Suresh was thinking about the weird things happening around the area when something came to his mind. Everyone said dayan comes out at night, but he came home late last night but he saw nothing out of the ordinary. He did not saw anyone weirdly or creepily dressed. He even helped a lady; she lived nearby but said nothing about the accidents. She did not even look scared or anxious about being out late at night. Thinking this he became puzzled once again. Why did she not say anything to him? She spoke normally as if going out late was very normal but, in this situation, no one in the village would be willing enough to let their son or daughter stay out during nighttime. No one wanted to stay out at night so how come a young lady was comfortable staying out alone so late.
What he could not understand was the fact that he never heard about this kind of incident before. He was born and raised in this village for almost eighteen years, but this kind of incident never happened before. If this kind of incident has happened before then there would be rumours, but he never heard of this before. So, this meant everything started happening few years ago. He was only a little curious about the rumour at first but now that his friend became a victim of this rumour, he wanted to know the root cause of all this problem. So, the first thing he did was going to his other friends, he wanted to know when all of this thing started. He went to motu's home first. By the way, motu is his nickname because he used to be fatter than other children. Motu was at home that time. Suresh saw his mother at home doing some handywork, he went to her. She was surprised seeing him.
Suresh "Namaste aunty. How is your health?"
"Namaste, I'm good. How are you? When did you come home?"
"I came home yesterday. Do you know where motu is?"
"He is in his room. He is traumatized from Baru's death. He could not believe Baru is dead. He went to see him and after coming back he entered his room, he had not come out since then."
Hearing this Suresh went to his room. The door opened before he could knock the door. After the door opened he saw motu's face. Suresh knew he was crying before opening the door. Suresh entered the room, and Motu closed the door and locked it. Then he turned to face Suresh and started crying. Suresh knew he was distressed over Baru's death, but he came to him to know the reason of his death. So, first he needed to calm him down so Motu can answer his questions.
After a little while later Suresh started his questioning.
"I will ask you straightly, tell me everything you know about. When all of this started? How this started? Why are people saying these unbelievable stories and why even police are not investigating properly?"
Motu stared at him for a while then calmly asked, "Why do you want to know about it?"
"Just tell me everything you know. Form the beginning."
Motu was bewildered from seeing his enthusiasm on this. Anyone who learns about this illogical and unexplainable death, all they want is to run away from them. Every person who came to investigate the unnatural death all ran away after they saw how horribly they died. So, he thought Sushen will also become scared of this and lose interest in this. So, he truthfully started telling him all he knew.
"All of this started five years ago from an unexpected accident. Do you remember about the story we were told in our childhood? The story about a dayan who was captured in a small lota and that lota was safeguarded somewhere around the temple near the river."
"That was just a rumour. How can you even believe this nonsense?" Suresh's tone was laced with distrust.
"That story is not nonsense. This is real and that thing is the reason for all of this death."
"Tell me in detail." Suresh desperately wanted to know the root cause of all this problem.
"Five years ago, few young boys became a little too curious about this story and they decided to find the lota. Few told their parents about this, and their parents forbad them from even going near the river. So, in the end there was only five to six boys who still decided to go against their parents and started to look for the lota. They did it so discreetly that even their friends did not know about it. They staged a fight to make distance from their other friends so they can hide about this. They took this as an adventure mission. After their fight with other children those six boys became a new group. They stayed away from others, always went outside the village to play. At first, they went to the river for fishing. After they came home with the fish their parents learned about them fishing in the river. They were scolded at first, but it became one of their new hobbies. They still went for fishing but only on weekends, also they never asked about the lota or went near the temple. As they were behaving well, others stopped being cautious about them. And that was the exact thing they were waiting to happen. When others stopped being too cautious around them, they started searching for the lota. After few months of searching they found that thing in a box buried inside the temple. They dug it out and opened the lota, but nothing was inside that. They thought they did not find the real thing, so they went back to their home. That night all of them got a high fever, they started to mutter in semi-concious state. Even after admitting to the hospital, they were not getting well. Few days later all their parents learns that all boys were sick, and they were all admitted to the same hospital. After knowing the situation, they went to their guru to seek for answer. He told them what the boys did and that dayan was now free. She's going to seek revenge so others should be extra cautious about their safety."
Suresh asked in a tone that sounded he just heard the most absurd thing on the planet, "What?"