The Pale Visitor

The story I’m about to tell you didn’t happen to me. It came from my aunt’s brother, a man named Karan, who lived in a small village by the river. Years ago, when he was just a teenager, he would go night fishing with his father to make ends meet. The village was poor, and the only light came from a few flickering lamps strung along the riverbank, spaced far apart, leaving stretches of darkness between them.

One night, under a waning moon, Karan and his father were out on the water, their boat barely a shadow against the black current. They kept close to the shore, where the lamps cast their weak glow. As they neared one lamp, Karan saw a figure sitting on the stone steps leading down to the water. It was a woman in a white sari, her head bowed, her face hidden. She seemed to be in distress, hunched over as if crying.

Karan, ever compassionate, picked up the long wooden pole they used to push the boat and gently tapped her shoulder. ‘Are you alright?’ he called out. The woman didn’t move. He tapped again, harder. This time, she slowly lifted her head. Karan’s breath caught in his throat. Her face was pale, unnaturally white, like bone bleached by the sun. Her eyes were hollow, empty pools of darkness. She stared at him without blinking, her lips curving into a thin, terrible smile.

Karan’s blood ran cold. He knew, with a gut-wrenching certainty, that this was not a living woman. He yanked the pole back, nearly dropping it, and began to paddle frantically away. He didn’t look back, not once, until the lamp was a distant dot and his father was shaking him, asking what was wrong. Karan could only whisper, ‘We need to go home. Now.’

They returned to their hut, and Karan didn’t sleep that night. He kept seeing that pale face in his mind, that smile that promised something unspeakable. His father tried to dismiss it as a trick of the light, but Karan knew what he had seen. From that night on, he never went near that stretch of river again. And to this day, he warns others to stay away from the river after dark, for the pale woman still sits on those steps, waiting for someone to disturb her vigil.