
Part 1: A Village Frozen in Time
In a cold valley between two mountains in North India, lies a small village named Bhargaon. It was once bustling with active farmers, children, women hanging and drying their clothes, and cows tied to the trees. Now, it lies vacant.
One day, thirty people disappeared from Bhargaon. Not one was discovered, not one body, no blood. No door was broken, just silence.
Fifteen days later, a postperson came to deliver a letter. What they saw stunned them.
Gopal Verma, the postman, walked from the main road to Bhargaon for two hours – this was not unusual for him. The morning was overcast. A gentle wind kissed the trees. Everything looked peaceful, but as the postman began to enter the village, he realized something was wrong.
There were no barking dogs, no smoke rising from kitchens, and no children playing. He knocked on the first house but received no answer. He tried a second house. No answer again, so he opened it. There were cups of tea still sitting, clothes drying on the clothesline, and food half-cooked on the stove. But no people.
Gopal searched every home. Some beds were not made, as if someone just woken up. Some radios were still playing. One light bulb was still keeping a room glowing.
The livestock was still tied up, alive but starving. The chickens were dead in the coop. In one house, there was an open book on the floor with a child’s crayon drawing next to it.
It was as if the people stood up and left in the middle of their lives.
Dreadfully afraid, Gopal sprinted down the hill and back to the police station. “Everybody’s gone!” he said. “No corpses, Nothing. They just… vanished.” The police laughed at first. Then they went to Bhargaon. They never laughed again.
A few years later..
Today, Bhargaon still exists. No longer is it a place where people reside. Residents will tell you that if you were to visit while it was dark, you would hear sounds. Or you will even witness shadows passing through empty homes.
Nobody is staying after dark.
But now, a team of young reporters from Delhi is going to determine what happened. And this time, they are going to record all of it.
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