The Whisper Before The Scream

By Astha Chouhan

On the sacred day of 22nd January 2024, the air in India felt charged with devotion. It was the day of the Prana Pratishtha ceremony of the Ram Mandir—a moment many had waited lifetimes for. As mantras echoed across the nation, my roommates and I decided to mark the occasion with a visit to the Hanuman Mandir, said to be the oldest temple in our area—standing tall since the 1960s.

The temple wasn’t far from our hostel. But to reach it, we had to pass through the campus hospital, built decades later around the shrine. As we were leaving, our hostel warden gave her usual warning with a dramatic flair, “Come back before dark… you know that road is haunted by the spirit of a nurse.”

We all laughed. She often spun ghost stories to keep us in line, and we’d stopped believing them a long time ago.

Wearing bright salwar suits, we walked through the hospital lanes toward the mandir. The path was familiar, yet it felt sacred that day. When we arrived, a long line greeted us, but we waited patiently. The moment we stepped into the temple, a calm wrapped around us. We folded our hands, bowed our heads, and prayed—not just for ourselves, but for our families, our future, and the strength to face whatever lay ahead.

We didn’t have much time. Our outing permission only lasted till 7 PM, so after taking prasad and capturing a few must-have Insta pictures, we made our way back. The main road of Sector 9 buzzed with activity—cars honking, bikes weaving through traffic, and streetlights just beginning to glow.

As a precaution, I walked a little ahead of my two roommates. We were laughing, recounting funny stories from the temple visit, when suddenly I heard a girl scream:

“Samne se hato! Samne se hat jao!”A sharp, urgent cry.

Startled, I moved off the road instantly. In that moment, all I could think of were the headlines—accidents involving young girls recklessly riding scooters, the kind mockingly called “papa ki pari.”

When I turned around, I saw only my roommates behind me, still walking in the middle of the road, unaware of any scream. I frowned but turned forward again. And just then—two bikes zoomed past, each carrying four boys. The last boy, seated awkwardly on the tank, let out a scream so disturbing that it made our skin crawl.

We were stunned. Shaking. We yelled at them, called them out for their cheap behavior. But they had already sped away.

We kept walking, but the laughter from before had faded. Now we were only talking about what had just happened.

“That scream was horrible,” one of my roommates said.

“I got scared when that girl shouted,” I added softly.

“What girl?” the other asked.

“The one who screamed—‘Samne se hat jao!’ Just before the bikes came,” I said.

Both of them looked at me.

“I didn’t hear any girl’s voice,” one replied.“Me neither,” said the second. “I only heard that boy.”

I stopped. Confused. “Are you serious? She screamed right before the bikes came! How could you not hear it?”

They shook their heads. And in that moment, a chill went down my spine—not from what happened, but from what only I had heard.

Who was she?

A passerby? A prankster? My imagination?Or… was it something else?

Even now, I wonder.Was it a warning from a stranger, or a whisper from the unknown?Was it God… or a ghost?

By Astha Chouhan