"At 3 a.m., time stops belonging to men.
It slips into the jaws of things older,
things patient,
things hungry."
The haveli was silent.
Not peaceful silent.
Wrong silent.
Every creak of the rotting wood seemed to echo too loudly.
Stretching into places it should not reach.
Bending sound in directions that defied physics.
The group sat in a circle around the dying embers of a lantern.
Their eyes shadowed.
Their breathing uneven.
Their hearts beating at different tempos, as if they were no longer synchronized.
It had been three hours since Kabir left.
Three hours since his voice had last spat venom into the room.
Three hours since his footsteps vanished into the black beyond the broken door.
Three hours of waiting.
Three hours of listening for something that didn't come back.
At first, they welcomed the silence.
Fewer arguments.
Fewer knives hidden inside words.
Fewer accusations and counter-accusations.
But as the minutes bled into hours, the absence became heavier.
Kabir's voice, for all its cruelty, had anchored them.
Had given them something to push against.
Something to resist.
Now, without it, the haveli felt like a coffin waiting to be nailed shut.
Like a tomb.
Like a place that was slowly digesting them.
Diya broke the silence first.
Her voice was barely audible.
"He should have come back by now."
Her voice was a whisper, but it cracked like glass.
Like it was breaking under its own weight.
Abhay, arms folded tightly across his chest, didn't look up from the floor where he'd been staring for hours.
"Then maybe he's gone for good."
His tone was flat.
Dead.
"Let him rot."
Meghna flinched.
As if the words had struck her physically.
"Don't say that."
"It's true," Abhay replied.
His eyes still fixed on the shadows at his feet.
"He wanted to leave."
"He wanted escape."
"Let him choke on his pride."
But even as he said it, his eyes flickered toward the door.
Toward the darkness beyond.
Toward the place where Kabir had disappeared.
The others shifted uneasily.
Movement without purpose.
Restlessness without direction.
Priya hugged her knees tighter.
Her camera still in her lap.
Still ready.
Still documenting a story that was no longer a story but an obituary being written in real time.
Saanvi pressed her palms together.
Lips moving silently.
As if praying.
As if there was still someone listening to prayers in a place like this.
Rohit glanced between them all.
His jaw clenched.
His eyes darting like a cornered animal.
Like he was calculating escape routes.
Looking for exits that didn't exist.
Finally, Yashpal spoke.
His deep voice cutting through the room like a blade.
"I'll go."
Every head snapped toward him.
His large frame seemed even larger in the dying light.
His broad shoulders tense with decision.
With responsibility.
"No," Meghna whispered immediately.
The word came out sharp.
Desperate.
"You don't know what's out there—"
"That's exactly why I need to go," Yashpal interrupted.
His expression was grim.
His broad shoulders rigid.
"It's been three hours."
"If Kabir's alive, he's lost."
"If he's dead, we need to know."
"We need to know what we're dealing with."
"No one goes alone," Rohit muttered.
His voice tight with fear.
Yashpal's gaze hardened.
Became resolute.
"If we all leave, the haveli's defenseless."
"Whatever's out there could come in here."
"I'll go."
"Alone."
A silence heavier than stone followed.
Heavier than earth.
Heavier than the weight of everything they'd experienced.
Finally, Abhay nodded once.
A single, definitive gesture.
His voice low.
"Fine."
"But if you're not back in thirty minutes…"
"We bar the door."
"We seal it shut."
"We don't open it for anyone."
Yashpal grunted.
An acknowledgment.
An acceptance.
"Fair."
He grabbed a half-broken lantern.
Lit it with trembling hands.
The flame stuttering.
Refusing.
Fighting to stay alive in the oppressive darkness.
And stepped toward the doorway.
The group watched him vanish into the dark.
The forest swallowed him whole.
Like it had swallowed Kabir.
Like it was hungry for more.
The air outside was thick.
Too thick.
As if it carried weight.
As if it had substance and intention.
Yashpal's boots crunched against brittle leaves.
Each sound cracked like a whip in the silence.
Each step a violation of the forest's quiet.
He held the lantern high.
Its trembling glow barely cutting the fog.
Barely making a dent in the darkness.
Shadows moved where they shouldn't.
Shifted.
Rearranged.
Followed.
"Kabir?" His voice was low but firm.
Controlled.
Scientific even.
No reply.
Only the sound of branches creaking.
Of something large and patient moving through the trees.
He moved deeper.
The trees bent unnaturally.
Like ribs of some massive beast.
Caging him in.
Containing him.
The forest smelled foul.
Mud mixed with decay.
Like an animal corpse left to rot for weeks.
Like death was composting itself in the soil beneath his feet.
The deeper he walked, the stranger it became.
More wrong.
More impossible.
Everywhere he looked, he saw Kabir.
Not his body.
His outline.
His silhouette behind trees.
His shadow on the ground.
A flicker of his face in the lantern glow.
But when Yashpal spun around, there was nothing.
Only darkness.
Only the patient, watching dark.
He gritted his teeth.
"Stop playing games, Kabir."
The forest answered.
"Yashpal…"
He froze.
The whisper was faint but unmistakable.
Kabir's voice.
Broken.
Begging.
It came from the left.
He turned sharply.
Raising the lantern.
The trees stood still.
Their bark was slick.
Wet.
Like flesh instead of wood.
Like skin that was breathing.
He stepped closer.
The whisper came again.
This time from the right.
"Help me, Yashpal… please."
His heart hammered.
The voice was broken.
Ragged.
Desperate.
The voice of someone who was suffering.
Who was dying.
Who was already dead and didn't know it yet.
He followed.
The fog thickened.
Swallowing the path.
Soon he couldn't even see his own footprints.
The lantern flickered.
Sputtering like it was choking on the air.
Like the air itself was poisonous.
He moved faster.
Branches clawed his arms.
Drawing blood.
Roots caught his feet.
Trying to drag him down.
The forest felt alive.
Conspiring.
Determined to trip him.
To drag him down.
To keep him.
Then, he saw it.
Kabir.
Or what looked like him.
Kneeling on the ground.
Shoulders shaking.
Head bowed.
His clothes were torn.
Soaked in something dark.
Something that wasn't quite blood.
His hair hung wild.
Face hidden.
"Kabir!" Yashpal rushed forward.
Relief breaking through his fear.
Relief at finding him.
Relief at not being alone in this nightmare.
But as the figure lifted its head, Yashpal stopped cold.
Everything in his body screamed to stop.
It was Kabir's face.
But wrong.
The skin sagged.
Pale and slimy.
Like wax melting off bone.
Like a mask beginning to slip.
His eyes were hollow sockets.
Yet they stared straight into Yashpal's.
Aware.
Conscious.
Hungry.
His lips stretched into a grin far too wide.
A grin that no human face could accommodate.
Teeth black and broken.
Rotting.
The voice that came out was Kabir's.
Yet not.
"You came… for me."
Yashpal staggered back.
His mind refusing to process what he was seeing.
"What—what happened to you?"
Kabir—or whatever wore his shape—laughed.
A wet, choking laugh.
That gurgled in his throat.
That came from somewhere deep inside.
From somewhere that wasn't lungs.
He rose slowly to his feet.
Joints cracking.
Body jerking like a puppet on tangled strings.
Like something else was learning how to wear this body.
Learning how to move it.
Learning how to make it walk.
Yashpal's lantern flickered violently.
Then, all around him, more figures stepped out of the fog.
Eight of them.
Every one of his friends.
Abhay.
Saanvi.
Rohit.
Meghna.
Priya.
Diya.
Even himself.
A duplicate.
A copy.
A thing wearing his face.
All hollow-eyed.
All slack-faced.
All grinning too wide.
They whispered in perfect unison:
"Stay with us, Yashpal."
"Stay forever."
His breath caught.
The lantern slipped in his shaking hand.
The fog closed in.
Pressing against his skin.
Forcing its way into his lungs.
Suffocating him with its weight.
The whispers grew louder.
Now layered with Kabir's laughter.
Echoing from every direction.
From inside the trees.
From inside the earth.
From inside his own head.
Yashpal stumbled backward.
His boot caught on a root.
He fell hard.
The lantern shattering beside him.
Darkness surged.
Absolute.
Complete.
And in that final instant, he felt hands.
Too many hands.
Cold.
Wet.
Dragging him into the soil.
Pulling him down into the hollow earth.
Down into a place where names go to die.
His scream never left the forest.
It was swallowed.
Digested.
Became part of the silence.
The group sat in silence.
The lantern guttered.
The air thickened.
Became heavy with waiting.
With knowing.
Saanvi whispered.
Almost too softly to hear:
"Why is it so quiet?"
No one answered.
Because they all already knew.
Because the quiet meant one thing.
One terrible, crushing thing.
Yashpal wasn't coming back.
And neither was Kabir.
And the circle was getting smaller.
"The forest does not echo footsteps.
It keeps them.
One by one.
Until the circle is broken
and no one remembers the way back."