The Lantern That Bled

In the autumn of 2004, I was visiting my friend Devraj at his college in the Nilgiri foothills, a remote campus bordered by dense tea estates and a winding mountain road. The hostel was an old British-era building, its corridors smelling of damp wood and kerosene. Devraj and I, along with a few of his classmates, had gone to a late-night screening at a far-off town, and after the film, we decided to walk back, the cool mountain air sobering us.

The road was narrow, flanked by endless rows of tea bushes that whispered in the wind, then gave way to a barren stretch of gravel and boulders, with no streetlights and only the moon casting a pale glow. It was around 2 a.m. when we saw a figure ahead—an old man in a tattered shawl, hunched over, carrying a brass lantern that flickered with a sickly orange flame. He was walking toward us, his steps slow and deliberate, his face obscured by the shadows thrown by the lantern.

As we drew closer, the air grew colder, and the light from his lantern seemed to thicken, almost viscous. He stopped in the middle of the road, blocking our path. Devraj called out, ‘Elder, are you lost?’ The old man didn’t respond. Instead, he raised the lantern, and we saw his face—not old, but ageless, with eyes that were pitch black, like voids. And the lantern’s flame began to drip, not oil, but something dark and red, pooling on the gravel.

We tried to step around him, but every direction we turned, he was there, as if the road itself had folded. His voice, when it came, was like gravel grinding against glass: ‘You’ve walked into my story. Now you must finish it.’ The lantern light grew, enveloping us, and I felt a pull, as if my very memories were being siphoned.

Suddenly, I was no longer on the road. I was in a vast, dark auditorium, the only light coming from a single projector beam. On the screen, I saw scenes from my own life—but altered, twisted. My parents were strangers, my childhood home a morgue. Devraj was there too, but he was on the screen, screaming silently, his image flickering. The old man’s voice echoed: ‘Every light casts a shadow. But this lantern? It breathes, it hungers. It came to this world through a crack in the hills, and it feeds on the stories of the living. You will become its next reel.’

I tried to run, but my legs wouldn’t move. The auditorium began to fill with a liquid darkness, rising to my knees, my chest. I saw Devraj and our friends dissolve into that black tide, their screams muted. Just before the darkness consumed my head, I noticed a small door at the back of the auditorium, a thread of golden light seeping through. With the last of my will, I forced myself toward it, and as I touched the handle, the old man shrieked.

I burst through the door and found myself back on the road, but it was dawn, and the old man was gone. I was alone, my friends vanished. The only thing left was the brass lantern, lying on the ground, its flame sputtering. I picked it up, a foolish act, and I felt a story not my own pushing into my mind—a tale of a village that had been erased, and a lantern that recorded every death.

I returned to the college, but Devraj and the others were never found. The authorities ruled them missing, but I knew the truth. And every night, I hear the lantern whispering, and I see that old man’s face in my mirror. I can’t let it go, because if I do, it might use my story to feed again. So I keep it in a locked box, and I write this down, hoping someone will understand that some lights are not meant to be carried.

But even now, as I write, the lantern flickers in the corner of my room, and I feel a story welling up—one that begins with a road in the hills and ends with a door that should never have been opened. I don’t know how long I can hold it back. The lantern is patient, and it always finds a way to leak.

If you ever come across a brass lantern with a red-tinted flame, do not pick it up. Walk away, no matter how drawn you are to its glow. Because in that light, there is a story that will never let you go.