It was around 1:30 am. I was driving down from a party venue to my home. Riding with me were two of my friends Rakshita and Sowjanya. Rakshita was leaving the next day for the USA to pursue her MBA from one of the universities there. So we, (a group of 6 friends) decided to spend some time together and had a blast one last time.
I was supposed to drop Sowjanya first and then Rakshita because her house was just three blocks away from mine.
Rakshita was sitting next to me intermittently dozing off. Sowjanya was listening to music using headphones with her eyes closed and head resting on the headrest. Her timely intervention gave a feeling that she was awake. I was trying hard not to doze off and stay focused on driving.
The road was empty and desolate. It was narrow and straight as long as I could see and was divided by the yellow line. The surface was slightly wet and slippery due to evening rain. I was not speeding up but yet driving more than my normal limit. Apart from a few flickering headlights coming from moving vehicles, it was utterly dark. Huge buildings standing on both sides of the road had now been taken over by giant trees. Some of the overgrown branches seem to lean on my path, making the whole scene look creepy and scary. To make it worse, irregular wind gust interrupted the silence of night sporadically giving us goosebumps. Hands-on steering wheel and eyes continuously glued on the road, I dozed off a couple of times.
Just to distract me a bit I played the radio. As I was setting the frequency Sowjanya yelled from the back. Look ahead, there is something on the road. I was petrified by what I saw. A shadowy figure in the middle of the road, standing still. The shape and size gave it the look of a human being. I honked as hard as I could but it didn’t move. I was just 200 ft away and realizing the severity I swerved a little and slammed the brake hardest. Tire squealed and the car stopped a little ahead of that strange thing with a thud. Apparently I had knocked it down. My pulse roared and a mixed feeling of confusion and fear clutched my heart. I froze, panic engulfed me and I was scared out of my wits. With shaking hands, I opened the door and got out. By the time Rakshita was also awake. Both of them came out of the car scared and nervous. All three of us stared at the sight of the accident, we could not believe what our eyes saw, it was still standing there, calm and motionless. We didn’t dare to go there and check out what it was? We just wanted to disappear so we quickly got into the car and drove as fast as possible.