The Last Hollow Light

Maya and her older brother, Arjun, worked the evening shift at a telemarketing firm in the coastal city of Visakhapatnam. Every Wednesday was their day off, so on Tuesday nights they would catch the late bus back to their village, nestled in the Eastern Ghats, about seventy kilometers inland. That particular Tuesday was the darkest night of the month—amavasya, when the moon was completely absent. Maya’s grandmother had always warned her that such nights thinned the veil between worlds. Maya tried to dismiss it as superstition, but as she and Arjun left the fluorescent glare of the office, an unease settled in her stomach.

Their cab dropped them at the city bus terminus at 11 p.m. The terminal was nearly empty, the air thick with diesel and the metallic tang of night. The last bus to their village, a rickety state transport vehicle, was already idling, its headlights cutting weak yellow cones into the dark. They boarded, choosing seats near the middle, away from the handful of other passengers: an old woman clutching a cloth bag, a young couple whispering, and a man with a vacant stare near the back. The conductor, a weary middle-aged man, checked their tickets with a nod, and the bus shuddered out of the station.

For the first half hour, the road wound through the fading outskirts of the city, streetlights giving way to blackness. The only illumination came from the bus’s interior, a dim, flickering tube that cast long, dancing shadows. Maya tried to sleep, but her mind kept replaying the day’s calls, the monotone apologies, the harsh hang-ups. Arjun had his headphones on, his head bobbing slightly to music only he could hear. Outside, the landscape turned sparse—occasional villages, then stretches of forest, the trees like gnarled silhouettes against the starless sky. The new moon had erased the sky, leaving a void.

About twenty kilometers outside the city, the bus began to slow. The driver cursed under his breath. The engine coughed, sputtered, and then died. The bus rolled to a stop, and the interior lights flickered once, then went out completely. A collective murmur rose. The driver tried the ignition several times, but the engine only groaned. ‘Sab kuch theek hai?’ the conductor called out, his voice shaky. He pulled out a flashlight, its beam trembling as he stepped out to check under the hood. The passengers shifted uneasily. The old woman began to mumble a prayer.

Minutes stretched. The driver got back in, shaking his head. ‘Seems like a fuel line issue. We’ll have to wait for the next bus, maybe an hour,’ he said. An hour in total darkness. The conductor suggested everyone stay inside. But the air inside grew stuffy quickly, and some of the men got out to stretch their legs. Maya felt a creeping cold despite the lack of wind. She looked out the window, but there was nothing but an abyssal black. Then, Arjun tapped her arm. ‘Did you see that?’ he whispered, pointing towards a clump of trees about a hundred feet ahead. Maya squinted. There was a pale, almost imperceptible glow, like a will-o’-the-wisp, hovering between the trunks.

She dismissed it as a trick of the eye. But then the glow moved. It pulsed, not like a light, but like a heartbeat. Arjun’s face had gone pale. ‘I saw it too,’ she said. The others were oblivious, chatting in hushed tones. The glow grew brighter, slowly assuming a shape—a human figure, but grotesquely elongated, with limbs too long and a head that tilted at an unnatural angle. It stood just at the edge of the tree line, motionless. Maya’s blood ran cold. She knew this was what her grandmother had warned about—an entity that thrives on amavasya, a spirit that feeds on the fear of those who cross its path.

She tried to speak, to warn someone, but her voice caught in her throat. Arjun grabbed her hand. ‘We need to get out of here,’ he said. They got up and walked to the front, where the driver was fiddling with wires. ‘Sir, please, we should start walking to the next village,’ Maya said, her voice trembling. The driver looked at her, puzzled. ‘It’s too dark. We’re safe here.’ But as he spoke, one of the men outside screamed. Everyone rushed to the windows. The man who had stepped out was pointing at the figure, now closer, about fifty feet away. Its face was a void, but its mouth—if that’s what it was—opened wide, and a sound like a dry rasp filled the air, not loud, but unmistakable.

The engine suddenly roared to life. The driver, terrified, floored the accelerator, and the bus lurched forward. But the figure began to move, gliding along the ground, keeping pace with the bus. It reached out a long, pale arm, and its fingers scraped against the metal side of the bus, a high-pitched screech that made everyone cover their ears. The bus swerved, and the figure disappeared. But Maya knew it was still there, in the darkness, waiting. She closed her eyes, and when she opened them, the bus was moving normally. The passengers were talking nervously, but the atmosphere had changed—a feeling of wrongness, as if something had been left behind.

They reached their village at 1 a.m., an hour later than usual. The bus pulled into the dusty halt, and everyone scrambled off. Maya and Arjun walked home, the familiar streets feeling alien. Their mother was waiting, worried but relieved. Maya didn’t tell her what had happened. But that night, as she lay in bed, she heard the scraping sound again—a dry, rhythmic scratch against her bedroom window. She froze, staring at the glass. In the moonlightless dark, she could see a faint, elongated shadow pressed against the pane, and a voice, barely a whisper, said, ‘I know you saw me.’

She never took the Tuesday night bus again. Months later, she learned from a neighbor that on that very stretch of road, a man had been found dead that same night, his body twisted and drained of color, with long scratches on his arms, as if he had been clawed by something vast and unearthly. Maya moved away, but to this day, whenever she sees a darkness without stars, she hears that rasp, and she knows that on amavasya, the hollow light still waits.