The next morning brought a veil of thick fog that clung to the windows of the Mirwood Resthouse like a second skin. Aryan woke up with a heavy head and eyes that stung from sleep. The silence around him wasn’t peaceful—it was suffocating. No chirping birds. No rustling leaves. Just... nothing.
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He checked his phone. No signal again.
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Devlin hadn’t been around since the previous night. Aryan hadn’t seen him after that bizarre encounter in the hallway, where the shadows moved before his own feet. He tried brushing it off as sleep-deprivation, but the image haunted him still.
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As he stepped out of his room, the hallway looked dimmer than usual. It was past 8 AM but the lightbulbs overhead flickered uneasily, casting jagged streaks on the floorboards. Aryan’s gaze drifted to the far end of the hall—the locked corridor he was warned to never enter.
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Except now, it wasn’t locked.
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The padlock hung broken, the latch undone.
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Every fiber of his logical mind screamed for him to walk away. But his curiosity—no, his need for answers—dragged his feet forward.
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The hallway behind the forbidden door was narrower, colder, and lined with faded paintings of unfamiliar faces—some with scratched-out eyes. Aryan’s breath came out in puffs, though he couldn’t explain why the air had turned icy.
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Room 13 was there.
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Not just a whisper in Devlin’s warnings.
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Not just a ghost tale in the town.
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It stood before him—an old wooden door, darker than the rest, with rusted hinges and the faint, unexplainable scent of formaldehyde.
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He hesitated, his hand hovering over the knob.
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The moment he touched it, a sharp static pulse ran through his body, like someone had shoved a wire into his spine. He gasped but pushed the door open anyway.
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Inside, the room was almost empty—except for a broken chair, a journal on the floor, and the unmistakable sensation of being watched.
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He picked up the journal. The cover was cracked leather. On the inside, scrawled in frantic, uneven handwriting was the name:
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"Adira Singh."
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His sister’s name.
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Aryan’s knees buckled. This wasn’t a coincidence. She had been here. And someone—or something—knew he would find this.
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The entries inside were horrifying. Scribbled phrases like "Voices in the drain," "Mirror shows another woman," and "Don't sleep. They crawl in when you do.” Each page grew more unreadable, as though her mind had been unravelling faster than the ink could dry.
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The last entry was just one line:
“Room 13B knows I’m here.”
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He felt a cold breath on his neck.
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Aryan spun around—but the room was empty.
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Except it wasn’t.
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The mirror on the far wall now had a handprint on the inside.
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He stumbled out, heart hammering like it wanted to leave his chest. Back in the corridor, the door slammed shut behind him with an unnatural finality.
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And when he turned to look again... Room 13 had disappeared. Only a blank wall remained.
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Aryan ran back to his room, chest heaving.
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This wasn’t just about uncovering his sister’s fate anymore.
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He was being pulled into something ancient.
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Something that wanted to stay buried.
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And he had just opened its door.
Chapter 5 coming soon 🔜
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