"To search for the lost is to become lost yourself.
Bhairavpur teaches this lesson slowly,
then all at once."
Morning came gray and reluctant.
Like the sun itself didn't want to illuminate this place.
Like light was a burden it no longer wished to carry.
Marcus woke before the others.
His body still operating on the rhythms of the outside world.
Where mornings meant something.
Where they marked progress rather than marking time until dissolution.
He sat by the window, studying the village.
His eyes tracking the streets, the buildings, the way the paths seemed to curve back on themselves if you looked too long.
Abhay found him there.
Silent approach.
Like he'd been watching from the darkness.
"You slept," Abhay said.
It wasn't a question.
"Yes," Marcus replied.
His voice hoarse from the previous night's talking.
"Better than I have in days."
"The village is quiet when you're not afraid," Abhay said.
The words carried multiple meanings.
Or perhaps no meaning at all.
Perhaps they were just sounds that filled the space between them.
Marcus turned to look at him.
"You're not going to find them, are you?"
The question came out direct.
Like Marcus had finally stopped pretending.
Like some part of him had already accepted the truth.
Abhay didn't answer immediately.
He watched the village beyond the window.
Watched the shadows that moved independent of light sources.
Watched the streets that seemed to rearrange when no one was looking.
"No," he said finally.
"But we have to try."
"Because if we don't try, we stop being who we were."
"And if we stop being who we were, we become what this place wants us to be."
Marcus nodded slowly.
As if this made a terrible kind of sense.
As if he'd intuited this already.
By mid-morning, they divided into search parties.
Abhay insisted on it.
Structure.
Purpose.
The illusion of control.
Abhay and Diya would search the eastern quarter where Marcus said they'd first noticed the path curving wrong.
Rohit and Priya would check the northern lane where the temple stood broken.
Meghna and Saanvi would search the market square.
Marcus would rest.
Recover.
Prepare himself for disappointment.
When Diya and Abhay stepped into the eastern quarter alone, the village seemed to shift around them.
The buildings leaning closer.
The shadows lengthening despite the sun being directly overhead.
"Do you feel it?" Diya asked.
Her voice soft.
Not frightened.
But aware.
"Feel what?" Abhay replied.
Though he clearly did.
"The way it watches us differently when we're together."
Abhay glanced at her.
His expression unreadable.
"Yes."
"I feel that too."
They walked deeper into the quarter.
Past buildings that were slowly collapsing into themselves.
Past doors that hung open like mouths mid-scream.
"When did you know?" Diya asked suddenly.
"Know what?"
"That none of this is real."
The question hung between them.
Dangerous.
Heavy.
Like acknowledging it aloud might make it true in a way it hadn't been before.
"I didn't know," Abhay said carefully.
"I suspected."
"The moment Yashpal said we never left, I suspected."
"But suspecting isn't knowing."
"And knowing isn't accepting."
Diya stopped walking.
She turned to face him directly.
"What if I told you I've always known?"
"Since before we crashed?"
"Since before we came to Bhairavpur?"
Abhay's jaw tightened.
"I would ask how that's possible."
"Unless you're not what you appear to be."
Diya smiled.
Sad and knowing.
"Or unless you're not what you appear to be."
"Maybe we're both just parts of someone else's nightmare."
"Maybe we're both just echoes."
Abhay reached out.
His hand finding hers.
The touch was real.
Warm.
Human.
But it felt like an act of faith rather than an act of fact.
Like he was choosing to believe in her warmth despite knowing it might be illusion.
"If that's true," he said quietly.
"Then this is the only real thing."
"This moment."
"Your hand in mine."
"Whatever this is."
They continued walking.
But the conversation had shifted something.
Had moved from hiding to acknowledgment.
From denial to something closer to truth.
Rohit and Priya found the first sign.
A piece of fabric.
Red.
Torn.
Caught on a branch of one of the twisted trees.
"That's Marcus's jacket," Priya said.
"He was wearing red."
Rohit grabbed the fabric.
It was still damp.
Still warm.
As if someone had only recently torn it free.
"This doesn't make sense," Rohit muttered.
"He was wearing it this morning."
"He was wearing it when—"
He stopped.
Because he couldn't remember.
Could Marcus have been wearing the jacket?
Or was he misremembering?
Was he confusing this moment with a different version of events?
The fabric in his hand felt like proof.
But proof of what?
Deeper down the lane, they found more pieces.
More fabric.
More signs of struggle.
The path became harder to follow.
The forest pressed closer.
The trees bent inward.
And then they found it.
A shoe.
Marcus's shoe.
Standing upright on the path.
Not fallen.
Not discarded.
Standing.
As if someone had carefully placed it there.
As if it was a marker.
"No," Priya whispered.
"No, this can't—"
The trees began to move.
Just slightly.
Just perceptibly.
The branches reaching.
The trunks bending toward them.
The forest itself seemed to lean in closer.
Rohit grabbed Priya's hand.
"We're leaving."
They ran.
Back toward the haveli.
Back toward the others.
Back toward safety that didn't exist but felt necessary to believe in.
Meghna and Saanvi found nothing.
Absolutely nothing.
The square was empty.
It had been empty for decades perhaps.
Or perhaps it had never existed at all.
They searched through the collapsed stalls.
Through the rotting goods.
Through the places where Marcus's group should have left traces.
But there was nothing.
No footprints.
No signs of passage.
No proof that anyone had ever been here.
"It's like he was never real," Saanvi said.
Her voice hollow.
"Like we imagined him."
Meghna touched the counter of an old stall.
The wood crumbled under her fingers.
Turned to dust.
"Or like he was real and the village erased him."
"I don't know which is worse."
They turned to leave.
And that's when they saw it.
On the ground.
Written in dust.
Written in something that might have been dust.
Words.
In English.
In a handwriting that was shaky but legible:
"Help me."
Below it, another line:
"It's taking my shape."
Below that:
"It's learning to be me."
Meghna and Saanvi exchanged looks.
Without speaking, they both understood.
Marcus wasn't lost.
He was being unmade.
And something was learning to wear his skin.
By evening, all three groups had returned to the haveli.
Each carrying their horrors.
Each refusing to speak them aloud at first.
Abhay listened to their stories.
His expression unchanging.
Like he'd already known what they would find.
Like he'd been writing these discoveries into existence.
"Where is Marcus?" Saanvi asked suddenly.
The question that no one had wanted to ask.
They looked around the haveli.
The space where Marcus had been sitting.
Where he'd been resting and recovering.
Was empty.
"He was here this morning," Priya said.
"He was sleeping when we left."
"He was—"
But they all knew.
They all understood.
Marcus had never made it to evening.
Or perhaps he had never made it past morning.
Or perhaps he had always been waiting.
Waiting in the dark of the forest.
Waiting to be found.
Waiting to teach them a lesson.
Diya stood by the window.
Watching the village.
Her expression composed.
Her locket held loosely in her hand.
"He's still out there," she said quietly.
"Or what's left of him is."
"It's learning."
"It's practicing."
"It's getting better at being human."
Abhay looked at her.
Their eyes meeting in the fading light.
In that moment, Priya finally saw it clearly.
The way he looked at her.
The way she looked at him.
The way they seemed to exist in a separate conversation.
In a separate reality.
She stepped closer to Meghna.
"Did you see—" she whispered.
"Yes," Meghna replied.
"I saw."
And the unspoken understanding passed between all of them:
Something was forming between Abhay and Diya.
Something that ran deeper than the village.
Something that might be the only real thing left.
Or something that was the most dangerous lie of all.
Outside, in the darkness, something that wore Marcus's shape practiced smiling.
Practiced speaking.
Practiced becoming.
And in the haveli, the group sat in silence.
Watching each other.
Wondering who among them would be next.
Wondering if Marcus had been the first to be taken.
Or if he was just the first to be noticed.
"The village collects the lost
and teaches them what they were.
Then it wears their knowledge
like a skin that almost fits."