They say the dead don’t speak.

But I know better.

It was just past midnight. The road I drove on was silent, old, and cracked beneath my tires—an empty stretch known by locals as “Whisper Lane.” It cut straight through an ancient graveyard, where crooked headstones leaned like old men whispering secrets. Trees hung low, their branches twisted like arthritic fingers, scratching the top of my car as I drove under them. The wind whistled unnaturally—like it remembered every soul buried beneath.

I shouldn’t have taken that road. I knew it. But the GPS rerouted me, and my phone had barely one bar left. I told myself it was just a shortcut. Just a road. Just a graveyard. Nothing more.

Until my car jerked, coughed, and came to a dying stop.

I froze. My foot tapped the gas nervously. Once. Twice. Nothing but a weak click. The headlights dimmed, and the radio let out a whispering static before dying.

I tried again. Again. The engine refused to purr. Sweat prickled at the back of my neck.

I stepped out, the cold slapping me harder than I expected. The air smelled like damp earth and rusting iron. I opened the hood—useless, I had no clue what to look for—but I had to try. Nothing looked out of place.

I went around to the trunk, hoping for a flashlight, maybe some tools. But all I found was...nothing useful. I stared into that hollow space, feeling more alone than ever.

No signal.

No cars.

No people.

Only rows of gravestones standing silently beyond the fence. Watching.

I sighed, slammed the trunk shut—

—and she was there.

Standing right beside my car.

Pale.

White.

Eerily beautiful. Her long black hair danced in the wind, though the leaves around her didn’t move at all. Her eyes—dark, hollow, deep—looked ahead, not at me.

“Excuse me?” I called out.

She didn’t respond. Just started walking along the road, slow, like she had nowhere to be... and all the time in the world.

“Hello? Can you help me? My car broke down!” I yelled louder, stepping forward.

Still nothing.

Desperate, I ran toward her. Reached out my hand to grab her arm—

My fingers passed through her.

Not like a magic trick. Not like mist.

Like nothing.

Like she was never there at all.

My breath caught. My chest squeezed in terror.

I ran.

Slamming the car door shut behind me, locking everything, pulling the windows up even though they wouldn’t help. I sat frozen in the driver’s seat, heart hammering.

She stood now beside a nearby grave, just... staring at me. Unblinking. Calm.

Then, someone else appeared.

A boy. Pale like her. Handsome. Carrying a small brown bag. He walked toward her, almost floating across the gravel. That’s when I noticed—she had a small suitcase too.

Lovers.

Maybe they were... I don’t know. Maybe I was hallucinating. Maybe I just needed to breathe. I felt foolish for panicking. My mind tried to make sense of it: They’re just actors. Maybe some weird graveyard reenactment?

I opened the door slowly. Took a breath.

I had to ask for help. No other choice.

As I stepped closer, they held hands and smiled gently at each other. They looked like they were about to run. Then I heard it.

Footsteps. Fast. Angry. Shouting.

I turned my head and saw them—a crowd of people charging from the opposite side of the road. Men holding torches and thick sticks. Faces twisted in rage. Their voices roared like thunder, though I couldn't make out words.

The couple looked terrified. They ran toward me—fast, desperate.

Before I could move—

They passed through me. Both of them.

My knees buckled.

What... what was this?

The angry mob followed. One by one, they all ran straight through me. Cold. Empty. Like ghosts running through fog.

My body trembled. My mind screamed. Something deep inside me cracked open.

And then...

The flashback hit.

The rain.

The curve in the road.

My car skidding.

The scream.

The crash.

The darkness.

I remembered now.

It wasn’t tonight. It was 30 years ago.

My name was Aanya.

I died on this road.

I looked down at my hands—transparent.

My reflection in the car mirror—blurred.

The car didn’t break down.

I never left this place.

And the couple? They were like me. Ghosts. Pieces of a past no one remembers but the road.

Whisper Lane doesn’t forget.

And now...

Neither do I .....

To be continued.....

The cold doesn’t bother me anymore.

Not now.

Not after knowing I’ve been dead for thirty years.

I stand beside my car—my once beloved sky-blue hatchback—parked forever at the edge of Whisper Lane. No rust eats away at its body. No time moves forward here. It’s frozen like me… stuck in the echo of a night that never ends.

Across the road, the pale couple sits silently on a stone bench beneath a dying weeping willow. They look as they always do—still, sad, almost peaceful. She still clutches her suitcase. He still wears the same timid expression, glancing over his shoulder for a mob that never really fades.

We don’t speak. We don’t need to.

We are ghosts of a memory that plays itself endlessly.

I try to scream sometimes. Not in fear—there’s none of that left. But in frustration. In longing.

I want to remember.

I want to be real again.

I walk.

The gravel doesn’t crunch under my feet anymore. It sighs, like the land is tired of remembering. The moonlight glows in patches between the twisted branches overhead. A raven watches from a crooked tombstone, its feathers too still, too dark. It blinks slowly. It’s been watching me for years.

I find myself at the far end of the cemetery, drawn there by something deeper than memory—like a thread tugging at what’s left of my soul.

Past the broken gates, past the fence wound in barbed ivy, I find it.

My grave.

Covered in leaves, nearly swallowed by earth and time. But my name still whispers from the stone:

Aanya Mehra

1971 – 1995

“Gone too soon. Forever missed.”

A chill passes through me.

Not from cold.

From recognition.

This is where I began to forget.

There’s a photo tucked into the stone’s corner—me, alive. Smiling. Eyes full of something I can’t even name anymore.

I kneel.

The wind picks up, curling around me like a question, rattling the trees above. They creak like old bones. The stars seem to flicker slower here. Time hangs thick.

I see flashes again—my mother lighting a diya every year on this day. My friend tying a black ribbon around a tree by this road. Strangers placing flowers on my grave though they never knew me.

I was not forgotten.

But I stayed.

Because I forgot myself.

Most people don’t even know Whisper Lane exists. They avoid it, take longer routes, call it cursed.

They’re not wrong.

The road hums with sorrow.

It’s full—not of monsters, but of moments that never finished.

Of love that never escaped.

Of fear that never ended.

Of lives that were cut short and never stitched back together.

We are the ones who stayed.

We’re not here to harm.

We’re here because we don’t know how to leave.

And every year, on the night I died… the same cycle begins again.

The girl in white walks.

The boy with the suitcase follows.

The angry mob chases.

And I watch it all happen.

Over and over.

Until maybe… one day… someone notices.

To be continued....

Some nights, I wonder what the living would see if they passed here now.

Would they feel it—the weight in the air, the way the mist clings to the ground like breath from the underworld?

Would they see me?

Most don’t.

They drive through Whisper Lane like it’s any other silent road, eyes forward, music low. A shiver. A chill. A sense of not being alone—and then they’re gone.

But tonight… someone stops.

I feel it before I see her. A presence—alive. So loud in the silence of the dead.

Headlights cut through the mist like blades, and I hear tires crunch over gravel. A red hatchback slows, coughs… and stops just a few feet from where my car always stands.

The door opens.

A girl. College-aged. Headphones around her neck. Jacket zipped up to her chin. She steps out cautiously, phone held high like a flashlight.

I watch from the shadows.

She walks around the car, checking the tires, muttering to herself. She opens the hood, just like I did once. I want to call out to her, to warn her, to tell her to get back inside and drive. But I can’t. I haven’t spoken a word in decades.

Then she notices my car.

It’s parked just ahead, as always, slightly crooked, still intact—like it never crashed.

She frowns. Curious.

She walks toward it.

No.

My chest tightens. I move forward without meaning to. I want to stop her. But it’s already begun.

I see her—the pale woman in white—standing by the trunk.

And as always, she turns and begins to walk.

The girl calls out. “Hey! Excuse me? Are you okay?”

No response. Of course.

She follows. She always follows.

She reaches out, and like clockwork, her hand slices through empty air.

She freezes. Confused. Then afraid.

She backs away, breath trembling. Looks around. She sees the graveyard. The leaning stones. The mist. The girl in white now further down the road, waiting for him.

The new girl stumbles backward, bumps into me.

Her body passes straight through mine.

She gasps. Drops her phone.

It clatters, screen cracking on the stone.

She’s seen too much.

And just like that, the old story replays itself.

He comes.

The boy. Pale. Holding the suitcase. His eyes only for her.

They join hands.

Then, the rumble. The crowd. The mob appears—men with torches, fury in their voices, sticks raised high. The same hatred, the same chasing, the same blind rage.

The living girl stands frozen as the couple runs toward her.

They pass through her.

And now she’s not just frightened—she’s breaking.

I know that feeling. The moment when everything you believed about the world collapses.

Then comes the mob. Loud. Angry. Unreal.

And just like before… they pass through her.

She collapses to her knees. Shaking. Crying.

And then—she looks up and sees me.

Really sees me.

Not just a shape in the fog.

Not just a trick of the eyes.

Me.

And for the first time in thirty years…

I speak.

“Run.”

My voice is barely a whisper. But she hears it. I know she does.

She stares at me, wide-eyed. Her lips tremble.

“W-who are you?”

I shake my head. “Go. Before it’s too late.”

She hesitates. Her broken phone in one hand. Her keys in the other.

Then—she turns. Runs to her car. The red hatchback hums to life on the first try.

I don’t know why.

It never starts.

But tonight… it does.

She looks at me one last time before slamming the door shut. Her car reverses with a screech and disappears into the mist, taillights blinking like fireflies.

Silence again.

The couple fades into the fog. The mob vanishes into memory.

And I stand alone once more.

But something’s different.

For the first time in decades…

someone escaped.

To be continued......