“She is not a Daayan,” the tantrik whispered to the girl’s mother, who wept silently in the corner. “She is chhali hui . Tricked. The witch has left a kesh —a strand of her hair—inside the child’s throat. That is how she feeds.”
“You don’t remember me,” the Daayan smiled, showing two rows of needle teeth. “But I remember you, Raghav. I was there the night you were born. I was the dai who cut your cord.”
It sounds like you're looking for a piece of (a scene, a plot idea, or a character sketch) for the series Daayan (2023) from Hunters Original — the Indian horror-thriller genre.
The darkness didn’t fall. It breathed . Daayan -2023- Hunters Original
The Daayan screamed —not in pain, but in surprise. Because a Daayan has no body to stab. Her shadow is her soul.
Don’t aim for the face. Aim for what she casts.
A giggle—dry, like crushed bone—echoed from the ceiling. Raghav looked up. A pair of feet, bare and backwards (heels facing him, toes pointing away from the wall), clung to the ceiling plaster. An old woman’s wrinkled face slowly inverted, neck rotating 180 degrees, until her chin pointed at the floor. “She is not a Daayan,” the tantrik whispered
“Little Hunter,” she croaked, voice layered with a young girl’s scream beneath it. “You carry your mother’s blood in that dagger. I remember her taste. Salty. Brave.”
“No,” he said, and drove the loha blade into her shadow on the floor.
She dropped from the ceiling—not falling, but unfolding , her joints cracking into impossible angles. The iron dagger flared hot in Raghav’s grip, glowing faintly blue. The witch has left a kesh —a strand
Raghav stood hidden behind a stack of rusted taweez , his hand clamped over the hilt of a iron dagger— loha , the only metal a Daayan couldn’t twist.
He had been following the scent of burnt camphor and jasmine for three nights. Three nights of whispered chants. Three children gone from the basti.