The Rift on the Hilltop
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Ravi was not a believer. Not in gods, not in meditation, not in spiritual journeys. He was a driver from Kerala, working for a well-known guru who held yoga and meditation sessions at a serene hilltop ashram near Bangalore. Every weekend, the guruji would arrive in his white SUV, clad in flowing saffron robes, his mind centered on silence and peace. Ravi, meanwhile, stayed firmly rooted in the mundane. As Guruji entered the ashram that Saturday night at 8 PM, Ravi slipped away from the spiritual ambiance and began one of his usual strolls.
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But this night was different.
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Ravi didn’t follow his regular path around the base of the hill. Instead, driven by a strange restlessness, he wandered upward. The forest was quiet except for the occasional rustle of leaves and distant calls of birds preparing for sleep. It was darker than usual, the moon half-covered in clouds. After about forty minutes of climbing through brush and boulders, he found a large, flat rock near the summit and sat down. The wind was cool, the silence deep.
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He sat there, gazing at the distant city lights below. Suddenly, he felt it — a strange chill, like electricity crawling along his spine. A whispering tension settled into the air. Ravi turned around slowly.
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Ten feet behind him, reality was… wrong.
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A green vertical slit of light shimmered in the air, about seven feet tall. It didn’t cast shadows or light up the surroundings — it was just there, humming, vibrating like a cut in the fabric of the world. Before Ravi could move, something stepped out.
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The figure was black, darker than night, shaped vaguely like a human — two arms, two legs — but its head was too long, its torso too narrow, and it seemed to flicker at the edges, like static on a screen. It didn’t walk; it floated an inch above the ground, soundless.
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Ravi froze. His body refused to respond. The thing reached out with a long, thin hand and touched his forehead with two fingers.
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That was the last thing he remembered.
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He awoke to cold water splashed on his face. Blinking, coughing, he saw three monks around him, their faces pale. He was back at the ashram, lying on the stone steps outside the main meditation hall. One monk clutched a wooden stick, muttering mantras. Another kept repeating, “Shaitan… shaitan…”
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“What happened?” Ravi asked, sitting up, dazed.
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“You were found unconscious at the gate,” said one of them. “Your shirt was torn, your skin freezing. We thought… a demon attacked you.”
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Ravi remained silent. A sharp headache pulsed behind his eyes. Images fluttered in his memory — the green slit, the black shape, the sensation of floating in a cold tunnel, and something else… a voice without sound, whispering directly into his thoughts.
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He didn’t argue with the monks. Let them believe it was a demon.
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But Ravi knew better.
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He’d seen no horns, no red eyes, no fire or fury. What he saw was precision, intelligence, and something ancient. It wasn’t evil. It wasn’t divine. It simply was — a visitor from a place not far in distance, but in dimension.
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From that night on, Ravi never mocked Guruji’s teachings. He still didn’t pray or chant, but he’d sit quietly at the edge of the ashram during sessions, eyes scanning the forest, waiting — not in fear, but in wonder.
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Something had touched him on that hill. Something that had looked through him.
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And he knew, deep in his bones, it would come again.
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