Riya Sharma thought her life was as ordinary as the morning chai she served at "The Daily Grind" café. At twenty-two, she had graduated with a business degree, moved to Delhi for work, and was settling into a comfortable routine that felt neither exciting nor disappointing—just normal.
Until that Tuesday night.
11:58 PM.
The café was empty except for Riya, who was wiping down tables and counting the day's earnings. Through the large front window, she noticed something peculiar. The moon, usually visible even through Delhi's pollution haze, was completely obscured by thick, dark clouds. Yet somehow, the streetlights were creating an unusual glow on the pavement outside—soft, pulsating circles of light that seemed to move independently.
Weird," she muttered, folding the last napkin. "No moon, but the ground's practically glowing
As she locked the café door behind her, a figure caught her attention. A boy sat alone on the nearby bench, silhouetted against the strange streetlights. Something about him seemed familiar, though Riya was certain she'd never seen him before. He had dark, unkempt hair and was staring at the sky with intense concentration, as if expecting something monumental to happen.
Her phone buzzed in her pocket—Meera, probably wondering why she was late. "Five minutes," Riya called out, though the boy couldn't hear her.
She approached her auto-rickshaw, keys in hand, when she glanced back at the bench.
Empty .
Just wooden slats and scattered fallen leaves where someone had been sitting seconds ago.
Riya paused, her heart suddenly racing. Had she imagined it? The stress of work and the unusual lighting playing tricks on her mind?
Hello? Is someone there?" she called into the darkness
Only the distant sound of traffic answered.
The next morning .
Riya arrived at the café fifteen minutes early, wanting to prepare for the lunch rush. As she arranged the display case with fresh pastries, she found it—a small piece of folded notebook paper tucked beneath the cash register.
Her hands trembled slightly as she unfolded it. The handwriting was elegant but rushed, as if written in haste.
You saw it too, didn't you? The darks making the moonlight.
Riya's breath caught. She'd been here less than ten minutes. No one else had entered. The note hadn't been here when she'd closed last night
Who could have left it? And more importantly, what did it mean?
Throughout her shift, she glanced toward the window every few minutes, half-expecting to see the mysterious boy watching from the bench. But the street remained empty, the strange glow gone.
That night
The café closed at 10 PM, but Riya found herself walking past the bench on her way home. She wasn't sure why—curiosity, perhaps, or the nagging feeling that she was missing something crucial.
And there he was.
Same boy, same bench, but this time he turned as she approached. Up close, she could see his eyes were an unusual shade of blue, almost glowing in the streetlight's strange luminescence.
"You're the one from the café," Riya said, her voice steadier than she expected.
A slight smile touched his lips. "My name is Vikram. And you're the first person in one hundred years who's noticed what happens when I come."
Riya sat beside him, keeping a careful distance. "Noticed what? The weird lights?"
"The darks don't just create light," Vikram explained, his voice low and serious. "They create moonlight. But every full moon, they demand payment."
"Payment?"
Someone disappears," he said quietly. "Exactly one person every century. The price for our family's protection."
Riya felt cold despite the warm Delhi night. "My friend Meera... she didn't come to work today. Her mother said she vanished sometime after I left the café yesterday."
Vikram's expression darkened. "The darks don't just make moonlight, Riya. They take something in return. And I think they've been watching you.
The moon began to rise.
Vikram stood up, his hands trembling slightly. "It's starting soon. The darks will come for me tonight. If you stay with me until dawn, I'll show you the truth. But you have to promise—don't leave me alone."
Riya looked into his desperate eyes and felt an inexplicable connection—something both dangerous and undeniably right. "I won't leave you," she promised, surprising herself with the conviction in her voice.
As they sat together on that bench, watching the moonlight dance in strange patterns around them, Riya realized something that made her blood run cold:
The moonlight wasn't created by the moon at all.
It was created by the dark.
Continue....