “It’s not just a thread. It’s… alive. It binds itself to you, feeds on your fears. At first, you hear whispers—small things, easy to ignore. Then you start seeing shadows. And before long, it doesn’t matter if it’s day or night, you’ll feel it watching you.”

Ayesha felt a chill crawl up her spine. “How did Nirmal get the thread?”

“He didn’t know. One day he woke up, and it was there, tied around his wrist. He tried to cut it off, burn it, but it wouldn’t break. A week later, he was dead.”

“Why didn’t you warn anyone?”

Pranab’s face twisted in anger. “You think anyone listens? They think it’s a curse, a ghost, something out of a story. But it’s worse. It’s not just one person—it spreads. One thread becomes two, two become four. It’s endless.”

He thrust the thread into her hand. “Take it. Maybe you’ll understand.”

Ayesha hesitated before pocketing the thread. “What do you mean, it spreads?”

Pranab’s eyes grew wild. “Every person who dies passes it on. It’s a cycle, and the only way to escape is to end it before it consumes you. But no one has succeeded—not in centuries.”

The candle flickered violently, and for a moment, Ayesha thought she saw something move in the corner of the room.

“What’s in this house, Pranab?” she asked, her voice barely a whisper.

He looked at her, his face pale. “It’s not the house. It’s what the house was built to hide.”

Before she could press further, a gust of wind extinguished the candle. The room plunged into darkness, and a low, guttural whisper filled the air.

“Leave.”

Ayesha fumbled for her flashlight, but when she turned it on, Pranab was gone.

Chapter 3: The Thread’s Curse

Ayesha couldn’t shake the unease that clung to her like a second skin as she hurried through the rain-soaked streets back to her apartment. Pranab’s words echoed in her mind: “It’s not just a thread. It’s alive.”

She glanced at her bag, where the coarse black thread sat nestled. It seemed harmless, ordinary. But her instincts told her otherwise.

When she arrived home, the air in her small apartment felt heavier than usual, almost stifling. She shook off the feeling and set the thread on her desk under the glow of her desk lamp. Pulling out her recorder, she replayed the conversation with Pranab, jotting down notes in her battered leather journal.

The thread sat innocuously in front of her, but Ayesha couldn’t stop staring at it. Her fingers hovered over it, her curiosity outweighing her fear. Carefully, she picked it up, turning it over in her hands.

It felt rough, unnatural, as though it was woven from something other than fabric. There was a faint smell—metallic, almost like rust. She hesitated, then decided to tie it loosely around her wrist.

“Let’s see if you’re really alive,” she muttered.

The first night was uneventful.

Ayesha woke up groggy but dismissed it as exhaustion from the day’s events. She untied the thread, set it aside, and went about her day. But by the second night, the atmosphere in her apartment had shifted.

She awoke suddenly, her chest tight, the air cold despite the humidity of the monsoon. Her heart raced as she sat up in bed, her ears straining.

Then she heard it.

“Ayesha…”

The voice was faint, almost indistinct, like the wind carrying someone’s dying breath. She froze, her pulse pounding in her ears.

It came again, louder this time. “Ayesha…”

Her breath hitched as she scanned the room. The faint glow of the streetlamp outside illuminated the familiar outlines of her desk, her bookshelf, her wardrobe. Everything seemed normal—except for the sensation of being watched.

She grabbed the flashlight from her nightstand and swept it across the room. Nothing. No one.

It’s in your head, she told herself, her grip tightening on the flashlight. But deep down, she knew something was wrong.

By the third night, the whispers had grown louder. They no longer called her name but spoke in fragments, their words elusive yet chilling.

“Why did you touch it?”

“You shouldn’t have taken it.”

“It’s watching you.”

The shadows in her apartment began to move. At first, it was subtle—a flicker in her peripheral vision, a shape that vanished when she turned to look. But soon, they grew bolder.

One night, as she brushed her teeth, she caught sight of something in the bathroom mirror. A figure stood behind her, its form indistinct but unmistakable. She spun around, but the room was empty.

When she looked back at the mirror, her reflection smiled at her—a twisted, mocking grin that didn’t match the terror on her face.

She stumbled back, her breath coming in gasps. The thread on her desk seemed to pulse faintly, like a heartbeat.

Ayesha’s work began to suffer. She missed deadlines, avoided calls, and spent her days holed up in her apartment, consumed by paranoia. She started noticing the thread everywhere—in the hands of strangers on the bus, tied around the wrists of shopkeepers, even hanging from the branches of trees.

Her attempts to rationalize her experiences crumbled when she received an envelope in the mail. There was no return address, only her name scrawled in shaky handwriting. Inside was another black thread, identical to the first, and a note that read:

“It’s too late. It’s yours now.”

The breaking point came a week later.

She woke up to find bruises circling her wrist, exactly where the thread had been tied. They were dark and deep, as though someone—or something—had gripped her arm tightly in the night.

The whispers had become a cacophony, overlapping voices that filled the room, their words indecipherable but suffused with malice. Her reflection no longer followed her movements, and the shadows had begun to take on humanoid forms, standing silently in the corners of her vision.

Desperate, Ayesha decided to contact Dr. Alok Sen. If anyone could help her make sense of this madness, it was him.

Chapter 4: The Folklore of the Kala Shrota

Dr. Alok Sen’s office was a small, cluttered space in the heart of College Street. The walls were lined with bookshelves overflowing with dusty tomes, and the air smelled of aged paper and ink.

Alok greeted her with a warm smile, but his expression turned serious as she recounted her experiences.

“Ayesha, you’ve stumbled onto something far older and darker than I expected,” he said, pulling a thick, leather-bound book from one of the shelves.

He opened it to a page depicting intricate sketches of threads weaving through human figures, their faces twisted in agony. The caption read: Kala Shrota—The Black Stream.

“The Kala Shrota was a secret society from the 18th century,” Alok explained. “They believed in the existence of invisible threads that bind every human to their fate. But they also believed that some threads were cursed—created by malevolent forces to spread misery and despair.”

“What does this have to do with the suicides?” Ayesha asked.

“The society used these cursed threads to target their enemies,” Alok said. “The threads were said to bind themselves to the victim, feeding on their fears and driving them to madness. Once the victim succumbed, the thread would find its next host.”

Ayesha’s hands trembled as she clutched the thread in her bag. “How do I stop it?”

Alok hesitated. “There’s a ritual—a purification process. But it’s dangerous. If the thread is truly cursed, attempting to destroy it could summon whatever entity it’s tied to.”

“What happens if I don’t?”

Alok met her gaze, his eyes grave. “Then the thread will consume you, just like it did the others. And when you’re gone, it will move on to someone else.”

Chapter 5: The Ritual Begins

Back in her apartment, Ayesha poured over the book Alok had given her. Its pages were brittle, yellowed with age, and filled with intricate drawings of ancient symbols and diagrams. The ritual described was as detailed as it was ominous. It required salt, fire, and an incantation in an archaic Bengali dialect—one that Ayesha could barely read, let alone pronounce.

The ritual’s instructions were explicit: the thread must be placed in a circle of salt, set alight, and destroyed while the incantation was recited. However, it came with a warning: “The entity bound to the thread will resist. Disruption of its vessel may result in manifestation.”

The word manifestation sent a chill down her spine. She didn’t want to think about what that meant.

The next night, after triple-checking the instructions, Ayesha prepared her small living room for the ritual. She pushed the furniture aside, creating a wide, empty space in the center of the room. She poured a thick line of salt in a perfect circle on the floor, placing the thread in the middle.

The atmosphere in the room felt heavier than ever. It was as though the air itself was watching her, pressing down on her shoulders with invisible hands.

She lit a single candle, the dim flame flickering against the shadows that seemed to thicken on the walls. Sitting cross-legged just outside the circle, she began to chant the incantation.

The words felt strange on her tongue, like they didn’t belong in her mouth. Her voice trembled as she struggled to pronounce each syllable.

As she chanted, the thread in the salt began to move.

At first, it was subtle—a faint twitch, as though stirred by an unseen breeze. But then it began to writhe, twisting and curling like a living thing. The candle flickered violently, and the room grew colder, the temperature plummeting so quickly that Ayesha could see her breath.

The whispers returned, louder than ever.

“Stop…”

“You don’t know what you’re doing…”

“It’s too late…”

The voices were overlapping, chaotic, filling the room with a cacophony of dread. Ayesha clenched her fists, forcing herself to continue the chant. Her voice wavered, but she didn’t stop.

Suddenly, the shadows on the walls began to move. They stretched and contorted, taking on humanoid shapes that loomed over her. Ayesha’s breath quickened as she saw them step away from the walls, their featureless forms pulsing with malevolence.

One of them spoke, its voice a deep, guttural rasp.

“You can’t destroy it. It’s a part of you now.”

Ignoring the figure, Ayesha lit a match and dropped it into the circle of salt. The thread ignited instantly, the flames erupting into a dark, unnatural black that seemed to devour the light around it. The shadows recoiled, shrieking as the fire burned brighter.

Ayesha’s chant reached a fever pitch as she fought to keep her voice steady. The shadows lunged at the circle but recoiled as soon as they touched the salt, their forms dissolving into smoke.

The thread burned for what felt like an eternity, its screams mingling with the wails of the shadows. Finally, the flames died out, leaving nothing but a charred black mark on the floor.

The room fell silent.

Ayesha collapsed to the ground, her body trembling. It was over—or so she thought.

Chapter 6: The Aftermath

The following morning, Ayesha woke up to find the burn mark still etched into the floor where the thread had been destroyed. Her wrist bore a faint blackened bruise, a lingering reminder of the ordeal.

She felt lighter, as though a weight had been lifted from her chest. The whispers were gone, and the shadows no longer seemed to follow her. For the first time in weeks, she allowed herself to hope that she had broken the curse.

But the relief was short-lived.

As Ayesha walked through the bustling streets of Kolkata later that day, she began to notice something strange. A man at a tea stall had a black thread tied tightly around his wrist. A woman crossing the street wore one too, her eyes dull and unfocused.

A sinking feeling settled in Ayesha’s stomach. The thread hadn’t been destroyed—it had multiplied.

When she returned to her apartment, she found an envelope waiting for her on the floor. It had no stamp, no return address. Inside was another black thread, identical to the first, and a note:

“You can’t escape. It’s not over.”

Her hands shook as she read the note. She looked around the room, her paranoia surging. Was she being watched? Was the curse toying with her?

That night, the whispers returned. But this time, they weren’t calling her name. They were laughing.

Chapter 7: A Deeper Conspiracy

Determined to uncover the truth, Ayesha began connecting the dots between the victims. Her investigation led her to a forgotten part of the city’s history—an abandoned charity called Jyoti Foundation, which had been involved in “community welfare projects” decades ago.

The deeper she dug, the darker the story became. The charity had been a front for occult practices tied to the Kala Shrota. The mansion, Basu Bari, had been their headquarters, where they performed rituals to summon and bind the entity.

Ayesha discovered old newspaper clippings that spoke of mysterious deaths among the charity’s members, all marked by the black thread. The mansion had been abandoned shortly after the last known ritual in 1972.

She returned to Alok with her findings. He confirmed her worst fears: the thread wasn’t just a curse—it was a vessel, a piece of the entity itself. Destroying one thread only caused it to spread, like a drop of ink dispersing in water.

“Then how do we stop it?” Ayesha demanded.

Alok hesitated. “There’s only one way: return it to where it came from. Basu Bari.”

Chapter 8: The Curse Spreads

The walk to Basu Bari felt like a march to her own funeral. Ayesha clutched her bag tightly, the weight of the thread inside far heavier than its physical form. The blackened bruises on her wrist ached with every step, as if the curse was protesting her decision.

The streets of Kolkata were unusually quiet, the usual cacophony of voices, honking cars, and street vendors replaced by an eerie stillness. She glanced around, her paranoia mounting. Was it just her imagination, or were people watching her?

Her heart sank when she noticed the threads.

They were everywhere. A vendor selling chai had a black thread tied around his wrist. A rickshaw puller waiting on the corner wore one too. Even a child playing with a kite had the telltale string looped tightly around their tiny wrist. Their faces were blank, their eyes devoid of life.

The thread had spread faster than she’d imagined.

Reaching Basu Bari, Ayesha hesitated at the gate. The mansion loomed in the moonlight, its windows like empty eye sockets. The banyan roots clinging to its walls seemed to pulse, as though the house itself were alive.

She stepped inside.

The air was suffocating, thick with the smell of damp earth and decay. Her flashlight illuminated the crumbling interior—walls covered in peeling paint, a staircase sagging under its own weight, and the faint outlines of symbols etched into the floor.

The whispers began almost immediately.

“Ayesha…”

“Why did you come back?”

“You can’t stop it…”

She ignored them, her grip tightening on her bag. She followed the symbols on the floor, her flashlight revealing a faint trail of ash leading deeper into the mansion.

At the center of the house, she found what she had been searching for: a room with a massive, circular sigil carved into the floor. The air inside was colder, heavier, and the shadows seemed to swirl around her.

She placed the thread in the center of the sigil and began to prepare the ritual.

Chapter 9: The Entity Revealed

As she lit the candles and poured the salt in a perfect circle, the temperature in the room plummeted. Her breath came out in visible puffs, and the shadows on the walls began to twist and writhe.

The whispers grew louder, overlapping until they became a deafening roar.

“You can’t destroy me!”

“You’ll only make it worse!”

“Leave now, and I might let you live…”

Ayesha ignored the voices, her focus unwavering as she began to chant the incantation. Her voice trembled at first, but as the words rolled off her tongue, a strange confidence took over her.

The sigil on the floor began to glow faintly, a dull red light that pulsed in time with her heartbeat. The thread in the center started to move, twisting and curling like a living thing.

Suddenly, the shadows on the walls converged, pooling together into a single, massive form. The entity stood before her, its shape constantly shifting. It had no face, only a void where features should have been, but its presence was overwhelming.

“You think you can destroy me?” it hissed, its voice a guttural rasp that seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere at once.

Ayesha’s hands trembled, but she continued chanting, her voice rising above the entity’s threats.

The entity lunged at her, but the salt circle held it back. It screamed, a sound so loud and inhuman that Ayesha felt her ears would bleed.

“You don’t understand!” it roared. “I am not a thread. I am every thread. I am the binding that holds this world together. Destroy me, and you destroy yourself!”

For a moment, Ayesha faltered. Was it telling the truth? Was she risking not just her life, but the lives of everyone tied to the thread?

The entity seized the opportunity, slamming against the barrier of the circle. The force of it sent Ayesha sprawling to the ground. The candles flickered dangerously, and the glow of the sigil began to fade.

But then she remembered the faces of the victims—their hollow eyes, their lifeless bodies. She remembered the child she’d seen on the street, a black thread tied around his wrist.

She couldn’t stop now.

Summoning every ounce of courage, she stood, raised her voice, and completed the incantation.

The thread in the center of the circle erupted into black flames, the fire consuming it entirely. The sigil on the floor blazed with light, and the entity let out one final, ear-splitting scream before dissolving into nothingness.

The room went silent.

Ayesha collapsed to her knees, her body trembling. It was over.

Chapter 10: The Cycle Continues

The following weeks were a blur. Ayesha tried to return to her normal life, but nothing felt the same.

The burn mark on her wrist had faded, but she could still feel it—a faint, throbbing ache that reminded her of the curse she had fought so hard to break.

The whispers were gone, and the shadows no longer haunted her. But every time she stepped outside, she couldn’t help but look for the thread. She scanned the wrists of strangers, watching for that telltale loop of black string.

At first, she saw nothing. But then, one day, she noticed a young man on the bus, staring blankly out the window. Around his wrist was a black thread.

Her heart sank.

That night, she found another envelope waiting for her. The note inside was short and chilling:

“You didn’t destroy it. You became it.”

Ayesha stared at the note, her hands trembling. The black thread was back, coiled neatly inside the envelope like a snake waiting to strike.

Her reflection in the window smiled at her—a cold, sinister grin that didn’t match the terror on her face.

The truth hit her like a tidal wave. The curse wasn’t something that could be destroyed. It was a cycle, and by trying to break it, she had become a part of it.

The whispers returned that night, louder than ever.

Far away, in another part of the city, a child woke up to find a black thread tied around their wrist. They stared at it, puzzled, unaware that their fate had already been sealed.

And somewhere in the shadows, Ayesha watched, her eyes dull and her lips curling into the same mocking smile she had once seen in the mirror.

The End