Shadows of Her Signal

About Shadows of Her Signal

“Sometimes the loudest signals come from silence…”

When Rhea, a bright and spirited college student, vanishes without a trace, the shadows left behind unravel more than just her whereabouts. Aadya, her close friend, refuses to believe it’s just another runaway case. As she digs deeper into the eerie calm of their once-friendly colony, secrets start whispering through locked doors, silent accounts, and fractured friendships.

Aryan, the emotionally distant mental health counselor, is hiding something. Nikhil, the tech-savvy confidante, seems too helpful. Abhi, the charming boyfriend, may not be what he claimed. And Meenal, a woman from Aryan’s past, returns with scars and truths that shatter Aadya’s reality.

Every clue Aadya uncovers adds to the chilling puzzle—CCTV blind spots, deleted chats, anonymous messages, and a cryptic line: “You again?”

As Aadya battles time, trauma, and trust, she realizes the girl she’s trying to find may not be the only one lost. Some signals can’t be seen. Some screams can’t be heard.

But in the darkest corners of silence… someone is always watching.

A haunting psychological thriller with emotional depth, secrets, obsession, and betrayal—Shadows of Her Signalwill keep you breathless until the final page.

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Author Bio:
SHADOWS
OF HER
SIGNAL
KARUNAKAR DARANGULA

Special Indian Edition

Disclaimer
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons—living or dead—is entirely coincidental.
The novel may touch on sensitive themes related to mental health, emotional trauma, and interpersonal relationships. It is intended purely for entertainment and storytelling purposes and is not a substitute for professional advice or guidance.

Copyright © 2025 by Karunakar Darangula
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise—without prior written permission of the publisher or the author, except for brief quotations used in reviews or scholarly articles.
This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to your favorite retailer and purchase your own copy.Dedication
To all the readers—
For every sleepless night you spent turning pages,
For every heartbeat that raced with each twist,
For every moment you lived inside the story…
This book is yours.
Thank you for believing in stories—and in me.
— Karunakar DarangulaTable of Contents
Prologue 7
The Calm Before the Storm 9
Chapter 1 – The Familiar Colony 10
Chapter 2 – A Quiet Window 13
Chapter 3 – Unspoken Goodbyes 16
Chapter 4 – Red-Colored Slippers 19
Chapter 5 – Missing But Not Missed 26
Curiosity Becomes Obsession 35
Chapter 6 – The Letter Under the Bed 36
Chapter 7 – The Hidden Chat 43
Chapter 8 – Shadows from the Party 50
Chapter 9 – Aryan’s Sudden Rage 58
Chapter 10 – The Boy in the Photo 65
Chapter 11 – Watchman’s Secret 72
Chapter 12 – Audio from the Past 76
Twists and Hidden Truths 84
Chapter 13 – The Storeroom Key 85
Chapter 14 – Blood & Beads 88
Chapter 15 – The Whisper in the Diary 96
Chapter 16 – Her Brother’s Silence 102
Chapter 17 – CCTV Twist 113
Chapter 18 – Stranger in the House 125
Darkness Spreads 138
Chapter 19 – Vanished Again 139
Chapter 20 – Police Pressure 145
Chapter 21 – The Ex Knows 154
Chapter 22 – Audio Proof 161
Chapter 23 – Closer to Truth 167
Chapter 24 – The Trap 175
The Final Blow 182
Chapter 25 – Abhi Appears 183
Chapter 26 – Shattered Illusions 187
Chapter 27 – The Confession 192
Chapter 28 – The Confrontation 198
Chapter 29 – The Arrest 203
Chapter 30 – The Final Page 208
Epilogue 213
Author’s Note 216

Prologue
Three Weeks Ago
The rain had started before dawn.
It wasn’t loud—just a steady drizzle tapping against windows, soaking the streets in silence. Most of the colony still slept, unaware that something—or someone—was about to vanish.
Inside Flat 1B, the light was still on.
Rhea sat on the edge of her bed, unmoving. Her fingers trembled as she clutched a small note—creased, torn at the corner, as if handled too many times. Her phone lay face down on the mattress, screen dark, messages unopened. She had stopped replying days ago.
She stared at the locked door across the room.
Footsteps had passed her flat an hour ago. Then again. And again. The same rhythm. Same pause. Same retreat.
A sound only she noticed. Because she was the only one still listening.
The colony had grown quieter toward the end of the month. People busy with routines. Exams. Weddings. Holidays. But Rhea had become quieter too—not because of time or distractions, but because of fear.
Because she knew someone was watching her.
Not from the shadows. Not outside her window.
From within.
She had written a line in her diary the day before.
“He said if I told anyone, he’d ruin everything. But I can’t keep quiet forever… not if he’s the one with secrets.”
Now, sitting alone in the soft hum of night, she whispered into the silence:
“Maybe she’ll find this.”
The letter slid under the bed. Her red slippers rested near the door, neatly aligned. Her bracelet glimmered faintly on the table—left behind on purpose.
And then, without warning…
The door opened.
A soft creak.
A step forward.
A breath.
And then—darkness.
Outside, the rain fell harder, washing away the footprints.
The colony would wake up in the morning, unaware that one of their own was gone.
And the silence she left behind…
Would scream louder than anyone expected.

The Calm Before the StormChapter 1
The Familiar Colony

The golden rays of the 5 p.m. sun cast long shadows across the quiet lanes of Silver Nest Colony. It was a place where everything looked peaceful — too peaceful, almost staged. Tall trees swayed with a soft breeze, kids played badminton near the corner tea stall, and aunty groups gathered like clockwork on park benches, gossiping and sipping masala chai.
Aadya adjusted her college bag on her shoulder, waving to the vegetable vendor she passed every day. This was her world — simple, predictable, and comfortable. College by day, home by evening, long walks around the colony at dusk, and tea talks with her older brother, Aryan.
Their bond was warm. Aryan was six years older, a psychology researcher who worked from home most days. He was protective, calm, and strangely observant — the kind of person who noticed more than he spoke about. Since their father’s passing, he had stepped into the role of quiet guardian without ever having to say it aloud.
As she reached the second block of their colony, her eyes lifted to the first-floor balcony — Rhea’s balcony.
“Hi Rhea!” Aadya waved.
Rhea, her cheerful 24-year-old neighbour, smiled back. Her long curls bounced as she leaned over the railing.
“Back from college?” Rhea called out.
“Yeah,” Aadya nodded. “Looks like you’re back from work early too.”
“I took the day off. Just feeling lazy today,” Rhea chuckled. “Also, Kriti’s coming over. Planning a little girl gossip.”
“Nice,” Aadya smiled. “Catch you tomorrow?”
Rhea gave a thumbs-up. That was the last normal day.
The last day when the sun didn’t feel suspicious, when shadows didn’t seem to follow Aadya’s steps, when she didn’t doubt the people she loved the most.
That night, Rhea’s lights went off at 9:30 sharp — like always. Aadya sipped tea with Aryan on the terrace as they discussed a Netflix thriller, unaware that real life was about to become more twisted than fiction.
“You spend too much time on these crime shows,” Aryan said, stirring his tea thoughtfully. “They mess with your mind more than you think.”
She rolled her eyes. “Says the guy who studies human minds for a living.”
They laughed, the kind of laugh that made the night feel ordinary.
But in the background, unnoticed by both — Rhea’s balcony light flickered for a moment, then went dark. A subtle flash, a closing curtain, and a silence that would echo louder than screams in the coming days.
Aadya didn’t know it yet — but someone behind those familiar colony walls was hiding something.
And the first thread had just been pulled.Chapter 2
A Quiet Window

Two days had passed. And Rhea’s window remained shut.
At first, Aadya didn’t think much of it. Maybe she was visiting relatives, or on leave from work. But Rhea’s balcony was never this silent. No laughter. No open book on the railing. No windchimes clinking gently. No trace of life.
On the third morning, Aadya paused during her usual walk and looked up. The curtains were drawn tight. The balcony plants looked dry, uncared for. That wasn’t like Rhea.
“Gone out of town, beta,” said Mrs. Shah from next door, watering her tulsi plant.
“For how long?” Aadya asked, casually.
“Didn’t say. Maybe a week or two,” the older woman shrugged. “Kids these days don’t inform anyone.”
Aadya forced a smile, but something itched in her chest. Rhea wasn’t the type to just leave without telling Kriti, without a goodbye wave, without texting her usual “Keep an eye on my plants?” message.
Back home, she made two cups of coffee and handed one to Aryan, who was absorbed in a research article on cognitive dissonance.
“Hey,” she said, sitting beside him on the couch. “Did you notice Rhea hasn’t been around?”
He looked up slowly. “Out of town, isn’t she?”
“Apparently,” Aadya said. “But something feels off.”
Aryan took a sip and gave a nonchalant nod. “Maybe she needed a break. Don’t overthink, Aadi.”
She hated when he called her that. Only her dad used to, and now Aryan had picked it up like a habit he couldn’t let go of.
“I’m not overthinking,” she replied softly. “Just… observing.”
Aryan didn’t respond. He went back to highlighting sentences in his research PDF, completely unbothered.
Later that evening, Aadya walked past Rhea’s building again. She paused at the main door. No buzz of music. No smell of her favorite jasmine-scented incense. She checked her phone — no new messages from Rhea since last Friday.
Her instincts started to hum.
She opened Instagram. Rhea hadn’t posted anything for four days. For someone who uploaded chai selfies and bookshelf photos daily, that silence was deafening.
As she walked back toward her block, Aadya glanced once more at the quiet window. That’s when she noticed something strange — the curtain had shifted. Just a little. Like someone inside had moved it.
But no light was on. No sound.
And when she looked again — the curtain was perfectly still.
A shiver tickled her neck.
Maybe it was her imagination.
Or maybe someone was in there. Watching.Chapter 3
Unspoken Goodbyes

The next morning, Aadya couldn’t concentrate in her psychology class. Words like “perception” and “intuition” echoed around her, but her mind was far from campus.
By evening, she stood outside Flat 1B — Rhea’s home.
She had never knocked on that door before without expecting it to open within seconds. But today, it stayed shut. She pressed the doorbell. Once. Twice. Nothing.
She glanced around. The corridor was quiet. The door across the hallway creaked slightly as someone peeked from behind it and quickly shut it.
Aadya bent down and noticed a thin line of dust under the door — undisturbed, like no one had stepped out in days.
Something about the silence made her chest feel tight.
She decided to call Kriti.
Rhea’s closest friend, Kriti, picked up after two rings. “Hey Aads!”
“Hey… Have you heard from Rhea?”
A pause. “Not really. Why?”
“She’s missing. I mean, not officially. But her flat’s locked, and no one’s heard from her.”
“She told me she might take a break. I didn’t push. But… actually, we had a fight,” Kriti’s voice softened. “A week ago.”
“What happened?”
“She was tense. I asked her about it, and she snapped. Said something like, ‘You wouldn’t understand what I’m dealing with.’” Kriti hesitated. “She never does that. We’ve been friends for six years.”
“Did she mention Aryan?” Aadya asked quietly.
“Your brother? No… why?”
“No reason.” Aadya’s mind felt like it was spinning. “Thanks.”
She hung up.
Aadya sat on the bench near the staircase, staring at Rhea’s locked door. The longer she sat, the more memories came — Rhea laughing as she watered her plants, her bangles jingling when she clapped for the colony Diwali show, her gentle smile after handing Aadya a birthday card.
Rhea didn’t disappear. She couldn’t have.
Later that night, Aadya brought it up again at home.
Aryan was in the kitchen, pouring hot milk into mugs. “You’re still thinking about Rhea?” he asked, handing her a cup.
“She wouldn’t just leave without telling anyone,” Aadya said. “Even Kriti doesn’t know where she went.”
Aryan sighed. “Maybe you’re too involved.”
“She lived next door.”
“She also has a life. You should focus on your own.”
The words stung more than they should have. Aadya frowned. “You’re acting like this doesn’t matter.”
“It does. But sometimes… people leave. Not everyone says goodbye the way you expect them to.”
Aadya stood still for a moment. “That sounds like experience.”
Aryan didn’t answer. He just sipped his milk, eyes on the floor.
Outside, the colony lights flickered once and went out for a moment. The silence that followed felt too deep. Too heavy.
And in that darkness, Aadya felt it for the first time — a quiet warning.
Something wasn’t right.
And someone was making sure it stayed that way.Chapter 4
Red-Colored Slippers

The next morning, Aadya woke up restless.
The sense of unease from the past few days hadn’t gone away—in fact, it had gotten worse. She tried to brush it off as paranoia, the result of late-night scrolling through old conversations with Rhea, but that quiet, locked flat across from theirs tugged at her attention like gravity.
She sat at her desk, half-heartedly flipping through a case study for her psychology seminar. The words blurred into nothingness. Her eyes kept drifting to her window.
Something inside her whispered: You missed something.
After lunch, she excused herself from Aryan’s presence. He was back in his room, headphones on, lost in his research. As she stepped out, the warm sun lit the colony’s narrow lanes, casting long shadows from bikes, parked scooters, and potted plants.
She didn’t know where she was going exactly—until her feet took her past Rhea’s building again.
The building stood still, almost frozen in time. Even the leaves in the balcony plants had begun to curl in the heat. No one seemed to be watering them.
She stood near the gate, pretending to look at her phone. Behind the bushes that separated the building compound from the colony walkway, something red caught her eye.
She stepped closer.
At first, it looked like just a piece of fabric. But as she bent down and brushed aside the leaves, her breath caught.
Rhea’s red slippers.
Not just any red slippers. The red slippers. Bright crimson with silver embroidery—Rhea’s favorite, the ones she wore during evening walks, the ones she had once jokingly called her “lucky chappals.” Aadya had seen her in them hundreds of times.
But here they were—half-buried under dry leaves and twigs, discarded like trash behind a small cement bench near the garbage shed.
She picked them up. The soles were dusty. One strap was slightly torn. A broken silver thread hung loose.
Her stomach twisted.
Why would Rhea leave without them? Why would she take off her favorite slippers and leave them behind her building?
Her fingers trembled as she held them.
It was a quiet kind of horror. No screaming. No blood. Just two abandoned slippers speaking more than words could.
She looked around—no one was watching. She slid them into her tote bag quickly and walked briskly back toward her flat.

Back home, Aryan was still locked in his room. She didn’t tell him.
Instead, she sat on her bed, the slippers in front of her. Her mind ran in loops.
Could Rhea have been forced out?
What if something happened right here in this colony?
What if someone saw?
She didn’t even realize tears had begun to fill her eyes.
Her phone buzzed. A text from Kriti.
Kriti: I’ve been thinking too. Something’s not adding up. Call me?
Aadya immediately dialed.
“Hey,” Kriti answered, her voice unusually quiet.
“Tell me everything,” Aadya said.
There was a pause.
“I didn’t say this before because I didn’t want to cause panic,” Kriti said, “but… three days ago, I messaged Rhea something small. A meme. Just to see if she’d reply. She didn’t. But the message was seen.”
Aadya sat up straighter. “When?”
“A minute after I sent it. Then… nothing.”
“Are you sure it wasn’t a glitch?”
“No,” Kriti said. “And her location was still on. It pinged near the colony for that whole day. Then the next day, everything—location, DP, last seen—vanished.”
Aadya felt the air thicken around her.
Someone had seen that message.
Someone using Rhea’s phone.

That night, she placed the slippers in her closet behind a box of college notes. It felt wrong to leave them out in the open, like she was protecting evidence.
At dinner, Aryan seemed unusually quiet. He poked at his rice, clearly distracted.
“You okay?” Aadya asked.
He looked up, startled. “Yeah, just… tired. Long paper review.”
She nodded but didn’t press. Not yet.
“By the way,” she said slowly, “I saw Rhea’s slippers outside today. By the garbage shed.”
Aryan’s spoon paused mid-air.
“You sure they were hers?”
“Positive. The red ones. With silver stitching.”
He swallowed hard. “Weird. Maybe she just tossed them?”
“She never would.”
Aryan’s eyes flicked up, unreadable.
“You’re going too deep into this, Aadya.”
“You said that yesterday too,” she said quietly. “What if I’m not?”
A long silence hung between them.
Finally, Aryan said, “Let it go. Sometimes people walk away without explanations.”
Aadya clenched her jaw. “And sometimes they don’t get to explain.”
She left the table and walked to her room, heart pounding.
That night, Aadya dreamed of footsteps.
Soft ones. Rushed ones. Someone running barefoot through the colony, chasing light, hiding from eyes. She woke up breathless, the image of the slippers lying alone in the dark burned into her mind.
The next morning, she went downstairs early. The colony was still sleepy—only the milkman and a few walkers were out.
She walked around to the back of Rhea’s building again, just to make sure.
There was nothing.
No slippers. No hint of disturbance.
But there—next to the cement bench—she noticed something else.
A long, faint scratch across the wall. Like something had been dragged. Below it, a smear of what could’ve been dirt… or something darker.
She pulled out her phone and took a photo.
Back home, Aadya stared at the image.
It wasn’t much. But every little detail mattered now. The slippers. The scratch. The silence from Rhea’s account. Kriti’s “seen” message.
All signs pointed to one thing:
Rhea didn’t leave.
She was taken.
And Aadya was the only one willing to believe it.
She opened a notebook and began to write:
Clue 1 – Rhea’s slippers.
Clue 2 – WhatsApp seen.
Clue 3 – Location active until Day 3.
Clue 4 – Aryan’s reaction – too distant.
Clue 5 – Scratch on back wall.
She underlined the last line twice.
Then wrote at the bottom:
What was Rhea trying to escape from?
That evening, Aadya got a message from Nikhil.
Nikhil: Coming to college library tomorrow? Need psych notes.
She replied quickly.
Aadya: Yeah. Also need your tech brain.
Nikhil: Oh? Intrigued.
Aadya: Might have Rhea’s old phone soon. Long story.
Nikhil: Now you’ve got my attention.
She smiled faintly. Nikhil didn’t know yet, but he was going to help her open more than just files.
He was going to help her open a locked story.
One that began with a missing girl, a red pair of slippers, and a brother with too many secrets.Chapter 5
Missing But Not Missed

The colony was oddly silent for a Saturday.
Mornings usually hummed with bicycle bells, murmuring aunties on their morning walk, children chasing each other, and that one radio that always played old Hindi songs from the first floor of Block B. But today, there was only stillness.
Aadya stood near the community notice board, eyes fixed on a peeling poster from last month’s colony Diwali meet. She wasn’t really reading it. She was waiting.
Waiting for that small burst of courage.
She turned and walked down the narrow footpath, out through the colony gates, and toward the Police Station, a ten-minute walk away.
The slippers, the scratched wall, Kriti’s “seen” message, Aryan’s odd behavior—it was all too much to ignore now. Aadya needed someone official to listen.
Even if she wasn’t sure they would.
The police station was small, sun-worn, and dull beige. A flickering tubelight buzzed at the entrance. A lone fan creaked overhead as Aadya stepped inside.
At the front desk sat a constable, large-framed with a stained notepad in front of him, chewing something that turned his lips a dark red. He looked up with mild disinterest.
“Yes?”
“I want to file a report,” Aadya said, voice steadier than she felt.
He blinked. “Missing phone?”
“No. A person.”
He straightened slightly. “Who?”
“A girl. Rhea. She lives in my colony. Flat 303, Janaki Heights. No one has seen her in five days.”
The constable clicked his pen. “Relative?”
“No. Neighbour. Friend.”
He scribbled on a scrap of paper. “Age?”
“Twenty-one. College student.”
“Parents?”
“Out of town. Abroad, actually. They called her regularly but haven’t gotten any reply since Tuesday.”
He tapped the pen twice on the desk. “Are you sure she’s not just… out somewhere? With friends, maybe?”
Aadya tried to hold back her frustration. “No one knows where she is. She didn’t tell anyone. Her phone’s off. Her flat is locked. Her last online message was seen by someone after she went ‘missing.’ And…” she hesitated, then pulled out her phone, showing the photo.
“Her slippers. Dumped behind the building. She never would’ve left without them.”
The constable’s face remained blank, but something in his eyes flickered.
He stood and walked into the Inspector’s cabin, calling out, “Sir, one girl here for a missing case.”

Inside, the Inspector leaned back in a wooden chair that seemed too small for him. He was older, in his 50s, moustached, and reading glasses balanced on his forehead.
“Sit,” he said curtly as Aadya stepped in.
She sat. Repeated the story. This time with every detail. The last message, the locked flat, the discarded slippers, the scratch on the wall, the odd behaviour from Aryan, the diary entries Rhea had once mentioned—everything she could.
The Inspector listened. No interruptions.
When she finished, he leaned forward slightly.
“Why are you doing all this?” he asked.
Aadya blinked. “Excuse me?”
“Not many girls your age come to file reports about neighbours.”
“Because she was more than just a neighbour,” Aadya replied firmly. “She was a friend. And even if she wasn’t, no one deserves to disappear quietly.”
He studied her for a moment. Then sighed. “Alright. We’ll check. What’s your name?”
“Aadya. Aadya Rao.”
He noted it down. “Number?”
She gave it. He nodded. “Someone will visit your colony. Just don’t interfere too much. Leave it to us.”
Aadya wanted to argue. But she didn’t. Not now.

As she left the station, a message pinged.
Aryan: Where are you? Lunch’s ready.
She stared at it for a few seconds before replying.
Aadya: Went to see someone. Be back soon.
She didn’t want to lie. But something in her gut said she couldn’t tell him. Not yet.

When she returned home, Aryan was pacing in the living room. His expression shifted quickly—from relief to annoyance.
“You didn’t answer for almost two hours,” he said sharply. “Where the hell were you?”
“Relax,” she said, setting down her bag. “I just went to the police station.”
Aryan’s face darkened. “What?”
“To report Rhea missing.”
His fists clenched at his sides. “Why would you do that?”
“Because she’s gone, Aryan. And nobody seems to care.”
“We don’t even know if she’s really missing,” he snapped. “Maybe she left for a few days. Maybe she had a fight with someone.”
“She didn’t take her phone. Or her slippers. Or even her house keys. And no one’s heard from her.”
Aryan looked away. “You should’ve told me first.”
“Would it have changed anything?” she asked, her voice lower now. “You told me to drop it. I won’t.”
A long silence passed.
Finally, Aryan said, “You’re getting in too deep, Aadya.”
“No,” she whispered. “I’m finally getting close.”
That evening, Aadya sat on her bed with her laptop, going through old group photos.
There were so many colony gatherings. Picnics, Diwali lights, birthdays in the garden. And in so many of them—Rhea and Aryan standing close. Too close.
In one, Rhea had her head tilted toward Aryan, laughing. Aryan’s gaze was… soft.
In another, Aryan was looking at her while she talked to someone else.
Aadya stared for minutes.
Her brother—the psychology researcher, the quiet one, the rational one—had always been composed. Guarded.
But here, there was something else.
Admiration? Affection?
She wasn’t sure.
She received a call from Kriti around 9 PM.
“I think I found something weird,” Kriti said, voice hushed.
“What?”
“Rhea had a diary app on her phone. She’d sometimes write little things there. I helped her set it up. She used to back it up on Google Drive automatically.”
Aadya’s pulse quickened. “Do you have access?”
“Yes. Her email was logged in on her old tablet at my place.”
“Send me anything you find.”
“Already on it. But Aadya… some of it is dark.”
Aadya sat still for a moment. “Like what?”
“She was scared. She mentioned someone was following her. She didn’t say who. But one entry said—‘He said if I tell anyone, it’ll ruin everything.’”
Aadya’s heart pounded. “When was that written?”
“Four weeks ago.”
The same week Rhea had gone quiet. The same week she started skipping colony walks.
“Send me everything,” Aadya said. “Please.”

Later that night, Aadya stared at the screen, rereading the diary entry Kriti had forwarded.
Entry: March 3rd
“I keep looking over my shoulder. I know it’s silly, but I feel like someone’s always… there. Watching. Maybe it’s just stress. But then he said it again. ‘One wrong word, Rhea, and you’ll regret it.’ I laughed it off. But I didn’t feel safe. Not even at home.”
She looked out her window.
Across the way, Rhea’s flat was still dark.
Still locked.
Still silent.
But Aadya could feel something behind that door.
Not a ghost. Not a superstition.
Just truth. Locked and buried.

The next morning, Aadya was woken up by a knock.
She opened the door to find two police officers standing at her gate.
“Ma’am, we’re here to follow up on your missing person report.”
Aryan appeared behind her in his T-shirt, clearly just woken up. His eyes went from Aadya to the officers.
“What’s going on?” he asked.
“They’re here for Rhea,” Aadya said calmly. “I filed the report.”
Aryan stared at the officers, then at her. His jaw was tight.
“Can we see the flat?” the senior officer asked.
Aryan didn’t speak.
Aadya grabbed the spare keys from the security guard and led them up.

They opened the door slowly. The flat was stuffy, airless.
Rhea’s perfume still faintly lingered in the living room.
Shoes neatly placed at the door. Cushions undisturbed. Dishes still drying in the rack. A pair of earphones tangled on the study table.
But no signs of life.
Or struggle.
“Nothing obvious,” one officer said.
Aadya pointed to the corner. “There’s a small burn mark near the bed. Like someone tried to burn paper.”
They examined it. Took photos.
“We’ll mark it for now,” the officer said. “But unless we get family permission or evidence of foul play, we can’t break open anything else.”
Aadya nodded, disappointed but not surprised.

As they left the flat, Aadya’s phone buzzed again.
Kriti: Found something else. One entry says ‘He’s closer than I ever imagined. A part of the same roof. And I don’t know how to breathe anymore.’
Same roof.
Aadya froze.
She looked over her shoulder.
Aryan was behind her, watching.
His face unreadable.

Curiosity Becomes Obsession
Chapter 6
The Letter Under the Bed

The night had fallen heavy on the colony. Shadows stretched longer than usual, spilling out from balconies and sliding like ink down the walls. Janaki Heights, usually buzzing with the sound of late TV shows and noisy pressure cookers, was unusually hushed—as if it, too, was holding its breath.
Aadya lay in her bed, staring at the ceiling fan rotating slowly above her. The police had left hours ago, giving her nothing more than a polite nod and the vague promise: “We’ll let you know if we find anything.”
But that wasn’t enough.
That was never going to be enough.
She sat up and grabbed her phone. The screen lit up to a message from Kriti.
Kriti: I still have the old duplicate key to Rhea’s flat. From when we used to revise together for semester finals. Want to go in again?
Aadya replied instantly.
Aadya: Yes. Tonight.

At 11:38 PM, Aadya slipped out of her flat. The corridor was still and dimly lit. She walked past her brother’s room; the door was shut, lights off. She paused briefly, wondering if Aryan was asleep… or pretending.
Then she moved.
Three minutes later, she met Kriti at the stairwell on the third floor. The key was already in her hand.
“No turning back?” Kriti whispered.
Aadya shook her head. “Not anymore.”
They stood in front of Flat 1B. Aadya noticed that, unlike earlier when the police had opened it, something about the door felt colder now—as if it had sealed itself again.
Kriti inserted the key, turned it gently. The click sounded louder in the silence.
They slipped in and shut the door behind them.

The air inside was stale and still. Nothing had been touched since the police visit, but now, in the absence of officers and sunlight, the room felt heavier—like it was guarding something.
“I don’t know what we’re looking for exactly,” Kriti murmured.
“Neither do I,” Aadya admitted, “but she left something. I can feel it.”
They split. Aadya moved toward the bedroom. The bed was neatly made, except for the slight burn mark on the rug beside it. She crouched and examined the spot again—ash fragments still clung to the floor fibers.
“She tried to burn something,” she whispered.
Kriti leaned over. “Could’ve been a paper?”
Aadya nodded. “Maybe a letter… or a diary page.”
“Check under the bed,” Kriti suggested. “Rhea used to hide chocolates there during our exams. Wouldn’t be surprised if secrets went there too.”
Aadya lowered herself to the floor and peered beneath the bed.
Dust. A stack of notebooks. A shoebox. A lone sandal.
And a folded, half-burnt paper wedged behind the shoebox.
Her heart kicked.
She reached in slowly and pulled it out. The edges were charred, the paper delicate. The ink was slightly smudged, but most of the text was still readable.

To whoever finds this… or maybe to no one.
I don’t know how much longer I can breathe like this. It feels like I’m being watched even when I’m alone. He says it’s love, but it feels like I’m in a cage. I can’t scream. I can’t tell anyone. I know the moment I open my mouth, it’ll be the end. He told me. “I’ll destroy you if you speak.”
And the worst part? I trusted him once. I let him in. I thought he understood me. But now… he’s in every shadow. Every silence. And if you’re reading this, and I’m not around—
Please know I tried. I really tried to escape.
– Rhea

Aadya read it twice, her throat tightening each time. Her fingers trembled slightly as she handed it to Kriti.
Kriti’s eyes widened, filling with tears. “Oh my God.”
“She was terrified,” Aadya said softly. “And she tried to speak. In the only way she could.”
“Who do you think she meant by he?” Kriti whispered. “Aryan?”
Aadya opened her mouth to answer—but stopped.
Her brain warred with itself. She wanted to scream no, not Aryan, never Aryan… but the images from the colony photos, the hidden glances, Aryan’s increasing irritability, the line in the diary that read ‘a part of the same roof’… it was all circling, gnawing, tightening.
She didn’t reply.
Instead, she reached for the shoebox under the bed.
Inside, Rhea’s ID cards, a couple of polaroids, and a torn piece of a photograph. Half a face—male, jawline, shoulder. The other half burned.
“Is that…?” Kriti started.
“I don’t know,” Aadya whispered. “But I’m going to find out.”

The girls left quietly, locking the flat behind them. Aadya slipped the note and the photo into her bag. Her mind raced. The next step was clear.
They needed help.
But not the kind that came in uniform.

Back in her room, Aadya picked up her phone and messaged Nikhil.
Aadya: Hey. Urgent. Can you help me trace someone from a half photograph? Like enhance or match it?
Nikhil: Whoa. What the hell? It’s 1 AM. But yes. Send me a snap.
She clicked a picture of the half-burnt photo and sent it. A few seconds later:
Nikhil: Looks like it was burned on purpose. I’ll try. Give me some time.
Aadya: Also… can you help me get into Rhea’s Google Drive again?
Nikhil: You’re serious about this, huh?
Aadya: She tried to escape. I can’t let her go unheard.

The next morning, Aryan was unusually quiet.
He sat at the table, swirling sugar into his coffee absentmindedly. He didn’t look at her. Aadya felt a weird tension growing in the room.
He finally spoke.
“I saw the police yesterday. You let them into her house.”
“I had to,” she replied.
“You’re taking this too far,” Aryan said, keeping his voice calm. “This isn’t some mystery novel. It’s real life. You could be hurting people.”
Aadya looked up at him.
“Did you ever… like her?”
Aryan’s hand paused mid-sip. His gaze slowly rose to meet hers.
“Rhea?”
She nodded.
He stared at her for a long time. His expression unreadable.
Then he stood.
“I have work,” he said, picking up his bag. “We’ll talk later.”

Later that day, Nikhil messaged.
Nikhil: That pic? Pretty sure it’s Aryan. Or someone who looks just like him. I tried enhancing and matching basic facial structure… it’s almost a lock.
Aadya sat back, her stomach hollowing.
It was Aryan.
Why would Rhea keep—and burn—a photo of him?
Unless she feared what it revealed.
Her own brother.
The man who’d taught her to ride a bicycle.
Who bandaged her scraped knees.
Who stayed up late before her board exams to quiz her.
What secrets had he buried?

Aadya stared out her window toward Rhea’s balcony.
The silence was deafening.
But somewhere beneath it… she could feel the scream.
Buried.
Burning.
Waiting to be heard.
And she had just found its first words.Chapter 7
The Hidden Chat

The phone screen glowed like a faint ember in Aadya’s darkened bedroom.
It was well past midnight, but sleep was not an option anymore—not after what she had read. The half-burnt letter from Rhea had etched itself into her thoughts, and the name that kept repeating in her head like a whisper was one she could barely bring herself to confront.
Aryan.
Her brother. Her protector. Her only family in this world.
And now… a suspect?
Her chest ached with conflict, but the path she had chosen offered no turning back. Truth had no siblings. No sacred bonds.
It only had shadows to chase—and she was ready to run after them.

She opened her chat window with Nikhil.
Aadya: You there?
A few seconds later, the three dots blinked.
Nikhil: Barely. What now?
Aadya: Do you still have Rhea’s phone?
Nikhil: Yeah. Got it charging. Why?
Aadya: I want everything. Her backups. WhatsApp, Drive, Gmail. Anything you can extract. Especially anything she might’ve deleted.
Nikhil: That’s gonna take time. Phones aren’t magic books, you know.
Aadya: But they are books… with locked pages. You know how to unlock them.
Nikhil: You really think something’s in there?
Aadya: I don’t think. I know.

An hour later, she was at Nikhil’s place.
It was a small but organized two-bedroom flat filled with tangled chargers, coffee cups, and the faint scent of soldered wires. His laptop screen displayed a rolling log of decrypted files and system codes as Aadya stepped in.
“I’ve been pulling out the cached folders,” he said, not even glancing up. “Rhea’s backups antha inconsistent ga unnai, but WhatsApp data kuda backup disable chesi undi.”
“English, please,” Aadya said, sitting beside him.
“I’m trying to get into chats that aren’t visible on the normal app screen. Deleted ones. Hidden backups.”
The progress bar blinked to 98%.
“Almost there.”
The system chimed. A plain-text window opened with thousands of lines.
Names. Numbers. Time stamps.
And one particular contact marked with a 🔒lock emoji.
“Here,” Nikhil said, enlarging the screen. “This thread was deleted. Not archived. And encrypted locally. Took me twenty minutes to isolate the key.”
He opened it.
The chat was with someone saved only as “A.”
A chill ran through Aadya’s arms.
She began to read.

A (April 18, 2:14 AM):
You didn’t show up. That wasn’t smart.
Rhea:
I told you I wasn’t feeling safe.
A:
Safe from me? Or from what people might say?
Rhea:
I never meant to lead you on. I’m sorry.
A:
I’m not someone you just ghost, Rhea.
Rhea:
You’re scaring me.
A:
You owe me a conversation. After everything I did for you.
Rhea:
I never asked you to.
A:
Don’t test my patience.

“That doesn’t sound like love,” Nikhil muttered.
“No,” Aadya said softly. “That sounds like control.”
She scrolled down further. The messages continued sporadically over weeks. Threats disguised as heartbreak. Guilt trips dressed as affection.
Rhea had replied less and less over time, her tone growing distant, frightened, mechanical.
Then, one message stood out—dated just three days before her disappearance.

A (April 29, 11:09 PM):
If you won’t talk to me, I’ll come to you. I know when you’re alone. I’ve seen your light go off at 10:47 sharp every night.

Aadya’s spine stiffened. She looked at Nikhil.
“He was watching her. In real time.”
Nikhil nodded. “This is full-on stalking. Whoever ‘A’ is, he was obsessed. Paranoid. Dangerous.”
“Can we trace this number?” Aadya asked.
“Already tried. It’s a burner SIM. Prepaid, bought with fake ID. But I might still be able to triangulate past tower pings—if we cross-check her location history.”
“Let’s do it,” Aadya said.
“And Aadya…” Nikhil hesitated, then added, “Do you really think this is Aryan?”
Her throat dried.
She didn’t want to answer.

Later that afternoon, Aadya returned home.
The door to Aryan’s room was ajar. She peeked in.
It was neat, like always. Books on his shelf: “Criminal Psychology,” “Understanding Fear Responses,” “Patterns of Obsessive Attachment.” Harmless on their own.
But now, everything looked like a clue.
Or a cover.
She walked in slowly.
On his desk lay his old college ID—M.A. in Counseling Psychology.
She opened the top drawer. Pens, notepads… and a tiny black flash drive.
Curious, she pocketed it.

Back in her room, she plugged it into her laptop.
It held several folders. Research notes, case studies… and one folder titled Observations – R.
Her heart sank.
She clicked it open.
Dozens of PDFs. Each one named by date.
She opened one.

Subject R – Entry: April 20
“Subject avoided eye contact today. Stated she was ‘tired.’ But subtle changes in gait and phone-holding hand indicate anxiety. Refused lunch invitation. Possibly regressing again.”

Aadya covered her mouth.
Was this how he saw Rhea? Not as a friend. Not as a neighbor.
As a subject?
She scrolled through more.
April 22
“She is emotionally fragmented. Isolation likely a defensive mechanism. But attachment cues still exist. Needs monitoring.”
April 25
“She is trying to detach. But fear is her anchor. She is not ready to confront me directly.”

Aadya felt like vomiting.
This wasn’t just obsessive. It was calculated. Cold. Scientific.
Her brother had been observing Rhea like an experiment.
Not helping her.
Not protecting her.
Watching her fall apart—and writing it down.
She picked up the phone.

Aadya: Nikhil. We need to talk.
Nikhil: What now?
Aadya: I found Aryan’s personal notes. On Rhea. Labeled as “Subject R.”
Nikhil: Jesus.
Aadya: I think he studied her like a patient. Or a case study.
Nikhil: We have to go to the cops.
Aadya: Not yet. Not until I’m sure what happened to her.

That night, she stared at the locked phone in her hand.
And she whispered to the quiet:
“Rhea… I hear you. I see you now.”
Then she opened the next document.

The shadows were speaking louder.
And Aadya was finally listening.
Chapter 8
Shadows from the Party

The sun dipped low behind the colony’s water tank, casting a long, crooked shadow across the entrance to the building. Aadya stood motionless, staring at the hollow square of concrete where children once played cricket and uncles gossiped over evening chai. It felt… different now. As though the laughter that used to echo off the walls had been replaced with whispers—guilty ones.
She slipped her phone into her hoodie pocket and crossed the courtyard, her fingers brushing against the edge of Rhea’s building as she passed. Each step brought her closer to a truth that felt uglier with every new detail.
Nikhil’s voice from earlier still rang in her ears:
“If the chats are real, and if Aryan studied her like a subject… then there’s one piece missing. What made Rhea finally break?”
The answer, Aadya felt in her gut, lay in that party.
The one everyone kept dodging.
The one no one wanted to talk about.

One Month Ago – The Rooftop Party
Rhea had mentioned it in the last chat backup. A single line:
“After that night, I knew I couldn’t trust anyone.”
That was the thread.
Aadya had to pull it.

That evening, Aadya visited Kriti’s flat.
Kriti was surprised to see her.
“You look… exhausted,” Kriti said gently, her voice unsure.
“I haven’t been sleeping much.”
Kriti nodded slowly, offering a half smile. “You want tea?”
“I want the truth,” Aadya replied, her tone sharper than intended. “About the party last month. The rooftop one.”
Kriti froze, her fingers halting mid-air as she reached for the sugar jar.
“What about it?”
“You were there.”
A pause.
“Everyone was.”
“No,” Aadya said, stepping closer. “Everyone I talk to pretends it didn’t happen. Why?”
Kriti didn’t answer right away. She moved to the table, placed the cups down, and sat heavily on the chair, as if the truth carried a weight she’d been dragging for weeks.
“It wasn’t supposed to be anything serious,” she said at last. “Just a get-together. Aryan organized it. Said we all needed to chill out, exams were done, stress was killing everyone…”
“Who all came?”
Kriti’s voice lowered. “Aryan. Abhi. Rhea. Me. Ramesh anna from Block D was also around, helping with drinks. I think two of Aryan’s college friends were there too. Boys I didn’t know. Loud types.”
“And?”
“Nothing seemed wrong. Until around 10 PM.”
Aadya’s heart drummed.
Kriti continued. “I went to get a charger from my flat. When I came back… Rhea was gone.”
“Gone?”
“She’d left the party. No one noticed when. I thought maybe she went home.”
“But she didn’t?”
“I don’t know. Next morning, I saw her in the lift. Her face was pale. Like… like she hadn’t slept all night. She didn’t even say hi. Just kept looking at the floor.”
“Did you ask her what happened?”
“I tried. She said, ‘Some things are better forgotten.’ That was it.”
Aadya clenched her jaw. “Something happened that night.”
Kriti looked down.
“Yes,” she whispered. “I think so too.”

That night, Aadya sat in her room with her laptop open.
She watched the same short video clip over and over—grainy CCTV footage from the colony gate, stitched together from the USB Nikhil helped decode.
Time stamp: April 28, 10:43 PM.
Rhea—walking alone.
Head down.
Clutching her phone like it was a lifeline.
But what made Aadya sit upright in horror was what followed.
A full minute later, Aryan appeared at the same gate.
He wasn’t walking.
He was running.

Aadya paused the frame.
What was he chasing?
Or… who?
Her hand trembled as she hit play again.
Aryan stopped at the gate, looked around, then turned sharply and walked toward Block C’s back alley.
A place not covered by cameras.
A dead zone.
Aadya whispered to herself, “What were you doing, Aryan?”

The next day, she found Nikhil sitting in their favorite college café, two iced coffees in hand.
“I think Aryan knew,” she said without greeting.
“Knew what?”
“Something happened to Rhea that night. Something bad. And Aryan either saw it, heard it, or… did it.”
Nikhil exhaled. “We need more than CCTV. It’s still circumstantial.”
She pulled out her phone and played the audio she found earlier on Rhea’s cloud.
Rhea’s voice was shaking.
“He said he’d ruin me if I ever spoke. That no one would believe me. That he knew people. Important people.”
Nikhil’s eyes widened.
“Whose voice is that after?”
“That’s what I want to find out.”
They went to Meenal next—Aryan’s ex-girlfriend.
She had been avoiding Aadya’s calls, but finally agreed to meet at a bookstore café on the edge of town.
Meenal was different now. Shorter hair. Distant eyes. A guarded tone.
“I know why you’re here,” she said before Aadya even asked.
“I want to know about Aryan,” Aadya said. “Especially the version of him you knew… before.”
Meenal stared into her cup.
“You want the polished version? Or the truth?”
“Always the truth.”
Meenal nodded. “He’s charming. Always has been. Intelligent. Protective. But also… manipulative. He makes you feel like he’s saving you, while slowly making you depend on him.”
Aadya’s stomach turned.
“Did he ever—”
“Not to me,” Meenal interrupted. “But he had this dark side. He hated losing control. When Rhea started pulling away from the group, he said she was being dramatic. That she was mentally unstable.”
“He said that to you?”
“Yeah. And then he started spending more time with Abhi. They got close.”
Aadya blinked.
“Abhi?”
“The guy from his internship. Techy. Quiet. But always around.”
Something clicked in Aadya’s brain.
“You’ll regret saying no.”
— Voice from Rhea’s recording.
“Nikhil traced that voice,” she said aloud. “It wasn’t Aryan. It was Abhi.”
Meenal’s head snapped up.
“You think he was involved?”
“I don’t know. But I think Aryan knew. And tried to cover it.”

Back in her room, Aadya laid out all her clues:
The rooftop party – organized by Aryan.
Rhea leaves early – terrified.
Aryan runs after her – confirmed by CCTV.
Rhea records an audio note – threatened by a male.
Aryan studies her like a subject – detailed logs in his flash drive.
Abhi’s voice matches the threat – now missing.
The picture wasn’t complete yet…
But it was no longer a mystery.
It was a puzzle.
And she was starting to see the shape of the monster inside it.

At 2:16 AM, she got a new message from an unknown number:
“Curiosity is a dangerous thing. Stop digging, Aadya.”
No name. No ID.
But the chill it sent down her spine was all too familiar.Chapter 9
Aryan’s Sudden Rage

The house was unusually silent when Aadya stepped inside that evening. The faint ticking of the wall clock filled the space like a countdown to something she couldn’t yet name. Shadows danced on the living room walls as the light from the setting sun bled through the sheer curtains, casting everything in a fading gold.
She kicked off her shoes, each step on the floor echoing louder than it should. Her mind was heavy with everything she had uncovered—Kriti’s story about the rooftop party, Meenal’s unsettling confession about Aryan, the grainy CCTV footage of him running after Rhea, and now that threatening anonymous text message.
“Curiosity is a dangerous thing. Stop digging, Aadya.”
Her brother hadn’t texted her all day. Not even a “Where are you?” message. That itself was strange—Aryan always checked in. Always knew where she was, what she was doing. His absence from her inbox felt less like freedom and more like a warning.
Aadya’s fingers trembled as she pushed open the door to his study.
He was there.
Sitting in his armchair with his laptop open, glasses perched on the edge of his nose, a half-filled mug of tea forgotten beside him. The screen reflected in his glasses flickered—case notes maybe, or emails, or perhaps something entirely unrelated. But it didn’t matter.
It was his stillness that struck her. A calm too rehearsed.
“Aryan,” she said, her voice firmer than she felt.
He didn’t turn immediately.
Only after a pause, he pushed his glasses up and looked at her.
“You’re home.”
Not a question. A statement.
So neutral it irritated her.
She stepped into the room. “We need to talk.”
His gaze narrowed. “I figured we might.”
“Why didn’t you tell me about the rooftop party?”
He blinked. “Because it was a non-event.”
“You ran after Rhea.”
That made his lips part, ever so slightly.
“I saw the footage, Aryan. You chased her down. Why?”
He stood up slowly, walking around the desk until he was face-to-face with her. His height, always a comfort growing up, suddenly felt like an intimidation tactic.
“I didn’t chase her.”
“She looked scared.”
“So what?” he snapped. “She was always anxious about something. Every little thing turned into a storm with her.”
Aadya stared at him, stunned.
“Are you even hearing yourself?”
“I’m being realistic,” Aryan said coldly. “People like Rhea… they crave drama. It feeds them. They want attention, pity—”
“She was scared of someone, Aryan!” Aadya cut in, her voice rising. “She told people. She left clues. She recorded a message—”
“She had issues,” he interrupted. “Paranoia. Delusions. You don’t know the full story.”
“Then tell me the full story,” she shot back.
Aryan looked away.
That pause, that breath he took—it wasn’t just hesitation.
It was guilt.
“Aryan,” she said more quietly, “you’re hiding something. And I think it’s killing you.”
His hand curled into a fist.
“She told Meenal someone threatened her. Someone said she’d regret saying no. Does that sound like drama to you?”
He didn’t answer.
“You were there that night. You organized the party. You knew who was coming. You knew what happened afterward.”
“I don’t know what happened afterward!” he suddenly shouted.
His voice crashed into the walls like a wave, loud and violent. Aadya flinched.
Aryan stepped closer, his chest rising and falling rapidly.
“I tried to talk to her. That’s why I went after her that night. She was spiraling. She wasn’t herself. I just wanted to help—”
“Did she tell you who hurt her?”
He hesitated again.
“No.”
Lie.
She could see it in his eyes.
“You’re lying,” she whispered.
Aryan’s face twisted. “What the hell do you want from me, Aadya? I’ve been cleaning up your mess since this started! Talking to the police, covering for your trespassing, lying to Mom so she doesn’t worry—”
“You’re doing all that to protect yourself!” Aadya yelled. “Because you’re afraid of what the truth will reveal!”
His face darkened.
“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I know that Rhea was scared. I know she left a voice recording. I know you were there the night she disappeared. And I know you’re doing everything you can to keep me from finding the truth.”
Aryan’s voice dropped to a deadly whisper.
“You think you’re so smart, Aadya. But you’re a kid. You’ve always been one. You read a few chats, hear a few audio clips, and suddenly you think you’re in some detective novel?”
Aadya’s voice didn’t falter.
“No. I think I’m the only one who still cares that Rhea is missing.”
Aryan’s jaw tightened, and for a moment, something broke in his expression.
He turned away.
She took a step closer.
“You knew about Abhi, didn’t you?”
His shoulders stiffened.
“You knew he was obsessed with Rhea.”
Silence.
“You knew he threatened her.”
Nothing.
“You knew he hurt her.”
Still nothing.
“AND YOU DIDN’T DO ANYTHING.”
That’s when it happened.
Aryan spun around so fast that Aadya stumbled back.
His voice exploded.
“I TRIED TO FIX IT!”
Aadya froze.
“I tried,” he repeated, quieter now. “I talked to Abhi. I told him to stay away from her. I told him if he did anything stupid, I’d ruin him.”
“Then why didn’t you tell the police?”
He was shaking now. “Because I didn’t think it would go that far. I thought… I thought she was exaggerating again. That she’d calm down, and we could move past it.”
“She disappeared, Aryan.”
He collapsed onto the armchair, burying his face in his hands.
“I didn’t think it would end like this.”
The silence that followed was deafening.
Aadya stood frozen, arms crossed tightly over her chest, watching the man she once thought of as her unshakable older brother fall apart in front of her.
“You said she was exaggerating,” she said softly. “But you also threatened Abhi. You knew he was dangerous. You can’t have it both ways.”
“I was scared,” he whispered.
“For her?” she asked.
“For us,” he said. “You don’t know what that kind of accusation does to a family. To a reputation. If I’d told the police… if I’d told Mom… it would’ve ruined everything.”
“But hiding it didn’t save her.”
Those words landed like a punch.
He looked up at her, and there was no defence left in his eyes. Just shame.
“I’m not done digging,” Aadya said. “Whether you help me or not.”
She turned to leave.
“Aadya.”
She paused at the door.
“Be careful,” Aryan said. “You don’t know what he’s capable of.”
She turned her head slightly. “Neither did you.”
And with that, she walked out.Chapter 10
The Boy in the Photo

The light in Aadya’s room flickered as evening shadows crept in through the balcony windows. She had pulled the curtains halfway, letting in just enough natural light to ease the strange anxiety that had taken root in her stomach. On her desk, Rhea’s photo lay in front of her—creased at the corners, edges curling as if resisting time. But that wasn’t what drew her attention.
Her fingers trembled as she zoomed in on the photograph.
There he was.
Aryan.
Her own brother.
Standing next to Rhea in what appeared to be the colony’s old garden, his arm loosely wrapped around her shoulder. It was subtle—friendly enough to escape scrutiny at a glance. But Aadya’s eyes were trained now, sharpened by everything she had unearthed in the past few days. She saw it—the closeness, the way Rhea leaned toward him, hesitant but trusting. And Aryan’s expression… that wasn’t the smile of a casual acquaintance. It was personal. Maybe even possessive.
Aadya’s heartbeat thudded like a slow drumbeat in her chest.
She turned the photo over. On the back was a small, faded mark: the initials A & R — Spring. No year. No date. But the handwriting—it was Rhea’s. She remembered the loops in the letter ‘R’ from the letter she had found beneath the bed.
Why had Rhea never mentioned this?
Why had Aryan?

The silence in the house was deafening.
Aadya walked out of her room slowly. Aryan’s door was shut. It usually was now. Ever since she had started asking about Rhea, Aryan had withdrawn, growing colder with every conversation. But this photo—it demanded a confrontation.
She knocked once. “Aryan?”
Silence.
Another knock. “Can we talk?”
The door creaked open. Aryan stood in a T-shirt and sweatpants, his hair slightly ruffled. His eyes—once warm and full of brotherly ease—now seemed guarded.
“What?” he asked flatly.
Aadya stepped inside. “You knew Rhea better than you told me.”
His face remained unreadable. “I told you. She was a neighbor. That’s all.”
She held the photo up.
His eyes dropped to it. Just for a fraction of a second. But it was enough.
“I found this in her diary folder,” Aadya said softly. “You want to explain?”
Aryan looked away, jaw clenched.
“Aryan?”
He sat down on the edge of his bed, fingers running through his hair. “It was a long time ago,” he muttered. “We… talked a few times. That’s all.”
“That’s all?” Aadya’s voice rose. “You’re in a photo with your arm around her. You look… close. Intimate.”
Aryan stood abruptly. “It wasn’t what you think.”
“Then what was it?”
He exhaled sharply. “Rhea had issues, Aadya. She got attached easily. I tried to help her. That day, the one in the photo—we had just finished a colony volunteer event. She was upset. She’d had a fight with a friend. I comforted her.”
“That doesn’t explain why you never told me.”
He hesitated. “Because I knew how this would sound. And I didn’t want you dragging this into some theory.”
“I’m not making theories, Aryan. I’m trying to find the truth.”
There was a pause. Something passed across Aryan’s face—regret? Guilt?
“You should stop,” he finally said. “Some truths are better buried.”

But Aadya couldn’t stop.
She took the photo to Nikhil the next day. They sat in their usual café, a place that once offered comfort but now served as an investigation hub.
“Your brother looks… different here,” Nikhil said, analyzing the image. “You’re right—he’s not just standing next to her. There’s tension. Like… familiarity, but something off.”
Aadya nodded. “Exactly.”
“I can try running the photo’s metadata,” he added. “Might get a date or GPS coordinates if it was digital once.”
He plugged it into his laptop. While the screen flickered with code, Aadya stared out the window. Everything was unraveling. Her brother. Her memories of the colony. Even her perception of who Rhea was.
“I got something,” Nikhil said.
She turned back.
“This photo was taken nine months ago. Timestamp confirms it. Location pinged right here. In the colony.”
“But she disappeared just few days ago.”
“Which means they had contact much earlier than she let on. Or you were led to believe.”
Aadya felt dizzy. “I need to know what happened between them.”

She returned home late that night.
Aryan wasn’t in the living room. The house was unusually quiet. A single light glowed under his door.
She approached, heart pounding.
But as she raised her hand to knock, she heard something.
A voice.
No—two voices.
Soft. Muted.
She leaned closer.
“…shouldn’t have let it go that far…” Aryan’s voice. Raspy. Broken.
“…she was scared… I didn’t mean for it to end like this…”
A pause.
Then a whisper: “I failed her.”
Aadya’s breath caught.
Who was he talking to?
She pressed her ear harder.
But silence followed.
She stepped back. Suddenly unsure if she should knock—or retreat.

The next day, she visited the colony’s old photo studio. The place was barely open anymore, but she remembered Rhea once mentioned getting prints from here.
The man behind the counter was old, grumpy, and nearly blind in one eye.
“I’m looking for any prints made by Rhea Kapoor. Sometime last year.”
He grumbled. “I don’t keep names, only timestamps.”
She sighed and showed him the photo.
His eyes squinted. “Ah… I remember. She printed that twice. Two copies.”
“Two?”
“Yes. One for her. One she handed to… someone. Tall guy. Bit serious. Looked like he didn’t want to be seen.”
“Do you remember his name?”
He shook his head.
“But he came with her twice. And once… they argued. Loud. I had to tell them to take it outside.”
Aadya froze. “What were they arguing about?”
“I didn’t hear everything. Something about secrets. And trust.”

Later that night, Aadya sat with Kriti on a bench near the colony entrance. The evening air was thick with the scent of jasmine and distant rain.
“Kriti, did Rhea ever say anything about Aryan?”
Kriti paused. “Why do you ask?”
“Because I found a photo. Of them. Together.”
Kriti’s eyes widened.
“She never showed me that,” she said. “But… she once said something. Vague. Like… ‘Even people who seem good can have shadows behind them.’ I thought she was talking about her ex.”
“Abhi?”
Kriti nodded. “But now… I’m not sure.”
Aadya looked up at the sky. The stars were dim tonight, hidden behind clouds.
So many questions.
So few answers.
But the photo—that photo—was the crack in the mirror.
The first true glimpse of the fractured truth.
And she wasn’t going to stop now.Chapter 11
Watchman’s Secret

The next morning, Aadya stood on her balcony, gripping her cup of tea with cold fingers. The storm from last night had left the streets washed and strangely silent. The air held a dampness that clung to the skin, and somewhere nearby, a dog barked twice and then fell quiet. Rhea’s window still remained shut. Curtains drawn. Empty. Hollow.
She turned to look at Aryan, who sat at their dining table scrolling through his phone. He hadn’t spoken much since their argument. His silence now didn’t feel like discomfort—it felt like a decision.
Aadya dressed in muted colors, tied her hair into a low bun, and stepped out into the colony. She needed to breathe, but more than that, she needed answers. She headed toward the small security shed at the entrance of the compound.
The watchman’s name was Shankar. He was around sixty, wore a khaki uniform that always seemed too large, and had a slow, dragging way of walking. He sat in his plastic chair like a king on a throne, sipping ginger tea from a steel cup, his eyes scanning every corner of the street even while pretending to doze.
Aadya approached cautiously. “Good morning, Shankar uncle.” He glanced up, his weathered face breaking into a partial smile. “Aadya beta. How are you?”
She returned the smile, but her tone turned serious. “I wanted to ask you something. About Rhea.”
Shankar’s eyes narrowed, not in suspicion but in recognition. He set his tea aside and straightened a little. “Come, sit.”
She pulled up a plastic stool. The air between them felt dense. “Uncle, do you remember when Rhea was last seen?”
Shankar scratched his grey stubble. “A week ago. Maybe more. It was raining that day. Not like last night—just drizzling. She came out late. Maybe around 9:30 p.m. Looked like she had cried. Eyes all red. Said she was going to throw some trash. But she stood at the gate for a long time.”
“Did she speak to anyone?” Aadya asked.
Shankar hesitated. He lowered his voice. “She was talking to someone on the phone, I think. She said, ‘I can’t trust anyone anymore… not even him.’ Then she kept staring down the road. Like waiting for someone who never came.”
Aadya felt her chest tighten. “Did she say who?”
“No. But she was scared. Like real scared. She was holding her phone like it was her lifeline. Her hand was trembling. I asked her if she was okay. She smiled at me and said, ‘Just tired, Shankar uncle.’ But that smile… it was like she was already gone inside.”
Aadya leaned forward. “Did you see her again after that night?”
Shankar shook his head. “No. And the next morning her balcony was locked. I assumed she went to her parents’ place.”
Aadya felt something sharp settle inside her—a growing sense that what happened that night wasn’t spontaneous. It was a result of something building for weeks.
“Uncle, did anyone else talk to her that night?”
He looked away. A pause. Then: “Aryan baba came late that night. Maybe around 11. Parked his car near the back gate. Usually he parks out front.”
“Are you sure?” she asked, voice trembling.
Shankar nodded slowly. “I remember because I thought it was odd. He wasn’t in his usual clothes. Looked like he came from a party or something. Walked straight in, didn’t say a word.”
Aadya stood up, heart pounding in her ears. “Thank you, Shankar uncle. This helps more than you know.”
She returned home and went straight to Aryan’s room. He was on his laptop, typing something. The moment he saw her face, he closed it.
“Why didn’t you tell me you came home late that night?” she demanded.
He blinked. “What night?”
“The night Rhea disappeared. You parked at the back gate. Shankar uncle saw you.”
Aryan sighed and rubbed his eyes. “I didn’t think it mattered.”
“But you came late?”
“I was out with friends. Lost track of time.”
She studied his face. It looked exhausted. Or maybe… hollowed.
“Aryan, please. If there’s anything you’re hiding…”
He stood up, voice hard. “I’m not hiding anything. You think I don’t care? That girl meant something to me too.”
Aadya’s throat went dry. “What did you just say?”
He turned away. “Nothing. Just leave it.”
But she couldn’t. Not anymore.
That night, Aadya sat on her bed, headphones on, going through the recovered files from Rhea’s old phone. Nikhil had helped crack it open two nights ago, and there was still data to sort through. She clicked on a folder titled “Midnight Notes.”
It contained random memos, song lyrics, unsent messages.
One memo caught her eye.
“I trusted him once. The boy with the warm voice and the twisted silence. He said he would destroy me if I said anything. I wish I could scream. But I don’t know who would hear me.”
Another said: “He thinks I belong to him. But I never did. Not him. Not the other one. I just want to be free.”
Aadya scrolled down and stopped at a voice note.
She hesitated. Then hit play.
Rhea’s voice, low and tired: “If something happens to me, it wasn’t an accident. I just want someone to know that. I just want Aadya to know that I tried. I really did.”
A lump rose in Aadya’s throat.
Outside, the night deepened. Somewhere far off, a dog howled. The shadows in her room seemed to stretch longer than before.
She looked again at her laptop screen, then at Aryan’s closed door.
The secrets were coming undone.
And one of them had just whispered from the dead.

Chapter 12
Audio from the Past

The air was still. Aadya sat cross-legged on her bed, the glow from her laptop casting ghostly shadows across her face. Her fingers trembled slightly as she inserted the old memory card into the reader. The plastic had worn edges, as if it had passed through many hands — or hidden for a long time.
Beside her, Nikhil leaned forward, eyebrows raised in anticipation.
“This better not be some backup of Rhea’s cooking videos,” he muttered, trying to lighten the tension. Aadya didn’t smile.
The screen blinked, and a folder named “PRIVATE_BACKUP” appeared.
Aadya hesitated before double-clicking. The folder opened slowly, revealing dozens of media files — audio recordings, photos, even a few videos. But what caught her attention immediately was a file labeled:
“IfSomethingHappens.m4a”
Aadya and Nikhil exchanged glances.
“Play it,” he whispered.
Aadya clicked.

The recording crackled to life.
It started with silence. Then came the soft hum of a fan, followed by Rhea’s voice — low, shaky, afraid.
“If… if you’re listening to this, it means something has happened. Something I was scared of. Something I hoped I was just imagining.”
Her voice cracked.
“I’ve been trying to be brave. Smiling. Laughing in front of everyone. But inside… I’m not okay. He said he loves me, but his love—it’s dangerous. Controlling. Violent.”
Aadya’s breath hitched. She leaned closer to the screen.
“I tried to tell Aryan… but he told me not to overthink. He said Abhi is harmless. But he doesn’t see the looks, the texts, the threats. He doesn’t hear the way he talks when no one’s around.”
Nikhil turned sharply to Aadya. “Abhi? Aryan’s friend Abhi?”
Aadya nodded slowly, stunned.
“The night of the party, I made a mistake. I shouldn’t have gone. I thought I could end things calmly. But he… he wouldn’t let me leave. He grabbed my wrist. Said if I ever told anyone, he’d ruin me.”
“I think someone saw us. Maybe Aryan? After that, Abhi kept following me. Kept saying, ‘No one believes you anyway.’ And maybe he’s right. Maybe no one does…”
A sob escaped the speakers.
“But Aadya, if this reaches you — please, don’t let him get away with it. Don’t let anyone silence me. Even if it’s someone you trust. Even if it’s… him.”
The recording cut out.

The room was silent. Aadya sat frozen. It wasn’t just the words that pierced her — it was the tone in Rhea’s voice, the desperation, the resignation. Rhea had known something would happen. And she had trusted Aadya — her — to uncover the truth.
Nikhil let out a low whistle. “So… it’s Abhi. Aryan’s best friend. The one who used to hang out here almost every weekend.”
Aadya stood up slowly. Her head spun with the pieces now connecting in her mind.
Abhi.
She remembered him vaguely — always charming, cracking jokes, someone who called her “little detective” mockingly when she asked too many questions. She used to think he was funny. She felt sick now.
“I need to know more,” Aadya said.

The Digital Trail
With the memory card still open, Aadya scanned through the rest of the folder. One file after another — audio messages, screenshots of texts, timestamps.
She clicked on a few WhatsApp screenshots Rhea had saved. Some messages were blurred or cropped, but others were clear:
Abhi: “If you tell anyone, you won’t just lose your peace. You’ll lose everything.”
Rhea: “Please stop. I’m blocking you.”
Abhi: “You think it’s that easy? You’ll see.”
Then another:
Abhi: “You belong with me. You’ll understand it soon.”
Aadya’s chest tightened. She opened a video file. It was grainy — Rhea recording herself in her bedroom, whispering in the dark.
“He came by again. Left a note in my bag. I didn’t even see him. How is he always… watching?”
The video ended abruptly.
Nikhil frowned. “She was documenting everything. Almost like she knew no one would believe her otherwise.”
“She probably tried to tell Aryan again,” Aadya said slowly. “But he dismissed it. He always said Abhi was just intense, not dangerous.”

Flashback
Aadya remembered an afternoon, just a few weeks before Rhea went missing.
She had walked into the living room to find Aryan and Abhi on the couch, laughing. Rhea was there too, sitting on the edge, quiet. Her hands had been clutched tightly in her lap. When Aadya greeted her, Rhea smiled — but it hadn’t reached her eyes.
That day, Aadya had thought Rhea seemed tired. Now, she saw it differently — she had been afraid.

The Missing Link
“There’s more,” Nikhil said, scanning the files. “Wait… what’s this?”
A zip file titled “CCTV_BACKDOOR”. It was password-protected.
“Probably security cam footage from the colony,” Aadya guessed. “But we need the password.”
She leaned back, thinking.
“What would Rhea use?”
Her mind raced. Pet names? Favorite books? A phrase?
Then she remembered a line from Rhea’s diary pages they’d recovered earlier.
“The truth always hides in the quietest corner.”
She typed: quietcorner.
The zip opened.
Inside: eight short clips, each labeled with a date.
“Here,” Nikhil said. “The night she went missing.”
They clicked play.
The footage showed a dim corridor from one of the colony’s older CCTV cameras. At first, nothing — then a flicker. A shadow. A figure walking down the hall.
Then another figure — taller — following behind.
The time stamp read: 11:07 PM.
A closer look — the second person was wearing a hoodie.
They stopped outside a flat.
A knock.
A door opened — just a sliver. The taller figure pushed the door wider.
Then — black.
“Camera lost feed,” Nikhil said.
But it was enough.
“That’s Abhi,” Aadya whispered.

Waves of Doubt
Later that night, Aadya sat alone in the balcony, her headphones still hanging around her neck. The stars blinked faintly above, but her mind was clouded with darkness.
Aryan had protected Abhi. Either knowingly… or unknowingly.
She remembered her brother’s rage when she started investigating. His mood swings. The guarded looks. The way he once said, “Some things are better buried.”
Was it guilt?
Or fear?
Or both?
Her phone buzzed — a message from Nikhil:
Nikhil: I made a copy of everything. Just in case. Be careful, Aads.
She stared at the screen for a long time.
Then looked across to the opposite balcony — Rhea’s.
The lights were still off. The window still closed.
But Aadya could feel it now — Rhea was still there. Not in body, perhaps. But in everything around her.
The truth wasn’t buried yet.
And Aadya was no longer just curious.
She was furious.

Twists and Hidden TruthsChapter 13
The Storeroom Key

The next morning, Aadya couldn’t shake off the weight of Rhea’s voice from the night before — the desperation, the loneliness in her whisper. Every word echoed in her head like it had been carved into her conscience.
“If something happens to me… it was never an accident.”
There was no turning back now.
She hadn’t slept. The early sunlight streamed through the curtains, but Aadya barely noticed it. She sat on the edge of her bed, holding the printouts of the screenshots and CCTV stills Nikhil had taken from the files. Her room, once a space of calm routine, had transformed into an investigative war room — papers pinned to the corkboard, names underlined, photos with sticky notes, and timelines stretching across her desk.
Something tugged at her mind — a nagging sense that something still remained hidden.
She opened Rhea’s diary fragments again — the same old burnt pages she had saved in a folder. Most pages were unreadable, but one short sentence stood out:
“He watches from the corner… even where the light can’t reach.”
Below it, a scribbled list:
“My room”
“Kriti’s house”
“Backyard swing”
“Community storeroom (spare key?)”
Aadya’s eyes paused on the last line. Community storeroom. Spare key.
She straightened suddenly. The community storeroom — that large, unused space near the basement staircase. The one no one visited anymore. She remembered playing hide and seek there as a child.
Aadya jumped up. It was time to find that key.

The Search Begins
There was only one person who might know about the storeroom key — the old watchman, Bhaskar uncle.
He was sweeping near the gates, grumbling at plastic wrappers tangled in the bushes. His uniform shirt hung loosely on his frail frame, and he didn’t look up when Aadya approached.
“Uncle, can I ask you something?”
He glanced at her, wiping sweat from his forehead. “More questions, Aadya beta? Haven’t you caused enough stir already?”
“I just need to know about the community storeroom. Do you have the key?”
Bhaskar stopped sweeping.
“Storeroom?” he repeated, voice suddenly cautious.
“Yes,” she said. “You remember? The one near the old parking lot. It’s always locked.”
He looked around and lowered his voice. “Why you want to go there?”
“There might be something that can help me understand what happened to Rhea.”
The watchman’s eyes clouded for a second, and then he reached into his chest pocket and pulled out a ring of old, rusty keys.
“I don’t usually give this to anyone. But…” he paused, hesitating. “I saw you grow up here. And I saw that girl cry before she vanished.”
Aadya’s heart raced.
Bhaskar uncle held out the key, thin and slightly bent with age. “But don’t go alone. And don’t stay long. That place has bad air now.”

The Storeroom Door
The corridor leading to the basement was dim and cold. The walls were cracked with damp streaks running like veins. Aadya had been here a thousand times in her childhood — but now, the silence was oppressive.
She held the key tightly, her phone’s flashlight cutting through the darkness.
At the end of the corridor stood a grey metal door, slightly rusted, with a faded label: COMMUNITY STORAGE – MAINTENANCE USE ONLY.

Chapter 14
Blood & Beads

Aadya slid the key into the lock. It resisted at first—dry, corroded—but with a soft grunt, she turned it.
Click.
The sound echoed louder in her mind than in reality. Aadya swallowed the lump in her throat and pushed the door open.
A musty, sharp smell burst out—mildew, rusted metal, maybe even something else… coppery. The weak sunlight that streamed through a crack in the ceiling barely lit the room. She reached for the torch on her phone and slowly stepped inside.
Dust curled around her shoes like smoke. Old chairs, unused paint cans, cardboard boxes—random items were stacked messily along the edges of the room. Spiderwebs hung like fine lace from the ceiling corners.
But she wasn’t here for trash.
She scanned the room, step by step, her torch grazing over each shadow, every corner.
Then something caught her eye.
Near the back wall, half-concealed beneath a collapsed cardboard box, lay a torn piece of red fabric. She crouched down and carefully pulled it free.
Aadya’s heart skipped a beat.
It was a scarf.
A deep maroon scarf with little silver beads on the ends—the same scarf Rhea used to wear, the one Aadya had often seen draped over her shoulders during evening strolls in the colony.
But it was no longer clean.
The scarf was torn, frayed along the edges, and in one spot—a large, darkened patch. Stiff. Dried.
She touched it hesitantly. Sticky.
Blood.
Aadya staggered backward, gasping as the realization set in. The torchlight trembled in her grip as her breath came in shallow spurts. She wasn’t prepared for this. She had followed hunches, found photos, heard confessions. But this—this was physical. Tangible.
Evidence.
Her throat dried as she looked down at her fingers—some of the residue had transferred. She rubbed them against her jeans. Her mind screamed: Call the police! But another voice whispered: What if they shut this down too? What if they cover it again like they always do?
She took a deep breath and resumed scanning the room.
A few feet away, something else glittered faintly under her torchlight. She moved toward it slowly.
On the dusty concrete lay a bracelet—delicate, with tiny blue beads and a heart-shaped charm. The clasp was broken. One of the beads was cracked.
Aadya’s knees gave way and she knelt slowly. She knew this bracelet. Rhea had once shown it to her casually, laughing that it was a silly birthday gift from someone she “used to like.”
Was this the place where something had happened?
Her mind began to assemble possibilities like broken jigsaw pieces:
The scarf: torn, bloodied.
The bracelet: snapped, abandoned.
This location: isolated, forgotten.
This is where she was attacked.
The thought hit like a slap.
She rose unsteadily and turned her phone camera on. She took photos of everything—the scarf, the bracelet, the bloodstains on the floor. She even recorded a quick video, narrating what she saw. She would send it all to Nikhil later. He’d know how to back it up, in case anything happened.
But even as she tried to document, another part of her—the part that hadn’t yet hardened—began to unravel.
Rhea had bled here. Cried here. Fought here.
She was just a few feet away from a brutal truth.
Aadya backed toward the wall and slid down slowly, sitting on the cold floor. Her hands were shaking uncontrollably. Her chest felt tight. Tears burned her eyes but didn’t fall.
How had everything led to this?
She thought about the girl who used to wave to her from the balcony with soft smiles. The girl who once walked with her to the juice shop, giggling about the overpriced sandwiches. The girl who had started looking over her shoulder, checking her phone more often, retreating from the world…
Aadya had watched it happen and said nothing.
“Why didn’t I ask more?” she whispered into the dusty silence.
The only response was the distant creak of the metal door swaying gently in the breeze.
And then—
A sound.
Faint. Like something shifting outside.
She froze. Her pulse thudded violently in her ears. Holding her breath, she turned off her flashlight. Silence fell again.
Footsteps?
No. Nothing.
Maybe the wind. Maybe her fear playing games.
Still, she couldn’t shake the feeling that she wasn’t alone.
Slowly, she gathered the scarf and bracelet into an old plastic bag she found nearby. She didn’t want to contaminate them further. Evidence. That’s what they were now.
She rose, legs numb, and made her way to the door. As she stepped out, sunlight hit her like a slap, too bright for her shaken state.
She locked the door again, carefully returning the padlock to its original position.
Her heart was still racing.
As she walked away from the storeroom, she didn’t realize that from behind a partially drawn curtain in the building opposite, a shadow was watching her.

Later That Evening
Nikhil’s room smelled like chips, cola, and wires—his usual combination. Aadya handed him the phone with trembling hands.
He plugged it into his laptop, his eyes widening as he scrolled through the images.
“This is huge,” he murmured. “This… this changes everything.”
“I know,” Aadya said quietly.
He looked at her seriously. “This can’t stay between us anymore. We need to take it up—maybe the media, if the police won’t act.”
But Aadya’s mind was elsewhere.
Something Aryan once said played back in her head:
“Some things are better left alone, Aadya.”
Was that guilt? Warning? Or a cover-up?
“Do you think…” She paused, unsure if she wanted the answer. “Do you think Aryan knew about this place?”
Nikhil didn’t answer immediately. He looked back at the photos.
“If he did… then he knew what happened to her. Or at least suspected.”
Aadya sat silently, eyes fixed on the bracelet she now held again.
What would Rhea have done if it were Aadya who vanished? Would she have fought this hard?
She knew the answer.
“I need to know everything,” Aadya whispered. “No matter how ugly.”
Nikhil nodded.
“You’re already deep in it,” he said. “We both are now.”

Later That Night
Aadya returned home late. The house was quiet, Aryan’s door shut. She paused outside it, listening.
Nothing.
She was about to walk away when she noticed something.
His shoes—usually neat—were askew, as if he had left in a rush.
She looked at the clock. 11:43 PM.
She checked her phone—no texts, no calls.
A strange cold settled into her bones.
She walked into her room, locked the door, and opened her drawer. Inside were the scarf, the bracelet, and her notebook. She jotted down every detail—every time, date, reaction. She wouldn’t let anything slip through the cracks.
And as she wrote, one line echoed again and again in her head.
“If something happens to me… it was never an accident.”
Rhea’s voice.
Her warning.
Her truth.
And now, her blood and beads were in Aadya’s hands.
Nikhil called. “Aadya. This… this is serious. You need to go to the police.”
“They won’t believe me,” she said. “They brushed me off before.”
“Not with this.”
“I don’t want Aryan caught in this.”
Nikhil was quiet for a moment.
“He might already be in it.”

Chapter 15
The Whisper in the Diary

Aadya sat cross-legged on her bed, Rhea’s half-burnt diary spread before her like a fragile map to a haunted past. The pages were crinkled and scorched at the corners, as if they had barely escaped destruction. What remained was potent—ink smeared with hurried emotions, words that trembled with fear, longing, and betrayal. The ceiling fan above buzzed softly, but to Aadya, it felt like the roar of a thousand questions. She was too absorbed in the scrawled handwriting to notice anything else around her.
Each sentence seemed to whisper something dark.
“There’s someone watching me… even when I close the curtains.”
“He knows everything. My past, my present. Even my thoughts.”
Aadya’s eyes stung as she read. These weren’t the thoughts of a paranoid girl. These were cries for help buried in metaphor. Every line pulsed with unease.
She turned to another page, where Rhea had drawn erratic spirals and broken hearts in the margins. In the center was a single line:
“A face I once trusted has become my nightmare.”
She flinched. Her fingers brushed the page like it was a wound. That sentence carried weight—pain and confusion entwined in a way that only betrayal could cause. Her pulse quickened. Aryan? Abhi? Someone else? Every clue so far had pointed in multiple directions, but this one was like a dagger with no handle—sharp and dangerous.
Suddenly, a paper clipped to the back cover fluttered out and floated to the floor. Aadya picked it up. It was a torn corner of a diary page with just three lines:
“The whispers don’t stop. They follow me into my dreams. I hear him at the door.”
A chill danced across Aadya’s skin. These weren’t hallucinations. These were confessions. Memories. Warnings.
She checked the time—2:13 AM. The colony was silent, wrapped in a deceptive peace. But inside her room, a storm was growing.

Aadya rose quietly, walked barefoot across the floor, and slipped into the hallway. Aryan’s study was at the end, its wooden door always locked. But earlier that week, she had seen him hide something in the left drawer of his bookshelf. Now, she was going to find out what it was.
She inserted a thin hairpin into the drawer lock and twisted. After two gentle turns and one deep breath, it clicked open. Her heartbeat echoed in her ears. Inside were files, notebooks, and a large brown envelope titled: “Research: Trauma, Memory, and Trust.”
Her hands trembled. Was she invading her brother’s privacy? Yes. But this was no longer about boundaries. This was about answers.
She pulled out the envelope. Inside were pages—some printed from medical journals, others handwritten in Aryan’s neat script. At first, they looked like clinical research notes. Until she saw the heading:
“Case Subject: R.R.”
Rhea’s initials.
Her breath caught. She read on:
“Case exhibits symptoms of post-traumatic stress. Night terrors, avoidance behaviors, hypervigilance. Flinches at loud noises. Shows extreme discomfort when alone in enclosed spaces.”
Each line was a knife.
He had studied her. Like a subject.
The notes weren’t just academic. They were obsessive. Deeply personal. Annotated with observations that no casual friend or counselor could know.
“She avoids eye contact when questioned about her social circle. Emotional regression after a triggering event.”
What triggering event? Aadya’s eyes scanned further.
“Subject refuses to speak about the night of the party. Expresses distrust even toward familiar figures.”
The party. Again.
Near the end of the packet, a sentence scribbled in haste:
“If I hadn’t let Abhi near her that night… If only I had intervened earlier…”
Aadya’s knees went weak. She sank into the chair beside Aryan’s desk.
So it was true. Aryan had been involved. He hadn’t hurt Rhea—but he had known something. Something he kept hidden even from Aadya. Even from himself, maybe.

She gathered the research papers and the diary pages and laid them out on her bed like puzzle pieces. The room was dim, the only light coming from her study lamp. Her pen scratched against her notepad as she mapped the events:
Rhea met Aryan during a campus mental health seminar.
Aryan introduced her to his friend Abhi.
Rhea became emotionally distant after the party a month ago.
The diary entries and Aryan’s notes referenced trauma around that same time.
Rhea disappeared three days later.
She looked down at the final page in the diary again. A faded imprint of a flower, once pressed between pages. Rhea had clung to something beautiful in the chaos. Aadya ran her fingers across the dried petals.
Then, almost invisible, she saw a faint line written in the bottom margin:
“Aadya, if you find this… I hope you believe me.”
Tears welled in her eyes. The line wasn’t just a note. It was a whisper from a friend lost in silence.

Her phone buzzed. A message from Nikhil.
Nikhil: “Enhanced the party photo. Zoom in to the mirror in the background. You won’t believe this.”
She opened the image. Aryan and Rhea stood close, maybe too close. But behind them, in the mirror—a third figure. Faint. Unfocused. A man.
She zoomed. Her fingers trembled.
It looked like Abhi.
He wasn’t part of the group photo. He was lurking in the background. Watching.
Like a shadow that had never left.

She stared at the mirror reflection, and suddenly everything felt heavier. The screams in the diary. The anxiety in Rhea’s eyes the last time they spoke. The silence of Aryan. The disappearance of Abhi.
What was once a thread had now become a knot.
Rhea’s pain wasn’t a mystery anymore. It was a story buried by guilt, fear, and silence.
And Aadya had found the voice that would bring it back to light.
But the next chapter wouldn’t just challenge her.
It would cost her something she hadn’t yet prepared to lose.
Her brother.

Chapter 16
Her Brother’s Silence

The rain had stopped, but the echoes remained—soft drips from the edges of balconies, the crunch of wet gravel beneath Aadya’s sandals as she walked back to her home, her mind a storm far more intense than the one that had passed overhead.
Everything she had seen in the storeroom still clung to her skin like humidity: the blood-stained scarf, the broken bracelet, the stale scent of something once innocent but now tainted.
But it wasn’t just Rhea’s belongings she had found. It was the truth—or a part of it—and every step Aadya took now was leading her closer to something her gut didn’t want to believe.
She stepped inside the house. The familiar creak of the main door welcomed her, but it felt like an intrusion today. Her eyes scanned the hall. It was empty. Silent.
Aryan’s room door was shut.
She paused.
There was no turning back now.

1. A Door Between Them
She stood outside his room for a long time. Her hand hovered over the knob, then dropped. She knocked instead. Not too hard. Not too soft.
No response.
“Aryan?” Her voice was steady, but only just.
A moment later, she heard movement inside—a scraping chair, a hurried step, and then silence again.
The door creaked open. Aryan stood there, his hair slightly disheveled, his face blank but tired.
“Hey,” he said softly, almost as if he had rehearsed it.
She didn’t reply. Just looked at him. In that look, she carried every moment, every question, every drop of doubt.
He stepped aside and let her in.
His room was the same. Bookshelves neatly arranged. His work desk with research papers spread across. On the wall, his whiteboard with scribbled notes on psychological behavior and emotional trauma. Irony had never felt so sharp.
“You’ve been out long,” he said, taking a seat.
She didn’t answer. Instead, she took out the scarf and bracelet, placing them gently on his desk.
He stared at them.
“Where did you get these?”
“In the old storeroom,” she replied.
He swallowed. His eyes flicked from the items to her face.
“Aryan,” she said slowly, “I need you to stop protecting me. Stop protecting anyone. Just talk. Please.”
2. The Silence Breaks
Aryan rubbed his palms together, his leg bouncing nervously.
“What do you want me to say?”
“The truth. All of it.”
He looked away. For a second, Aadya saw a flicker of the brother she once knew, the one who used to help her with school projects and scold her gently for skipping meals. That brother had been fading for weeks. Maybe months.
“I didn’t kill Rhea,” he said.
Aadya felt a shiver. Not because of what he said, but because he had chosen to start there.
“Then who did?”
“I don’t know.”
She took a step forward. “But you know something. You’ve always known something.”
Aryan closed his eyes. “Rhea… she was scared. I knew that. She used to come to me sometimes, just to talk. I thought… I thought maybe I could help. But I couldn’t.”
“Why was she scared? Of whom?”
He didn’t answer immediately. Instead, he got up and walked to the window.
“You remember the night of the colony Diwali party?”
Aadya nodded slowly.
“That night… she came to me, crying. She said someone had been following her. Sending her messages. Not just threatening ones, but… personal. As if they knew her. Her habits, her favorite songs, her old school memories. Stuff she had never shared publicly.”
Aadya’s breath caught.
“She thought it was Abhi?”
Aryan nodded. “But she wasn’t sure. She kept saying, ‘It’s someone close. Someone I trusted.'”
He turned around, his face pale. “I asked her to go to the police. She refused. She said she didn’t want to create drama. That she’d handle it. But she couldn’t.”

3. A Brother’s Guilt
“So you knew all along that something was wrong?”
“Yes,” Aryan whispered. “But I didn’t know how deep it went. Until…”
He paused.
“Until what?”
“Until the night she disappeared. I saw her. I saw her from my window. She was walking quickly toward the back gate. I was about to call out, but then I saw someone else behind her. A man. I couldn’t see his face. He wore a hoodie. He followed her, and then they turned toward the storeroom.”
“Why didn’t you tell the police this?”
He looked ashamed. “Because I wasn’t sure. I didn’t want to accuse someone without proof. And… I was scared.”
“Scared of what?”
He hesitated. Then, with effort: “Of losing everything. My career. Our family name. Everything we built.”
Aadya felt anger rise. “You thought reputation was more important than Rhea’s life?”
“No!” he shouted, then softened. “I thought… I thought maybe she just ran away. Maybe she needed space. But when days passed, and you started asking… I realized it wasn’t just me anymore.”

4. The Fracture
Aadya turned to the desk, picked up the bracelet.
“This was her favorite,” she murmured.
Aryan nodded. “She wore it every day. Said it reminded her of her grandmother.”
“And now it’s soaked in blood. Left to rot in a storeroom. And you still think silence was the right choice?”
Aryan didn’t answer.
She walked toward the door.
“Where are you going?” he asked.
“To finish what you started. To find out who did this. And this time, Aryan, don’t try to stop me.”
He didn’t.
As she closed the door behind her, Aryan sat alone. For the first time in weeks, he didn’t move. He didn’t plan. He didn’t think.
He just stared at the scarf.
And cried.
The next morning dawned gray and silent. Aadya sat alone in the living room, clutching a cup of tea that had long since gone cold. The events of the previous night still echoed through her—Aryan’s quiet breakdown, the admission that he knew something, and the growing sense of betrayal that bloomed in her chest.
He had shut his door since then. No footsteps. No signs of movement. Just the silence.
By mid-afternoon, she couldn’t take it anymore.
She stood, walked to his door, and knocked softly.
Nothing.
“Aryan? Can we talk? Please.”
A pause.
Then, finally, the sound of the lock clicking open. The door creaked slowly. Aryan stood there, eyes hollow, dark circles under them. He hadn’t slept either.
He stepped aside silently. She entered.
The room was dim. Curtains drawn. The same research papers stacked on one side. His laptop closed.
Aadya turned to him. “I need to know the truth. All of it. No half-answers. Not anymore.”
Aryan sat down on the bed, as if her words weighed heavily on his shoulders.
He began slowly, his voice quiet.
“Rhea came to me one evening. A few months ago. She looked… scared. She didn’t say much, but I could tell something had happened. She mentioned someone was stalking her. Said she felt like her phone was being watched.”
Aadya leaned forward. “Did she mention who?”
“No names. She was scared to say it aloud. Like just saying it would make it real.”
He paused.
“I thought it was just anxiety. You know how we tend to overthink things. Especially in stressful environments. I tried to help her—calm her, guide her. I gave her breathing techniques, talked her through things.”
“Did you have feelings for her?” Aadya asked, her voice breaking slightly.
Aryan looked away. “I admired her. She was bright, warm. But it wasn’t love—not in the way you’re thinking. She came to me as a counselor. I tried to maintain that line.”
“But then?”
“Then she stopped coming. She sent a message saying she was fine. That she had sorted things out. That she didn’t want to talk anymore.”
Aadya’s heart ached. “And you believed her? Just like that?”
Aryan let out a breath. “No. I didn’t. But I didn’t know how to press without violating her privacy. I thought maybe I had crossed a line emotionally. Maybe she was distancing herself because I had overstepped.”
Aadya sat back, digesting every word. Her instincts weren’t wrong—Aryan knew more. But maybe not everything.
She reached into her pocket and handed him Rhea’s half-burnt diary pages. The ones that spoke of a face she once trusted. Threats. Fear.
Aryan’s hand shook as he held them.
“Why didn’t you show me this before?”
“Because I didn’t trust you,” she said softly. “I thought you were hiding something. Maybe part of me still thinks you are.”
He looked up at her. Eyes red.
“I am, Aadya. Not because I wanted to. But because I thought I was protecting you. And myself. And maybe even her. But I see now—I was just being a coward.”
Silence settled between them.
Then, slowly, he walked to the bookshelf and pulled out a USB stick hidden behind a row of research books.
“This has security camera backups. From that week. I never turned it in.”
Aadya’s heart thudded. “Why?”
“Because there’s footage of me… outside Rhea’s flat. The night she disappeared.”
Aadya stared. “Were you…?”
“No,” he said quickly. “I wasn’t there to harm her. I had gotten a message. Anonymous. It said she wanted to see me. I waited outside. But she never came. When I knocked, no one answered.”
“You didn’t tell anyone?”
“No. Because I knew how it looked. Her being missing. Me showing up that night. And… I panicked.”
Aadya took the USB with trembling fingers.
“I’ll check it. I have to see it for myself.”
“You should.”
She turned to leave but paused at the door.
“Aryan… why did you stay quiet this long? Even after she was gone?”
He looked up. Broken.
“Because I thought maybe… maybe I had failed her.”

That night, Aadya inserted the USB into her laptop. Nikhil sat beside her.
“What’s on it?” he asked.
“Security footage. From Aryan.”
They watched in silence. Time-stamped frames flicked by. The corridor outside Rhea’s flat. Empty. Then Aryan appeared. Standing. Waiting. Pacing.
Thirty minutes passed. Then he left.
Nothing else. No sign of Rhea. No sign of any intruder.
But Aadya noticed something—at the edge of the frame. A shadow. Flickering. Movement behind the stairwell. She paused it.
“Zoom in,” Nikhil said.
They enhanced the frame. The shadow was vague. Tall. Hooded. Unrecognizable.
But clearly watching.
“Someone else was there,” Aadya whispered. “Watching Aryan. Watching Rhea’s door.”
“Do you think he’s the same one who…”
“I don’t know,” Aadya said, heart racing. “But whoever it is, we missed him before. He’s in the background. Hidden.”
She clicked back through more footage.
A week earlier. A month earlier.
The same hooded figure appeared in several frames. Always distant. Always in the background. Always watching.
Nikhil frowned. “This guy was tracking her movements. For weeks. Maybe longer.”
“Which means,” Aadya said slowly, “Abhi might not be the only one.”
Nikhil stiffened slightly.
“Or,” she added, “maybe Abhi wasn’t the one pulling the strings.”
They exchanged glances.
The mystery had just deepened.

Later that night, Aadya sat alone, scrolling through Rhea’s recovered chats again. Looking for patterns. Links. Missed clues.
Then she noticed a familiar username again.
SignalEcho94.
The same one that had commented on her photos. Left vague messages.
She clicked it.
It was deleted. Wiped.
But the system still had cache data.
Last login: Three days ago.
IP address: Hidden.
But Aadya knew Nikhil could track it.
She looked at the last message the account ever sent.
“Even when they forget you, you never really leave them. You just wait. Quietly. Until they remember.”
She closed the laptop slowly.
The hooded figure. The anonymous message. The hidden login.
So many strings.
And in the middle of them all—silence.
Her brother’s. Rhea’s. And someone else’s.
But Aadya had learned one thing by now:
Silence always spoke. You just had to learn how to listen.

Chapter 17
CCTV Twist

Warm air from a desk fan stirred in the quiet room as Aadya sat hunched over Nikhil’s laptop, the soft glow of the monitor illuminating her tense, drawn face. Outside the window the colony was dark and silent; inside, only the whir of electronics and their ragged breaths filled the stillness. Nikhil leaned forward, his fingers hovering over the keyboard. “I’ve got it,” he whispered, voice taut with excitement and worry. “Security feed’s live. These are all the cameras in our colony.”
Aadya felt a tremor pass through her. Her pulse hammered in her ears. She pressed her shoulders flat against the chair, trying not to breathe too loudly. Every instinct screamed at her that this was it – her last chance to catch whatever clue was hidden in the footage.
Nikhil’s green eyes were sharp behind wire-rimmed glasses. He clicked through menus with steady hands. “Remember,” he murmured, pulling up a calendar interface, “these cameras cover every common area, every lobby, even the corridors near Rhea’s flat.” He selected the date. A little caption blinked on the screen: 22 June 2025. “We have her disappearance at 10:30 PM,” Nikhil said under his breath. “Here — bring it up to around midnight.”
Aadya leaned in so close her face almost touched the screen. The video stuttered a moment, then cleared. The image was grainy black-and-white, but unmistakable. It showed a narrow hallway: the floor tiled in dusty green, the walls a dull cream. A fluorescent ceiling light buzzed intermittently, casting jerky light across the corridor. In the distance on the right, a metal nameplate was visible on the wall: Block C – 2nd Floor. Aadya’s breath caught in her throat. She knew that nameplate. It was Rhea’s apartment block.
Her heart slammed against her ribs. A lone figure stood a few steps from Rhea’s door. At first he was just a shadow under the flickering light. Then he shifted his weight, shuffling slightly. A maroon jacket came into view, black jeans, and the hood of a sweatshirt halfway rolled down. He raised one hand to his face. Under the weak glow, his breath was visible—small puffs of mist—then just a silhouette again.
“Is that…?” Aadya’s voice was a whisper, almost lost in the tiny static hum from the speakers.
Nikhil’s brow furrowed. “I think so,” he answered softly. “Look at the build and the jacket. That’s him, Aadya. It’s Aryan.”
Every muscle in Aadya went rigid. The world tilted. Aryan—her friend Aryan—standing outside Rhea’s apartment at midnight? It made no sense. “He said he was at home,” she choked out. “He told me he stayed in that night. He… he said he heard something wrong and went to check his own building.”
In the footage, the man took a cautious step toward the door. He pulled a phone from his pocket and tapped at it. The corridor light above buzzed louder, casting long, jittery shadows. He murmured something inaudible and pressed the button for the stairwell door. The door swung open with a muted squeak. Aryan’s shoulders relaxed. He leaned back against the wall, arms folded. He was a phantom under the ceiling light, waiting.
Aadya felt tears pricking at the corners of her eyes. Every tiny gesture on screen was burned into her memory: the way he tilted his head, the anxious set of his spine. “Why was he here?” she whispered, cold dread gathering in her stomach. “We… we always trusted him.”
“I can’t believe it,” Nikhil murmured. He paused the frame. The timestamp glowed faintly: 00:47.
Aadya’s vision blurred. A hand flew to her mouth. She remembered how she had left Aryan’s place after dark earlier that evening, joking with him on the steps of his building. He had waved and smiled, assuring her everything was fine. Now… this. She pressed the palm of her hand against the glass of the monitor, as if she could touch him through it.
Nikhil tapped the controls gently. The video rewound and jumped forward again. The man—Aryan—caught sight of a figure behind him. A soft creak of a door unlatched out of earshot, and Aryan’s head snapped around. The camera craned a bit, but the edge of the frame caught a new shape emerging into view.
“A figure?” Aadya gasped, even though her voice came out a dry croak. “Another person?”
Nikhil’s face drained pale. The second man was impossibly tall, broad-shouldered, stepping into the corridor from the left. He wore a thick coat belted at the waist, the collar turned up under a hood. His hands were shoved deep in his pockets. The shadow of a backpack was slung over one shoulder. In the grainy grayscale image, his face was hidden under the hood, but he hesitated for a moment, as if sensing something off. Under the light, his outline gleamed faintly — a patch of reflector on his coat or maybe a metal badge. Then he simply turned and walked past Aryan, out of the camera’s view, toward Rhea’s apartment door.
Aadya sucked in a breath. The hairs on her arms stood up. “Who… who is that?” she managed.
Nikhil was silent a moment, frozen. Then he fumbled with the controls, rewinding the tape. Frame by frame, they watched. The tall man reentered the view. For half a second he looked directly toward the camera, chin raised slightly. The hood hid his eyes, but he turned his head as if he sensed it.
“He has a coat like Abhi’s,” Nikhil finally whispered. “That long winter coat.”
Aadya’s mind reeled. Abhi. Abhi, Rhea’s childhood friend. He had one of those coats — even that distinctive scarf, wasn’t that his? “But he’s in London now,” she said, words trembling. “He flew out two weeks ago.”
Nikhil shook his head slowly, as if dispelling the sight. “If it’s not Abhi, then someone very like him. Someone who wanted us to think of Abhi. But whatever they’re doing… it’s deliberate.”
Aadya pressed a hand against her mouth. The footage jumped forward again. In the next few seconds, the corridor was empty. Aryan reappeared, as if he had stepped out of frame. He glanced around quickly, eyes wide, before stooping by the stairwell door and picking something up off the ground — maybe a set of keys. Then he brushed past the camera, walking toward the lobby. The timestamp flashed 1:02 a.m.
Nikhil exhaled softly. He closed the laptop abruptly, cutting off the feed. “Alright… that’s enough for one night,” he said, voice flat. He pulled out a small flash drive and held it out. “I copied the last two hours. Everything we need. Here — take this.”
Aadya took the flash drive with shaking fingers, feeling its weight—concrete evidence in her hand. “Thank you,” she whispered. Her voice was raw. “I… I think I need to go.”
They both knew it was late. Nikhil guided her toward the door to the fire-escape. “Be careful, Aadya,” he said quietly. “We saw what we saw. Whatever happens now, think before you act. Understand?”
Aadya managed a faint nod. She was already trembling uncontrollably. She stepped out onto the balcony and felt the cool air on her sweaty face. The building below was dark and quiet, alive only with distant cars and the slow fan hum. Everything looked normal — but she knew it wasn’t.

The drive home was a haze of empty streets under the amber streetlights. In the silence of the night, her mind was anything but quiet. Images from the footage flashed through her: Aryan’s cautious step, his murmured breath, the shape of that tall stranger slipping into view.
How could Aryan lie? A fresh wave of hurt rolled through her. If he cared about Rhea even half as much as she thought, why hide this? Guilt and betrayal warred in her chest. Her phone lay forgotten on the passenger seat, screen dark — she had no idea who to call, or even if to call at all.
A thousand questions churned. Was this why Rhea had vanished? Was Aryan involved? Or maybe Rhea was on the phone, lured out by this other man? Could he have followed her? Or could it have all been a misunderstanding? None of it made sense.
Finally home, Aadya didn’t even pull in the driveway properly. She left the car at an angle, slamming the door silently. The hallway outside her apartment was pitch-black. She fumbled for her key, hands shaking. After double-locking the door, she slipped inside.
The light in her living room stung her eyes, but it felt safer than the darkened corridor. She locked the door again behind her with a dramatic final click. Her apartment was small and messy: a stack of books teetered on the coffee table, half-drunk tea on the counter, the TV blinking out static. Everything was exactly as she’d left it — normal, banal. She didn’t belong here tonight.
She collapsed onto her sofa and drew her knees up. The flash drive was still in her jacket pocket. It felt strangely heavy now, as if it contained not just data but a physical weight of dread.
.
Nikhil’s words from the balcony echoed in her mind: “Whatever happens next, be careful.”
Aadya swallowed hard. She needed to know more, but with each new detail, it felt like the ground shifted under her. Her hands trembled on the back of the sofa.
Her thoughts drifted to Aryan’s face in the video — eyes darting, body tense. She could almost hear him breathing hard in that corridor. Memories of him flooded back: how gentle he’d been with Rhea, how worried he looked when she first told them Rhea was missing. He had sat on her bed, telling Rhea they’d find her, promising not to give up. He was earnest then. Was that all an act? Or something had changed?
A knot tightened in her chest. She leaned back and squeezed her eyes shut. It’s just a misunderstanding, she tried to tell herself. He must have a reason. But her heart didn’t believe it.
Her cell phone lay on the table. Suddenly, she needed answers. She reached for it.
Before placing a call, she hesitated. Could she even handle hearing the truth? If she called Aryan now, at three in the morning, what would happen? Would he be furious, or terrified?
Finally, with a trembling exhale, she dialed him.
Ring. Her stomach lurched.
Ring.
“Aadya?” The voice was groggy. Aryan’s voice.
She pressed the phone to her ear. “Aryan. It’s almost 3 AM. What’s wrong?” He sounded alarmed.
She took a breath. “Where were you that night, around midnight? But this time no lie just, Answer me.”
He was quiet for a beat. Then, too quickly, “What? I was at home, why would I not be?”
“What about the footage? The corridor camera outside Rhea’s flat… It shows you there at 12:47.” Her words tumbled out.
There was a rattling noise on his end, a sound like a doorknob twisting or a blanket scrunched up. Aryan’s voice sounded tense. “I… I’m not there, Aadya. You must be mistaken. Those cameras sometimes glitch—”
She pressed on. “Don’t lie to me. It was you. You were there. Explain that.”
His breathing grew fast, uneven. “Aadya, listen to me,” he said, sounding like he was standing up. “I never set foot in that hallway. I swear it. That night I—”
A silence fell again. Aadya could almost see him, pale and agitated. She fought down a fresh wave of panic. “Please,” he said finally, voice low, “just… just listen. I heard Rhea was missing that night and I came out of my building to look around. But I didn’t go into Block C at all.”
Cold realization flickered in her mind. He didn’t say where he was, but implication hung in the air. He might have briefly been in the parking area. She cut in quietly, voice shaking. “You said you were at home. If you came out, why not tell me?”
“I panicked,” he admitted, quiet enough that she almost missed it. “I was scared.”
“For what?”
There was nothing but faint static. Then: “Please. Just trust me. I didn’t do anything bad. If it helps… go to the police with this video. They’ll see it can’t be me.”
They were silent again. She forced out a shaky “Good night,” and hung up without waiting for a response. The call felt empty, like calling into a void.
Aadya leaned her forehead against the cold wall behind her. The phone slipped from her fingers. His words — his plea to trust him and go to the police — sent ice through her veins. He’d turned the blame back on her, refusing to own up. If he was innocent, he sounded defenseless. If guilty… well, she couldn’t handle that thought either.
Her mind raced. Someone else was there, she realized with mounting dread. He thinks it couldn’t be him, so that means someone else was lurking outside Rhea’s door. But who? That tall figure… Abhi? A friend of Abhi’s? Or some stranger?
Tears blurred her vision. She scrubbed them away roughly. The coffee table scraped into the sofa as she straightened.
So Aryan called her crazy, eh? She could feel fury rising. But fury was nothing compared to fear. If it wasn’t him, then it was someone else—a complete stranger who had the darkness on their side.
The apartment felt suddenly tiny, suffocating. The air conditioner buzzed overhead. She stood and went to the balcony door, sliding it open a few inches. A gust of night air ruffled her hair. The street below was empty, a few car headlights glinting in the distance.
“It’s not just Aryan,” she whispered to the empty courtyard. The words sounded cold in the still night. A heavy weight settled on her chest. They had the missing link now — the evidence they had been desperate to find. But with that clarity came a far more terrifying possibility.
Someone else was involved. The footage had shown them exactly how that night had played out… but only up to a point. Between Aryan’s figure and Rhea’s disappearance, there was the shadow of that stranger. The revelation hung over her like a storm cloud: perhaps Rhea had encountered this man. Maybe he had followed her. Maybe he had even abducted her while Aryan was distracted or leaving.
A chill ran down Aadya’s spine. She clutched the balcony railing. The stranger had slipped silently away after passing Aryan, unseen by the camera — which meant nobody had a face. That made it worse. If he wasn’t Abhi, then they had no idea who it was. The person with the long coat, lurking at midnight. The person who might still be around, watching.
The lights of the colony blinked in the windows opposite, the only movement in the street below. Aadya’s reflection stared back at her, pale and wide-eyed in the glass. She pictured Rhea walking down this very hall, in none of the footage. If that tall man had left a moment after Aryan left, Rhea could have been intercepted with no one else around.
No. She didn’t want to think that. Rhea was alive, wasn’t she? She had to be. But the possibility circled in her head, more terrifying than anything: maybe Rhea had indeed met that figure. Maybe she had thought it was Abhi or a friend, only to realize too late he was a stranger.
Aadya pressed her palm against the cold glass of the balcony. The night sounded distant and hollow. Fear and guilt squeezed her heart in a vise.
She took a deep breath. “This… this is the missing link,” she muttered to herself. Her own voice surprised her with its steadiness. “It explains so much. But… it also means…” She trailed off, not wanting to finish the thought.
The wind whispering outside sounded unnaturally loud. Aadya forced herself to step back. The missing link was there on the flash drive tucked in her pocket — undeniable evidence of Aryan’s deception and of that unknown watcher. Now that gap was filled. But the new truth was monstrous.
She realized, with cold clarity, that someone else had orchestrated this. If one face on that tape meant one person knew, maybe two faces meant two people. If Aryan had lied about what he was doing, perhaps to protect someone or cover for himself… but what if the truth was that neither he nor Abhi was to blame after all, and Rhea’s disappearance was part of something else?
The pieces of her life on that night fell into a darker pattern. Rhea’s last moments were tied to this mystery stranger. And that stranger was out there, somewhere.
Aadya inhaled shakily, exhaling slowly to steady her nerves. There was adrenaline in her veins now, mixing with dread. She clenched her teeth. Whoever this was, she would find out. Rhea deserved justice, not just her memory to die out in silence.
She closed the balcony door firmly and turned toward the living room. The night was far from over. Her eyes locked on the small flash drive sitting on the table. The missing link. With it came a terrifying possibility she hadn’t considered: a possibility that there was a darkness to this case deeper and more dangerous than she ever imagined.
Whatever came next, Aadya knew the truth was out there — and it was more horrifying than she had ever feared.
Chapter 18
Stranger in the House

Aadya stood frozen in the dimly lit corridor outside Rhea’s flat, her heart hammering against her ribs. The quiet of the building at two in the morning was absolute – every faint creak and distant drip of a leaky pipe echoed through the empty stairwell. A cold draft whispered around her as she pressed her back against the peeling paint of the wall, trying to steady her breathing. Moments ago she had been walking the floor nervously, unable to sleep, her thoughts drifting uneasily to Rhea. Now, with the faint click of a lock in the stillness, those thoughts shattered. Someone was at Rhea’s door.
Initially, she thought she must be imagining things. But then there it was again: a soft scrape, the unmistakable sound of metal twisting in a keyhole. Aadya’s eyes widened. What is that? Her mind raced. Rhea always kept her door locked tight – how could someone have picked it open so quietly? She swallowed hard, a dry lump of fear lodged in her throat. Who in God’s name…?
The corridor light above flickered as if in acknowledgment of her mounting dread. Outside Rhea’s door, a tall figure worked the lock expertly, fingers nimble, the door’s old latch grating softly before giving way. The door swung inward with a creak that sounded much louder to Aadya, who cursed under her breath for her very presence. Instantly, the figure slid inside.
Aadya’s instincts roared into action: stay calm, stay hidden, find out who it is. She pressed herself flat against the opposite wall, hand instinctively finding her phone in her pocket, but she bit back the impulse to dial. No, not yet. If this person belonged to Rhea, telephoning out could alert them, and if Rhea were in danger, there would be no time for a call.
She moved silently along the corridor toward the closed door, every sense alert. The figure was inside – she could just hear the intruder’s soft breathing, the distant tap of a shoe on the tiled floor. Lying here, out of sight, Aadya took stock of herself: adrenaline surged, muscles tense. Stay quiet. Stay safe.
Then, quietly, gently, she eased around the corner and into the flat, heart pounding in her chest like a drum. The door had been left ajar, a mere slit. Without a sound, she slipped through the gap and let the door swing closed behind her. Darkness swallowed her – the only light came from the streetlamps outside filtering through closed blinds in the living room.
The room was eerily still. Aadya’s eyes adjusted to the gloom. Tall shelves lined one wall, sagging slightly under the weight of books and trinkets that Rhea had collected over the years. A faded photograph on a nearby end table showed Rhea with someone else, smiling at a summer beach. The atmosphere felt charged, as if the walls themselves were listening.
Her mind flicked back to happier times: Rhea’s easy laugh, how she used to rearrange those very shelves with color-coded precision, how she sipped chamomile tea on that old sofa late into the night writing in her journal. The memory made her stomach twist. Why did I leave before checking if she was okay? I should have known something was wrong.
Silence stretched unbearably. The intruder was somewhere – likely in the kitchen or bedroom – rummaging around. Any noise might give her away. The only sounds were the distant city hum beyond the windows and her own breathing. In the darkness, she could just make out the shape of the sofa and a coffee table. On it, a half-filled mug of cold coffee, faint steam still rising. Somebody had been there not long ago. Her eyes flitted to the stack of books nearby: a novel with a title about “radio signals” lay open face-down. Radio signals… Rhea had always been fascinated by those. The night she left in a rush, she was smiling about some research, and now…
She refocused. The intruder’s presence was why she was here. Bending down, she made herself as small as possible behind the low glass coffee table. The intruder’s steps were almost silence itself. A sliver of movement by the kitchen doorway caught her eye – a man’s silhouette, dark against the faint ambient light.
He wore a plain dark jacket, jeans, and well-worn hiking boots. A woolen cap shadowed his face. He raised an ear to something, silent as a cat. Aadya recognized the stance from old videos of burglars—calm, methodical, confident. This was no panicked rat at the scene; this was someone who knew exactly what he was looking for.
Fear spiked through her, and for the first time she realized: this is dangerous. Every horror movie she had ever dismissed as nonsense flooded her mind. What if he notices me? She could feel sweat beading at her hairline and trickling down her spine. On reflex she pressed herself lower against the couch. If he was behind that door, maybe he wouldn’t see her here.
A thin haze of light trickled from the kitchen into the living area. She could see more now: scattered belongings on the table near the fridge – fruit peeling, a discarded spoon, and a pair of Rhea’s reading glasses. Her journal lay open on the counter. There were papers with scribbles about clandestine meetings and names. Rhea was writing this. Her breath caught. The writing was Rhea’s—neat, deliberate. But someone had flipped through the pages, their dirty fingerprints smudging lines about a “midnight rendezvous.”
A creak came from the bedroom. The intruder, carrying a flashlight, entered with slow purpose. The beam illuminated Rhea’s curtains and bed – rumpled covers, a small perfume bottle knocked over, a red stain on the pillowcase. Adenosine? Water? What was Rhea doing with a red-stained pillow? No, probably makeup. But it made her uneasy all the same.
Aadya clamped her eyes shut for a moment. She recognized things: the family photo on the nightstand, Rhea laughing at a beach, sand between her toes – how innocent life seemed in that snapshot. Now Rhea was missing. Something in the room told her Rhea had been here not so long ago. The slight swirl of Rhea’s lavender scent lingered faintly, mixed with the musty bedroom air. A nightgown, draped over a chair, looked still warm as if recently worn. A laptop lay closed on a desk, next to it a flickering phone screen on charge. Someone’s been here. But where was Rhea?
A low rustling noise behind her. Startled, Aadya froze, one hand clenching the edge of the sofa. The intruder’s heavy boots in the kitchen meant he had split his search. Possibly thinking only one room. He was searching systematically, but she realized: he didn’t know she was here. He opened drawers, tipped small belongings out, and muttered to himself.
Was he looking for Rhea or something Rhea had? The latter seemed more likely. He was calm but tense, two strangers absent any frenzy. He doesn’t seem surprised. His only surprise, if any, might come if he noticed her. Her heart stuttered – if he turned around and saw her, this could be over. She visualized screaming, or maybe he’d run. Would he come after her?
Now, through the open bedroom door, he surveyed the far wall. Aadya craned her neck, careful. There was a framed painting of an orchid, lying askew. She remembered when Rhea had bought it in spring – Rhea’s obsession with orchids. The intruder pressed a finger on the frame’s edge. Aadya’s breath hitched: how did he know? He took a thin pry tool from his pocket, wedged it behind the frame. The painting shifted on the wall with a faint click. To Aadya’s shock, the painting swung open to reveal a small hidden compartment: a safe built into the wall.
The intruder’s eyebrows shot up. In the pale glow of his flashlight, he read the combination and turned the dial. The door gave way. Without pause, he plunged a hand inside and pulled out a small object wrapped in silk – a manuscript or diary of sorts, heavy-looking. He tucked it inside his jacket.
Aadya’s pulse thumped so loud she feared he might hear it. They both stood in that quiet bedroom — Rhea’s missing, a stranger in her place, heart pounding with secrets.
The intruder moved again, heading back out to the living room. I have to know what he’s doing. Pulling herself together, Aadya realized this was her moment. She couldn’t just sit here. He might find nothing but doubt, or find the last clues needed to cover up something. She had to see more.
Creeping along behind, she remained in the deepest shadows. The man didn’t notice a thing. He was engrossed with Rhea’s apartment, rifling through papers on her desk. In the dim light, Aadya spotted Rhea’s smartphone on the desk, lit with an incoming notification. It trembled on its battery, as if held up by a ghost. Rhea’s name briefly appeared on the screen. Then he snatched it up and shoved it inside his coat.
Panic and relief warred in Aadya’s chest. The phone might be tracking, but it was gone. Yet he’d just revealed a clue: Rhea’s phone – he has it. Either Rhea’s alive somewhere with no phone, or he’s made off with it. Either way, the kidnapper or whoever would know where she was in real time. God, this is bad.
She backed away quietly, keeping her eyes on him. He paced slowly, as if pondering. Something unsettled her about his posture, the way he hunched just a fraction after taking that item from the safe. He’s hiding it for a reason. Perhaps he knew exactly where to find Rhea’s secret stash. This wasn’t a random burglary, it was very precise. And Rhea’s secret was now with him.
The man turned suddenly, his head tilting slightly. “Hello? I know you’re here,” he rasped quietly, voice edged with menace. Aadya froze like stone. He really had heard something! She dared not move even a muscle.
“I know someone’s in here,” he said, stepping into the living room. His flashlight swung around. Aadya drew in a breath, holding absolutely still. This was the end—he’d spot her soon. The hairs on her neck prickled; he kept staring in her direction, hairless face scrutinizing. His breath was audible, long and cautious. She felt sweat line her palms.
What do I do? Screaming would alert him. Running would be suicide. They were only a few steps apart. Her mind raced through her friends, police numbers, and impulses, but none would help now.
He sighed softly, lowering his flashlight. “If anyone’s here… Rhea?” His voice sounded almost frightened, edged with desperation. “If it’s you, I’m not going to hurt you. I just need to—” He trailed off, glancing around again and shifting uneasily.
Rhea’s name rang out. The intruder must think Rhea is inside, hiding. He did not know it was just Aadya. But that name conjured a wave of fear. He said Rhea’s name. The intruder knows Rhea, then. That could mean betrayal, or maybe he’s someone who knew Rhea. Either way, it was personal, not random.
But then his line of sight moved on. Through the open glass of a partially curtained window, the faint glow of the street lamp caught her eyes. He muttered and began poking through an open drawer on the credenza, almost as if seeking something abandoned. She cautiously inched away behind the couch.
A cracking sound behind him: he spun, shining the flashlight down, but saw nothing. “Stay here,” he hissed, stepping toward the hallway. Oh God, he knows someone’s here. Aadya ducked further, heart sagging. She had to hide, but there was nowhere obvious. Then she saw the closet door slightly ajar.
Act on instinct, just like Rhea told her once in self-defense class, she remembered. She bounded toward the bedroom, aiming for that closet. Each step was agony. As she drew nearer, he’s halfway into the kitchen. She slid into the bedroom and shoved the closet shut before he could see.
Inside the dark closet, her body pressed between hanging clothes and the wall. The air was dusty, the floor covered in an old rug. Shoes and boxes, clothes of Rhea’s — Rhea’s scent enveloped her, faintly sweet and rose-scented, making her eyes water. Rhea…I’m here, I’m trying.
From her hiding place she heard him walking slowly down the hallway again. He leaned his ear by the bedroom door, listening; then, apparently satisfied he hadn’t been fooled, he continued outside. A moment later the front door clicked shut.
Aadya held her breath until she was certain he had left the flat completely. Then, too anxious to stay hidden any longer, she flung open the closet door and dashed for Rhea’s desk, heart still pounding in her ears. On the floor near the open safe lay a pile of papers – news clippings and scribbled notes. Rhea’s delicate handwriting filled page after page: names, places, a sentence underlined in desperation: “If anything happens to me, look to my friend Vedika.”
Vedika. That name was one of Rhea’s oldest friends from college—Aadya knew it well. My friend Vedika… Rhea had hidden this. Was Vedika behind her disappearance? Or was it a warning about betrayal? Aadya felt her stomach twist. Could she trust Vedika? The thought hurt, but nothing seemed impossible now.
As she gathered the papers, a glint of metal on the floor caught her eye. Kneeling, she reached out. Half-buried under the crumpled papers was a sleek black smartphone — the intruder’s phone, glossed with fingerprints and a tiny scratch down the back. His phone. Adrenaline surged again. She felt a flash of guilt that maybe this person’s private life might become a target, but right now she needed answers.
She clicked the screen on with a trembling thumb. It lit up without a code prompt — perhaps he was careless. A text message was open: “Come now. Everything’s in motion.” No name, but the tone was urgent and cold. There were missed calls and texts from numbers she didn’t recognize: short contacts like ‘Boss’, ‘Anil’, and ‘R.’. One text previewed even on the lock screen: “We need to finish this tonight. She gets in our way.” That last sentence made her blood run cold. She wasn’t sure who “she” was — Rhea, or someone else, or maybe even her, maybe in his mind. Either way, she now had evidence of more than just burglary.
Aadya realized she was clutching the phone in sweaty hands. It felt heavy with implication. This might be exactly what I need. The phone’s wallpaper was a logo of some old radio waves – possibly a clue, or maybe just a background. She swiped to open the call log. One incoming call from “R. Khan” 10 minutes ago, missed. “R. Khan”? Did Rhea have a relative by that name? Or was it someone else?
Even as she stared at the phone, a noise made her flinch – a distant siren? Or was it just the sound of the city that far away? In that moment of disorientation, sound returned fully. The intruder – her intruder – had come back, evidently not as quietly as he left. She heard footsteps on the hallway tiles approaching the bedroom again.
Oh no, oh no, don’t come in here.
There wasn’t time to figure out an escape. She pressed herself against the wall as far from the door as possible, breath shallow. The doorknob rattled. The intruder tried it, found it locked. She suppressed a whimper. Then: “Rhea?” he called softly. No reply. He stepped in. Aadya held her breath, willing him to just go away.
“She’s not here, dude,” she heard him mutter, scanning the empty room as if expecting an answer. His voice had an odd accent, harder to place now. He strode over to the safe again, glanced inside the compartment. It was empty now. He shook his head, then strode out of the bedroom, around the corner.
Her stomach tightened. He was searching too thoroughly. If she stayed, he might check the closet eventually. She couldn’t just freeze there forever.
Heart in her throat, she edged out, clutching the intruder’s phone tight. The moment was now:
Without fully thinking, Aadya pushed the door open and darted out of the bedroom. She sprinted for the living room, breathing ragged. Not thinking about what I’ll do if I run into him, just go. Feet pounding, she rushed past the couch and dove behind it again just as a tall man came around the corner from the hallway.
He nearly whirled at the sound. In the flash of his head-torch, he saw a dark blur vanish around the corner. Swearing under his breath, he charged after her. Aadya’s heart jumped; her pulse deafened her. In a panic, she sprinted out the living room and towards the front door, slipping through into the hallway before he could intercept her.
Now in the lit corridor, she let instinct guide her. She bolted down the stairs, two at a time, refusing to look back. She heard his footsteps pounding behind her, shouts that crackled with anger and panic. But she didn’t stop to see – she burst out of the building just as he reached the stairwell door, flinging it open and skidding out.
Outside on the sidewalk, her lungs protested the sudden fresh air. The night was chillier than she remembered. She saw him dart out into the street after her. No! She shrieked involuntarily and turned, starting to run down the street.
Suddenly her knee banged into something on the ground. She fell forward, dropping the phone from her grip. The intruder lunged at her, furious, his face inches from hers. She tried to scream, but a strong hand covered her mouth. Adrenaline burned her thoughts away; he was on top of her, and then—
A loud horn blared. A car sped into the intersection, tires skidding on the asphalt as it screeched to a halt between Aadya and the attacker. The headlights blazed into the darkness. The man cursed and released her, lunging back toward the building. Aadya scrambled up, heart hammering, trembling. She gasped for breath, fighting panic.
It had only been a moment, but now he was gone.
Panting on the sidewalk, Aadya pressed her hand against her chest, each breath rasping. Her jeans were torn, scraped on one knee. “Rhea! Rhea?” she cried out weakly, the name tasting foreign in the empty street. But it was pointless – Rhea was no longer here.
Above her, in the streetlight, Aadya looked down. The intruder’s phone lay cracked on the ground, the screen spiderwebbed. He must have dropped it in the scuffle. It was right next to hers, safe in her hand. She picked it up off the pavement, dusting it in her trembling fingers. Nothing hurt as badly as the fear inside her. His coat lay discarded too, but she ignored it for now.
Clutching the phone, skin slick with sweat, Aadya forced herself to steady her breathing. The danger had left, but her body shook in waves. A single tear snaked down her cheek as realization and adrenaline crashed through her. She was alive — and she had something, maybe something crucial.
With hands still trembling, she opened the phone again under the streetlamp’s glare. There was no sign of blood, thank God. She glanced once more at the final text on screen. “…She gets in our way.” She frowned at it; someone was calling someone else “she,” making plans, clearly talking about Rhea or maybe a third person. Something about being “in our way” implied guilt, menace. She slipped the phone into her pocket.
In the silence of the deserted city street, Aadya’s mind raced. The memory of the intruder’s voice — oddly familiar, like someone she’d heard on an old interview tape — pricked at her mind. She wiped her palm across her mouth. Shaken as she was, she knew one thing: she had answers now. A friend’s name on Rhea’s diary page — Vedika — rang in her head. And that text message: She gets in our way.
She took a shaky breath and lifted her head. Darkness spread around her like oil, cool and soundless. Somewhere not too far, the faint cries of a siren wavered, growing distant. Aadya turned toward the building one last time. Footsteps echoed from the entrance as others ran in and out — maybe neighbors, awakened by the scuffle. She kept moving.
Clutching the bit of paper and the intruder’s phone in her hands, Aadya walked away from the house. Each step still trembled under her; her whole body felt numb in shock. But deep under the fear, a small spark of triumph glowed. She had something now: a name, a clue, evidence that could lead to the truth about Rhea.
“Rhea,” she whispered to the night sky above, the name barely more than breath. “I’m coming.”
With legs that suddenly felt heavy, Aadya faded into the darkness of the street, the silent promise of vengeance lighting her eyes. She was safe — for now — but the night’s events had changed everything. She knew where to begin next, and she had hope at last.

Darkness SpreadsChapter 19
Vanished Again

Aadya re-enters the flat alone after the chase. The door clicked shut behind her with a sound that echoed through the silence.
Aadya stood still for a second, her back pressed against the chipped wooden surface, eyes slowly adjusting to the dim interior of Rhea’s flat. Her breath caught in her throat, shallow and trembling. The adrenaline that had surged through her during the intruder chase was now draining, leaving behind a cocktail of dizziness, soreness, and fear.
The phone she had grabbed from the shadowy figure’s jacket still rested in her jeans pocket, but she hadn’t dared turn it on yet. Not tonight. Not when every creak, every shift in the apartment’s silence felt like a threat waiting to move.
The air was heavy, a mix of musty stillness and something metallic. The scent triggered something primitive in her—a warning. The kind your gut gives before your mind catches up.
She slowly stepped into the living room, her footfalls nearly silent on the worn floor. The familiar photographs still hung crookedly on the wall—Rhea and Kriti, Rhea at a beach, Rhea in college. So much life suspended in these frames. It felt cruel.
Aadya’s hands shook as she reached for the switchboard. She flicked it once. Twice.
Nothing.
The power had been cut. Or maybe the breaker had tripped when the intruder had broken in earlier. She didn’t dare fix it.
Instead, she retrieved the tiny flashlight from her keychain and pressed it on. A pale cone of light stretched through the darkness, carving narrow visibility from the gloom. Shadows loomed, furniture looked monstrous, and each second she stayed inside magnified the dread crawling under her skin.
But she needed to be here.
She needed to know.
Her footsteps were slow, methodical. Each room she passed felt colder, like memory and fear had seeped into the walls and settled in. The kitchen was still a mess—the drawer open where Rhea had kept her loose change, crumbs from some half-eaten snack scattered across the counter. Aadya paused to study a teacup on the table. It had lipstick on the rim.
Rhea’s shade. Had she returned?
A chill crawled up her spine. The last time anyone claimed to have seen Rhea was weeks ago. But this—this cup—looked used. Fresh. Like someone had stood here days, maybe even hours, before.
She didn’t dare draw conclusions. She needed proof.
As she pushed deeper into the hallway, she reached the room that had once been Rhea’s sanctuary—the bedroom with soft fairy lights, plants that leaned toward the sun, and books stacked in reckless piles.
Now, the plants had withered. The fairy lights had burnt out. And the books looked untouched, coated in a fine sheet of dust.
But something was different. Aadya could feel it in her bones.
She knelt beside the bed, her light sweeping under it, pausing at every suspicious crease in the floor. Nothing unusual. Just old slippers, a dusty backpack, a crushed pen.
Still, her instincts nagged at her.
Then, she turned her light toward the far corner near the dresser. The beam caught something—a glint of gold. She stepped forward.
Behind the dresser, barely visible unless someone deliberately moved it, was a cloth. Bright maroon. A familiar pattern of beads stitched at the edge.
Rhea’s scarf. Aadya’s heart kicked hard against her chest.
She reached forward with trembling fingers and tugged at it. It didn’t come out easily—it was wedged in tightly, as if someone had pushed it there in haste.
When it finally came loose, she stepped back and held it under the flashlight.
Her breath stopped. Dark stains ran across the middle of the scarf. Brownish. Rusted red. The smell hit her next—faint but unmistakable.
Blood.
Her knees weakened. She stumbled back, gripping the dresser for support. Her flashlight nearly slipped from her hand.
“No…” she whispered, voice trembling.
She turned the scarf over, desperate to find another explanation. Paint? Makeup? Wine? But no, the texture, the smell—it was blood.
Aadya crouched on the floor, the scarf clutched in her lap, the weight of it unbearable. The room spun slowly around her, the shadows closing in.
“What happened to you, Rhea?” she whispered, voice breaking.
Her mind raced. If this was Rhea’s blood… if someone had stuffed this here…
Was it the intruder? Was he coming back for it?
She stood abruptly, mind reeling, breath shortening.
She needed to leave. She couldn’t stay here another second.
But then her flashlight caught something else—barely noticeable—a drag mark along the floorboards leading to the attached bathroom. Her blood ran cold.
She didn’t want to look. She didn’t want to follow it. But she knew she had to.
Slowly, painfully, she stepped toward the bathroom. The door was slightly ajar. It creaked when she pushed it open.
The mirror was cracked. The sink was dry. But the bathtub—its porcelain surface was smeared with something dark. Faint fingerprints. A single long hair. And on the edge of the tub…
A shattered bracelet.
Rhea’s.
The same one Aadya had seen her wear during their balcony chats. A soft blue beaded band she never removed.
Now broken. Abandoned.
Aadya reached out but her hand hovered inches away, shaking uncontrollably.
She was here.
She fought back.
Something went terribly wrong.
A low moan escaped Aadya’s lips as she backed out of the bathroom. Her head felt heavy. Her heartbeat pounded in her ears.
She clutched the scarf against her chest and sank onto the floor, her back against the wall.
The silence was unbearable now. Not peaceful. Not comforting. It was a silence that screamed.
Every moment in this apartment screamed.
She began to cry. Not loud sobs. But tears that fell quietly—like something inside her had broken. The pressure, the fear, the helplessness—it was too much.
And then the cold began to creep in.
Her vision blurred. The scarf slipped from her fingers. Her hand reached for her phone, but her fingers couldn’t close around it.
The edges of the room blurred.
Darkness poured in—not the darkness from the night or from the flat—but from inside her. It rushed in like floodwater.
Her body tilted sideways, slow as a tree falling. Her cheek pressed against the wooden floor.
Her final thought before everything went black:
What if I’m already too late?Chapter 20
Police Pressure

The air was cold when Aadya opened her eyes.
Not because of the weather—but because of the sterile white tube light above her, the faint smell of phenol, and the throbbing pain in her skull. She was in a small hospital room, the kind the local clinic offered. Two chairs. One IV drip. One irritated nurse scribbling on a clipboard.
And Aryan.
He sat slouched in a plastic chair, face buried in his hands.
Aadya stirred. “Where…?”
He sprang to her side instantly. “You fainted in Rhea’s flat. What the hell were you doing there again?”
His voice cracked—less angry, more desperate. But Aadya wasn’t ready for sympathy. “Why did you tell them?” she whispered.
“The watchman found you unconscious, called the police. They called me. You’re lucky they didn’t arrest you.”
Her heart jolted.
She tried to sit up. Her back screamed. “Did they… search the flat?”
Aryan stiffened. “No. They sealed it. Officially. You’re now on their radar. Congratulations.”
She winced but didn’t flinch. “I found her scarf. And blood. Aryan… someone tried to hurt her there. She might’ve—”
“I don’t want to hear it.”
His voice was steel now.
“You keep digging. Keep accusing. Keep breaking into flats, stealing phones—what do you think this is? A movie? You’ll end up in jail, Aadya. You’ll drag me down with you.”
“I didn’t ask you to follow me into this,” she snapped. “You could’ve walked away anytime.”
“You’re my sister,” he said quietly. “And you’re walking into a mess that’s far deeper than you understand.”
She looked at him, searching for guilt. Fear. Anything. But all she found was exhaustion. Or maybe it was avoidance.
Just then, the door opened. A man in plainclothes entered—broad-shouldered, with a trimmed moustache and a tired look.
Inspector Patil.
“Aadya Rao?” he asked. “We need to talk.”

The Interrogation
The police station wasn’t as dramatic as Aadya had imagined. No flickering bulbs. No smoke. Just cheap plastic chairs, slow-moving ceiling fans, and peeling walls covered with dusty notice boards.
Aryan tried to follow her in. Patil stopped him.
“Just her. For now.”
She looked back at her brother once. His face was unreadable.
Inside the interrogation room, Patil didn’t yell. He didn’t threaten. That scared her more.
He sat down with a notepad and said, “Tell me everything. And I mean everything.”
Aadya took a breath. “I think Rhea is missing. Not vacationing. Not moved out. Something happened to her. She didn’t leave by choice.”
“Why do you think that?”
“She was scared. Her last messages. Her diary. Her voice note. Her slippers. Her bracelet. And… the scarf I found.”
“Where did you find it?”
“In her flat.”
“So you broke in?”
“I…” she hesitated. “Yes. But it was necessary.”
Patil nodded slowly. “And what makes you think the blood was hers?”
“It was dried. But it was real. Right near the broken window.”
“You took photos?”
“No.”
“Witnesses?”
“No.”
He sighed. “You’re making this harder than it should be.”
“I have a phone,” she added quickly. “It belonged to someone I saw inside the flat the night I fainted. I grabbed it. Maybe… it’s the person who hurt her.”
Patil leaned forward. “And where is this phone?”
She hesitated.
His eyes narrowed. “Look, Aadya. Right now you’re a college girl with a bleeding heart and a trail of poor decisions. But if you’re hiding evidence, that makes you an accessory. Understand?”
She swallowed hard. Then pulled the phone from her bag and placed it on the table.
It was locked, of course. She hadn’t figured out a way in.
Patil picked it up like it was made of glass. “We’ll examine it. If there’s anything illegal on here… Aadya, this could explode.”

Fallout
Two hours later, she sat outside the station, drained. Aryan wasn’t there.
She called him twice. No response.
The third time, he picked up. “You’re free?”
“Yes.”
Silence.
“Can I come home?” she asked, biting back the tears.
Another silence. Then: “Do what you want.”
The line went dead.

An Unexpected Visit
It was nearing sunset when Aadya reached home. The colony felt quieter than ever. Rhea’s window still shut. No kids playing cricket. The air was thick with something invisible—suspicion, maybe.
As she climbed the steps to her apartment, someone called her name.
“Aadya?”
She turned to see Meenal standing at the stair landing—mid-thirties, sharp features, long dark braid. The same calm intensity in her eyes from their first meeting.
“I was hoping to catch you,” Meenal said.
Aadya gave a small nod. “You found me.”
“I heard about the police… about you” Meenal continued. “I thought maybe we should talk.”
Meenal’s Revelations
They sat on the steps, just far enough from the street to avoid curious stares.
“You’re not surprised to see me,” Meenal noted.
“No,” Aadya replied. “After everything, I had a feeling you’d come back.”
Meenal’s expression flickered. “I kept thinking about what you said. About Rhea. About the signals no one noticed.”
Aadya studied her. “And?”
“He didn’t just lie to you, Aadya. He lied to me too. And for years.”
“He wouldn’t. We broke up two years ago. He was different then. Quiet. Intense. Always… observing. Especially Rhea.”
Aadya turned sharply. “What do you mean?”
Meenal hesitated. “Look, I don’t want to slander him. But he had this… protector complex. Like he needed to shield everyone. Especially women. He was always watching Rhea. She didn’t mind at first. But later… she told me it was making her uncomfortable.”
Aadya’s heart sank. “She told you that?”
“Yes. Just once. She said, ‘I think your boyfriend’s more interested in me than you.’ I laughed it off then. I shouldn’t have.”
“Did you confront Aryan?”
“Once. He said I was being paranoid. That Rhea needed watching. She was ‘getting close to the wrong people.’”
“Like Abhi?”
Meenal blinked. “Abhi?”
“He’s Aryan’s friend. I think he… liked Rhea. Maybe more.”
Meenal’s expression changed. “Abhi was trouble. Smart, charming, manipulative. And jealous.”
“Jealous of Aryan?”
“Jealous of everyone. If he couldn’t have Rhea, no one could.”
Aadya felt her chest tighten.
“Do you think… Aryan knew what Abhi might do?” she asked.
Meenal didn’t answer immediately. Then, softly: “I think he knew more than he ever admitted. Maybe still does.”

Lines of Trust Begin to Blur
That night, Aadya sat at her desk, staring at Rhea’s diary again.
It was all coded. Half pages burnt. Random metaphors. But one line struck her now:
“He stood between me and the world. Said it was protection. But it felt like a cage.”
Was Rhea talking about Aryan?
Or Abhi?
Or both?
She couldn’t tell anymore. The lines were blurring. Nothing felt solid. Not even her memories.
Her phone buzzed.
Nikhil: Police took the phone?
Aadya: Yes. No update yet.
Nikhil: I think I found something.

One Last Thread
She met Nikhil at the colony’s back garden the next evening. He looked like he hadn’t slept.
“I cracked an old folder from Rhea’s cloud backup,” he said, handing her a USB stick. “Photos. Screenshots. One video file.”
She plugged it into her laptop right there.
Photos of her and Kriti. Group selfies. Random shots of books, skies, rain.
Then… one file. Titled: “Say No.”
She clicked.
The screen showed Rhea—frightened, eyes puffy, voice trembling.
“If something happens to me… please believe me. I said no. I said it clearly. He didn’t listen. He got angry. I think he’s watching me again.”
The screen flickered. A second voice—low, male, muffled—spoke:
“You’ll regret saying no.”
The video cut.
Aadya’s skin turned ice cold.
It wasn’t Aryan’s voice. It wasn’t anyone she recognized—yet.
But now… the police had the other phone. Maybe there was still a way to match the voice.
Maybe, finally, the truth would stop hiding.
And maybe, just maybe… it would destroy everything.Chapter 21
The Ex Knows

The rain tapped gently against the window panes as Aadya sat by her bedroom table, the notebook in front of her open but untouched. Her pen hovered above the page, but the thoughts inside her refused to settle long enough to be captured. The events of the past few days—her fainting near Rhea’s flat, Meenal’s confession, Aryan’s evasive behavior—churned inside her like a storm that refused to pass.
She could no longer trust surface-level explanations. Everyone had something to hide, and each day seemed to peel another layer from this tangled web of secrets.
She looked at her phone.
9:17 AM.
Nikhil hadn’t responded since last night. He had been working on decrypting the corrupted video files from the broken USB they found earlier. Aadya hoped that today, at least one truth would surface clearly.

The Visit to Meenal’s Apartment
After breakfast, Aadya took a rickshaw to Meenal’s apartment. This time, she wasn’t coming for fragmented memories or cryptic advice. She wanted the full truth. She needed to understand Aryan’s past, his relationship with Abhi, and why guilt seemed to haunt every step he took.
Meenal lived in a quiet part of the neighborhood, far from the chaos of their own colony. When she opened the door, her eyes were tired, but not surprised.
“You came early,” she said, stepping aside to let Aadya in.
“I couldn’t sleep,” Aadya admitted.
Meenal handed her a cup of tea without asking. They sat on opposite ends of the couch, the silence between them softer than yesterday, but no less tense.
“I need to know about Abhi,” Aadya said. “Everything. What he meant to Aryan. What happened between them.”
Meenal sipped her tea, her fingers wrapped tightly around the cup.
“Aryan and Abhi were inseparable. Best friends since school. They did everything together—college projects, events, weekend trips. Aryan even pulled away from me when Abhi needed him.”
Aadya leaned forward. “Was it because Abhi was… unstable?”
“Not at first,” Meenal replied. “Abhi was intense, yes. Passionate. But back then, no one saw it as dangerous. He had this charm that drew people in, especially Aryan. But when things went wrong, Aryan took it upon himself to fix it. Like he always does.”
Meenal looked away, her voice tightening. “I think Aryan believed he could ‘save’ Abhi. But the more he tried, the more Abhi lost control.”
Aadya could feel the pulse at her wrist pounding. “Did Abhi… hurt someone?”
Meenal nodded slowly. “There was a girl. Not Rhea—someone else. A quiet one, barely spoke in class. One day, she stopped coming. Rumors flew. Aryan confronted Abhi. They fought. Badly. Aryan came back bleeding, and everything changed after that.”
“What happened to the girl?”
“No one knows. She transferred out. No complaint was ever filed. But Aryan was never the same. He shut down. We fought. He pushed me away. And when I pressed him… he ended things.”
Aadya’s hands trembled. “So, if Abhi had that pattern… then maybe Rhea…”
“That’s what I fear,” Meenal whispered.

A Clue Left Behind
Back in her room, Aadya replayed Meenal’s words. Everything was starting to make sense. Abhi had always been in the background—a shadow—but now that shadow was turning real. Dangerous.
She glanced at her phone. Still no word from Nikhil.
Just as she was about to message him, a notification popped up.
Nikhil: “Come now. You need to see this.”

The Video
Nikhil’s house was a mess of wires, old hard drives, coffee cups, and frantic energy. He barely acknowledged Aadya as she entered, his eyes glued to the screen.
“I managed to restore the full clip,” he said, pulling his chair back so she could see.
The footage was grainy. The timestamp was from five weeks ago. The angle suggested it was from one of the CCTV cameras that covered the pathway outside Rhea’s apartment.
Rhea walked into frame. She looked anxious, her head turning quickly as if checking if anyone was following. She stopped at her door and opened it. As she stepped inside, another figure entered the frame.
Abhi.
Aadya’s heart stopped.
He looked calm. Too calm. He didn’t run after her. He walked—casually, like he belonged there. Before Rhea could close the door, he placed his hand on it and followed her inside.
The video ended.
“That’s it,” Nikhil said. “But there’s more.”
He opened an audio file next.
The quality was poor, but the voices were unmistakable.
Rhea: “Please stop coming here. I told you, I don’t feel that way.”
Abhi: “You’re just scared. Aryan told me everything. He said you’re confused.”
Rhea: “Aryan doesn’t speak for me. And neither do you.”
Abhi: “Don’t push me, Rhea. You don’t know what I’m capable of.”
There was a crash—a chair? A table? Then silence.
Aadya felt her throat tighten. “That was the last time she was seen.”
Nikhil nodded grimly. “And Aryan lied. He knew Abhi had crossed a line. He knew this wasn’t just a misunderstanding.”

Confrontation Revisited
Aadya left Nikhil’s house without saying much. Her mind was spiraling. Every conversation with Aryan now sounded different. Every look, every moment of hesitation—it all pointed to his guilt, not as a criminal, but as someone complicit through silence.
When she reached home, Aryan was in the living room, scrolling through his phone. She stood in front of him, arms crossed.
“Why didn’t you tell me Abhi was obsessed with Rhea?”
Aryan’s expression didn’t change. “Because it wouldn’t help.”
“You knew he went into her flat that night. You knew he might have done something. And you said nothing.”
He set his phone aside. “I wasn’t sure. I didn’t want to believe it.”
“But you did. And you still stayed quiet.”
“I was trying to protect you,” he said.
“No,” she snapped. “You were trying to protect yourself. Your guilt. Your shame. Your fear of what the truth might mean.”
Aryan stood. “Do you think I haven’t punished myself every day since she disappeared?”
“That’s not enough,” Aadya said, her voice cold. “Not when Rhea might have suffered. Not when Abhi’s still out there.”
A tear rolled down Aryan’s cheek. He didn’t wipe it.
“I thought I could fix it,” he whispered.
Aadya turned away.
“You can’t fix the past,” she said. “But you can help me stop this from happening again.”

The Connection
That night, Aadya stayed awake. She connected the dots, scribbling notes on the corkboard she’d started using for Rhea’s case.
Abhi’s obsession. Aryan’s silence. Rhea’s last audio.
She looked at Rhea’s photo—the one from her ID card. Her smile was real. Bright. Alive.
“I won’t let it end this way,” she whispered.
Her phone buzzed again.
Nikhil: “I found something else. A post. From Rhea’s old fake account. Scheduled to go live the night she vanished… but it never did. I think you should see it.”
Aadya typed back: “Send it.”
A few seconds later, the image loaded. It was a screenshot of a conversation between Rhea and someone named “A.”
“You told me he’d never find out.” “He won’t. Trust me.”
And then Rhea’s reply: “I don’t trust anyone anymore. Not even him.”
A chill ran down Aadya’s spine. That was the same phrase the watchman had quoted.
“Not even him.”
She stared at the screen, her mind racing.
Who was “A”? Aryan? Abhi? Someone else?
The final threads were tightening.
And Aadya was ready to pull them.Chapter 22
Audio Proof

The next morning arrived like a quiet storm, grey skies stretched above the colony, and Aadya stood at the edge of her balcony, eyes tracing the lines between the buildings like she was connecting invisible dots. Everything inside her screamed that they were closer now — closer to Rhea’s final cries, her final truths. The answers lay not far.
Across from her, Kriti sat cross-legged on the floor with her laptop open. Aadya had invited her over early. Nikhil would join them soon. The USB drives, the backups, the files — all laid neatly on a table between them like pieces in a puzzle.
“You know,” Kriti said, sipping her coffee, “I can’t believe this is where we are. Just days ago, we were thinking Rhea had just left without a word. Now… it’s like we’re inside her nightmare.”
Aadya didn’t respond. Her mind was still replaying the conversation from last night with Meenal — Aryan’s ex. Her words hadn’t stopped echoing: “He’s not who he used to be. You think he’s calm. But he’s good at burying things. And he’s buried a lot.”
The bell rang. Nikhil entered, holding a bundle of wires and his ever-present hard drive.
“I think I found something,” he said, cutting through the small talk like a scalpel. “I managed to clone Rhea’s phone image onto my system. The deleted audio folder? It was hidden in a way most wouldn’t even know how to encrypt.”
Aadya’s pulse quickened. She motioned for him to continue.
Nikhil connected the drive to his laptop. The screen blinked to life. Folder after folder opened. Finally, a single file stood out: Note_27_Final.m4a.
They stared at it.
Aadya whispered, “Play it.”

The audio started.
Rhea’s voice came through, trembling, soft, as if speaking into the void.
“If you’re hearing this… then something has gone wrong. I tried. I really tried to stay away, to not make it worse. But he wouldn’t stop. He followed me. Messaged me from new numbers. Came to the colony, even when I blocked him.”
“He was so sweet at first. Made me feel like I mattered. But when I said no, when I told him I didn’t feel the same… he changed. I saw his face darken. Like something snapped.”
Aadya’s breath caught in her throat. Kriti held her hand tightly.
“I told Aryan. I begged him not to tell anyone, just help me stay safe. And he did, for a while. But even Aryan started acting strange. Like he was scared too.”
“He’s not who you think he is. None of them are. If something happens to me… please don’t believe it was an accident. Don’t let it disappear like dust.”
A soft click marked the end of the recording.
No one spoke.
Aadya stood up. Her hands trembled. The room felt like it had lost all its air.
“Abhi,” she whispered. “She was talking about Abhi.”
Kriti looked shaken. “And Aryan knew?”
Nikhil closed the laptop. “That’s not just evidence. That’s a confession. A cry for help.”

Later that evening, Aadya walked alone down the narrow road that led past Rhea’s building. Her eyes traced the familiar path Rhea once walked — to the tea shop, to the park, to the gate where the watchman had last seen her. Every place held echoes now.
She knew what she had to do next.
That night, she invited Nikhil to her room again. She spread out everything — every note, every photo, every voice file — into a timeline.
“We’re missing one link,” she told him. “We know Abhi was obsessed. We know Aryan tried to help. But something happened that night to escalate it all. Something more than just a stalker’s anger.”
Nikhil nodded. “What about the call logs? From the landline in the community office. That place still keeps logs for some reason, right?”
They broke into the tiny, dusty office near the main gate. Inside the drawer, Aadya found the old call register. A number caught her eye. One landline call made to a local burner number—on the night Rhea disappeared.
Nikhil traced it back.
“It’s a number used by Abhi.”
That was it.

The next morning, Aadya approached Aryan.
He was sitting in the garden, looking lost in thought, holding a coffee cup he hadn’t sipped from. The morning light painted soft shadows on his face.
“I heard the recording,” she said.
He didn’t look surprised.
“You knew,” she said again, this time sharper.
He nodded. “I didn’t know how far it had gone. She told me he was obsessed. I asked him to stop. I warned him. But I never thought… I never thought he would…”
“She begged you,” Aadya interrupted. “She trusted you. You had the chance to stop him.”
“I tried!” Aryan’s voice cracked. “I tried to protect her without destroying him. Without destroying everything. He was my best friend. My closest—”
“And now he’s a monster,” Aadya cut in. “You let a monster live among us.”
Aryan’s eyes welled. “I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t want to lose you, Aadya. I didn’t want to pull you into this.”
“It’s too late,” she said. “I’m already in it. And I’m not stopping.”
She left him there — broken, hollow. Her brother. Her protector. Now just another piece in the puzzle.

That night, Aadya and Nikhil uploaded the audio to a private cloud and made copies. They were not taking chances. Aadya emailed one to Meenal with a single subject line: “Now do you believe?”
Then Aadya did something she had long resisted. She opened Rhea’s old Instagram account, recovered through her backup email. After resetting the password, she scrolled through old posts — sunsets, poems, selfies, Aryan’s comments, Abhi’s likes.
She typed her first new post.
“If silence had a shape, it would be the space Rhea left behind. We’re listening now. We’re not backing down.”
Within hours, it began to get attention — not from strangers, but from people in the colony. People started messaging privately, sharing small things they remembered. One girl mentioned Rhea crying in the staircase. Another remembered Abhi waiting for hours in his car.
Piece by piece, the fog began to lift.

Around midnight, Aadya got a ping on her new Telegram account — one she had used to bait out anyone watching.
The message read: “Stop digging. Or you’ll disappear next.”
No sender name. No image. But Aadya stared at it with a twisted smile.
They were getting scared.
And fear meant they were closer than ever.Chapter 23
Closer to Truth

The sky over the colony was painted in bruised shades of grey and purple, as if nature itself mirrored the weight of Aadya’s thoughts. Her fingers trembled as she replayed the voice recording once again, the grainy sound of Rhea sobbing etched into her bones. And then, that chilling male voice—sharp, entitled, angry—slashed through the silence: “You’ll regret saying no.”
She had heard it before. Not in the audio, but in life. A familiarity that scratched at the edge of memory.
The realization didn’t come like a lightning bolt. It emerged slowly, like a photograph developing in a darkroom.
Aadya turned to Nikhil, who sat beside her, his brow furrowed in intense concentration. He was running the audio through specialized software to filter out the noise. The laptop screen glowed between them, casting pale blue light across their anxious faces.
“Did you get anything new?” she asked.
Nikhil nodded slightly. “The voice is clearer now. Still a little distorted, but definitely familiar. I’ve heard it around. At your place, I think. Or maybe on campus.”
Aadya’s breath caught. “Could it be… Abhi?”
Nikhil leaned back. “That name did flash in my mind too. But he’s been missing for weeks. And no one knows where he is.”
“Maybe that’s not a coincidence,” Aadya whispered.

They met Meenal the next morning at a crowded coffee shop near her workplace. She wore a beige blazer over a maroon dress, hair pulled back, expression stern.
“I don’t have much time,” she said, settling into the booth.
Aadya didn’t waste a second. She pulled out her phone and played the recording. Meenal stiffened almost immediately.
“That voice…” she murmured.
“You know it?” Aadya pressed.
Meenal hesitated. Her jaw clenched. “It sounds like Abhi. But I can’t be sure.”
“Was he close to Rhea?”
Meenal exhaled slowly. “They were friends, loosely. He had a thing for her. But she didn’t reciprocate. She was polite, even kind, but Abhi couldn’t take the hint.”
Nikhil added, “We think he was obsessed.”
“He was,” Meenal admitted. “I remember Aryan talking about it once. He said Abhi had started following Rhea around. Sending her anonymous gifts. When she confronted him, he turned defensive and angry.”
Aadya’s chest tightened. “Aryan knew? Why didn’t he do anything?”
“He tried to talk to Abhi,” Meenal said. “Tried to keep things calm. But you know Aryan—he prefers peace over drama. He thought Abhi would back off.”
“He didn’t,” Aadya said bitterly. “Rhea suffered. She was scared.”
The waiter arrived with their drinks, but none of them touched their cups.
Nikhil leaned forward. “Do you know where Abhi might be now?”
Meenal’s eyes flicked down to the table. “No. But I do know someone who might.”

By afternoon, Aadya and Nikhil stood outside a dingy apartment complex on the edge of the city. Paint peeled off the walls, and old advertisements flapped on rusted gates.
“This is where Abhi’s cousin stays,” Meenal had told them. “If anyone knows, it’s him.”
They climbed two flights of creaky stairs. A middle-aged man answered the door, shirtless, a towel slung over one shoulder.
“Abhi?” he said, frowning. “Haven’t seen him in weeks. He used to crash here, but not anymore.”
“Do you know where he went?” Aadya asked.
The man scratched his chin. “He left some stuff behind. Said he was heading to a farmhouse. Belongs to an old college friend, I think.”
“Do you have the address?”
He grunted, then shuffled to a cluttered table inside. After a moment, he returned with a stained envelope. “This was the last mail he got. Might help.”
It was addressed to a farmhouse outside the city limits. Aadya’s heart thumped like a war drum.

On their way back, Aadya scrolled through Rhea’s photos again, hoping for more clues. One image stopped her cold.
It was a selfie Rhea had taken at a party. In the background—blurry but unmistakable—was Abhi, watching her. His eyes dark, locked onto her like a predator.
“She knew he was following her,” Aadya whispered.
Nikhil glanced over. “We need to find that farmhouse.”
Aadya nodded. “That’s where the answers are.”

That night, Aadya sat alone in her room, staring at the ceiling. Her mind swirled with fear, anger, and grief. Every new truth was a shard, cutting into her belief in the people she thought she knew.
Her phone buzzed. A message from Nikhil.
Location traced. Got the route. Let’s go tomorrow. Be ready.
She replied with a thumbs up, then rolled over and clutched her pillow.
Her brother had lied. Abhi had vanished. Rhea had been terrorized. And Aadya, once a girl content with college lectures and books, was now in the middle of a dark maze.
But she wouldn’t stop now.

The next morning, they borrowed Nikhil’s uncle’s car and drove out of the city. The sky brightened as they left the chaos of traffic and entered the countryside. Fields stretched on either side, golden under the rising sun.
The GPS led them to a narrow dirt road. Trees loomed overhead, casting long shadows across the windshield. A faded wooden sign read: Maya Farmhouse. The gate creaked as they pushed it open.
The farmhouse stood in the distance—weathered, silent, almost forgotten. Grass grew wild, and vines crawled up the side of the building.
They approached slowly.
“Do we just walk in?” Nikhil asked.
“We knock first,” Aadya said, though she didn’t expect anyone to answer.
They reached the porch. Aadya raised her hand and knocked.
No reply.
She glanced at Nikhil, who nodded.
She tried the door.
It opened.

The air inside was stale, heavy with dust. Furniture was draped in white cloth. A lamp stood in the corner, cobwebbed. They moved cautiously, every creak of the floorboards echoing in the silence.
On a table, they found an open journal. Its pages were covered in erratic handwriting.
She laughed at me. Thought I was weak. But I know her heart. She was mine first. Mine always.
A chill ran down Aadya’s spine.
They moved deeper into the house. In a small back room, they found photos pinned to the wall.
Photos of Rhea. At the bus stop. On her balcony. Leaving college.
“She was being watched,” Nikhil murmured.
“Stalked,” Aadya corrected.
In the corner of the room sat a laptop, its screen dark.
Nikhil powered it on. After a few minutes of guesswork, he cracked the password: RHEA2023.
The desktop was full of folders. Videos. Voice notes. Images.
One video was labeled Final Message.
Aadya clicked.
The screen lit up with Rhea’s tear-streaked face.
“If you’re watching this… then something happened to me,” she said. “Please don’t believe it was an accident. I was scared. Of someone I once trusted. I thought he was just a friend. But he changed. I told Aryan, but… even he seemed torn. I don’t know who to trust anymore.”
The video ended.
Aadya sat in stunned silence.
Rhea had known. She had reached out.
And no one listened.

Outside, the wind picked up. Trees swayed, whispering secrets.
“We need to take all this,” Aadya said. “This is the proof. This is what the police need.”
Nikhil nodded, already copying files onto a pen drive.
Aadya’s phone buzzed.
A message from an unknown number.
You’re getting too close. Stop. Or you’ll end up like her.
Her blood froze.
She showed it to Nikhil.
He looked up, eyes dark.
“We don’t stop now. We’re closer than ever.”

They left the farmhouse, hearts racing, minds spinning. Every answer unearthed another question. But one thing was clear now:
Rhea hadn’t disappeared.
She had been erased.
And Aadya wouldn’t rest until her voice was heard.
Not just in whispers and memories.
But in justice.Chapter 24
The Trap

The colony was silent, as though holding its breath. Aadya sat cross-legged on her bed, her laptop open in front of her. The glow of the screen cast soft shadows on her face, highlighting the resolve in her eyes. The past few weeks had aged her—her once carefree demeanor replaced by a calculating calm.
The old social media account of Rhea was now in her control. Aadya had retrieved it with help from Nikhil, who managed to reset the password using Rhea’s email backups. It had taken days, but now she had access to every message, every photo, every friend Rhea had. But this wasn’t for sentimental reasons. This was a trap.
She clicked through the profile, updating a new post—a throwback picture of Rhea smiling at the colony gate, captioned: “Some memories never fade. Miss those peaceful evenings. #BackSoon #FeelingSafeAgain”.
The bait was set.

Day 1 of the Trap:
Aadya watched the profile obsessively. The post had 46 likes in three hours. Mostly mutual friends. But there was one anonymous profile—no picture, no posts, no mutuals—just a single like. The username: DarkEchoes.
“Creepy name,” Aadya muttered.
Nikhil, sitting beside her, leaned in. “Fake, definitely. But why would a fake profile like that show up now?”
She shrugged. “Maybe it’s him. Abhi. Or someone watching her.”
They set up a tracker link—anyone who clicked on Rhea’s post and entered her old blog link (now redirected) would reveal their IP location.
A few hours later, it pinged: IP traced: outskirts of Hyderabad. Mobile network. Night activity: active 11:22 PM.
“He’s out there,” Aadya whispered. Her hands trembled, but it wasn’t fear. It was purpose.

Day 2 of the Trap:
The next post went live.
A selfie from Rhea’s old phone—a close-up with her wearing a blue kurti, her favorite earrings visible. The caption read: “They thought I wouldn’t survive. But I did. I’m coming back stronger.”
This time, the reactions were wild. Comments flooded in.
Rhea? Is this you??
Where have you been?
What does this mean? Are you okay?
Another ping. The same anonymous profile viewed it.
But more than that—someone tried to login into Rhea’s account five times. Aadya got the notification instantly.
“He’s panicking,” Nikhil said. “He’s worried she’s really back.”
Aadya nodded. “And that fear will make him act.”

Day 3 of the Trap:
She left one final post:
“The truth is never buried. Not for long. You know who you are. I remember everything. Meet me where it began.”
Below the post was an image—subtle, but familiar. It was the community storeroom’s rusted door handle.
No location tagged, no names mentioned. But if he was watching… he’d know.

The Wait:
The next 24 hours were torturous. Aadya didn’t sleep. She kept checking her notifications, the trackers, the IPs.
Then it happened.
The anonymous profile messaged.
DarkEchoes: Who are you?
DarkEchoes: What do you want?
DarkEchoes: Stop this, now.
“We got him,” Aadya whispered.
She opened the account’s metadata. The IP pinged again—this time much closer.
Colony Wi-Fi. Guest Network.
She froze.
“He’s here. Inside the colony.”

The Trap Is Sprung:
Aadya messaged Aryan, but he didn’t pick up. He was out with Meenal, or so he had said. Her heart pounded as she grabbed her phone and left her flat. She had one goal—to reach the storeroom before anyone else did.
The colony was eerily quiet. Streetlights flickered. A stray dog barked in the distance. Aadya’s footsteps echoed as she approached the storeroom. The door was closed. Not locked.
She hesitated. Then slowly, she turned the knob and entered.

Inside, the air was cold. Dust particles floated like ghosts in the beam of her torch.
She moved slowly, eyes scanning every corner.
“Looking for ghosts?” came a voice from the darkness.
Aadya’s heart stopped.
A figure stepped forward. Hoodie, jeans, thin frame. Face partly hidden.
“You’re not Rhea,” he said, voice sharp.
Aadya lifted her phone, pretending to be calm. “I never said I was.”
“You’re playing a dangerous game.”
“So did you,” she said. “And Rhea paid for it.”
He stepped closer. “Who are you?”
“Aadya. Her neighbor. Her friend.”
He paused. Then he laughed—dry and bitter. “So she told you about me? About what happened?”
“I know she rejected someone. Someone close. Someone who couldn’t handle it.”
He didn’t deny it.
“She was supposed to understand,” he said quietly. “We had something. She just… forgot. Pretended I didn’t exist.”
Aadya took a step back. Her finger hovered over the emergency call button.
“What did you do to her?”
“I just wanted to scare her. Remind her. I never meant to…”
He stopped.
Aadya’s voice was shaking. “But she’s gone. Because of you.”
Before he could speak again, footsteps rushed in. Aryan, Nikhil, and two officers barged through the door.
“Don’t move!”
The figure ran—but there was no escape. The officers tackled him down.
His phone fell. Aadya picked it up. On the screen: messages to Abhi. Deleted chats. Location pings. Video calls.
This wasn’t Abhi.
This was someone else.
Someone helping him.
A second player in the game.

Aftermath:
At the police station, the boy—whose name turned out to be Ravi—confessed he had been obsessed with Rhea. He’d met her in a mental health awareness event Aryan had organized. She was polite, kind… but not interested.
He couldn’t accept it.
He started stalking her online. Then in person. Sent her messages. Left gifts. When she blocked him, he grew angry. The last party was when he confronted her. She ran.
And Abhi—Rhea’s ex and Aryan’s old friend—was the one she turned to for help. But even that turned into betrayal.
“So Abhi knows more than we thought,” Aadya whispered.
Ravi sat in the cell, staring at the floor. “I didn’t hurt her. I swear. But I knew what Abhi planned. I didn’t stop him.”
Aadya stepped out of the station, the cold night air hitting her lungs. She had been right. The trap had worked. But it wasn’t over yet.
There was still one more door to unlock.
One more truth to uncover.
The final confrontation awaited.
And Aadya was ready.

The Final BlowChapter 25
Abhi Appears

The colony had grown quieter over the past week. Aadya felt the pressure mounting from all directions—police inquiries, Aryan’s emotional distance, the cryptic audio clips, and the recent digital trap she’d set using Rhea’s dormant social media. She was exhausted, but every part of her knew that the answers were near.
Late one evening, as the sun dipped behind the apartment buildings, Aadya’s phone buzzed. It was a message from Nikhil:
“Check the trap account. Someone just responded.”
Heart pounding, Aadya opened the fake profile she had created in Rhea’s name. A message had come in from a new profile—blank display picture, no bio, and a single text: “We need to talk. Not here.” It was followed by a location pin, just outside the colony.
“Abhi,” she whispered.
She had a gut feeling. It wasn’t definitive, but her instincts had rarely been wrong lately. She immediately texted Nikhil and asked him to stay on standby. Then, without telling Aryan or anyone else, she slipped into her sneakers, grabbed her phone and pepper spray, and stepped out.
The streets were quieter than usual, bathed in orange streetlight and humming with a distant power generator. The pin led her to the far end of the colony, past the park, where a back gate opened into a nearly abandoned road bordered by a construction site.
She waited.
A man appeared from the shadows, hoodie pulled over his head.
“Aadya?”
She took a step back. “Abhi?”
He pulled the hoodie down, revealing the familiar face—sharper, thinner than before. He looked pale and agitated.
“I didn’t mean for it to go this far,” he said, voice shaking.
“You disappeared,” she shot back. “You left after Rhea vanished. Everyone thought you were guilty.”
“I had to,” Abhi said, eyes darting nervously. “I was being watched. Not just by the colony… by him.”
“Him?”
“Aryan,” he said softly. “I think he knows more than he ever told you.”
Aadya’s mind spun.
“Where have you been?”
“There’s an old farmhouse. Outside the city. I’ve been hiding there. I kept journals, photos… I need you to see it. I don’t trust the police. But you… you’ve been chasing the truth.”
She hesitated. Every fiber of logic told her not to trust him. Yet something about his voice—the tremble, the urgency—rang sincere.
“I’ll follow in my scooter,” she said. “Don’t try anything.”
They traveled separately. The road out of the city was dark and winding. The farmhouse stood in the middle of a neglected stretch of land—weather-worn gates, rusted hinges, and an eerie silence that made Aadya’s skin crawl.
Abhi led her into the dimly lit house. Dust floated in the stale air. On a table lay a bundle of photos, notes, and what appeared to be Rhea’s scarf.
“I didn’t kill her,” Abhi said, hands trembling. “But I know who pushed her there. I was obsessed. I followed her… I scared her. But Aryan—he… he tried to silence everything. He told me to get out of the colony. That she would ruin all our lives.”
Aadya froze.
“Are you saying he helped cover it up?”
Abhi nodded.
“I don’t know what happened the night she vanished. I was outside her flat. I knocked. She never opened the door. But someone came later. I heard voices. Yelling. Then silence.”
“Why didn’t you come forward earlier?”
“Because I was ashamed,” he whispered. “And afraid. Rhea trusted me once. I broke that. But I didn’t want her to die.”
Aadya stared at the table—photos of Aryan, Rhea, and Abhi at the community party, annotated with chilling notes. One of them had a message scribbled in pen: “She said no. And he couldn’t handle it.”
Her stomach twisted. It was becoming clearer.
Abhi didn’t kill Rhea. But he was a part of the chain that led to her fall. The lies, the obsession, the fear.
She picked up one of the notes and folded it into her bag.
“You’re coming with me,” she said. “This ends now.”
“No police,” he said, desperate.
“No promises,” she said. “But the truth will come out.”
The farmhouse’s secrets were now in her hands, and the countdown to justice had begun.
Unbeknownst to her, a figure watched from a distance, parked in a silent car, engine off. The shadows weren’t done yet.Chapter 26
Shattered Illusions

Nikhil came to them just in time.
As Aadya stood frozen inside the dusty old farmhouse, staring at the scattered evidence of obsession and guilt, she didn’t realize how long she’d been holding her breath. Abhi was silent, his face pale, as the eerie silence of the place wrapped around them.
Then came the creak of the front door.
“Aadya?” Nikhil called, flashlight beam sweeping through the hallway. His voice was like a tether, snapping her back to the present.
“In here,” she replied.
He appeared a moment later, panting slightly, eyes widening as he took in the room—Rhea’s torn scarf, the scribbled notes, photos pinned to a wooden board. “What the hell…”
“I think we just walked into the center of it all,” Aadya whispered.
Abhi stood in a corner, head bowed.
“Is that…?” Nikhil asked.
“Yes. It’s him.”
The three of them left together. The drive back from the farmhouse was silent. Abhi sat in the back seat of Nikhil’s car, hood drawn up again, head low. Aadya sat beside Nikhil in the front, her arms folded tightly, eyes staring out the window. Every minute, the images from that table in the farmhouse flashed in her mind—Rhea’s scarf, the annotated photographs, the notes of guilt.
They dropped Abhi at Nikhil’s tech lab for now—a hidden corner of his family’s basement, where they often assembled drones and hacked gadgets during college fests. It was secure, quiet, and out of sight.
“Don’t try to run,” Aadya warned before stepping out.
“I won’t,” Abhi muttered. “I want this to end too.”
That night, Aadya didn’t sleep. She sifted through the evidence—notes, timestamps, photographs. Something still didn’t sit right. Abhi had shared enough to confirm Aryan’s involvement in covering up the truth, but there were still holes in the timeline.
At dawn, Aadya got a message from Kriti.
“Are you okay? I saw Aryan last night. He looked… messed up.”
Aadya hadn’t seen her brother in two days. Not since the confrontation in their living room when he asked her to stop digging. Her fingers hovered over the phone before she texted back:
“I need to see him. Now.”
She found Aryan in the colony park, sitting on a bench, hair disheveled, eyes bloodshot. He was staring at a cup of tea, untouched and cold.
“I know where Abhi is,” she said without preamble.
His eyes shot up.
“He came back. And he’s talking.”
Aryan leaned back and let out a sigh that sounded more like defeat than anger.
“You think I did it?” he asked, voice hollow.
“I think you’re hiding something that matters.”
He looked away. “I tried to keep you safe. That’s all.”
“Aryan, I found photos. Notes. Abhi’s obsession. But why did you protect him?”
“I didn’t protect him,” Aryan snapped. “I warned him. I told him to stay away from Rhea. She came to me in tears more than once. But she didn’t want to go to the police. She said… she said it would make everything worse.”
“Then what happened?”
Aryan’s voice broke. “One night, I saw him outside her flat. I confronted him. We fought. I told him to disappear, or I’d go to the cops myself.”
“Did you see her after that night?”
He nodded slowly. “The next morning. Briefly. She thanked me. Said she needed time alone.”
“Then she vanished,” Aadya whispered.
“I thought she left on her own. That she was trying to start over. But when you started digging, I saw how wrong I was. I didn’t want you to find out how close I’d been to all of it. It would’ve broken you.”
“It did,” Aadya said softly. “But the truth matters more.”
Later that day, Aadya and Nikhil sat with Abhi in the lab. They had scanned all the materials he brought. Among them, they found something shocking—a small recording pen hidden in a diary page. It had a single audio clip.
Rhea’s voice, again.
“I can’t take it anymore. Abhi won’t stop messaging me. Aryan wants to help, but I feel like everyone’s watching me. If anything happens to me… I hope someone finds this.”
It was dated the day before her disappearance.
“Why didn’t you give us this before?” Nikhil asked.
“I forgot it was in there,” Abhi said. “That diary… I took it because I couldn’t bear to leave it behind.”
Aadya closed her eyes. Rhea’s fear was real. Tangible.
“Abhi, you said you didn’t hurt her. But you were there.”
“I swear,” he whispered. “I left that night before anything happened.”
“Then someone else came.”
The idea chilled her. Was there another player? Someone they had overlooked?
Nikhil zoomed into one of the party photos from a month before—Abhi, Aryan, and a third person in the background. A blurry face.
“Who is this?” he asked.
Abhi leaned in. “That’s… I don’t know. I don’t remember seeing him.”
Aadya stared harder. Something about the silhouette…
Suddenly, she stood.
“I need to go home,” she said.
“Why?”
“Because I just realized… Rhea mentioned a name once. In her backup chats. Not Aryan. Not Abhi. Someone else. A nickname. ‘A’… but not Aryan.”
“You think there’s another ‘A’?”
“Yes,” she said. “And I think we’ve missed him all along.”
Her illusion of the full truth shattered again. The path ahead twisted further—but now, it pointed toward an answer that neither Abhi nor Aryan had ever mentioned.
And she was going to find it.Chapter 27
The Confession

The farmhouse was silent, almost haunting. The sun had dipped below the horizon, leaving behind only a dull glow that filtered weakly through the dirty windowpanes. The single bulb hanging from the wooden ceiling flickered, casting eerie shadows on the walls cluttered with photos, news cutouts, and hastily scribbled notes. Aadya’s hands trembled as she flipped through the photographs — Rhea laughing, Aryan looking solemn, and several taken from odd angles, almost like surveillance.
Abhi, shackled in handcuffs and seated at the far end of the room, avoided everyone’s eyes. His face bore the weight of guilt, exhaustion, and a story he had buried for too long. Aryan leaned against the wall, arms crossed, his face emotionless yet strained. Aadya stood between them, her breath steady but her thoughts storming.
Nikhil broke the silence. “We need the whole truth, Abhi. No more games. No more lies.”
Abhi gave a dry chuckle, bitter and hollow. “I guess it all ends here, huh?”
Aadya stepped closer, her voice firm. “You owe Rhea the truth. You owe it to all of us.”
Abhi’s eyes flicked to hers. For a moment, something shifted in his expression — the bravado melted, revealing the remnants of a boy who once was their friend. Then he spoke.
“It started at the party,” he said slowly. “That stupid, meaningless party. Everyone was there — Aryan, Meenal, Kriti, and of course, Rhea. I didn’t even want to go, but Aryan… he asked me to show up, just for old time’s sake. We hadn’t hung out properly in months.”
Aryan’s face remained blank, but his fingers curled into fists.
“I was drunk,” Abhi continued, his tone laced with regret. “Not just tipsy. Drunk enough to lose sense of boundaries. Rhea was there, dancing, laughing… and I thought… I don’t know what I thought. Maybe that she was flirting. Maybe that I had a chance. I cornered her — told her how I felt. She said no. She was kind about it… but I didn’t take it well.”
He swallowed hard.
“I said things. Ugly things. She slapped me. Said I needed help. Told Aryan too, that same night. That’s when everything changed.”
Aadya’s heart was pounding. The pieces were falling into place, painfully.
“I wanted to apologize,” Abhi said. “I truly did. But Aryan shut me out. He said if I ever spoke to her again, he’d make sure I regretted it. He said he was ‘cleaning up my mess.’”
Aryan finally spoke, his voice flat. “You don’t get to blame me. You made her feel unsafe. She called me in tears that night. She couldn’t even sleep.”
“I know!” Abhi shouted. “And I hated myself for it. But then she started avoiding everyone — college, colony, even Kriti. And then she disappeared. Do you know what that did to me?”
Aadya took a deep breath. “What happened the night she disappeared, Abhi?”
He looked at her, the weight of months — perhaps years — pressing behind his eyes. “I followed her. I wanted closure. Just one conversation. She was walking back from the store, headphones in. I called her name, she flinched. She looked… terrified. Said she would go to the police. Said she was done being afraid.”
He paused, his voice cracking. “I didn’t touch her. I swear. I begged her not to file a report. But she ran. I chased. I don’t even know why. It was stupid. The gate was open. She ran into the storeroom and locked it. I waited outside, begging her to come out.”
Aryan turned, his eyes burning. “You didn’t tell me this.”
“Because you would’ve blamed me for everything!” Abhi snapped. “And maybe I deserve it. But I didn’t hurt her. I just… left. I panicked. I thought someone else would find her. I didn’t know she was gone until you came banging on my door the next day.”
Aadya stared at him, trying to measure the truth in his words. “But the photos? The recordings? The diary pages?”
“I went back later,” he admitted. “I thought I could find something to clear myself if things ever got bad. I found her diary, some photos… I hid them. Buried them in case… in case it all came crashing down.”
Nikhil ran a hand through his hair. “So all this time, you knew she’d been in that storeroom, terrified. And you said nothing.”
Abhi’s shoulders slumped. “I couldn’t face it. I couldn’t face myself.”
A heavy silence followed. Aadya felt like the air had thickened. Rhea’s voice echoed in her mind — If something happens to me, it was never an accident.
“There’s more,” Aryan said suddenly. All eyes turned to him. “After Rhea disappeared, I found her bracelet outside the storeroom. I knew she’d been there. But I also found blood… and a hairpin. I thought she’d been attacked. I thought Abhi killed her. So I buried everything. I hid what I found and told myself it was over.”
Aadya gasped. “Why didn’t you tell the police?”
“Because I didn’t trust them. Because I didn’t want to destroy Abhi’s life if it wasn’t true. And because I knew if people found out my best friend had stalked and threatened a girl, my career, my family — everything would be tainted.”
Abhi stood up slowly, chains clinking. “You should have. Maybe if you had, she’d be alive.”
The words hung like poison in the air.
Tears welled up in Aadya’s eyes. “You both failed her. One with fear, the other with guilt. And now we’re all standing in the ruins.”
A voice from the doorway interrupted them. It was Inspector Rawat, his face unreadable. “We’ve heard enough.”
Officers moved forward, seizing Abhi. He didn’t resist.
As they led him away, Aadya stepped into the center of the room. She looked around — at the photographs, the maps, the twisted memories stuck on the walls. And finally, at Aryan.
“You said you were protecting me,” she said, voice breaking. “But protecting me didn’t mean hiding the truth.”
Aryan lowered his gaze. “I thought I could carry it. I was wrong.”
The farmhouse door creaked shut behind the officers. Aadya felt a sudden lightness, like the truth had finally begun to lift the weight from her chest. But it also left behind a hollow ache — the cost of silence, the price of guilt, and the irreversible damage done.
She turned to Nikhil. “It’s not over, is it?”
“No,” he said quietly. “But it’s closer.”
Outside, the wind howled through the trees.
And somewhere, in the darkness, justice had finally taken its first full breath.

That night, Aadya returned home. The colony was quiet, eerily so. Rhea’s flat was still sealed, a reminder of the pain that had passed through those walls.
She stood at her window, looking at the spot where she used to see Rhea wave from her balcony.
Tears welled up.
Kriti came up behind her. “You did it.”
“No. We did it.”
Kriti wrapped her arms around her friend.
From her desk drawer, Aadya pulled out Rhea’s diary—the one she had saved from the storeroom. She turned to the last page.
“Sometimes the people closest to you are the ones you should fear. And sometimes, the stranger next door becomes your only hope.”
She closed the book.
And for the first time in weeks, she felt like she could breathe again.Chapter 28
The Confrontation

The sun was setting behind the colony’s crumbling apartment walls, streaking the sky in a palette of blood orange and ash gray. Aadya stood in the doorway of her home, her heart a thundering drum echoing in her chest. Aryan sat inside, shoulders hunched over, staring blankly at the coffee table as though trying to make peace with the ghosts that now crowded the room.
Nikhil leaned against the wall behind her, silent, observing. He had been quiet ever since they left the farmhouse where the last pieces of the puzzle had clicked into place. Abhi’s confessions, Aryan’s involvement, and the revelation of the fragile thread between love, protection, and guilt—it had all been too much.
“Are you ready?” Aadya asked, her voice calm but laced with steel.
Aryan didn’t answer immediately. His fingers trembled as he lifted the chipped coffee mug and took a sip, as if the bitter drink could numb the pain he had buried for months.
“You already know everything now,” he said finally, his voice hoarse. “Why are you here?”
“Because you still haven’t said it out loud,” she replied. “And I need to hear it. From you. Not from recordings or Abhi’s twisted version of it. I need the truth. Not as your sister. But as the person who tried to bring Rhea justice.”
Aryan met her eyes. His face, once full of strength and calm, was now marked with lines of regret. “Alright,” he said. “Sit down. You deserve that much.”

He began slowly, the words crawling out of him as though each was a stone pressing down on his lungs.
“I met Rhea through Abhi,” Aryan began. “I wasn’t even supposed to know her that well. But she… she had this way of making people open up. We talked. A lot. About mental health, about trauma, about fear. She came to me once… crying. Said someone was following her. Sending her threats. She didn’t say it outright, but I knew it was Abhi.”
Nikhil shifted in his seat, frowning.
“She never reported it. I begged her to, but she said she didn’t want to ruin his life. She kept saying he was just… confused. That he’d stop.”
Aryan’s voice cracked. “She was always protecting people. Even the ones who hurt her.”
“And you?” Aadya asked. “What did you do?”
Aryan looked away. “I warned Abhi. Told him to back off. Threatened him. I even thought about reporting him myself. But then he came to me… broken, crying, saying he loved her. That he couldn’t live without her. I was stupid. I believed he’d listen. That he’d walk away. I thought I could manage him.”
Aadya’s jaw tightened. “And when Rhea disappeared?”
“I knew,” Aryan whispered. “The night she went missing… I saw him leaving the colony. His shirt was torn. His hands were shaking. I asked him what he did. He said it was an accident. That they fought. That she pushed him away and he panicked.”
“You covered for him,” Aadya said, her voice rising.
“I panicked!” Aryan’s voice thundered suddenly, eyes wild. “I thought—God—I thought if I stayed quiet, I could control this. That if I didn’t let it blow up, she’d come back. Or that he’d confess. Or… or something. But every day that passed, it just got worse. And you… you started digging.”
“And instead of helping, you tried to stop me.”
“I was trying to protect you!” he snapped. “If you knew what I knew—if you found out the way I did—it would’ve destroyed you. You don’t understand how guilt works, Aadya. You carry it with every breath.”
Aadya stood, her chair scraping back. “No. You don’t get to say that. You don’t get to pretend you were protecting me when all you did was betray both of us. Rhea was my friend. She trusted me. And you stood by the man who hurt her.”
The silence that followed was deafening. Nikhil stayed silent, watching them both.
“She was more than a friend to you, wasn’t she?” Aryan asked, quieter now.
Aadya didn’t answer. Her silence was all he needed.

Night had fallen. The soft buzzing of street lamps seeped into the room. Aadya turned to leave. Then paused.
“I’m not doing this for revenge,” she said, her voice now a quiet storm. “I’m doing this because she mattered. Because what happened to her matters. You can carry your guilt all you want. But I will not carry your silence.”
Aryan sat frozen as she left the room.

Later that night, Aadya, Nikhil, and Kriti sat in Aadya’s room. The evidence was ready—the recordings, the diary pages, the audio clip where Abhi’s voice was clearly heard. But Aadya had one more task.
They logged into Rhea’s old account, reactivated the profile, and posted a message.
“Sometimes, silence is the loudest scream. And sometimes, justice comes quietly, in the dark. For you, Rhea.”
A few minutes later, a new message pinged back.
A reply.
From an anonymous account.
Just two words:
“You again?”
Aadya’s eyes narrowed. It wasn’t Abhi. He was in custody.
Then who?
She turned to Nikhil.
“This isn’t over.”
The shadows had shifted again. And another player had just stepped into the light.Chapter 29
The Aftermath

The arrest had been sudden, but the shockwave it sent through the colony was far more enduring.
By morning, whispers had replaced silence. Doors that had once been friendly remained closed, curtains fluttered like the anxious murmurs behind them, and the colony was suddenly colder—emotionally distant, stripped of its illusion of safety.
Aadya stood on her balcony, gripping the railing. The rusted iron dug faintly into her palms, but she didn’t loosen her grip. Her eyes were fixed on the path that led to the main gate—the same route where she and Rhea used to walk, laughing about silly things, never imagining a shadow had been trailing them.
“Abhi has confessed to everything,” the inspector had told her a few hours earlier. “He claims Aryan didn’t participate in the crime, but… your brother knew more than he let on.”
She hadn’t spoken since.
Now, with the sun casting long shadows, she turned as the door behind her creaked.
Aryan.
His eyes were tired, heavier than she’d ever seen. His jaw hadn’t been shaved in days, and dark circles framed his bloodshot eyes. He stepped into the balcony like a prisoner stepping into light—uncertain whether he belonged there anymore.
“I didn’t know what to say to you,” he said, voice rough, fragile.
Aadya didn’t respond. Her gaze returned to the gate.
“I didn’t kill Rhea,” he continued, “but I knew Abhi was unstable. I thought he was just being possessive, just angry over rejection. I told him to back off, Aadya. I even threatened to cut ties with him.”
“Then why didn’t you tell anyone?” she asked, finally looking at him.
He exhaled sharply. “Because I didn’t want our family name dragged into this. I was scared… scared they’d blame me too. Scared that if it came out I knew something and said nothing… I’d be ruined. We’d be ruined.”
Aadya blinked slowly, the ache in her chest expanding.
“And Rhea?” she asked softly. “She was your friend too.”
He broke.
Tears welled up in Aryan’s eyes and fell before he could stop them. He slumped against the wall of the balcony, sliding down until he sat curled up like a child who had lost everything.
“I see her in my dreams,” he whispered. “Every night. I see her crying, scared. I hear her voice—asking for help. I failed her, Aadya. I failed you.”
Aadya kneeled in front of him, her hands resting on her knees, the fury slowly dissolving. What replaced it wasn’t forgiveness. Not yet. But a deeper understanding of how broken fear could make someone.
“You didn’t kill her,” she said, voice steady. “But you let her die in silence.”
Aryan nodded slowly, eyes red. “I deserve your hatred.”
“I don’t hate you,” she replied. “But I don’t trust you either.”
He sobbed into his palms, shaking.
Later that evening, Aadya sat in the colony’s small park, where the children no longer played. Her thoughts drifted as she watched the rustling trees sway gently in the breeze. Nikhil arrived, holding two cups of coffee.
“Thought you’d need this,” he said, handing her a cup.
She took it wordlessly.
They sat in silence for a while.
“Rhea deserved better,” Aadya murmured.
“She did,” Nikhil agreed. “But so did you.”
Aadya shook her head. “I don’t feel strong. I feel… hollow.”
“But you are strong,” he said firmly. “You kept going when no one believed you. When everyone—including your brother—tried to stop you. You got her the justice she couldn’t fight for herself.”
She turned to him, tears stinging her eyes. “And it still doesn’t feel like enough.”
He looked at her for a long time, then said, “It never does.”
The police sealed Abhi’s belongings, collecting his phone, the farmhouse evidence, and the photos he had obsessively taken of Rhea. His motives were clear—twisted love, rejection, obsession. But the emotional debris he left behind was far more complex.
That night, as the colony members gathered in the community hall, grief hung heavy in the air—made even more unbearable by the silent presence of Rhea’s parents, who had flown in from abroad, their faces etched with a sorrow no words could touch.
The inspector addressed them briefly: “The law has taken its course. But remember—what thrives in silence can one day destroy.”
Aadya stood at the back, watching. Her hands clutched the diary pages Rhea had written. There were still a few unread, which she would go through tomorrow. For now, she simply needed to sit with the grief.
Back home, Aryan sat quietly in the living room, a cup of untouched tea before him. His mother had returned from her temple trip early, having heard fragments of the news. Shocked, confused, but choosing—at least for now—to believe Aryan had done no wrong.
Aadya didn’t correct them.
She simply told them she was tired.
At night, Aadya opened her drawer, pulling out the polaroid photo she and Rhea had taken at a college fair. Rhea had written on the back: “Real friends pull you out of darkness.”
Aadya smiled faintly. It was painful. But real.
She placed it beside her bed and turned off the light.
Outside, the streetlights flickered to life.
Somewhere beyond the gate, justice had stirred. But healing? That was a longer road.
And tomorrow, she’d take the first step.Chapter 30
The Final Page

The house was quieter now.
The echoes of the past few weeks—urgent footsteps, whispered phone calls, confrontations laced with dread—had faded into a silence that Aadya found unnerving. She sat alone in the living room, the soft afternoon light casting golden slants across the floor. A stack of books sat beside her on the table, untouched. Her fingers brushed against the frayed leather of Rhea’s diary.
She hadn’t dared to finish it until now.
The last page waited.
Her heart pounded like it was the first time she was uncovering a secret. Gently, Aadya opened the diary, turning past the scribbled margins, smudged ink, and words that had already changed her forever.
If you’re reading this, it means you believed me.
Thank you.
A single tear rolled down Aadya’s cheek. It wasn’t just gratitude in those words—it was Rhea’s hope clinging to the last person she thought would care. And Aadya had. Even when it meant going against her own brother. Even when it meant peeling back the smiling masks people wore. Even when it meant standing on the edge of fear.
The week following Abhi’s arrest was a blur. The media had caught hold of the story: Colony Girl’s Disappearance Solved After 6 Weeks, Close Friends Implicated. Neighbors watched Aadya with new eyes—some proud, some wary, all changed.
Aryan had shut himself in.
He’d submitted his resignation from the mental health center and refused to talk to reporters or friends. Aadya checked on him every day, but the distance between them was no longer just physical. It was the heavy fog of broken trust. He never hurt Rhea, she reminded herself. But he did know. He let the silence fester, rot, until it swallowed a life.
Nikhil had been by her side, quietly helping clean out Rhea’s room and gather remaining evidence for the police. They didn’t speak much while working. They didn’t need to. Everything that could be said had been said in the silent courage that got them through the storm.
One afternoon, Aadya visited the police station to submit the final belongings—a box of Rhea’s things she had found tucked in the storeroom.
Police Inspector, no longer skeptical, gave her a nod of acknowledgment.
“You did what even trained officers couldn’t,” he said, voice gruff.
“I just refused to forget her,” Aadya replied.
He looked at her, then scribbled something on a paper. “If you ever think of joining the force, call me.”
Aadya smiled faintly. It wasn’t her plan, but it was the first time someone recognized her not as a meddling girl, but as someone who fought back.
Later that evening, she returned to her balcony, holding Rhea’s diary in her hands. The breeze rustled the pages, as if urging her to read aloud.
She did.
Softly, line by line, she read Rhea’s entries—not just for herself, but as a eulogy to a girl who never got to tell her story. As she read, neighbors stepped out quietly, listening. Some wept. Some held hands. The colony, for the first time in weeks, felt like one shared heart, beating in sorrow and relief.
After the last line, Aadya closed the book.
She looked up at the stars beginning to glow.

Weeks passed.
Aryan finally came out one morning and sat beside her with two cups of tea. He looked older, worn, but his eyes held something she hadn’t seen in a while—honesty.
“I should’ve told you the truth,” he said. “About Abhi. About what he was becoming.”
Aadya didn’t reply right away. She took a sip of tea and looked at the same sky they’d once watched in silence.
“You were scared,” she said. “But I was scared too. And I didn’t let that stop me.”
“I know,” he murmured. “You were braver than all of us.”
He handed her something—a locket. Rhea’s. “You should keep it,” he said.
She nodded.

One month later, Aadya stood at the gate of a nearby school. A memorial event for Rhea had been planned. A small photo exhibit was displayed—pictures taken by Rhea, of sunsets, people, stray dogs she named, corners of the colony with captions like “A world within a wall.”
People came. Children left paper notes in a box titled Messages for Rhea. And Aadya, dressed in white, spoke about how silence can kill, and how believing someone can save a life.
As she finished, applause broke out, soft but powerful.
In that moment, she didn’t feel like just a college student. She felt like a voice that wouldn’t be silenced.

That night, Aadya returned home. Her phone buzzed with a message from Nikhil:
Proud of you. Ready for the next mystery? 😉
She laughed.
Maybe not yet. But one day.
She placed Rhea’s diary back on the shelf. Not hidden, but displayed, like a story that deserved to be told.
And as she turned off the light, Aadya whispered,
“You mattered, Rhea. You still do.”
The colony slept.
But its shadows had finally lifted.Epilogue
Aadya hadn’t slept. The weight of everything—Abhi’s confession, Aryan’s breakdown, the shadows that still clung to every memory of Rhea—pressed against her chest.
But more than anything, it was that final message that haunted her.
“You again?”
A reply from Rhea’s reactivated social account.
It wasn’t Abhi. He was in custody. Aryan was broken, recovering under the supervision of mental health professionals. Meenal had distanced herself from it all, and Kriti had already left town to stay with her relatives.
Which left one person. One person who had been there through every search, every clue, every question.
Nikhil.

She walked into her room and powered on the laptop. The system blinked to life. Rhea’s old account was still logged in. The last message remained on the screen.
“You again?”
She clicked into the settings. IP history. Something Nikhil had taught her to do months ago.
One login from the police station. Legitimate—Abhi’s.
But the last one…was pinged from a network not far from Aadya’s own home.
A minute passed. Then two.
She clicked on the location.
It showed a familiar café—barely three lanes away. A café where she and Nikhil had often met.
Her hands trembled slightly.
She scrolled down further, and a strange file appeared in the message archive. A deleted draft message.
“She never replied. Even after all the songs, the edits, the pages I made for her. She just vanished. But I saw it in her eyes—she knew. She remembered me.”
It was signed with a username: SignalEcho94.
Her breath caught.
She had seen that username before. A year ago. On a photo Rhea had posted. A comment: “You’re beautiful. Some people just don’t deserve your smile.”
She never paid attention to it.

That evening, she invited Nikhil over.
He arrived, cheerful as ever. “You alright? You didn’t reply to my texts.”
Aadya forced a smile. “Just needed some air. Come in.”
They sat on the balcony. Coffee between them. Silence hovering
“You remember that night? When someone broke into Rhea’s house?” she asked, watching his expression.
He sipped coffee. “Yeah. You fainted that night, right? Scary stuff.”
“I always wondered how they got in. The colony gate was locked. Rhea’s flat was double-locked. The cameras weren’t working, but someone knew that.”
He looked at her, a flicker of confusion crossing his face, as if she suddenly seemed like a stranger to him.
“Strange, isn’t it?” she began. “How someone could hide behind kindness. How someone could wear a mask for so long.”
Nikhil blinked. “What do you mean?”
“I was just thinking about Rhea,” she said. “She always mentioned feeling watched. Not just by Abhi. But someone else. Quiet. Digital. Someone who knew her better than she wanted.”
Nikhil laughed nervously. “Well, it’s the internet. Creeps are everywhere.”
She looked at him now, really looked.
“You were always so good with tech. Remember how fast you cracked her chats? How you found backups no one else could access?”
He shifted slightly.
“I was helping you. We were trying to find her.”
“And the profile login? From the café? The same one where we always met? You didn’t mention you went back there yesterday.”
Nikhil’s eyes froze.

Author’s Note
Shadows of Her Signal began as a single question: What do we really know about the people closest to us?
In a world increasingly connected by devices, it’s easy to overlook the silent observers, the quiet manipulators, and the emotional signals we miss until it’s too late. This story is not just a suspense thriller—it’s a reflection of how grief, love, obsession, and silence intersect in dangerous, unpredictable ways.
Aadya’s journey is personal. It’s about loyalty and doubt, strength and vulnerability. Through her, I wanted to explore what it means to chase the truth even when every signal points away from it. The idea that even those who help us might have their own shadows has always haunted me—and I hope it haunts you, too, in the best way.
To every reader who stayed with Aadya until the final page: thank you. Your time, curiosity, and emotion gave this story life.
And finally, this book is a reminder that not every scream is loud, and not every villain wears a mask. Sometimes, the scariest truths are hidden in plain sight.
With gratitude,
Karunakar DarangulaAbout the Author
Karunakar Darangula is a passionate storyteller with a deep love for suspense, emotion, and psychological depth. With a talent for weaving human emotions into thrilling narratives, Karunakar brings readers into gripping worlds where nothing is as it seems.

A keen observer of behavior and relationships, Karunakar’s writing explores the subtle intricacies of trust, betrayal, and the shadows people carry within. Shadows of Her Signal is a testament to his ability to combine emotional depth with gripping plotlines that keep readers hooked until the final page.

When he’s not writing, Karunakar enjoys exploring human psychology, watching films that challenge the mind, and connecting with readers who love intense and thought-provoking fiction.