THE TEMPLE THAT BREATHED
1358 Words
Mistwood Hills looked different at dawn.
The fog didn't float that morning—
it coiled, as if the entire forest was breathing around her.
Alina tightened her shawl and stepped toward the ancient Goddess Durga Temple, half-hidden behind centuries of moss and slanted stone pillars.
No human lived near it.
No priest had served here in decades.
No pilgrim climbed this cursed height.
And yet…
the heavy wooden doors stood open.
As if waiting for her.
Alina swallowed hard.
She was alone. Entirely alone.
Riaan believed she was on a business trip to Mumbai.
The driver had left her at the base, refusing to take a step closer—
his hands trembling, saying “Madam, no living soul should enter there.”
He drove away, leaving her with nothing but a flashlight and a thundering heart.
But she had come anyway.
She needed answers.
Her mind kept returning to the strange presence in Mistwood Hills,
the invisible force that saved her from falling,
the frozen horrifying face she’d seen for a flicker of a second—
and the feeling that something followed her like a shadow with a heartbeat.
Alina stepped inside.
The temple smelled of old stone and cold wind.
The idol of Durga Maa, towering and powerful, stood in the center.
Cracked marigolds lay at Her feet, offerings from another era.
The silence here wasn’t empty.
It watched.
Her footsteps echoed as she approached the altar.
A shiver crawled up her spine.
The air grew colder with every step.
“I don’t know what I’m here for…” she whispered, voice echoing.
“But something brought me.”
The torchlight quivered.
A cold gust brushed her cheek—
like fingers.
Alina froze.
Her heart hammered so loudly she could hear her pulse in her ears.
Then the ground beneath the idol… shifted.
Just slightly.
But enough for dust to fall like powdered bone.
“What the—?”
She knelt, brushing her hand across the stone floor.
Cold. Rough. Uneven.
A carved line.
A faint outline of something beneath.
Alina inhaled sharply, hooked her nails into the crack, and pushed.
The slab slid open with a low, trembling groan—
revealing a narrow hollow chamber beneath the idol.
A chamber…
and something inside it.
Alina leaned forward, the beam of her torch trembling across the darkness.
A shape.
Pale.
Still.
Half-buried in dust and dried earth.
Her breath hitched.
Her hands shook violently.
“No… no… no—”
Because what lay inside…
was a hand.
A human hand.
Frozen, stiff, reaching upward as if clawing from a grave.
Her torch slipped from her fingers and rolled, illuminating the hollow fully.
Her scream caught in her throat.
A body lay beneath the Goddess—
a man, skin pale as winter ash, features perfectly preserved in unnatural stillness.
As if death hadn’t dared touch him.
And his face—
Alina’s nails dug into her own palms.
It was the same face she’d seen near the cliff.
The same face that had stared at her through the ghostly freeze of night.
She stumbled back, nearly falling.
The world spun.
Her breath shortened.
But then her eyes fell on something else—
something glinting faintly near the corpse’s unmoving hand.
A ring.
Silver.
Dusted with age.
And engraved with a single letter:
A
Her own initial.
Her fingers curled around it instinctively, as if the ring wanted to be found.
Her lips trembled.
“A… Alina? Or… someone else?”
Before she could think, the air thickened.
The temperature dropped.
The temple’s lamps—long dead—flickered to life for a heartbeat before extinguishing again.
And behind her…
a presence awakened.
The same presence from the cliff.
Same cold.
Same pressure.
Alina didn’t want to turn.
She had to.
Slowly, heart slamming against her ribs, she turned around—
And saw him.
Not the corpse.
Not the man buried beneath the idol.
Another form.
A ghostly silhouette standing behind her, inches away.
Tall.
Still.
Shadows clinging to him like second skin, face blurred except for two faint, glowing eyes.
He wasn’t threatening.
Just… watching.
As if she were the one haunting him.
Alina stumbled back until her spine hit the altar.
She wanted to scream but no sound came.
The ghost stepped closer—not walking, more like drifting.
When he spoke, his voice was soft.
Almost childlike.
Almost human.
“You came back.”
Her breath froze.
“I— I don’t even know you,” she whispered hoarsely.
The ghost tilted his head slightly, the movement eerily gentle.
“Then why do you look at me like you do?”
Alina’s mouth went dry.
“I… I found a ring. With my initial.”
The ghost’s gaze lowered.
His expression—if he even had one—shifted slightly, like surprise mixed with something deeper.
He extended a translucent hand toward her—
hesitant, non-threatening, as if seeking permission.
“Can I see it?”
Alina clutched the ring to her chest, shaking.
“Don’t come closer.”
The ghost froze immediately…
and stepped back.
She hadn’t expected him to listen.
Riaan never stepped back.
People rarely did.
But this ghost—
this unknown, terrifying presence—
obeyed instantly.
Almost respectfully.
Her breath faltered.
Her fear cracked just a little.
“W–who are you?” she whispered.
Her voice shook but her eyes didn’t leave him.
The ghost’s head dipped slightly.
“I wish I could tell you.”
Her skin prickled.
“Then… what do you want from me?”
The flicker of emotion in those pale eyes sharpened—
not hunger, not malice…
Something gentler.
Lonelier.
“I want to understand why you’re afraid of me.”
Her heart lurched.
“I’m afraid because I saw your body… and you’re here… and you’re not alive.”
Her voice cracked.
“And you’re connected to me somehow. I can feel it. I shouldn’t—but I do.”
Silence hummed between them.
A low wind swirled through the temple, circling the altar before going still.
The ghost moved again—
slower this time, drifting toward the hollow where his own frozen body lay.
He didn’t look at it.
He looked at her.
“Alina.”
Her name left his lips like a memory he didn’t know he carried.
Her pulse spiked.
“You know my name?”
He hesitated.
“I think…”
His voice trembled.
“I think I once did.”
He took one more step back—
away from her, not toward her.
As if protecting her from him.
Alina’s fingers trembled around the ring.
The temple felt smaller.
The air heavier.
Her heart louder.
“Will you hurt me?” she whispered.
The ghost met her gaze.
If pain had a shape, it reflected in those pale eyes.
“I don’t know how to hurt you.”
A pause.
Soft. Honest. Haunting.
“I only know how to find you.”
A cold wave rolled through her.
Her knees weakened.
“Find me? Why?”
The ghost’s voice drifted like a sigh.
“Because every time I wake… you’re the first thing I remember.”
The torchlight flickered—
and the ghost dissolved into the shadows as if someone had pulled him backward into the darkness.
Alina gasped, stepping forward—
“Wait—!”
But he was gone.
Silence swallowed the temple again.
Only the corpse beneath the idol remained.
The ring in her hand.
And the knowledge that something was beginning—
Something she wasn’t prepared for.
Alina looked at the hollow one last time, whispered a trembling prayer, and backed away.
Just as she reached the temple doors…
A whisper—faint, broken, drifting from the depths—
curled around her spine.
“I’m not the one you should fear.”
Her blood froze.
She turned sharply—
But the temple was empty.
Completely empty.
The wind outside howled as she stepped out, breath trembling, heart racing.
Mistwood Hills swallowed her into its cold embrace.
And she didn’t notice…
the ring glowing faintly in her palm
as if answering something she hadn’t asked yet.
- Writer
