Hollow Face

In 1996, Meera was a typical teenager living in Mumbai, India.

One Friday evening in December, she and her parents were driving back home after attending a wedding in Nashik, which is 200km away from Mumbai.

They got on the highway for making their way home.

Their house was 1.30Hr straight shot, the ghat road ahead in the highway journey was quite desolate for some reason on that day the street light went off and it was actually a dirt road despite being a highway and it was thick forest on both sides of the road the entire way.

There were no buildings or houses between the two places.

Meera’s father was already an anxious driver who would keep both hands on the wheel, he would kind of sit up and hunch and keep his eyes intently focused on the road.

But at night, his anxiety would shoot through the roof because he has really bad eyesight.

And so, he would go to great lengths to not drive at night and avoid that high-level anxiety.

But the Indian weddings, the time of start and stop doesn’t ever go as planned so now Meer’s Dad started driving when the sun just started to set.

And he’s driving as fast as he can before it gets too dark.

As they were bombing down the road at about 85Kmph, despite it being about 65Kmph zone.

Meera, who was in the passenger seat happens to look over at her dad for no particular reason.

And as she’s looking at him, she notices at her dad’s window, it looks like there is a little girl sitting on the side of the road.

What’s a child doing in the middle of nowhere!

She says to her parents, “I think I just saw a little girl!”

And Meera’s dad who’s high up on the wheel did not Meera the first time.

He was just focused on driving and getting home.

So Meera said again, “I think I just saw a girl, we need to go back, I don’t know what she’s doing but I feel we need to go back and make sure she’s doing okay!”

Meera’s Mom looks at the dad as if giving the indication “We need to go back and see if she’s okay!”

Meera’s Dad looks over at her and is not prepared to turn the car around.

That means staying out later and it would indicate that driving in even darker conditions and he’s like did you really see someone because we go to go home.

Meera’s like, “Dad I’m pretty sure I saw a little girl we have to go back”.

So finally, Meera’s father, very annoyed, but she stopped the car, he does a 3-point turn and he begins driving back up the road.

They were already around 4 km from the place Meera believed she had spotted this girl.

So pretty quickly they slowed down because Meera said “I think she’s in this area”.

And all the three started scanning the right side of the road.

It had started to get darker outside, and the only source of light they had now where the car’s headlight.

As they were slow-rolling the road they see this girl a little way up, on the right-hand side.

The girl’s back was to the road, she had her knees tucked up to the chest and she was rocking back and forth.

It was a bit surprising that the girl was out here where there is really nothing around.

There were no houses, no buildings, there were no trails of inhabitants walking in, it was just thick forest on either side.

It was just strange that this girl would be out here.

Meera’s dad began slowing down the car and rolling up to her and said instead of stopping right away let’s just drive past her and take a look at her and then we will turn around and see if she really needs any help.

The next thing they realized was that she was not a little girl.

She was a young teenager.

AS they drove right past her, they expected her to at least turn around and acknowledge the car creeping up on her considering there’s no other traffic in the area.

She just continued rocking back and forth in the same fetal position.

Meera and her parents in the car had already started freaking out.

They drive past by another 50m and Meera’s dad takes a U-turn and continues looking for the girl on their left-hand side of the road.

But she wasn’t there anymore!

Meera’s mom asks her husband to drive up a little way, maybe the girl stood up and moved, and maybe we cannot see her because she’s not in the headlight frame.

They started driving down the road and slightly sideways towards the left to shine the light more to the left but there was no sign of this girl.

For good measure, they turned right slightly to shine the lights more to the right-hand side of the road but there was no sign of the girl.

So, they just rolled back the road slowly king of keeping their eye out on both sides.

But after traveling for several going about 8-10Kmph, there was no sign of the girl, they decided that the girl must have just gone back from wherever she came from.

Meera’s dad now started to pick up speed and before they were long gone, they were already 4-5Km away from the place they had seen this girl.

After driving for 30minutes, they came up to this four-way intersection with stop signs all around.

And as they were getting close Meera’s mom gasped!

On the other side of the intersection, on the right-hand side was this girl sitting on the side of the road.

She’s wearing long midi, faded pants, black shoes.

Her open jet-black hair almost touching the ground, her forehead touching her knees and she got her back to the road and now she’s rocking back and forth.

He pulls up at the stop sign and they just sit there.

All the three in the car are just stunned at what they were looking at.

They have just seen her 10-15km back down the road, it wasn’t possible for all the way up here.

Meera’s mother looks back at her daughter and says, “Do you think it’s a different girl?”

Meera nodded and said, “It’s the same girl!”

There was silence for a minute and Meera started to panic, and she said to her Dad, “Dad don’t stop, I got a bad feeling about this girl, I don’t know what’s going on but you can’t stop!”

Meera’s Dad was definitely uncomfortable by the situation but in the same way, he didn’t feel right to abandon this girl in the middle of the night on the side of a highway.

Even though he felt a little bit hesitant he told Meera and her mother we have to at least drive past her and ask if she need anything!

The next moment Meera’s dad let up off the brake and began slow-rolling past this intersection.

Meera is now absolutely terrified and takes off her seatbelt and she goes down into the footwell and she closes her eyes and covers her ears and she just continues to beg to just keep going and don’t stop!

But her dad just continues on and stops just next to this girl and whose still just sitting on the side of the road and rocking.

Meera’s Dad turns to his wife and asks her to roll down the window.

Meera’s Mom grabs the knob to roll down the window manually.

Meera’s Mom yells down to this girl and Meera remembers looking at her mom which suddenly recoils in horror and screams the next second Meera’s dad steps on the accelerator and pushes it with all strength.

They take off like crazy flying down the road.

Meera jumps out of the footwell and she’s looking at her mom and she was like what’s happening, what just happened, what did you see?

Mixed with fear and curiosity she started pulling her dad’s jacket and repeating the same question again.

Her mom’s got both the hands-on her mouth and her dad’s speeding down the road she’s crying now.

Meera’s Mom right now looking at Meera and she just doesn’t have the words to describe what she just saw.

And now she’s asking her dad the same set of questions all over again.

And finally, her dad just yanked, she didn’t have a face!

It was hollow, there was nothing on her face when she looked at me, and her face looked like a dried dough being punched.

Meera screams and she starts crying more her mom is crying and they speed home as soon as they can and ran inside practically falling over each other to get inside the house.