Vivek Kumar
Chapter 1: Shadows Over Mountabu
The morning fog curled through the narrow streets of Mountabu like a living thing, thick and heavy, hiding the tall pine trees and crooked rooftops of the sleepy hill town. The sun hadn’t quite broken through the clouds, and the chill in the air carried the scent of damp earth, moss, and something… strange.
A scream shattered the silence.
People rushed toward the trail behind Hazelwood Inn, a quiet resort at the edge of the forest. Locals had often warned tourists not to venture too far in the mornings—mist played tricks on the eyes, and wild animals were common. But what lay sprawled on the forest path wasn’t the work of an animal.
It was a young woman. Dead. Her body was unnaturally twisted, eyes wide open in shock. A bloodied silk scarf was tied around her neck, crimson against her pale skin. Her handbag, shoes, and phone lay a few feet away—untouched, like offerings to the forest floor.
Inspector Nandita Ghosh arrived within thirty minutes, her breath misting in the air as she ducked under the police tape. She had been serving in Mountabu for three years now, but this… this was different.
“Name?” she asked.
“Rhea Mukherjee,” replied Constable Barman, flipping through the girl’s wallet. “Twenty-four. Travel blogger. Checked into Hazelwood two days ago.”
Nandita crouched beside the body. The murder was too clean, too calculated. No signs of struggle, no defensive wounds. A single blow to the back of the head, followed by strangulation.
Her eyes scanned the forest. No drag marks. She was likely killed here.
Then, just as she was about to leave, she noticed something: a red thread tied loosely to a nearby tree. It fluttered slightly in the wind.
Odd.
By evening, the entire town was buzzing. Mountabu, with its postcard-perfect views and quiet charm, had never been a place for headlines. But now—murder.
The mayor assured tourists it was an isolated incident. Nandita, however, wasn’t convinced.
Her doubts were confirmed six days later.
Chapter 2: Echoes Return
The rain came slow and steady, like a memory Mountabur couldn’t forget. The streets were half-deserted, shops shutting early, and even the pine trees looked uneasy, their dark silhouettes swaying against the grey sky. Inside the police station, Inspector Nandita Ghosh stared at the case file of the second victim—Maya Sen, 26, freelance graphic designer from Delhi. Found near the old botanical trail. Same scarf, same method, same red thread.
She closed the file and leaned back in her chair, hands steepled, lips tight.
This was not random. This was a pattern.
Maya had no known connection to Rhea Mukherjee. Different professions. Different cities. Both solo travelers. No mutual friends. And yet… both were young, independent women. Both stayed at boutique hotels. Both found murdered early in the morning.
“Sirf coincidence? I don’t believe in those anymore,” she muttered.
Nandita stood up and walked to the evidence board. Two faces stared back at her—Rhea and Maya. Underneath, the red thread was pinned beside a printed map of Mountabur’s forest trails. She had marked the murder sites with red dots. A third dot pulsed in her head—a place where the killer might strike next.
The killer was methodical. He had a signature, and that was a problem. Signature meant he’d done this before. And would likely do it again.
She didn’t want to believe it, but the signs were clear.
A serial killer.
That night, Nandita sat alone in her office. The station was nearly empty, the only sounds were the clicking of an old ceiling fan and the occasional crackle of the police radio.
She pulled open the bottom drawer of her desk and took out an old phone number. Faded, handwritten. A name scrawled in the margin:
Rudra Sengupta.
Once a rising star in Kolkata’s crime branch. Now—missing from the scene for over six years. Rumors said he left after a botched operation. Others said he simply disappeared after his wife’s death. But Nandita knew better. Rudra had vanished from the world, but his mind—razor-sharp, deeply instinctive—had always seen what others couldn’t.
She dialed the number.
A long silence. Then a voice, deep and dry: “Hello?”
“Rudra… it’s Nandita.”
A pause. Heavy. Weighted with years.
“I know this isn’t a call for catching up,” he said.
“No. It’s Mountabur.”
More silence. Then, slowly: “What happened?”
“Two women. Both killed. Same method. Same signature.”
“And?”
“And I need your help.”
Rudra arrived two days later.
The town hadn’t changed much since he left, but something in the air was darker now. The mist clung tighter to the roads, and the trees seemed more twisted, older.
He wore a faded grey coat, stubble on his face, a single duffel slung over his shoulder. His eyes, however, were sharp—hawk-like. Observing everything. The slope of the hills. The people who stared too long. The car that followed half a block too close before turning off.
Nandita met him at the station.
“You look older,” she said.
“You sound disappointed,” he replied, cracking a dry smile.
She handed him the files.
He flipped through them silently, brows slightly furrowed.
“This isn’t the first time,” Rudra murmured.
“I thought so too,” she said. “But I couldn’t find earlier cases. Nothing that matches.”
Rudra closed the file. “Then we’re not looking in the right places.”
He walked to the evidence board, scanned the photos, and pointed at the red thread.
“This is cultural. Symbolic. In many traditions, red thread is used for protection… or for marking a curse.”
“So the killer is religious?”
“Not necessarily. But ritualistic, definitely.”
“And careful,” Nandita added. “He leaves nothing behind. Not a single fingerprint.”
“He wants us to know it’s him,” Rudra said, eyes gleaming. “He wants us to recognize his work.”
A chill ran down Nandita’s spine.
That evening, Rudra visited both crime scenes. He moved like a shadow, quietly taking in every detail.
At the first site, he knelt beside a patch of crushed grass.
“Here,” he said. “Someone stood for a long time. Waiting.”
At the second site, he looked up at a broken tree branch, just above head height.
“He’s tall. Maybe six feet. Strong. He uses the scarf not just to kill—but to control. Silence them first. Then strangle.”
“And the timing?”
“Both between 4:30 and 5:00 AM. He knows the patrol routine. Knows the trails are empty.”
Nandita watched him work. The way he pieced together the invisible.
“Did you ever think of coming back?” she asked.
“No,” Rudra said simply.
“Why did you leave?”
Rudra didn’t answer.
That night, a third murder took place.
A woman named Pallavi Roy, 28, schoolteacher from Guwahati. Found near the edge of Lover’s Cliff—an old lookout point once popular with couples. Her body was draped with a white shawl. Her eyes were closed this time. Peaceful. Almost posed.
And around her wrist—another red thread.
But this time, there was something else.
A note.
Four words, printed on coarse paper:
“You’re looking too late.”
Chapter 3: Return to the Past
The paper note found beside Pallavi Roy’s body sat on the evidence table under a sterile white light. Rudra stared at it, his fingers hovering just above the edge, careful not to touch. The letters were block-printed. No smudges. No ink bleeding. Clean. Intentional.
“You’re looking too late.”
“This is personal,” he muttered.
Nandita nodded, standing across from him. “You think he knows we’re onto him?”
“No. I think he wants us to be.” Rudra looked up. “Killers like this… they build their story, just like a writer builds a plot. Every murder is a chapter. Every clue, a breadcrumb.”
“And what’s the ending?”
Rudra’s jaw tightened. “That depends on whether we catch up before he finishes his story.”
Later that day, Rudra sat alone in the dusty records room of Mountabur’s municipal library. Yellowing files, old police reports, newspaper clippings. He’d asked for crime archives from fifteen to twenty years ago.
He found what he was looking for under a forgotten folder labeled: “Accidental Deaths – 2008.”
One case stood out.
Victim: Amrita Dey
Age: 19
Incident: Found dead on the edge of the botanical garden trail. Cause of death: fall from height.
Status: Ruled suicide.
Note: No suicide note found. Red thread tied around victim’s left wrist.
Rudra sat back in his chair, cold shivering up his spine.
A red thread. Fifteen years ago.
He flipped through more pages. Local paper headlines surfaced.
“Teenage Girl Found Dead on Cliff.”
“Mysterious Death in Mountabur Still Unsolved.”
But then—silence. No follow-up, no deeper investigation.
Almost like someone wanted it forgotten.
Nandita was stunned when Rudra laid the file on her desk.
“Fifteen years ago?” she repeated.
“Yes. And the same trail.” He pointed. “Botanical trail. Amrita Dey. Red thread. No clear motive. No suspects. Then buried.”
“But if that was the first, why wait so long?”
“I don’t think he waited,” Rudra said. “I think we missed others. Or they weren’t reported. Maybe they were made to look like suicides, disappearances, or accidents. This guy’s only now starting to display his work.”
“Why now?”
Rudra’s voice lowered. “Something changed. Either he’s getting bold—or something from the past woke him up.”
That evening, they drove to the old house at the base of Pine Hill—the address listed as Amrita Dey’s childhood home. It was abandoned, paint peeling, the garden overgrown with weeds. The neighbors were reluctant to speak.
But one old man, Mr. Tapan Roy, finally said, “Her father was a teacher. Decent man. After Amrita died, he left the town. Some said she was in love. Some said it was a boy who betrayed her.”
“Any name?” Rudra asked.
The old man frowned. “Siddhartha. Siddhartha Dutta, I think. He used to work at the local bookstore back then. Strange boy. Kept to himself.”
Rudra found the bookstore still open—Pages & Pines. Run-down, the shelves dusty, and the light flickering. An older man sat at the counter, polishing a pair of cracked spectacles.
“Siddhartha Dutta?” Rudra asked.
The man looked up sharply, then forced a smile. “I’m afraid you’ve got the wrong place.”
“We know who you are,” Nandita said. “We’re not here to arrest you. We’re here about Amrita Dey.”
The smile vanished.
“She was… a good person,” he said, voice shaking. “We were close. She… she wanted to leave Mountabur. Start over. I should have gone with her.”
“Did she kill herself?” Rudra asked directly.
A beat of silence.
“No,” Siddhartha said finally. “She was scared. She said someone was following her.”
“Did she tell you who?”
He shook his head. “No. Just… ‘He watches me.’ That’s what she used to say.”Outside, the rain began to fall again, soaking the streets of Mountabur in silver mist.
Rudra stood under a canopy, eyes narrowed.
“The killer didn’t start now,” he said. “He’s been here all along. Practicing. Perfecting. Watching.”
Nandita exhaled slowly. “You think Amrita was his first?”
“Yes. And maybe… maybe she wasn’t the only one back then.”
“Then what do we do?”
Rudra’s face was unreadable. “We go deeper into the past.”
That night, Rudra returned to his lodge. The desk in his room was covered in case files, photographs, hand-drawn maps.
He stared at the wall, now covered with connected threads and faces. A timeline was beginning to form.
2008 – Amrita Dey
Unknown gap years
Present – Rhea Mukherjee, Maya Sen, Pallavi Roy
The killer was evolving. Changing his signature slightly with each murder. First the eyes open. Then closed. A shawl. A note. And every time—the red thread. Not just a mark, but perhaps a message.
He leaned forward, and wrote two words at the center of the board:
“The Watcher.”
At midnight, Rudra received a message on his phone.
Unknown number. No name. Just a single photo.
A woman. Alive. Bound to a chair. Eyes wide with fear. Behind her, a shadowy figure.
The caption below read:
“Chapter Four begins tomorrow.”
Chapter 4: The Watcher Speaks
The photo haunted Rudra through the night.
The woman’s terrified face. The flicker of a shadow behind her. The cold caption: “Chapter Four begins tomorrow.”
He stared at the image again, zooming in. Her background was dim, but Rudra noticed something faint behind her—a carved wooden window lattice, distinctively local. He ran a quick visual check against known architectural styles in Mountabur. The design matched pre-independence cottages, many of which dotted the upper valley slope near the old missionary school.
He didn’t sleep.
By sunrise, he and Nandita were in the jeep, winding through narrow forest paths that hadn’t seen fresh tarmac in decades.
“Who sent the message?” Nandita asked.
“No idea,” Rudra replied. “Encrypted number. Could be a burner phone.”
“And the woman?”
“She’s alive—for now. The killer wants to be seen. He’s taunting us. Testing how fast we can move.”
“You called him ‘The Watcher.’ Still think that fits?”
Rudra nodded. “He watches. Not just his victims—but us. I think he’s been watching me since the day I returned.”
Nandita gripped the wheel tighter. “Then let’s make him look the other way.”
They reached the missionary ruins by 9:10 AM. The place had been abandoned for years—collapsed chapel, cracked pillars, and a row of wooden cottages once used by British priests and nurses.
They approached slowly, weapons drawn. The mist was dense, curling like fingers around their ankles.
The third cottage had the lattice window from the photo.
“Inside,” Rudra whispered.
They breached the door in seconds—wood splintering under force.
Inside, the room was dark, musty. A chair. Rope. But no woman.
Gone.
Rudra spun around, scanning the corners. On the ground, a piece of torn fabric—same as the one the woman wore in the photo.
“He moved her,” Nandita hissed.
“No—he wanted us here,” Rudra said. “This was never about rescuing her. This was about buying time.”
Back at the station, Rudra paced the floor.
The killer was escalating. He was two steps ahead.
“He’s playing a psychological game,” Rudra muttered. “He’s observing how we respond. He’s feeding off it.”
Nandita said, “Then we need to change the game.”
She opened a laptop and pulled up digital archives from nearby districts.
“I started running background on suicide and missing person cases involving women between ages 18 and 30. Not just Mountabur—neighboring areas too. Found three potential cases over the last 10 years.”
She pushed the files toward Rudra.
- Tanvi Rao, 22, missing from Darjeeling, 2017.
Pritha Basak, 25, found drowned near Kurseong, 2020.
Ira Sanyal, 21, presumed suicide in Kalimpong, 2015.
None of them had detailed investigations. All involved solo travelers. Two were never found.
And then, the most disturbing link: each of them had booked their stays via the same travel portal.
That afternoon, Rudra and Nandita visited the office of HillEscape Journeys, a niche online travel startup based in Siliguri. They booked packages and homestays for offbeat destinations—mostly hill towns.
The manager, a nervous young man named Arjun Sethi, was surprised to see police.
“These names…” Rudra said, sliding the files across his desk. “Recognize any of them?”
Arjun scanned the list, then nodded. “Yes. We booked their stays years ago. All solo female travelers. Why? What’s going on?”
“You ever get complaints about any of your partner homestays?” Nandita asked.
“Rarely. We do background checks… kind of. But some of the older listings, especially in Mountabur—we don’t manage them directly anymore. Most of them are under third-party agents now.”
“Name one.”
Arjun hesitated. “There’s this guy—Karan Deshpande. He runs about six properties around Mountabur. Old-school operator. Doesn’t like tech. Sends handwritten guest logs by courier. Total weirdo, but efficient.”
Rudra’s instincts went on high alert.
“We want every address he manages,” he said.
That evening, they drove to the first of Karan Deshpande’s properties—a secluded cottage on a slope near Lake Triveni.
It was empty. Dust on the floor. But in the back room, they found something chilling.
Photos.
Tacked to the wall. Printed in black and white. Grainy surveillance-style shots of different women. Walking alone. Sitting at cafes. Hiking trails. Even… Nandita—taken from across the street just days ago.
“Jesus,” she whispered. “He’s been watching us from the start.”
And in the center of the board, a photo of a young girl.
Wide eyes. Innocent smile.
Amrita Dey.
Back at the station, Rudra stared at her photo long after everyone else had left.
He finally spoke.
“He loved her,” he whispered. “Or thought he did. When she died—he broke. But he never stopped watching. Never stopped punishing.”
He took a deep breath and wrote on the whiteboard:
Motive: Revenge for Amrita. Target: Women who resemble her? Who live freely? Who remind him of her?
Then he connected a new thread.
Karan Deshpande wasn’t just managing the cottages.
He was also listed as a student librarian at Mountabur College in 2008—the year Amrita died.
And he had vanished for four years after that.
Vanished… then reappeared as a travel fixer.
A fixer with access to solo female travelers.
And eyes everywhere.
Just before midnight, Rudra got a second message.
Another photo.
The same woman from before—still alive. But crying now.
This time, she wasn’t alone. A second woman sat beside her. Blindfolded. Mouth gagged.
The caption read:
“Two choices. One ending.”
Chapter 5: Two Choices
The clock read 2:41 a.m.
Rudra stood alone in the operations room, the hum of fluorescent lights buzzing above him. The photo on his screen showed two women—bound, terrified, silenced by tape and fear.
The killer’s message still echoed in his head:
“Two choices. One ending.”
“This isn’t just cruelty,” he whispered. “It’s a ritual.”
Nandita entered quietly, two cups of black coffee in hand. She’d seen the message too. Her face was pale, lips pressed tight.
“Any identification?” she asked.
Rudra pointed at the screen. “Right one is clearly the woman from the previous photo. Left one’s new. I ran facial rec through the missing persons registry. No matches yet. But I think she hasn’t been reported missing yet.”
“Which means…” Nandita finished for him, “he took her within the last 24 hours.”
Rudra nodded. “He’s accelerating.”
At 8:00 AM, they met with cybercrime specialist Arvind Malhotra, a tech-savvy officer from Siliguri.
“Can we trace the phone?” Rudra asked.
Arvind shook his head. “The message came from a VPN-masked signal, bounced through at least four countries. But…” He pulled up metadata from the photo file. “It had embedded EXIF data. Most was stripped. But not all.”
He zoomed in.
“Sunlight angle. Air pressure. A partial GPS coordinate. Looks like he got sloppy. This was taken in the north-western ridge of Mountabur, just past the abandoned railway line.”
Rudra’s eyes lit up. “That’s near the collapsed tunnel area. Remote. Almost inaccessible except by foot.”
“I can send you the grid,” Arvind said. “But move fast. Weather’s turning.”
By 11:00 AM, Rudra and a small tactical team were hiking through damp woods, the thick canopy above letting in slanted beams of light. Every step crunched wet leaves. The air smelled of moss and decay.
Nandita walked beside him, her voice low.
“If he’s giving us a choice,” she said, “do you think it’s real?”
“No. It’s a test,” Rudra replied. “A mind game. He wants to see how we decide. Who we choose. What we’re willing to risk.”
They reached the base of an old ridge—half-collapsed, overgrown with vines. Behind it: a stone tunnel mouth, black as a void.
Inside, they moved slowly, flashlights cutting through dust and damp air.
About fifty meters in, they found the scene.
Two women. Still bound. Still alive.
And a ticking countdown clock projected onto the tunnel wall:
00:59:43
A speaker crackled to life from a shadowy corner.
Then came his voice—chilling, calm, almost elegant.
“Welcome, Inspector Rudra Sen. You’re exactly on time.”
The voice continued, smooth like a stage performer.
“Two lives. One decision. Only one will walk free. Choose, and the other is released into death. Refuse—and both perish. I want to see what kind of man you really are. Is your logic stronger than your emotion?”
Nandita drew her gun, trying to locate the speaker. No use. He wasn’t here.
The two women were blindfolded but conscious. Their breathing fast. One was murmuring softly. The other trembled in silence.
Then Rudra spotted it—motion sensors on both chairs. If one woman was moved, the other’s trigger activated.
“You son of a—” Rudra hissed.
He turned to Nandita.
“We can’t pick one. He wants us to be executioners.”
“There must be a workaround,” she said. “Override the sensors?”
“No time. We’ve got less than 40 minutes.”
He examined the women. Both had similar height, build, and dark hair. One wore a faded shawl—red, like Amrita Dey’s in the old photograph. The other had a tattoo on her wrist: a flying bird.
That caught Rudra’s eye.
He remembered something—an old missing report from Kalimpong.
He whispered urgently to Nandita, “That’s Ira Sanyal. I’m sure of it. Reported missing in 2015. The tattoo matches.”
“And the other?”
“I don’t know. Maybe this is the real choice: past vs present. His first long-lost victim… or his latest.”
The killer’s voice returned.
“Tick-tock, Inspector. Decide. Or let time kill them both. Just like you let Amrita die.”
Rudra froze.
“How do you know about Amrita?” he growled.
“She spoke of you. Before she died. You watched her too… just not closely enough.”
That was it.
The killer had known Amrita. Not just as an obsession—but as a peer.
A name struck him like lightning.
Karan Deshpande.
Student librarian. The quiet boy. Always in the background.
And now—a shadow puppeteer.
With 15 minutes left, Rudra made a desperate decision.
He signaled to Nandita to follow his lead.
He stepped forward slowly and began disarming the pressure sensor under the shawled woman’s chair—while mimicking movement on the other sensor with a fake boot weight Nandita carried.
They held their breath.
The countdown paused.
For three seconds, everything stopped.
Then—a click.
The locks disengaged. The speakers fell silent.
No explosion. No screams.
Just silence.
They had broken the loop.
By evening, both women were safe and under medical care. The forensic team swept the tunnel. No trace of the killer. But they found a final message written in charcoal on the wall:
“You failed the test. You chose both. Now I choose who dies next.”
Rudra stared at it, eyes burning.
“He’s slipping,” Nandita said. “We’re close.”
“No,” Rudra whispered. “He’s shifting. We broke his puzzle. Now he’s going off-script.”
Back at headquarters, Rudra updated the timeline and theories.
Confirmed: The killer was Karan Deshpande.
Confirmed: Amrita Dey was the emotional trigger.
Unconfirmed: Who was helping him?
Because now… Rudra believed he wasn’t working alone.
And the next kill wouldn’t come with a countdown.
It would come without warning.
Chapter 6: The Second Face
The rain returned to Mountabu that night—quiet, persistent, and strangely calming. It ran in thin silver streams down the police station windows as Rudra stared out, lost in thought.
Two women rescued.
One name confirmed: Karan Deshpande.
And yet, the killer had vanished again—leaving only a message scorched onto a tunnel wall.
“You chose both. Now I choose who dies next.”
No hint. No pattern. Just a threat—and silence.
The next morning, the silence shattered.
A body was found near Bishop’s Curve, one of Mountabu’s most scenic—but treacherous—road bends. It was a young woman, mid-twenties, wrapped in a blue trekking jacket, lying beside her smashed bicycle.
At first glance: a road accident.
But Rudra saw the signs immediately.
The bike chain had been loosened deliberately. The brake cable had been severed. And most chillingly—a playing card was tucked into the girl’s fist.
The Queen of Hearts.
“She wasn’t killed like the others,” Nandita said, frowning over the autopsy photos. “No strangulation. No confinement. This was open. Public. Quick.”
Rudra studied the card. Its edges were cut—unevenly, crudely.
“He’s changing tactics,” Rudra said. “No more silent rituals. Now he wants theatrics.”
Nandita leaned in. “But why the card?”
“It’s not random. The Queen of Hearts… could be a symbol. Love? Obsession? Royalty?”
She raised an eyebrow. “Or betrayal?”
Rudra nodded slowly. “Maybe this one was personal.”
They identified the victim as Ritika Chauhan, a wildlife photographer from Mumbai who had arrived in Mountabu four days ago for a documentary project.
She had no local ties. No travel history to the previous properties linked to Karan Deshpande. No obvious pattern.
But one detail stood out.
Ritika had posted a story on her Instagram the night before she died—a photo of the same lake tunnel where the previous victims were held. She captioned it:
“Chilling vibes. This place has secrets.”
“Maybe she saw something,” Nandita said. “Or someone. Maybe she got too close.”
Rudra reviewed her footage.
Among dozens of scenic shots, he found one brief, shaky clip—barely three seconds. It showed a blurred male figure walking through the mist near the tunnel.
Rudra paused. Zoomed. Enhanced.
A man in a dark sweater, tall, wearing an oxygen support mask around his chin.
His blood ran cold.
He recognized the face—not clearly, but enough to spark a memory.
Professor Devang Mehta.
Devang Mehta had been a guest lecturer in psychology at Mountabu College. Formerly based in Delhi, he moved to Mountabu after his retirement—supposedly for health reasons.
He was quiet. Reclusive. Wrote occasional essays on trauma and memory. Known for wearing a portable oxygen concentrator due to a lung condition.
But now, Rudra’s instincts screamed.
“Karan Deshpande may be the killer’s face,” he said aloud, “but Mehta is the second mind behind it.”
Nandita blinked. “You think they’re working together?”
“Not anymore,” Rudra said. “Karan was methodical, ritualistic. But this last murder? Sloppy. Emotional. I think the killer we just saw… isn’t Karan.”
By late evening, Rudra and Nandita visited Mehta’s home—an old colonial bungalow on the eastern ridge, surrounded by tall pines.
He welcomed them in, calm and polite. His oxygen mask rested lightly under his nose.
“I heard about the girl,” Mehta said. “Tragic. Mountabu isn’t what it used to be.”
Rudra studied him. “You ever hike near the tunnel?”
“Not anymore,” Mehta said with a sad smile. “Lungs don’t allow much these days.”
“And yet,” Nandita said, holding up the screenshot, “you were seen there yesterday.”
For the first time, Mehta’s expression flickered.
“I like to walk,” he said softly. “Sometimes I go where my memories take me.”
Rudra stepped closer. “Did your memories take you to Amrita Dey?”
The old man went still.
Then, without a word, he turned and walked to his study.
When he returned, he handed Rudra a scrapbook.
Inside: photos of students. Scribbled notes. Newspaper clippings about disappearances. Even drawings—childlike, surreal depictions of women screaming behind barred windows.
“You kept all this?” Rudra asked.
“Memories matter,” Mehta replied. “Sometimes more than justice.”
Back at headquarters, Rudra placed the scrapbook on the table.
“Devang Mehta is the real brain. Karan was his executioner. A former student. Devang groomed him. Fed his trauma. Weaponized his grief.”
Nandita shook her head. “And now Karan’s gone. Probably dead or discarded. Mehta’s the one still playing.”
Rudra tapped the table.
“Exactly. He’s the new killer. But he’s not doing it for revenge now. He’s doing it for control. To prove his philosophy.”
That night, Rudra received a package. No return address.
Inside was a VHS tape.
He found a player, inserted the tape, and hit play.
A grainy video flickered to life.
It showed a dim-lit room. A girl—bound. Gagged. Weeping.
Then Mehta’s voice.
“Every choice leaves blood behind. You chose two lives. Now the math must balance. Let’s talk, Inspector. One-on-one.”
Chapter 7: The Philosopher’s Mask
The morning air in Mountabu had a different texture now—thicker, like a town holding its breath. News of Ritika Chauhan’s death had gone public. The media spun it as a tragic accident. But Rudra knew better.
Inside the police war room, the VHS tape still played on repeat.
The girl on-screen was unfamiliar, her eyes swollen from crying. A timestamp in the corner blinked: LIVE FEED – 06:12 AM.
“This isn’t a recording,” Nandita said, voice taut. “He’s broadcasting from somewhere. In real-time.”
Rudra clenched his fists.
This wasn’t a game anymore. It was a performance—and the town was the audience.
They traced the analog frequency. It came from the southern ridge, near an abandoned British-era weather station—a crumbling three-storey building that hadn’t seen use since the 1970s.
Rudra assembled a strike team. But he didn’t join them.
He had somewhere else to be.
Devang Mehta’s house.
Rudra walked in without knocking. The oxygen hissed softly as Mehta turned from his window.
“You’ve come,” he said, smiling faintly. “As expected.”
Rudra didn’t sit.
“You’re holding a girl hostage. Broadcasting her fear like it’s art.”
Mehta gestured toward a chair. “You misunderstand. I’m not the one holding her. I’m the one setting her free.”
“You’re sick.”
“No,” Mehta said, eyes sparkling, “I’m awake.”
He stood slowly, adjusting his oxygen tube.
“Do you know what it means to live through trauma, Inspector Sen? You begin to see people as concepts. The world as a game of choices. That’s all this is. I offer options. You determine value.”
Rudra snapped, “Where is she?”
But Mehta only smiled.
Meanwhile, the strike team reached the old weather station. Inside, they found what looked like a film set: dim lighting, old analog cameras, wires looping through VCRs. And in the center—a monitor.
The girl was there. On-screen. Still alive. But the room she was in?
Not here.
“It’s a decoy,” Nandita realized. “He’s not broadcasting from here. He’s recording us reacting.”
Back at Mehta’s house, Rudra paced.
“Why Karan?” he asked. “Why make a boy a monster?”
Mehta sat, coughing lightly. “Karan was broken. But he was also brilliant. He understood pain the way most people never can. I gave him clarity.”
“You used him.”
“I freed him,” Mehta said sharply. “And when he began to hesitate—when he started asking questions—I did what was necessary.”
Rudra narrowed his eyes.
“So you killed him.”
Mehta smiled but said nothing.
That was the confirmation Rudra needed.
Nandita’s voice crackled in Rudra’s earpiece.
“We found another feed. It’s piggybacking on a hospital transmitter near the old tuberculosis sanatorium.”
Rudra knew the place—the Sanjay Van Ward, closed ten years ago. Thick forest. Rotting buildings. No surveillance.
He moved fast, without backup.
The sanatorium was a hollow corpse of a building—peeling paint, broken windows, rusted IV poles dangling like dead vines. Rudra stepped through shadows, listening.
He followed the sound of static. Then—whimpers.
He kicked open a door.
And there she was. The girl from the video. Still alive. Taped to a chair.
He ran forward.
But before he reached her, a metal gate slammed shut behind him.
Then—Mehta’s voice, from a speaker overhead.
“Bravery is admirable, Inspector. But so is timing.”
From a small monitor, Mehta’s face appeared.
“You made your choice again. And I made mine.”
On another screen, a live feed began playing.
Another woman. In a different room.
Tied. Struggling.
Rudra’s blood froze. “No…”
“You saved this one. But someone else pays.”
Rudra pounded the door. “No more games, Mehta!”
“Oh, but this isn’t a game. It’s a thesis. And you’re the peer reviewer.”
Outside, Nandita’s team located the real transmitter. They stormed the building just in time to rescue the second woman, moments before a gas leak trap triggered.
They saved both victims.
But Mehta was gone.
Back at HQ, Rudra sat in silence.
Mehta had outplayed them again—but he’d made a mistake. He assumed Rudra still played by rules.
He didn’t anymore.
That night, Rudra released a press statement:
A public challenge.
“To the man known as Devang Mehta. This ends soon. You are not a philosopher. You are not a prophet. You are a coward behind a mask. And I’m coming for you.”
In a dark room somewhere, Mehta watched the broadcast.
He smiled.
And for the first time, he whispered to no one:
“Now we’re truly beginning.”
Chapter 8: The Final Thread
The old case file was brittle with age.
Yellowing pages. Typewritten words faded with time. Photographs glued into corners, their subjects long forgotten.
Rudra turned each page like a surgeon cutting into memory.
Mountabu, 1989.
Victim: Meenal Mehta.
Age: 19.
Status: Missing. Presumed dead.
The file ended in a single sentence, underlined in red:
“Prime suspect: unknown. Case closed without resolution.”
Rudra sat back in silence.
Meenal Mehta—Devang Mehta’s younger sister. A bright college student. Last seen entering a poetry symposium. Never came back. Body never recovered.
The case had been cold for thirty-five years.
But now, it burned again.
He cross-referenced old newspaper archives and found an editorial Mehta had written in 1990, buried in the back pages of The Mountabu Observer:
“Justice is a word men use when they run out of truth.”
It wasn’t just a loss. It was the origin of his ideology.
“He started with grief,” Rudra told Nandita. “He watched the system fail. Then he rewired grief into control. Into punishment.”
Nandita leaned against the file cabinet, arms folded.
“Still doesn’t explain the killings. Or the obsession with patterns.”
Rudra nodded. “Unless… each victim reflects Meenal in some way. Artists. Students. Dreamers. Young women who remind him of the one he couldn’t save.”
Nandita stared at him. “He’s killing his sister over and over again.”
“Or trying to resurrect her. Each kill is a twisted attempt to rewrite that night. But he keeps failing.”
Back in his office, Rudra pinned up the photos:
Meenal. Amrita. Leena. Priya. Ritika. The rescued girls. Their faces formed a circle.
And at the center—Mehta.
A shadow beneath their eyes.
The conductor of a slow symphony of grief.
Then Rudra noticed something: all the victims had stayed at properties owned by a real estate company called Skylark Estates.
He pulled records.
Skylark had two board members. One was a shell name. The other—Devang Mehta.By evening, Rudra and his team raided the Skylark warehouse on the outskirts of Mountabu.
It wasn’t a warehouse. It was a sound stage.
Inside, they found dozens of props: beds, bathtubs, false windows, painted bricks. Every “abandoned room” the victims were kept in—all built here. Controlled. Filmed. Staged.
At the center of the room: a whiteboard with columns labeled
Pain. Panic. Redemption. Control.
Underneath were polaroid photos—of every victim—stapled beneath one word: Failure.
Then came the breakthrough.
Behind a false wall, Rudra found a locked cabinet. Inside it: old videotapes, labeled by year.
The earliest one: “Meenal. Final Day.”
He inserted the tape.
Grainy footage played. A girl sat in a room, barefoot, confused. The door opened. A shadow entered.
Mehta’s voice echoed:
“Tell me what truth feels like.”
The girl cried. Reached for the camera. Then static.
“He filmed his sister,” Rudra said quietly. “He recreated her trauma over and over, trying to undo it. And when he couldn’t… he turned it outward.”
They found one last item in the room: a map.
Pinned with a red dot.
Mount Manorama Forest.
Just outside Mountabu.Rudra knew it was time.
At dawn, he walked into the forest alone. A pistol strapped to his back. A flashlight in hand.
The woods were thick. Silent. Each step muffled by moss and mud. After nearly an hour, he reached a clearing.
And there stood a stone chapel, covered in vines. Crumbling but intact.
A bell hung above the door, tied with red thread.
Inside, candles burned.
And at the far end—Devang Mehta waited.
“You found me,” Mehta said softly.
“You left the map on purpose,” Rudra replied.
“Yes. You’ve earned the ending.”
Rudra took a step forward. “No more riddles. Just answers.”
Mehta nodded. “Ask.”
“Where is Meenal’s body?”
Mehta’s eyes didn’t flinch.
“She was never buried. She’s here. Beneath this floor. This chapel is her tomb.”
Rudra looked down. Stone tiles.
“I built this place,” Mehta said, almost lovingly. “As penance. And as proof.”
“Proof of what?”
“That love,” Mehta said, “can become a weapon sharper than any blade.”
Rudra raised his gun.
Mehta didn’t move.
“I’m not afraid to die, Inspector. I already died thirty-five years ago. But before I go—ask yourself: have you made peace with your own past?”
Rudra’s hand shook.
Mehta stepped closer.
“You’re not hunting a killer anymore. You’re hunting what grief can become.”
Rudra closed his eyes.
Then fired.
The bullet struck Mehta’s leg. He collapsed.
Rudra called it in. Within minutes, backup arrived.
As Mehta was carried away on a stretcher, he whispered:
“You ended my thesis, Inspector.
But grief…
Always finds a new author.”
Chapter 9: The Legacy of Grief
Three days after Devang Mehta’s arrest, Mountabu was unnaturally quiet.
No new bodies. No anonymous tapes.
But peace felt like a stranger—unfamiliar, almost suspicious.
Rudra stood alone at the edge of Meenal’s chapel, now cordoned off by forensic teams. They had confirmed the truth: skeletal remains lay buried beneath the altar floor, carefully wrapped in cloth.
Meenal had never left Mountabu.
She had never had a chance.
The town buzzed with theories.
Was Mehta insane? A genius turned cruel? A grieving brother twisted by obsession?
The media labeled him “The Philosopher Butcher.”
But Rudra knew better.
He wasn’t just a killer.
He was a man who had made his grief immortal—in walls, in women, in wounds he never let heal.
In a quiet room at Mountabu Central, Mehta lay handcuffed to a hospital bed, sedated and silent.
Rudra sat beside him.
“I have questions,” he said softly.
Mehta turned his head.
“Then ask.”
Rudra held up a photo—of Karan Deshpande.
“You made him kill. You made him feel like vengeance was therapy. And when he broke free… you killed him.”
Mehta nodded slowly.
“He wanted to stop. That made him… unreliable.”
“And the others? Amrita? Priya? Ritika?”
“They were candidates,” Mehta whispered. “Each one matched Meenal in some way. I watched them. Tested them. When they failed to survive as Meenal should have… I punished them.”
Rudra’s voice dropped.
“You weren’t looking for justice. You were looking for a ghost.”
Mehta smiled weakly.
“We all are, Inspector.”
Later that night, Rudra visited Mountabu College, where Meenal had once studied.
A dusty archive room held her notebooks, still preserved. Poems scribbled in margins. Notes on feminism, psychology, cinema.
She’d been brilliant. Curious. Alive.
She wasn’t Mehta’s project.
She was a person.
The next morning, Rudra called a press conference.
He stood in front of cameras, not as a detective, but as a witness.
“Devang Mehta didn’t just kill women.
He killed memory.
He killed truth.
And he tried to replace it with his own mythology.”
He paused.
“But the women he targeted were not symbols. They were lives. And they will be remembered as more than just victims.”
A week later, Rudra received an envelope.
No name. No return address.
Inside: a single sheet of paper.
A poem, handwritten. The title read:
“For Meenal.”
The handwriting matched Devang Mehta’s.
> She smiled like dusk — gentle, unarmed.
The world mistook her silence for safety.
But I remember:
A storm once wore her voice.
And I… could never answer it.
Rudra read it once.
Then burned the page.
On a quiet evening, he stood at the edge of Nakki Lake. Nandita joined him, holding two cups of tea.
“You did what most people can’t,” she said. “You ended a cycle.”
Rudra shook his head. “No. I just exposed it.”
They sipped in silence.
“Do you ever wonder,” she asked, “what Mehta could’ve been, if he had healed instead of hurt?”
“All the time,” Rudra replied. “But I also wonder… who’s out there right now, standing at the same edge, with a wound just as deep.”
Epilogue
A month later, a woman checked into a Mountabu guesthouse.
Mid-thirties. Lonely eyes. A scar on her wrist.
She carried a typewriter.
The receptionist asked her name.
She paused. Then said:
“Meenal.”
