• English - Suspense

    The Serpent Manuscript

    Ethan Ray Episode 1: The Chamber Beneath the Library The storm over Florence had come without warning. Thunder rumbled across the Arno, rattling the glass panes of the Biblioteca Laurenziana as Professor Adrian Keller leaned over a spread of faded manuscripts. The medieval library, usually hushed in reverence, vibrated faintly with the sound of rain pounding against the roof tiles. The air smelled of ink, vellum, and age. Keller’s fingers, ink-stained from decades of work, trembled slightly as he turned the page of a sixteenth-century codex. He wasn’t supposed to be here alone. The library’s director had granted him a…

  • Crime - English

    The Burning Ghat

    Vijoy Menon Part 1: Ashes That Speak The smoke rose like a slow, coiled prayer — grey and indifferent, curling against the dimming sky. At Manikarnika Ghat, the fires had no time to rest. One pyre faded, another was lit. Wood cracked, bones whispered, and the Ganges swallowed the silence of the dead with the same patience it gave the living. The priests moved like phantoms in ochre robes, their hands blackened with ghee and soot. No one cried here. Grief had long since turned into muscle memory. Devkant Mishra stood by the edge of the river, his white dhoti…

  • Crime - English

    Raktarekha

    Niharika S. Rao The Lok Sabha was unusually loud for a Tuesday. It was Budget Week, and the chamber buzzed with tension as news channels lined up outside, their OB vans broadcasting red-tickered hysteria. Inside, Home Minister Veer Pratap Singh stood tall in a beige Nehru jacket, sleeves rolled to the elbows like a man ready for war. His voice thundered across the hall, echoing with the force of someone who had weathered revolutions and riots. “And let it be known,” he declared, slamming his hand on the podium, “this government will never bow to blackmail. The truth will be…