A Face In The Water

My family owned a cabin on the eastern side of the Tso Kar Lake in Leh, India. Summer vacations at the cabin, surrounded by the scenic beauty of the lake, the flora and the fauna in the shadow of the majestic Himalayas were an important part of my childhood. Sometimes, my friends would be allowed to accompany us and we’d have a blast playing by the water, spotting exotic birds and butterflies and the occasional Kiangs (large wild asses). Our days were spent happily engaging in the sort of frivolity that seems reserved for childhood.

However, at night, my mind would often wonder. As children, we are imaginative beings and darkness can often lend a sinister flavor to our imagination, allowing the most innocent objects to be distorted into the most ghastly shapes. I would often lay awake in bed, often convinced that something was peeking in from the window. But with each passing year, I became less and less afraid. By the time I was 16, the fears I had as a little girl seemed ridiculous to the woman I was becoming.

About a year ago, my parents passed away. I was now the sole owner of the cabin. After spending months grieving my mom and dad, I decided to take some time off work and go to the old cabin and spend a weekend there. I contacted some of my friends and they agreed to come. I had known them since childhood and they had been to the cabin before, so they knew the significance this place held for me. There were four of us – Kabir, Tanya, Varun and I.

We reached the cabin in the late afternoon and after unpacking, we decided to sit by the lake as the sun went down. We were drinking, joking around, telling anecdotes as the sunset cast a golden glow all around us. Just then Kabir pointed towards the lake and said he something floating in it. We all followed his gaze and sure enough, we saw something grey and roundish floating at a distance. At first, we thought it was an old soccer ball or a basket ball that had lost it’s color. However, the longer we looked at it, the more it looked like a human head. In fact, I could make out a nose and eyes. Eyes that seemed to be looking right at us. Varun suggested we get back inside. None of us argued with him.

Once we were in the safety of the cabin and had eaten dinner, we started trying to rationalize what we had seen. “Maybe it was and animal carcass” , Tanya suggested. “Or a sex doll, maybe”, Varun chimed in, getting a chuckle out of us. We decided these were completely logical explanations for what we had seen. We began to laugh and tease each other for being afraid. Yet, the feeling of uneasiness lingered. After spending a few more hours playing video games, we went to bed.

Tanya and I shared one of the bedrooms and Varun and Kabir occupied the other one. I lay on the side of the bed that was right next to the window. I was just about to fall asleep when I was overcome by a sensation that I was being watched. I turned over and saw someone, or something peering in through the top left corner of the window. I could only catch a glimpse of it before it quickly shifted out of view. It was grayish white, just like the thing we had seen in the water and had two dark eyes. I immediately jumped out of bed and woke up Tanya. She groggily asked me what the hell was wrong. Once I told her what I had seen, her sleepiness was gone. She changed her clothes and packed our stuff while I went to get the guys.

I was about to knock on their bedroom door, when Kabir opened it. Before I could say a word he told me that he kept hearing foot steps outside his window, but didn’t dare to look. His face fell when I told him what I had seen. We decided it was time to go. We hurriedly shoved all our bags into the car, I locked the cabin door and drove us to a hotel. As we drove past the lake, Varun kept looking back at the cabin. Tanya yelled at him not to look. Maybe she was afraid that something might follow us. I couldn’t exactly blame her. Once we got to the hotel and felt relatively safe, we talked about what I had seen. We realized that as the thing was in the top left corner of my window, it was either 12 feet tall, or was standing on something, or it was levitating.

Returning to the cabin was out of the question, but we spent the rest of the weekend in Leh. We enjoyed the natural beauty in an attempt to ease our minds before going back to work.

I now find myself in quite the dilemma. The face I saw continues to haunt my nightmares. And I can’t decide if I should sell the cabin that’s pretty much a shrine to my childhood, or just let it stay vacant as I just cannot muster the courage to go back there. But what I wonder about the most is if my childhood fears were completely unfounded.