The Last Sun of Winter

In the last week of December, when the cold bit through every layer and the sun was a pale coin lost in the haze, I trudged back from the university in the hill town of Kasauli. My name is Rohan, and I had come to this remote place for my postgraduate studies. I was a quiet, solitary sort, and my only friend was a fellow student named Meera who lived in the same hostel. The campus had emptied for the break, and only a few of us remained, huddled in our small rooms, counting down the days until the new year.

The hostel was an old colonial building, with long corridors, high ceilings, and a cavernous dining hall that smelled of mildew and stale spices. That afternoon, I walked up the steep, winding road from the town, the air biting at my cheeks. I reached the gates just as the faint winter sun dipped behind the pine-covered ridges. I was famished, my stomach growling from a meager lunch of dry roti and watery dal. I made my way to the kitchen, hoping the cook had left something.

The kitchen was empty, a dim room with a large iron stove. A pot of leftover stew sat on the counter, cold and congealed. I spooned a bowl and carried it to the common room, where an old television flickered with static. I sat, eating slowly, contemplating my note-filled notebooks. Then, a draft of icy air swept through the room, and the door to the back garden creaked open. I put down my bowl and went to close it.

Through the gap, I saw the garden—overgrown and wild—but beyond it, where the hill sloped down, there was a small abandoned chapel, half-hidden by leafless oak trees. I had never noticed it before. It was grey and forlorn, its roof partially collapsed, and its wooden door ajar. I felt a strange pull, a curiosity that was out of character for me. I stepped out, the gravel crunching under my boots, and walked toward it.

The door swung inward with a long groan. Inside, the chapel was a jumble of shattered pews and broken glass. Dust motes danced in the single shaft of fading light. At the altar stood a stone basin, stained dark with age. I approached, and as I did, I noticed a faint odor—earthy, like wet soil and something metallic. On the basin’s rim, I traced my finger, and a layer of soot came away. Then I saw it, carved into the stone wall above: a phrase in a language I did not recognize, but the letters seemed to squirm if I stared too long.

I must have lost track of time. When I blinked, the chapel was darker, the sun gone. A deep chill had settled into my bones. I heard a whisper, not in my ears, but in my mind—a soft, insistent murmur that made no sense, yet my heart hammered in fear. I turned to leave, but the door was no longer where I remembered. Instead, a blank wall with a rectangular outline of lighter stone where the door had been. The windows were too high, and the pews were now aligned in a perfect row, facing the altar. On the altar, the basin glowed with a faint internal light.

I tried to scream, but no sound came out. The whisper grew louder, a thousand voices overlapping, each speaking a word that seemed to crack the air. I fell to my knees, hands over my ears, but the whispers were inside me, vibrating through my skull. Then, as abruptly as it came, the sound stopped. The chapel was still, dead quiet. I looked up, and the basin was empty, but on its rim, my own reflection stared back at me—only it was smiling, a thin, knowing smile that was not mine.

I rushed out, and this time the door was there, just open. I burst into the garden, panting, the cold air a blessing. I did not return to the hostel. I walked the empty streets until late, avoiding the shadows. When I finally crawled into my bed, I lay awake, watching the ceiling. In the corner of my vision, I saw a figure, as black as pitch, standing silently, watching me. I did not sleep that night.

The next day, I told Meera, but she dismissed it as my imagination born of stress. Yet, for the rest of that break, I could feel eyes following me. The chapel, when I looked from my window, appeared to be there, but the closer I got, it seemed farther away. And the whispers never truly left—they were a constant undertone, just beneath the threshold of hearing.

Winter dragged on. On New Year’s Eve, as the clock struck midnight, I saw, for a split second, my own reflection in the window pane—and it was smiling again. I have not smiled since. And I have not returned to that hill. But sometimes, in the depth of night, when the cold seeps in through the glass, I hear my own voice, speaking in a language I do not know, from somewhere inside me, and I know the sun will never fully warm my bones again.