Part 1: The Dead Number
Rehan Mehta’s phone buzzed once.
Then again.
Then it stopped.
Half-asleep, he groaned and turned over in bed, pulling the blanket over his head. The digital clock on his desk blinked 2:13 AM in a harsh red glow. Whoever it was could wait.
But then he saw the notification: 1 new voicemail from Unknown Number.
He sat up.
Unknown numbers weren’t unusual in his line of work — Rehan was an investigative journalist for The Daily Ledger. But voicemails at 2 AM? That was new.
He plugged in his headphones and hit play.
Static.
Then a breath.
Then a whisper:
“They buried the truth. Dig at the roots, not the leaves.”
There was a long pause.
Then a single name: “Anya Roy.”
Rehan’s spine stiffened. That name hadn’t been spoken in a long time. Not since—
He scrambled out of bed and flipped open his old case files. Most people had moved on from the Anya Roy story — the glamorous art collector found murdered in her penthouse, case closed due to lack of evidence. Rehan never believed the police report. But after months of stonewalls and dead ends, he let it go.
Until now.
The timestamp on the voicemail read 2:13 AM, but the phone number? He clicked on it. It simply said “Number not in service.”
He replayed it, slowed it down, enhanced the static. But there was nothing more. No accent, no background noise, no clue who the voice belonged to. Just the cryptic metaphor and the name of a woman the city had tried to forget.
By 2:30 AM, Rehan had cleared his desk and laid out everything: crime scene photos, her last interview transcript, the floor plan of the penthouse.
Her body had been found near her balcony, slumped over a red velvet chaise. Cause of death: single stab wound to the neck. No sign of forced entry. Her phone had been missing — never recovered.
Rehan stared at the picture of her eyes. They were still open, still asking questions.
He flipped through his notes. In the original report, Anya had hosted a private art showing the night she died. Only six people had been present. One of them was now a judge. Another ran a massive construction firm. One had left the country.
And one… was dead.
He scribbled on a pad:
“Dig at the roots, not the leaves.”
Could that mean to stop chasing the media frenzy and look at the foundation? Her childhood? Her family?
Or maybe… her phone?
Suddenly, a memory came rushing back. Anya’s personal assistant, Mihir — quiet, soft-spoken, and fiercely loyal — had gone off the grid right after the funeral. Never responded to Rehan’s calls.
He tried the number now, not expecting much.
But it rang.
Once.
Twice.
Then a click.
“Hello?”
Rehan hesitated. “Mihir? It’s Rehan Mehta.”
Silence.
“I need to talk. It’s about Anya. Something’s come up.”
More silence. Then a whisper. “Not over the phone. They listen. Tomorrow. St. Augustine Cemetery. Noon. Come alone.”
The line went dead.
Rehan stared at the receiver. This felt too much like a film noir. But this was real. And someone, somewhere, wanted the truth out.
As he got up to pour himself a coffee, he glanced at the voicemail one last time.
But it was gone.
No trace of it in the folder.
No “deleted voicemails” option.
He checked his call logs. The number had disappeared.
His blood ran cold.
He wasn’t chasing a cold case anymore.
He was being led into it.
Part 2: The Man at the Cemetery
The city was thick with noon heat, the kind that made concrete sweat and people irritable. Rehan waited under the crumbling stone arch of St. Augustine Cemetery, his collar damp, his mind spinning.
Rows of graves stretched ahead, their stones like cracked teeth. Beyond them, under the shade of a banyan tree, stood a lone figure in a grey hoodie, motionless.
Mihir.
Rehan approached slowly. Mihir didn’t turn. “You weren’t followed?”
Rehan shook his head. “I came alone.”
“You shouldn’t have come at all,” Mihir murmured. “You poked something that doesn’t want to be remembered.”
Rehan studied him — thinner than he remembered, his eyes hollow, like he hadn’t slept in years. “Why disappear? After she died?”
Mihir smiled sadly. “Because Anya didn’t just die. She was removed.”
Rehan stiffened. “Removed? That’s not a word people use unless they’re hiding something.”
“She knew too much. About them. About the ‘Circle.’ She was going to go public.”
Rehan blinked. “What Circle?”
Mihir finally turned to face him. “A buyers’ group. For stolen art, laundered through foundations and private auctions. Big names. Anya got involved accidentally. At first she thought she was dealing with rich eccentric collectors. But when she tried to leave—”
“They killed her.”
Mihir nodded.
Rehan exhaled. “Why didn’t you go to the police?”
“They’re part of it,” Mihir said simply. “Two officers who signed off on the death report were at her last gallery event. You think that was coincidence?”
Rehan felt something dark settle in his chest. “And the voicemail last night?”
Mihir’s eyes narrowed. “What voicemail?”
“You called me. At 2:13 AM. You said—‘They buried the truth. Dig at the roots, not the leaves.’ Then said her name.”
“I don’t even have your number anymore,” Mihir said. “And I was here. Sleeping. I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
Rehan’s skin prickled. “But someone used her missing phone. It felt… real.”
Mihir stepped back. “Her phone was encrypted. Always. She kept a dead-man switch app on it. If she died, it was supposed to trigger something. Maybe that call was… I don’t know… part of it.”
“You think she sent it from the grave?”
“Or someone who found her phone did. Someone trying to finish what she started.”
They were silent.
Then Mihir said, “Do you still have that gallery guest list?”
Rehan nodded.
“Go to the sixth name. You’ll find your next ghost.”
Rehan pulled out his notebook. The sixth name: Nina Saxena. Director of Saxena Trust. He remembered her — elegant, quiet, spoke very little that night. But something had always felt off.
“She hasn’t spoken publicly in years,” Rehan murmured.
“She won’t,” Mihir said. “Not unless something forces her to. But she has Anya’s final sketchbook. The one that went missing after the funeral.”
Rehan looked up sharply. “Why didn’t you say this before?”
“Because I wasn’t ready to die.”
And with that, Mihir turned and walked into the trees, vanishing among the gravestones like a shadow sliding back where it belonged.
Rehan stood in front of the Saxena Trust building by 3 PM — five floors of spotless glass in the heart of Connaught Place. He wasn’t sure if this was bold or suicidal. But he wasn’t here to knock politely.
He entered the front lobby. A receptionist with perfect lipstick looked up.
“Mr. Rehan Mehta to see Ms. Nina Saxena,” he said calmly, as if they were old friends. “Tell her it’s about Anya Roy.”
The woman blinked.
Ten minutes later, he was in a plush conference room smelling of lavender and old paper. The walls were filled with minimalist art.
Nina Saxena entered in silence.
She wore navy. Her posture was precise. She sat across from him like she’d already calculated all possible outcomes.
“I haven’t heard that name in years,” she said, voice clipped. “Why now?”
Rehan didn’t flinch. “Because she whispered from the dead. And I think you’re holding something that was hers.”
Nina’s expression didn’t change, but something in her eyes flickered. “You should be careful, Mr. Mehta. The people who hurt Anya don’t enjoy nostalgia.”
“She kept a sketchbook. It vanished the night of her funeral. I think you have it.”
Nina sipped her tea. “And if I did?”
“Then I’d ask you to give it to me. Or explain what Anya knew that made her a threat.”
For the first time, Nina smiled. “You’re brave.”
“Just stupid enough,” Rehan said.
She stood. Walked to a cabinet. Unlocked it with a key she wore around her neck.
She pulled out a leather-bound book.
Dropped it on the table.
It had AR embossed in gold on the corner.
Rehan opened it.
Not sketches.
Blueprints. Names. Arrows. Flowcharts connecting foreign banks, art foundations, auctions, anonymous trusts. Hidden signatories. Cryptic initials.
A map of a crime too big to fit in a police report.
Nina said quietly, “She wanted to go to the press. I warned her. She said truth was worth dying for.”
Rehan looked up. “Do you think she knew she’d be killed?”
“She hoped the dead could speak louder.”
Rehan closed the book.
“They can,” he said.
Part 3: Static Shadows
Rehan didn’t remember getting home.
He remembered holding the sketchbook in his hand as if it were a live wire. He remembered Nina Saxena’s eyes—calm, tired, maybe even relieved—as if handing it off was not just an act of trust but release.
The city outside had moved on. The murder of Anya Roy was a newsprint smudge. A society party gone wrong. But inside his small apartment, under dim yellow lights and the hum of the ceiling fan, truth unfolded like a time bomb.
The pages of Anya’s book were terrifying in their detail. She had tracked money like a bloodhound—acquisitions of stolen artwork passed off as philanthropic “donations” to global museums. Foundation to foundation. Lie to lie. There were pages with pseudonyms, one marked “CRK,” linked with a coded transaction that repeated every June.
CRK. June. A number.
He stared at the scribbled digits beside it: +91-9004-218-896
He picked up his phone and dialed.
No ring. Just a single crackling sound and then a voice — breathless, mechanical.
“Password?”
Rehan froze.
Then he said, “Redial.”
There was silence. Then the call cut off.
He tried calling again. Busy.
His heart pounded like an old engine. He stared at the number. It wasn’t listed anywhere in his contacts. When he Googled it, nothing came up. No Truecaller result. No trace. Just blank.
He wrote the number down manually and returned to the sketchbook. A section near the end caught his eye. It was drawn in charcoal — a single page filled with concentric circles, each one labeled with cryptic references.
The Gallery
The Judge
The Collector
The Broker
The Hollow Man
He underlined the last.
Who the hell was the Hollow Man?
At the very center of the circle, Anya had written in red:
“The Hollow Man decides who disappears.”
Goosebumps rose on Rehan’s arms.
He flipped back. Near the beginning, Anya had written a quote: “You don’t fight corruption with honesty. You fight it with proof.”
And that proof, Rehan realized, was now sitting in his room, threatening to burn holes through his safety.
He didn’t sleep.
At dawn, a knock.
Sharp. Measured. Three times.
He moved to the peephole. A man in courier uniform.
Package.
He opened the door cautiously.
“Mr. Rehan Mehta?” the man asked.
“Yes?”
“Delivery.”
Rehan took the padded envelope. No return address.
The man turned and left without waiting.
He opened the parcel slowly. Inside: a USB drive and a note, handwritten.
“You have 72 hours. Upload the contents or the sketchbook is useless. –A”
His fingers trembled.
He inserted the drive into his laptop. A folder popped open: /Roy_Archive/Root-Sequence/
Videos.
Six in total.
He clicked the first.
It was security footage. Grainy, timestamped. Anya in her studio, speaking to someone off-camera.
“—I don’t care if he’s a judge. If CRK funds half the city, then let them burn together. I’m done watching from the gallery.”
Click.
Second video.
Anya arguing with someone. A man’s voice. Raspy, distorted. “If you leak this, you die.”
Anya’s reply: “Then at least I’ll have made them listen.”
Click.
Third video. Black screen.
Audio only.
A voice: “The Hollow Man’s orders were clear. No blood at the gallery. You failed.”
Another voice: “She was too quick. She had a knife.”
“She was supposed to sign the papers. Not fight.”
Click.
Rehan sat back, stunned.
Anya had recorded her blackmailers. They weren’t just talking — they were confessing. And this drive? It was a grenade.
He pulled up a secure channel to upload the data to The Daily Ledger’s investigation servers.
Halfway through the transfer—his screen went black.
A red error message blinked:
“SYSTEM INTERCEPTED. NETWORK BREACH.”
And then, a new voicemail alert.
His phone buzzed once.
He opened the voicemail.
No voice. Just static.
Then, faint breathing.
Then: “You were warned, Rehan.”
He stood up too fast and knocked over his chair.
Someone was watching.
And they had just redialed.
Part 4: The Hollow Man’s Game
Rehan stared at his blank laptop screen, heart racing like he’d been dropped in the middle of a war zone with no map, no armor. The upload had failed. The network had been intercepted. And now someone had sent him a message from the dark — just static and a whisper.
You were warned.
He unplugged everything. Phone, router, laptop battery. His windows were still closed, his door locked. But it didn’t matter. They had found him. Digital shadows don’t need keys.
He stood for a long time, listening.
Nothing.
Then, footsteps in the corridor.
He opened the peephole.
Empty.
But a folded piece of paper had been slipped under the door. Plain white. One word, handwritten in black marker:
“ROOT.”
He unfolded it.
Inside was an address.
“Root Café. 7 PM. Come alone. Bring the book.”
Root Café sat in the underbelly of South Delhi’s forgotten corner—an artsy place turned cynical, where failed poets sipped overpriced coffee and dreamt of revolution.
Rehan entered at 6:59 PM, the sketchbook wrapped in plastic inside his messenger bag.
A waitress gestured toward the back booth. No questions.
A man was already seated there, face hidden beneath a brown woolen cap, fingers playing absently with a sugar packet. The kind of man who would disappear in a crowd and leave no scent behind.
“You brought it,” the man said without looking up.
Rehan sat. “Who are you?”
“Someone who still believes she matters.”
“You mean Anya?”
“She was more dangerous than anyone knew. Because she didn’t want to expose one man. She wanted to collapse the entire pyramid.”
Rehan set the bag on the table. “Then help me. Her data’s been intercepted. My system’s compromised. Her phone is still active—somehow. And someone calling themselves ‘The Hollow Man’ is orchestrating all of this.”
The man smiled faintly. “The Hollow Man is real. But he’s not a man.”
Rehan blinked. “What?”
“He’s a codename. A rotating role. The title moves. A cloak for whoever is currently in charge of cleanup.”
“Cleanup?”
“Cover-ups. Murders. Threats. Digital erasure. Anyone who tries to go public with the truth ends up like Anya.”
Rehan leaned in. “Then who’s wearing the cloak now?”
The man’s eyes flicked upward for the first time. “CRK.”
Rehan whispered, “Who is CRK?”
The man exhaled. “Chandrakant R. Kulkarni. Builder. Philanthropist. Faces on magazine covers. He funds orphanages and buys stolen art for twenty times their value.”
Rehan’s mind reeled. CRK had been in the background for years—powerful, respected, impossible to touch. A shadow too large for one article to shrink.
“He’s the reason this all stayed buried,” the man said. “He made Anya an offer. She refused. That night, he sent someone in.”
Rehan clenched his fists. “But how do I prove it? The system won’t let me upload. They’re intercepting everything.”
“You’ll have to go old school. Print it. Leak it physically. Distribute copies. Trigger chaos faster than they can suppress it.”
“And the videos?”
“Re-recorded. Analog. Trust no cloud.”
The man stood, dropping a burner phone onto the table.
“You’ll get one call. Use it wisely.”
Then he vanished through the back door.
By midnight, Rehan was back in his apartment, the sketchbook spread across his floor, each page scanned into an offline system. The USB drive remained untouched. His internet stayed off. He made ten printed copies of every file. He stashed them across the city—in café bathroom ceilings, under benches, in library drop boxes. Each envelope marked: “If I disappear, this is why.”
At 1:43 AM, the burner phone rang.
He let it ring twice.
Then answered.
A voice — low, male, distorted.
“You’ve made things messy, Mr. Mehta.”
Rehan didn’t speak.
“You had potential. But like her, you chose noise over silence.”
Rehan finally said, “You’re Hollow Man?”
A soft laugh. “One of them.”
“Then come out of the dark. Face the story.”
“I already am the story.”
Click.
Silence.
The line went dead.
And so did the burner phone.
Its screen cracked as if someone had crushed it from the inside.
Rehan held it for a moment. Then looked around his room. Every object now felt suspect. Every lightbulb, every socket, every shadow.
He whispered to the empty room, “Anya, if you can still speak—say something again.”
The air answered with a sound.
From his old phone—still unplugged, still supposedly off—came static.
And then the voicemail began playing on its own.
The same words as before:
“They buried the truth. Dig at the roots, not the leaves.”
Then new ones.
“He wears a different face now.”
Part 5: A Different Face
Rehan barely slept that night. The message echoed through him like a chant:
“He wears a different face now.”
The Hollow Man wasn’t just a role.
He was a mask passed between monsters.
Rehan sat at the window as dawn cracked the sky open. Delhi stirred beneath him: traffic murmurs, early chai stalls, the distant barking of dogs. The city was waking to routine. But Rehan was circling something ancient and sinister.
At 8:07 AM, he walked into a quiet cyber café in Old Delhi — the kind that still smelled of CRT monitors and dust, where anonymity could still be bought with cash.
He brought a fresh USB and nothing else.
His goal: isolate one video. Recode it. Strip it down to a simple .avi. A single bullet to shoot through the digital walls.
He selected Video #3 — the one with the voices.
“The Hollow Man’s orders were clear…”
The confession.
As he finished the conversion, the screen glitched. Just for a second. The mouse moved on its own.
He yanked the power cord.
Too late.
The file was gone.
He cursed.
Then the system rebooted on its own.
A black screen. Then white text:
“Wrong root. Try again.”
This wasn’t just surveillance. It was dialogue.
They were playing with him.
But Rehan wasn’t done.
He rushed to a local xerox center, photocopied thirty sets of Anya’s sketchbook pages and stashed them in a courier backpack. He needed help. Distribution. Urgency.
And there was one person who owed him.
By 10:30 AM, he stood outside The Daily Ledger’s office, waiting for only one person: Nivedita Rao, his former editor and a woman who once told him, “Truth is war. You better be ready to bleed.”
She exited the elevator in a red saree, looking exhausted but sharp-eyed.
“Rehan?” she said, startled. “You look like hell.”
“Hell has voicemail now,” he muttered, handing her the sketchbook.
Nivedita flipped through the pages. Her jaw tightened. “This is Anya’s?”
“Yes. And this—” he held up the final page, “—is the part that scares them.”
She stared at the central line:
“The Hollow Man decides who disappears.”
Nivedita whispered, “Chandrakant Kulkarni?”
“It’s him. For now. And he knows I know.”
She sighed. “You understand publishing this could burn us both.”
“Or cleanse the rot.”
She gave him a long look. “I’ll run it as an underground special. No bylines. Just facts. But Rehan…”
He waited.
“If something happens to you, I won’t bury it. I’ll print that too.”
Rehan smiled for the first time in two days. “That’s why I came to you.”
By 4 PM, thirty envelopes were sent across the city — to law students, freelance bloggers, retired cops, and ex-editors who still had fire in their bellies. Each marked with a codeword: “Rootwave.”
The signal to leak if Rehan vanished.
He returned home cautiously.
And found the door ajar.
Inside, the lights were on.
The sketchbook was gone.
But not stolen.
In its place, on his table, was something else.
An envelope.
Inside: a photograph.
Anya. Standing next to a man in shadows. Only half his face visible.
Rehan stared.
He knew that jawline.
It wasn’t CRK.
It was Commissioner Virk — head of city police. The man who had signed off on the clean death report five years ago. The man who had stood in front of cameras and declared, “No foul play.”
He flipped the photo.
On the back:
“Different face. Same Hollow.”
His phone buzzed.
Unknown number.
He picked up.
No voice.
Just breathing.
Then:
“You made this personal. You’ll regret it.”
Rehan didn’t flinch.
“I already do,” he said. “For not starting earlier.”
Click.
He knew now that the face behind the curtain changed, but the machine stayed the same.
The Hollow Man wasn’t a person.
It was a pattern.
And to break it, he had to drag all the faces into the light.
Even if it cost him his own.
Part 6: Blood in the Light
The photograph of Commissioner Virk wouldn’t have mattered much if Rehan hadn’t noticed what was behind him.
A painting.
Not just any painting—a stolen work of Amrita Sher-Gil, one reported missing in a London theft four years ago. Quietly, diplomatically, forgotten.
Anya had once whispered in an interview, “The art world hides sins better than religion.”
Now Rehan saw what she meant.
Virk wasn’t just a passive player. He was part of the laundering mechanism. A man with the law in his hands and black-market paintings on his walls.
By 6:10 PM, Rehan had scanned the photograph, cropped the background, and sent the image to three art crime contacts abroad. One confirmed the painting’s history: Lot 47, stolen from Linton Gallery, appraised at $8.2 million.
Rehan wasn’t chasing conspiracy anymore.
He was standing inside it.
He texted Nivedita:
“Virk is in. Stolen art in his home. Confirmed.”
Her reply:
“No names in print yet. Let the evidence speak. Drafting Rootwave Manifesto.”
The phrase made him pause.
Rootwave Manifesto.
It sounded like revolution.
At 7 PM, he heard footsteps on the fire escape. Quiet, controlled, practiced.
He grabbed the pepper spray and knife by his bedside and crouched behind the door.
A silhouette passed the window. Then a knock—three taps, short pause, then two more.
Not random.
He opened the door cautiously.
A woman in a black scarf and faded kurta stood there, hair tied up, face familiar.
“Maya Sood,” she said before he could ask.
He blinked. “Anya’s lawyer.”
She nodded. “I helped hide the originals. You’ve started triggering failsafes I thought were long dead.”
He gestured her in. “Then you know about the sketchbook?”
“I helped create it,” she said, placing a tiny hard drive on his table. “Encrypted audio. Conversations Anya recorded at the Saxena gallery. Virk’s voice. And CRK’s.”
Rehan stared at it.
“Why bring this now?”
“Because the system already knows you’re coming,” Maya said. “You might as well arrive armed.”
She pulled out a folder.
Inside: a list of names. Seventeen. Politicians, curators, bureaucrats, editors, bankers. All connected by offshore transfers and artwork linked to “lost collections.”
Rehan flipped through.
Each name carried weight. Power. Silence.
Maya said, “Anya wanted all of them exposed. But not by force. She believed in light. She said if they’re dragged into the open, they lose control of the shadows.”
Rehan looked up. “Then let’s burn every corner.”
That night, he didn’t sleep.
He edited the Rootwave Manifesto — an article disguised as an open letter, laced with links, documents, images, audio clips. A breadcrumb trail for the city to follow.
At 3:04 AM, he put the hard drive in a locker at an abandoned railway station and texted the location to three independent journalists using code names only they would recognize.
The next day would be everything or nothing.
At 6:11 AM, Rootwave went live.
Not on The Daily Ledger. Not on any major outlet.
It spread across forums. Telegram groups. Substack channels. Art history mailing lists. Twitter threads from anonymous handles. One post read:
“The Hollow Man wears seventeen faces. Today, we name them all.”
By 8:30 AM, #Rootwave was trending.
By 10:00 AM, Commissioner Virk resigned “due to personal health reasons.”
By 10:05 AM, CRK’s foundation website crashed.
By noon, Rehan received a final voicemail.
No number. No metadata. Just a whisper:
“You think light saves you. But fire burns everything.”
Then—
A loud crash.
His window shattered.
A rock rolled across the floor, wrapped in a page from his own manifesto. The words “EXPOSURE COSTS” scrawled across it in red marker.
Rehan stood still.
He didn’t flinch.
He walked to his typewriter—yes, the old metal one—and began typing.
Because they were right.
Fire burns everything.
But it also clears the land.
And maybe, just maybe—
The Hollow Man had finally been seen.
Part 7: The Ashes We Print On
By 2 PM, Rehan was off-grid.
His phone smashed. Laptop dismantled. His apartment left behind like a crime scene waiting for another story. The Hollow Man had escalated — no more static, no more riddles. The rock through the window was an invitation to war.
He took refuge in a basement office of an old Urdu newspaper in Daryaganj, where the editor owed him two favors and a bottle of Old Monk. Here, he rewired.
The city outside raged.
Protests began near Khan Market—art students, whistleblowers, masked protestors holding up black and white placards with one word:
ROOTWAVE.
At 4:15 PM, a known face emerged on TV.
Nina Saxena.
Live. Calm. Poised.
“I can no longer remain silent,” she said. “Anya Roy was my friend. I saw the danger. I turned away. No more.”
She held up the sketchbook, now copied and printed, and quoted its final line aloud:
“If I die, don’t mourn me—publish me.”
The feed cut mid-sentence.
But the message had gone out.
The fire had crossed the firewall.
Rehan had never believed much in legacy. But now, watching kids on scooters deliver hand-stapled copies of the manifesto to university gates, he began to wonder what kind of city Delhi could become—if not clean, then at least awake.
He heard a creak behind him.
Maya Sood stepped in, breathless.
“They found Virk’s vault. A private basement beneath his farmhouse. Original paintings. Fake death certificates. Pay stubs.”
Rehan exhaled. “They’ll spin it.”
“Not this time,” she said. “A police constable livestreamed the discovery. It’s already viral. The public saw it before the system could edit it.”
He smiled grimly. “Then it’s time to drag CRK into the light.”
Maya nodded. “He’s at the State Art Gala tonight. As guest of honor.”
“Fitting,” Rehan said. “One last exhibit.”
That evening, Rehan entered the gala dressed in borrowed formals, credentials forged by a friend in the press. The Taj Heritage Hall buzzed with camera flashes, polite laughter, and the faint scent of perfume and expensive betrayal.
Chandrakant R. Kulkarni stood near the stage, flanked by photographers.
He looked untouchable.
Rehan waited until the lights dimmed for the keynote.
Then he moved.
He stepped onto the side of the stage just as the host introduced CRK.
But instead of applause, there was static.
The speakers crackled—loud, sharp, deliberate.
Then the voice played.
Anya’s voice.
“The Hollow Man wears faces. But his voice is always the same—money, denial, power.”
Gasps. Camera phones raised. Confusion rippled.
Then another voice—Virk’s—responding on tape:
“She was supposed to sign the papers. Not fight.”
The lights snapped on.
CRK turned.
And met Rehan’s eyes.
The crowd stared. No one clapped.
No one spoke.
Only silence.
Rehan said into the mic, “The exhibit is open, ladies and gentlemen. Truth, on display.”
Security rushed in.
CRK tried to speak—but Rehan raised a hand.
And dropped copies of Anya’s sketchbook to the floor.
One page floated down like a feather.
One image burned into every eye in the room—
A sketch of CRK, faceless, surrounded by fire.
The Hollow Man had been drawn.
And this time, there was no erasing the lines.
Part 8: Faces Without Firewalls
The media called it “The Sketchbook Trial.”
But it wasn’t a trial.
Not really.
Because no judge would touch it.
No lawyer wanted to defend CRK after the audio clips became public. The footage from the farmhouse vault—the stolen paintings, the forged accounts—was now global. Interpol had opened inquiries. Art foundations were disavowing him faster than statements could be written.
But CRK was still walking free.
Because power doesn’t shatter in one blow.
It chips.
And Rehan was still chipping.
Back in the basement of the Urdu press, Rehan and Maya worked in silence. On the table: a map of Delhi with red pins. Each pin marked a name. Each name was tied to a foundation, gallery, or bank account that had—at some point—paid money to Kulkarni’s web.
They called it The Network of Ashes.
Not because it had burned.
But because it would.
Maya spoke first. “The Hollow Man is retreating.”
Rehan looked up.
“He’s pulling funding. Cancelling appearances. Scrubbing interviews. He knows he’s been seen.”
Rehan smirked. “What happens when a ghost tries to become invisible again?”
Maya replied, “We become louder.”
That night, Rehan sat down to write.
Not for headlines.
For history.
He started a manuscript: The Hollow Archive: How Anya Roy Died for a City That Forgot Her.
Each chapter was a name. A moment. A file. A betrayal.
Chapter One was just her photo.
Nothing else.
At 2:13 AM—again—his phone rang.
Only this time, it was his number on the caller ID.
He picked up.
Static.
Then a voice.
His own.
“We are all the Hollow Man. Until we speak.”
Click.
Dead line.
In the morning, Nina Saxena emailed him a court notice.
She was being sued for defamation by the Kulkarni Foundation.
Rehan called her.
She picked up laughing. “Let them try. Their lawyers have already requested settlements. That’s not a legal move. That’s a drowning hand.”
By noon, two more names on the red pin map resigned from their posts.
By evening, a crowd gathered outside India Gate, silent, holding sketchbook pages in the air.
The protest had no slogans.
Just drawings.
Just names.
Just truth.
Rehan stood beside them.
Not leading.
Just watching.
He whispered under his breath, “You made it, Anya. You’re louder now than ever before.”
A child nearby, no older than twelve, held up a print of the concentric circle page—the one that read:
“The Hollow Man decides who disappears.”
She had drawn a red line through it.
And written below:
“No more disappearances.”
Rehan smiled.
The Hollow Man had been seen.
Now it was time to unmask the rest.
Part 9: A City Without Echoes
Three weeks passed.
CRK vanished from public life. His lawyers negotiated silence. His foundation shut down. His name was deleted from sponsor lists, hospital plaques, art galas.
But Rehan knew better.
Disappearance was never disappearance.
It was just a relocation of power.
The Hollow Man would wear another face. Another suit. Another smile.
So Rehan kept writing.
The Hollow Archive manuscript grew with every anonymous leak, every forwarded email, every tip slid under a café door. He worked from rooftops, library basements, borrowed homes. His eyes darkened, his voice sharpened. The city didn’t feel safer—but it felt awake.
That was something.
One night, Rehan received an envelope at his hotel doorstep.
No sender.
Just a memory card inside, and a note:
“Final proof. Then, finish it.”
He loaded the file onto an air-gapped laptop.
It was a home video.
Grainy.
Anya Roy—standing before a painting. Laughing. Speaking to someone behind the camera.
Then her voice shifted, solemn:
“If you’re watching this, I’m probably gone. But remember—truth is never what they erase. It’s what survives erasure.”
She stepped closer to the lens.
“The Hollow Man isn’t one man. It’s the part of power that feeds on forgetting. So remember. Loudly.”
Click.
End of video.
Rehan sat in silence.
He pressed a hand to the screen.
“Loudly,” he whispered.
The Rootwave Manifesto had now been translated into six languages. Printed in zines. Read at spoken word events. Taught unofficially in college workshops. It was no longer a story.
It was a resistance.
But power was regrowing.
The judge who once ruled in favor of Kulkarni’s construction deal was being nominated for a national commission. A junior gallery curator—named in the sketchbook—was quietly opening a new space in Gurgaon. A man Rehan knew only as “Initial B” was buying digital ad space again.
He realized the Hollow Man wasn’t just wearing a new face.
He was making new mirrors.
So Rehan made a choice.
On the last day of the month, he walked into a press conference at India Habitat Centre. His name was not on the schedule. But he stepped on stage anyway.
The crowd murmured.
He raised a single page in his hand: the final confession.
The one where Kulkarni’s voice said—
“If she goes public, we’ll bury her in velvet and call it art.”
Gasps.
Phones raised.
He leaned into the mic.
“I was silent. Until she taught me to speak. Now, you can’t silence any of us.”
Behind him, a giant screen lit up.
Sketches. Names. Accounts.
Then Anya’s face.
Smiling.
Alive in memory. Alive in meaning.
The last voice played across the speakers—
Anya, recorded months before her death:
“You want to know who the Hollow Man is? It’s the silence between two truths. Fill that silence. Burn the rest.”
That night, Rehan walked home through Lodhi Road, past murals and poetry scrawled on walls. The city had changed. Not clean. Not safe.
But honest.
And honesty, like fire, never forgets where it first lit.
Part 10: When the Static Fades
It began to rain.
Not heavily. Just the kind of soft drizzle that made Delhi smell like wet dust and old secrets.
Rehan stood outside Anya Roy’s former apartment building—now a luxury Airbnb for foreigners who had no idea that once, in that corner penthouse, a woman had whispered the city awake.
He didn’t come for closure.
He came to return the last thing he owed.
From his coat, he pulled a metal box. Inside: a copy of The Hollow Archive manuscript, a flash drive, and Anya’s original sketchbook, sealed in plastic. He slid the box into the building’s postal drop, no note, no explanation.
Let history find it. Let memory decide.
As he turned to leave, his phone vibrated.
A new number.
He paused.
Picked up.
The voice on the other end wasn’t distorted.
It was clear.
Male. Calm. Tired.
“You win this time, Rehan.”
He didn’t speak.
“But there will always be another face. Another version of me. You can’t kill the Hollow Man.”
Rehan whispered, “That’s because the Hollow Man was never a man.”
Silence.
Then the voice said:
“Good luck surviving what comes next.”
Click.
The line went dead.
But Rehan didn’t feel fear.
He felt finished.
He walked away, slowly, as the city swam in grey light and mist. Somewhere behind him, a truth lay waiting inside a postal box. Somewhere ahead, a new lie was being written by new hands.
But Rehan had given people a blueprint.
A method.
A manifesto.
And even the Hollow Man can’t erase something millions have already read.
As he crossed the road, a teenage boy on a scooter passed him, backpack open, copies of the Rootwave Manifesto peeking out. They nodded at each other without a word.
In that second, Rehan knew—
The story was no longer his.
It belonged to the city.
And Anya?
She was no longer a victim.
She was the first voice in a city that had finally started listening.
No more static.
Only signal.
Only fire.
Only memory.
END
