In a small village called Dharmapur, hidden between hills and dense forests, there stood an ancient banyan tree. The tree was huge — its roots hung like ropes, its branches stretched far and wide, and its hollow trunk was big enough to hide a person.
The elders warned, “Never go near the tree after sunset.”
But no one ever explained why.
It was said that many years ago, a woman named Kamala was wrongfully accused of witchcraft. When drought struck the village, the people blamed her. They tied her to the banyan tree and left her to die. Her final words were a curse:
“This land shall taste my sorrow, and the tree shall drink your blood.”
After that night, strange things began to happen. Livestock disappeared, children fell sick, and the air around the tree grew cold even in the heat of summer. People claimed to hear Kamala’s cries in the wind.
Decades passed. The story became a bedtime tale for scaring children.
But the tree remained.
In the present day, a young man named Arun returned to Dharmapur from the city. His mother was unwell, and though he hated the superstitions of the village, duty called.
One evening, as he sat outside his house sipping tea, his friend Ravi approached with a mischievous grin.
“Let’s go to the banyan tree tonight,” Ravi whispered. “We’ll prove there’s nothing there. These old stories are nonsense.”
Arun hesitated. He didn’t believe in ghosts, but the way the villagers avoided that place, never even speaking its name after dusk, made his stomach uneasy.
But pride got the better of him.
“Fine. Let’s go.”
At midnight, under a pale, sickly moon, Arun and Ravi made their way to the tree. The village was silent, save for the distant howl of a jackal.
The banyan tree loomed before them like a dark, twisted giant. The roots writhed around its base, and the branches stretched like bony fingers against the night sky.
A cold wind blew, carrying with it the faint scent of flowers — the kind one only found at funerals.
“See? Nothing,” Ravi chuckled, though his voice trembled.
Arun stepped closer, shining his flashlight on the hollow trunk.
A shape moved inside.
He jerked back. “Did you see that?”
“See what? It’s your mind playing tricks,” Ravi muttered.
But as Arun raised the light again, the beam caught a figure.
A woman.
Her skin was pale, stretched tight over her bones. Long, tangled hair covered her face. Her hands hung limply at her sides, the fingers impossibly long. Around her neck, a broken rope still swung.
Arun’s blood froze.
The woman slowly lifted her head. Eyes as white as milk stared at them. Her lips parted, and a whisper crawled out.
“Why did you come?”
Ravi screamed and bolted, but the roots of the tree moved — they coiled around his ankle, yanking him back.
“Help me!” he shrieked.
Arun grabbed Ravi’s arms, pulling with all his strength, but the roots were stronger. They dragged Ravi toward the hollow, toward Kamala.
The last thing Arun saw was Ravi’s terrified face as the roots pulled him under the tree’s gnarled trunk. The ground swallowed him whole.
The woman turned to Arun.
“One… more,” she rasped.
Arun ran.
His lungs burned, his legs ached, but he didn’t stop until he reached his house. He bolted the door, his heart hammering like a drum.
But outside, the wind howled.
And from far away, a voice called his name.
“Arun…”
The next morning, no one could find Ravi.
The villagers said nothing. Their eyes were downcast, their mouths tight.
Arun tried to leave the village, but every road led him back to the banyan tree. Every path, every turn, circled him back to its shadow.
That night, his mother spoke in a voice not her own.
“You should not have gone there.”
Arun shivered.
“The tree remembers,” she whispered.
From then on, every night, the same dream came. Kamala’s pale face, her empty eyes, the cold touch of her fingers on his throat.
And the curse.
“This land shall taste my sorrow, and the tree shall drink your blood.”
The days grew darker. Birds abandoned the village. The well ran dry. The people whispered of bad omens.
And on the seventh night, Arun vanished.
They found his footprints leading to the banyan tree.
But no one followed.
No one ever does.
The tree stood silently, its branches heavy, its roots thicker than before.
And if you listen closely at night, the wind carries their names.
“Ravi… Arun…”
Because the tree is always hungry.
And its curse is never satisfied.
