With a packet of chips on his lap, constable Shankar Chettri sunk in his revolving chair. He looked at the clock, which showed 10 pm. He took a long breath and sunk deeper into the chair. The phone rang, and he shuddered in his seat. He casually picked up the receiver.

“100 Nepal Police. What is your emergency?”

Silence.

“Nepal Police. What is your emergency?” repeated Chettri.

Chettri felt he heard a crackling sound. Then someone from the other end of the line spoke, “Is this the police?”

“Yes, this is Nepal police. How can I help you?”

“ I know this is going to sound weird.”

“Believe me, sir; we hear weird things all the time.”

“But this one might even be weird for someone like you. Look, I swear to you I’m not joking.”

“Yes, please state your emergency,” said a slightly frustrated Chettri.

“There are people around my neighbour’s house. Strange people.”

“What exactly are they doing, sir?”

“Nothing really. They are floating around his house as if they are examining it.”

“That is not weird at all, sir. I think what we have here is a case of breaking and entering.”

Inspector Ravi Pandey looked at Shankar through the door from another room. There had been no calls in several days, and Chettri’s tense face made him feel that something big had landed on their laps. Pandey entered the room that Shankar was in.

Shankar put the phone on speaker mode so that Pandey could listen to the phone call.

“Listen. I haven’t told you the whole story yet. But please believe me when I say this. I am scared out of my wits right now.”

"Sir, please don’t waste any more time and start with the story. And believe me when I say that we’ve heard the strangest calls.”

“Ok, so I woke up to this flashing light. My bedside table was trembling, and the water bottle on it fell on the floor. The first thing that came to my mind was an earthquake. I immediately thought there was an earthquake, and I jumped out of my bed and ran downstairs. When I opened the door and ran out, I saw strange tall people wearing long weird dresses moving around my neighbour’s house. By that moment, I had realised that this was no earthquake. I hid behind a car that was parked on the road and slowly moved back. I’ve never seen people like that before. The thing is, please believe me when I say it; I don’t think they are humans.”

“What do you mean they are not humans? Do you think there are animals walking around in costumes?”

The caller started talking in whispers.

“I mean, I think they are aliens. Or something I have never seen before. I’m sure they’re not humans I think that… oh. They saw me looking at them through the window. I think they are coming towards my house.”

“Can you tell us your address, sir.” said Chettri, who was puzzled and concerned.

The man told his address, and Chettri wrote it on a piece of paper and handed it to his senior Pandey, who, at this moment, was paying close attention to the call. As soon as Pandey went through the address, he sped out of the room and commanded the few police officers in the station to board the police jeep.

“I am sending police officers to your address. Stay where you are," said Chettri.

“Come as fast as you can,” the man pleaded.

Just as the man finished talking, Chettri heard a loud noise come from the other side of the phone. The noise alarmed Chettri and he got worried.

“Sir, are you there? Hello. Sir, are you listening to me?” asked Chettri.

“Help,” the man said, his voice choking with fear, “There is a strange creature that has its face pressed against my window. This creature has no arms or legs. If something happens to me, I want you to know my name is Ganesh Sijapati. The creature is growing. It’s growing like a tree. It just keeps growing and growing.”

Chettri could hear loud bangs in the background, and his heart began to race.

“Is there someplace in your home that you can hide. Is there a basement or a safe room? I suggest you go into a room and lock yourself in. Hello, sir. Are you there?”

A brief silence, and it was followed by a high-pitched scream, like that of a wounded beast crying. A sound of a dull growl followed the scream.

A shocked Chettri put down the receiver and walked out of the police station. The phone call had shaken him to the core, and he felt he needed to go and personally check the crime scene. He got on his motorbike and rode towards the man’s address.

When he arrived at the location, he parked his motorbike by the police jeep, which was already parked there. He saw a glowing white circle in the middle of the road. Chettri shook his head in disbelief and walked into the house of Ganesh Sijapati.

“Shankar,” said Pandey, “I thought you were supposed to stay in the police station.”

“I couldn’t help myself, sir. I really wanted to know more about this case."

Pandey put his hands on his waist and narrated the police findings.

“The man has disappeared. His window was broken. And, look over there,” said Pandey pointing towards a set of footprints on the wet ground, “these footprints are unusual. The left foot is almost 6 feet apart from the right foot. The footprints disappear before the pipes. We guess the culprit scaled up the building through the pipes and broke into Sijapati’s room, which is on the third floor, through the window. However, there is no evidence that someone scaled up the pipes. It’s almost impossible to climb in an area like this. It’s almost as if whoever or whatever it was flew in through the window, grabbed Sijapati and flew away with him, like an eagle flying away with a catch. There is no other explanation. The main door is locked from the inside, and so is this room’s door. When we broke into his room, his phone was lying on the floor. He seems to have vanished.”

Chettri took a deep breath. He started feeling weak. He thought he knew what had happened but couldn’t confront these thoughts. “Oh god,” he whispered to himself and walked back to his motorbike.