One Picture And One Story Week #71

I still remember the evening when I was returning to my hotel on the hill station. Most of the houses on this road belonged to rich families. I remember Forbes magazine once compared this hill station with the famous hill station Mussoorie in its special issue on India and called it the Switzerland of the East. I had arrived here yesterday evening and was going to stay for 6 more days.

  
My hotel was about three miles from the station of this hill town with its cinema halls and restaurants and I had planned to roam around in the evening, see the city and then spend the whole day doing photography for my book.

This evening, I was enjoying passing through the cedar forest after dark and coming through this small road. However, due to the scary sounds of wind coming from the cedar trees. There were no people on this hilly footpath as they use the main road, because they thought this area was haunted. But I wasn't timid or believed in ghosts. I was carrying a five cell torch.

Source

At this point, the light from my torch was searching through the narrow jungle path. Suddenly, the light of my torch fell on the figure of someone sitting alone on a rock. I stopped and thought, "Why was the person sitting alone here?" There was no one around here, and this wasn't a common path.

'What are you doing out here, man?' I asked with a little curiously as I approached him to find out the reason for his being there. But as I approached the man, I could sense that something was wrong. He seemed to be sobbing slowly. He had his head down, his face in his hands, and his body was shaking with jerks. It was a strange, soundless cry, and I clearly felt a little strange.

'Well, what's the matter?' My voice now carried sympathy along with curiosity. ‘Why are you crying?’

The man neither replied nor looked up. His body shook with silent sobs as before.

I said again, “Hello, you shouldn’t be out of your house at this time. Tell me your problem, look at me!”

The man looked up. He removed his hands from his face and looked at me. The light of my torch fell on the man’s face, it wasn't a face really, but that face had no eyes, ears, nose, mouth, nothing. It was just a round, smooth figure.

I wanted to shout for help, and this is where the story should have ended.

The torch fell from my hands, I turned and ran fast through the trees, falling and shouting for help. I was now running towards my hotel when I saw a man with a lantern on the road. I bumped into the hotel watchman just before the hotel and stopped, gasping for breath.

"What's the matter, sir?" The watchman asked, "Everything fine with you, and why are you running?"

"I saw something strange, something very frightening. A boy crying in the nearby hill, and he had no face!"

"He had no face, sir! What do you mean, he had no face?"

"That boy had a face but no eyes, nose, mouth, nothing!"

"Do you mean he was like this, sir?" The watchman asked and brought the light up to his face. The watchman had no eyes, no ears, no other organs, no ears, not even eyebrows. And then the wind blew hard, and the lantern in his hand went off.

A few hours later, my eyes opened with the sound of the big clock at the clock tower, I was on my bed, and I remembered what had happened to me that evening. Was it a dream?

This is my story for @suboohi for her contest

I invite @josepha, @shiftitamanna and @mozack1

Beneficiary @florcolmenaresc
For her post