"No… no, don't you dare to think any stupid thing like that" Sarah denied my request while putting a book into the shelf of our collage library. However, I was determined to make her agree to come with me for this once in life adventure.
So I followed her and went on insisting...
"Hey, listen naa... believe me there will be no mistake, no risk, and yes of course no blunder_ I promise!", I said with full confidence in my voice, while we were walking back to hostel.
"Why do you always want to do such stupid stuff and name it Adventure? Can't you act and live like a normal girl!?" She said with a serious tone in her voice.
"See my friend, I am a normal girl as well but I just don't want to miss any opportunity that life puts before me and Halloween is one of them". I replied while maintaining my politeness.
"Well, then, was not it enough for you to dress like a Churail (witch) and upload your pictures on your blog that now you want to be the dinner of real witches!! Firstly, you must not forget that it is not our culture, Halloween is completely Western thing. Still... I support you because I know you but I am not up for this idea of spending a night in a graveyard. Come on, tell me you are not serious about this?" She tried to convince me while opening the lock of our room.
"I a...mmmm really serious yaar!! You said you know me right...so you must trust me in this. I want to experience this memory. It is already our final year and then we will never get this chance or freedom to go alone and experience new things! you know that. Can't you just come with me for the sake of my smile?", I said it with full emotions in my voice
"You!! emotional drama queen, no one can beat you in dialogues!", She finally admitted.
"Aww... You know I love you, and I assure you, there will be no blunder as I promised!", I reminded her with confidence and excitement.
"Okay... okay but hold yourself and for now I am going to have a nap so don't you dare to disturb me. We will discuss it at dinner." She warned me frankly.
As we sat on dinner table, I opened the discussion again and reminded her about my wish of spending a night at graveyard for my Halloween photoshoot.
" So, it will be just one night, just few hours of it and after your photoshoot we will get back.... right...?", She reassured.
"Yeah...yeah of course only till my photoshoot but... Sarah you know, emmm... there is something mo_ore in it..." I told her hesitantly
"Oofff, girrrl, now what is that?", She asked in rush.
"As you know the hostel warden will not allow us to go and become bhootni (witch). So I have written this application that we are going to my home for urgent work and will return tomorrow. Now... now, before you make any face let me tell you this idea is full proof and we will be back before anyone will know." I finished my words in one breath.
"I knew it, I knew you are such a trouble-maker, you know what are you saying? Can you hear yourself? If warden gets to know this then we will be expelled and then our parents will come to know about this, what will follow next, you know better!", She finished.
"I know, I know that's why I have thought of everything", I tried to convince her and continued with authority, "Now just stop worrying and help me to make my plan work out",
"Literally... No one can stop you once you make up your mind...but remember it is the last time I am listening to you and coming with you and you will be responsible for everything.", She agreed at last.
In the evening, we set off towards the Graveyard that is located outside the city.
While I was excited for my adventure, Sarah was worried as usual. We stepped inside from a small gate which was not even equal to our height so we had to lower our heads to get inside. It was evening and sun was already ready to go to sleep. Stars were waiting to take the hold of the sky with each passing moment. There were about 300 graves, some made of the red bricks, others were built with tiles and few were just a mound of clay. The rare graves had a piece of cloth above them to show their superiority. The leaves of surrounding trees were rustling and creating strange noise to add perfect horror in the environment. There was a small tomb of the famous saint of that town, which we find in every graveyard of our country with many background stories and superstations. In the same row, there was a small mosque for prayer as well. Suddenly, when we were moving ahead Sarah held her breath when she heard some cracking sound as if she has stepped on some bones. She looked almost pale with fear and horror till she saw that those were only dry leaves of this Autumn season which were being crushed under her feet.
"Is my friend, who calls herself brave, getting afraid?", I joked with a wink.
"Ah, afraid and me? Ha-ha no of course not, I was just wandering that is there same structure of graves in West? Like how it would feel to be there and see the difference with our own eyes." She tried to look brave and changed the theme.
But as I knew her for years so how could I stop myself from pulling her leg...
" Well... there must not be any saint and related myths but listen have you heard of one myth that is famous in whole Pakistan about graveyards and girls", I asked while maintaining serious tone.
"Are you talking about the fatwas that girls should not visit the graves?", Now she became really serious.
I tried to maintain the seriousness before making my joke, "No, no there is something else as well, I have heard that the jinn (ghost) goes mad while looking at a beautiful girl like you and suppose if a jinn falls in love with you then how will you get rid of him?" I chuckled and intense environment was turned into lighter one.
"Ha-ha-ha very funny, but miss Naina I am already dealing with a churaillll(witch) like you in my life so I don't fear any jinn now" She laughed and continued...
"By the way, you are looking a proper Churail today. These smoky black and big eyes, dark blood red lips, and your blush that is highlighting your cheekbones, even real witches will be scared of you"
We both laughed.
"Now let's find the perfect location for you... I guess that place in front of the tree will be perfect" she pointed out towards a big old Neem tree.
"Emmm...yeah that will be fine", I assured.
She started capturing my pictures and I began to change my posses from one to an other,
"Shhhh Shhhh", Sarah uttered and stopped capturing my pics.
"What happened Saarii", I asked surprisingly.
"I heard a sound", She answered.
"Oh stop it, you can't scare me", I said joyfully.
"No...I am not joking I felt a hissing sound behind the mosque", Her tone felt more serious.
It was already a moonless night, stars were twinkling above our head like they have gathered to witness the coming danger of our life...
"Okay so you are saying that you heard a sound from there", I pointed out towards the back side of masjid.
"Let me go and remove your suspicion" I took my steps towards that location.
"No.. Naina don't, let's just get out of here, you have got some good pictures already now there is no sense of staying here", She insisted.
"Hey don't be so hasty let me find out and remove your fear", I went towards that area.
"See nothing is here", I assured her and turned back to see her but what I could see was a weird creature standing in front of my eyes. My heart sunk with fear and a kind of unbelievable and indescribable expressions covered my face. The creature was surely not human.
His teeth were uneven and blackish, long nails full of dirt, blood red eyes which were fixed on me, dark lips as made of smoke, big nose as if swollen with a punch and tiny ears, unrealistically tiny with red scars that were scattered everywhere on his face. He seemed as someone who is blood thirsty and was ready to suck our blood.
I was afraid beyond words and felt a hand was grabbing my arm, I couldn't breath till I realized that it was Sarah. She was by my side by then. Equally shocked, pale and frightened. We were unable to utter any word out of fear and were trying to just digest and believe that the creature that was in front of us is real or illusion.
"You humans, you fools, you never let us live with peace", the creature said with disgrace. His voice was heavy and difficult to understand.
"Can't you live in your world with peace that you come here to bother us or it is just in your blood to put your leg in every matter?" He continued...
"We... we are so-or-rry, it was just a photoshoot, for-forgive us, I promise we will never come again", Sarah said in rush and tried to move.
"Oh wow, we have guests today in our gathering", an other voice appeared from behind, he was probably a friend of that ghost.
They both exchanged a look and took us to the backside area of the mosque. It felt unbelievable to see a huge gathering of ghosts there. They were of different kind, different colors and had ugly shapes, one worse than the other. Their laugh was completely devilish. All were staring at us and murmured about us.
One of their members looked at me for a while and broke the ice, "It seems that you love to copy us, so how will it be that we turn you into a real witch for whole life", He laughed and all others joined him in his laugh.
"You can't do this, why will you do this and it is just my Halloween dress up, who would like to look so ugly...?", Words came out of my mouth before I could hear them.
"Ugly- ohh....so you say we are ugly...hanhh...and what about you humans?", I could feel the anger in that ghost's voice.
"You think you are best creature just because of your exterior shape... don't you?", He finished his point.
"Yes, but we are really best creatures, we have sense, we have changed the world, we have reached to mars and list of our achievements is unending", Sarah interrupted him.
"And what have you gained by all these achievements?", He asked with a mocking style.
"There are so many advantages in it, we have facilitated humans in many ways and have made things easy. Our world is more beautiful now and we have products to make ourselves beautiful as well", I replied proudly.
"And my dear good-girl, what do you mean by beauty? What makes things and your world beautiful according to you?", One of their member asked.
"Umm.. it is anything that attracts us and soothes our eyes", Sarah replied.
"Aww... but sorry to break your heart little girl but you don't know what beauty is. For, It is not the outer appearance of person or men made things that make your world beautiful but how you treat each others, how peaceful and beautiful your inner world is, that makes your outer world beautiful and despite the fact that we are creatures of dark yet, we are brighter than you humans and our real so called ugly world is better than your fake beautiful world!" An other member joined the talk with these words.
"This is not as you see it, we-we help each other as well", I tried to counter his argument.
"And what you have to say about the jealousy, greed and hate that you have for each other don't act like we don't know ", He replied.
"Emmm...they are just human instincts", I was running out of words.
"You can't deny that you people carry a dark heart with stained souls and irony is that you call us ugly... pity on you", A witch joined the debate as well.
"You can't blame all of us because there are few people who act like that", Sarah declared.
"Are you trying to convince yourself or us? poor girls, don't bother yourself we know the truth girl! Let me share a secret, we tried to send our people in the shape of humans to your world to spread darkness but you know what they had to say? The first ghost said.
"What?", I asked in one word.
He continued, "They said that humans are far worse than us, they have covered their faces with artificial beauty, and wicked smile but when it comes to harm others, they are ten steps ahead of us. They don't let others get ahead, they have class system, they even discriminate each other due to color and... and their standard of a good human is set on money. They worship a lifeless piece of paper and treat everyone accordingly".
"That is just a common system, that doesn't mean we-we are worse or... or...", I tried to gather words to stop him but I knew inside that I had lost the debate, his words were true. First time in my life I felt ashamed of being a part of that society.
"No-no wait, it is not just that," he continued, "In our world we don't deceive each other but you humans don't even spare your closed ones. If you say we are ugly, if you are so afraid just by looking at our outer appearance than how will you bear the internal appearances of humans. You people gossip, you people are greedy, you make others' life hell, you meet with smile and give hateful expressions at their back.
"You are the synonym of hypocrite, are not you?" One of them uttered in one breath while looking at us with hate.
"Okay...calm down it is our party today let's not spoil it because of these few fools", Head-ghost interrupted.
"As of you both, you will pay for your this visit and for spoiling our day. You will get your punishment before sun rise.", The head ghost confirmed that he will pass verdict about us.
They tied us with invisible ropes and continued their talks. They were eating, enjoying and asking from one an other about their devilish works and areas that they cover.
Sarah was looking at me with accusing eyes, her eyes were complaining and making me feel more guilty for the whole situation. The cool breeze started to give the message that sun will arrive in few minutes.
"So it's time to free you", the head ghost said.
We were surprised as well as worried, we knew they can't leave us free but what was more troubling was the confusion and questions in our mind.
"You are free to go to your beautiful world but you have to wear these bands around your wrist. If you ever pull them out then you will loose your life", The head ghost announced.
Sarah and mine eyes met.
"Now you will see who are really ugly, now you will see the darkness of hearts and filth of your world, now you will live with most painful death", one of them said with strange tone.
Before we could get his words and give heed to them, we were asked to leave the graveyard.
The sky was turning purple and orange with the morning light. Birds were singing and roads were empty. We were happy as well as surprised. We couldn't believe that we were out and alive but we never knew that being alive will be most painful life for us. I removed my that Halloween get up and we reached back at hostel in the morning, pretending that we are coming back from home. As I was walking, I could only see the different ugly and unbearable faces around me. Our warden looked witch, our friends, ghosts and wherever I was going I could only see the filth. I was afraid and unable to understand what was going on. I thought it is just an after shock of our night experience.
I looked at Sarah and she shared her same experience. We were unable to find any human in our beautiful human form. Horrified, pale, waiting for normal days, we spent few days like this with a hope that things will get normal, it is just our illusion but unfortunately nothing changed. Our life became miserable so we decided to go back to that graveyard to find out the answer of our situation. We managed to go back to the graveyard. We finally met with the same ghost and he welcomed us with his wicked laugh.
"Ah look, who is here...Back so-soon? Can't you live in your beautiful world poor girls?", He asked ironically.
"What you have done to us? Where are our people, our world? Make us normal, give us our normal life back", Sarah burst out in tears.
"We haven't done anything, it is the darkness of hearts of your humans. The filth that you see is the filth of their minds. The ugliness that you see on faces is the darkness of souls. Everyone you come across reveals their true faces according to their level of hate, jealousy, greed and hypocrisy. We have just shown you your real world That is the magic of these bands on your wrists, you hated us, called us ugly so now you must face the consequences", He explained and told us straight that he will not free us from his spell.
"We can't live like this, we can't bear anything and this ugliness is freighting us. It really does...", I said while turning towards Sarah.
For the first time in all these days Sarah appeared witch too, may be it was her hate for me for making her life hell. I sensed that a same kind of ugliness she has seen in me. We both became unbearable to each other, we understood that we can't live like this.
"It is better to live and die with ignorance than knowing the reality of hearts", Sarah said with tears and pulled her wrist band. I saw my friend dying in front of my eyes, I saw her dying because of my silly wish of an adventure that turned into adversity, I was the reason of her death so I too pulled my wrist band and decided to follow her to the next world.