Chapter 4 - The Bank Heist with a Sleeping Robber?

            Night in Bhopal had a way of pressing itself against the windows - thick, humid, almost possessive. The city lights shimmered across Upper Lake like fractured jewels, the ripples distorting every reflection as though the water itself was unwilling to hold on to memories. By the time it was past two, the long commercial stretch near T.T. Nagar had quieted down to a slow, exhausted heartbeat. The small restaurants were dark, shutters of stores were pulled down like drooping eyelids, and even the stray dogs had surrendered to sleep.

            Against this peaceful silence, the Central Midlands Bank stood like a block of frozen steel. Tall, impersonal, its glass surface reflecting faint threads of passing headlights. It was the kind of place that felt unwelcoming even during the day; at night, it carried a harsher aura - like a monument built not for people, but for their fears.

            Inside the cavernous lobby, Raghav Singh sat alone in the security cabin. The blinking monitor screens cast a pale glow on his face, highlighting the heavy lines etched into his skin. Nineteen years on night duty had shaped him into a man of routine - a man who knew every creak of the building, every shadow that lingered a second longer than it should.

            Tonight, however, felt wrong in ways he couldn’t articulate.

            A strange wave of lethargy was washing over him. Not the usual tiredness of a long night, but something deeper, something that seemed to drag at his limbs from the inside. His eyelids felt weighted, his thoughts slow, syrupy.

            He rubbed his eyes, straightened his back, and forced himself to focus on the screens.

            The corridors were empty.
            The vault door was sealed.
            Everything was normal.

            And yet - something hovered in the back of his consciousness, a subtle itch, a sense that he wasn’t alone. The air felt thicker than usual, as if someone had exhaled close to his ear.

            Raghav inhaled deeply.

            “Stay alert,” he muttered to himself. “Just a few more hours.”

            But sleep - or something that pretended to be sleep - was creeping into him like a fog. It began at the base of his neck, a soft numbness spreading slowly upward. His fingers loosened around the armrest, his spine relaxed involuntarily.

            He blinked once. Twice. A third time…

            And then everything faded.

            The room darkened, the screens blurred, and he felt himself slipping backward - not physically, but inward, away from the world. His mind began sinking like an anchor dropped into the bottom of the sea.

            He didn’t fall asleep. It felt more like he was being shut down. The last thing he remembered was the faint hum of the air conditioner.

            Then there was nothing. Blackness. A deep, unmoving, chilling blackness.

            Time didn’t exist inside that void. No dreams. No sensations. No thoughts. Just an empty, terrifying silence that felt like the absence of existence itself.

            Until…A tap. Just one. Soft. Measured. Cold.

            It fell on his right shoulder like a droplet of ice water sliding down his spine.             And something inside him opened its eyes.

            His own eyes snapped open - but not from within. It felt as though another presence had pulled him back into awareness. He gasped faintly, though he didn’t feel breath fill his chest. He stood slowly, but the decision wasn’t his.

            He wasn’t awake. He was activated.

            His vision sharpened unnaturally. His body moved with eerie precision, each step calculated, deliberate. His heart beat steadily, too steadily, like a metronome wound by someone else.

            On the CCTV screen, a shape flickered in the corner of his vision.

            He didn’t turn.             He couldn’t turn.

            The figure behind him leaned closer, and though no breath touched his skin, Raghav felt a coldness bloom near his ear - a quiet, paralyzing presence.

            Then the world continued to move without him.

            His body walked toward the vault.
            His hands entered the security codes.
            His fingers removed the cash with mechanical grace, stacking bundles into a black duffel bag.

            He was aware of each moment. But not in control of any of them. He was drifting behind his own eyes - helpless, voiceless, trapped.

            Minutes later, he sat back in his chair, placed the bag at his feet, closed his eyes…And the void swallowed him again.

            Six minutes later…He woke with a scream.

            The duffel bag full of money lay beside his chair. And he had no idea how it got there.

§   

            A thin line of dawn had just begun touching the roofs of Bhopal when the first bank employee arrived - a junior clerk with perpetually sleepy eyes and a coffee addiction strong enough to resurrect the dead. He walked toward the entrance while scrolling through his phone, not noticing the odd stillness in the air. It took him a full ten seconds to realize that the security cabin window was open, the metal chair overturned, and the night guard - usually upright and alert - was sitting hunched forward, trembling violently.

            The duffel bag lay beside him like a silent confession.

            Within twenty minutes, the quiet commercial lane transformed into a hive of panic. Police vans screamed down the street. The bank manager paced the entrance like a man awaiting a medical diagnosis. Neighbours gathered in huddled groups, whispering theories with wild, fearful eyes.

            Inside the bank, the atmosphere was tense enough to shatter.

            Senior Inspector Aarav Rajpoot stepped through the glass doors with a gait that balanced calm authority and restrained urgency. He had handled murders, trafficking cases, cybercrimes - and yet something about the call he received that morning had unsettled even him.

            A guard robbing his own bank wasn’t new.  A guard robbing his own bank while asleep? That was something else.

            As he walked through the lobby, he took in the details - the faint smell of fear, the rapidly growing heat of too many bodies cramped inside, the soft hum of the air conditioning that seemed to be working harder than usual. The CCTV monitors were still on, their screens frozen on the moment the guard woke screaming.

            “Sir,” the manager said, wringing his hands nervously, “he’s in my office. I…I don’t think he understands what he’s done.”

            Aarav nodded once. “No one robs a bank without understanding. Fear and guilt do strange things after the fact.”

            The manager looked shaken. “But he kept insisting he was asleep. That his body wasn’t his. After seeing the footage… sir, I’m not sure what to believe.”

            “We’ll find the truth,” Aarav murmured, though the weight in his voice suggested he had already sensed that this wouldn’t be a simple truth.

            He walked through the corridor leading to the office, the faint clink of his belt echoing lightly. When he pushed open the door, Raghav sat with his elbows on his knees, face buried in his palms. His shoulders were trembling; his breaths came in short, uneven bursts. There was something broken in his posture, something raw enough to cut.

            Aarav took the chair opposite him.

            “Raghav.”

            The guard looked up slowly. His eyes were red and glassy, but the confusion in them was painfully genuine.

            “Sir… I don’t understand what happened. Please, I didn’t… I wasn’t…” He swallowed, struggling for words that wouldn’t come.

            Aarav’s voice remained steady. “You were recorded entering the vault. You disabled the alarm. You walked out with the money. Everything was captured clearly. You are not denying it?”

            “I am not denying what happened,” Raghav whispered, “but I wasn’t myself.”

            Aarav leaned forward. “Explain.”

            Raghav closed his eyes for a moment, breathing shakily. “It felt like I was falling asleep, but not naturally. My body went numb… then the world went dark. A darkness with no edges, no thoughts. And when I opened my eyes again, I was standing in front of the vault with money in my hands.”

            “You remember entering the vault?”

            “No.”

            “You remember carrying the bag?”

            “No.”

            “What do you remember clearly, then?”

            Raghav’s throat tightened.

            “A tap on my shoulder.” His voice shrank to a whisper. “And a coldness spreading down my spine.”

            Aarav felt a faint jolt in his chest. “Whose tap, Raghav? Did you see anyone?”

            “I didn’t… I mean… I wasn’t awake.” He rubbed his forehead. “But sir, I felt something behind me. Something silent. Like a shadow.”

            Aarav’s expression sharpened. “A shadow?”

            “Yes, sir. I didn’t see it, but I felt it. Like someone leaning close to me but not breathing.”

            The room grew quieter. The manager shifted uncomfortably near the door, clearly unnerved.

            Aarav continued, “Raghav, you said you felt cold. Describe that feeling.”

            “It started at my neck… spreading down to my arms… and then I couldn’t feel anything. Not fear, not confusion. Nothing. I wasn’t inside myself anymore. I was… watching.”

            “Watching what?”

            “My own body,” Raghav whispered, tears gathering in his eyes. “Like I was trapped behind a pane of glass.”

            Aarav remained still for several seconds. He had heard confessions borne out of guilt, desperation, and fear. But this - this was different. Raghav wasn’t fighting for a lighter sentence. He was fighting for understanding.

            “You will come with us for medical and psychological analysis,” Aarav said finally. “But before that - I need to review the footage. Something is wrong here.”

            Raghav nodded helplessly.

            When Aarav left the room, he felt the case tugging at him, not like a puzzle waiting to be solved but like a thread attached to something much darker, something he couldn’t yet see.

            He walked to the CCTV room.

            Inside, three officers stood frozen in front of the large monitor, their faces pale. One of them turned to him, his voice unsteady.

            “Sir… you need to see this.”

            Aarav’s gaze moved to the screen.

            The footage began. Raghav in the cabin. His head drooping. His eyes sliding shut in a way no natural sleep ever came. Then…A faint disturbance at the far corner of the corridor camera. Something blurred. Something that wasn’t light, nor shadow, nor human movement.

            Aarav narrowed his eyes. And then the figure appeared.

            A tall silhouette, its outlines wavering as if resisting being captured on camera. It didn’t walk into the frame - its presence just materialized, like a thought forming out of thin air.

            The figure stopped behind Raghav. Even on the grainy footage, Aarav felt the air around him tighten.

            The shadow’s hand extended slowly, the motion impossibly smooth. No human limb moved like that - without hesitation, without micro-adjustments, without the subtle tremors of muscle beneath skin.

            The tap on Raghav’s shoulder was almost a caress. Raghav’s body straightened instantly, as though responding to a silent command.

            The figure leaned closer to his ear.

            Aarav replayed that second again. And again. And again.

            Each time, the figure’s outline flickered, as if the camera was refusing to reveal too much. The audio remained mute. No footsteps. No whisper. No breath. Not even clothing rustling.

            It was silence shaped into a human form.

            Aarav’s jaw tensed.

            One of the officers whispered, “Sir, what… what is this?”

            Aarav’s voice was steady but unusually cold.

            “I don’t know yet.”

            But he knew one thing:

            No criminal moved like this. No human melted into shadows like this. No person left behind nothing - no prints, no sound, no sign of physical presence.

            The figure didn’t walk.

            It glided. It slid. It existed in a way that was almost… unnatural.

            Aarav felt a tightness coil in his stomach.

            Because the figure had turned its head slightly. Just slightly. Just enough. And though the face was blurred, though no features were clear, Aarav felt with absolute certainty…

            The figure was aware that it was being watched.

            Aware. And amused. A chill slid down Aarav’s spine.

            The Man Who Walks Without Sound had entered his case.  And the rules of reality had just been rewritten.

§   

            The first thing Aarav noticed when he stepped out of the CCTV room was the shift in the air -subtle, but undeniable. Something in the building’s energy had changed, the way a room feels after someone whispers a secret too quietly to be heard but loud enough to unsettle.

            He walked down the narrow corridor, shoes echoing softly on the tiles. A faint smell of disinfectant mixed with old dust drifted through the vents. Bank employees watched him from corners, whispering behind trembling hands. Their eyes followed him with a shared question - Was the guard insane? Or was something else inside the bank last night?

            Aarav didn’t have answers. He had instincts - instincts honed by years of facing the unpredictable brutality of human behaviour - but nothing in his experience matched what he had seen on that screen.

            Before he could process further, Sub-Inspector Mehta hurried toward him with a folder clutched under his arm.

            “Sir,” Mehta said, breath slightly uneven, “forensics checked the corridor for footprints.”

            Aarav responded without slowing his stride. “And?”

            “No footprints at all, sir. Not even partial ones. The dust hasn’t been disturbed.”

            Aarav stopped.

            His jaw tightened with the smallest, almost imperceptible twitch. “That corridor was mopped yesterday morning. Dust settles fast in this building. Anyone walking through it should have left at least a faint impression.”

            “Yes sir, exactly. But…it’s spotless.”

            Aarav resumed walking, though slower this time, thoughts pacing faster than his steps. If there were no footprints, then the figure hadn’t walked. Either it had floated - something ridiculous even to consider - or it had moved with such unnatural lightness that pressure had not registered at all.

            “Sir,” Mehta added cautiously, “the cameras didn’t capture any heat signature around the figure either.”

            Aarav’s eyes flicked toward him. “Meaning?”

            “The infrared overlay shows normal temperature for the guard. But the figure appears as a cold void. Almost like… an absence.”

            Aarav didn’t respond. He couldn’t - not without feeling like the ground beneath logic was cracking.

            They reached the vault chamber. A digital lock panel glowed faintly beside the heavy steel door, its red indicator still blinking from an unauthorized access alert.

            Forensic markers dotted the floor.

            Inside the chamber, the air was cooler, the lighting harsher. The vault shelves stood like silent witnesses to the night’s violation. Spaces where currency bundles once lay were now empty, their rectangular shadows still visible in pale dust outlines.

            “Three crores,” Mehta murmured, shaking his head. “Removed with precision.”

            Aarav stepped deeper into the vault. There were faint smudges on the central metal table -Raghav’s prints, undoubtedly - but nothing else. No traces of a second person. No glove fibres. No hair. No dust displacement. No scuff marks.

            As if the shadow had never existed.

            Or as if it had made a conscious effort not to exist.

            A thin shiver crawled up Aarav’s spine.

            He turned back to Mehta. “Run chemical tests on the guard’s uniform. Every fibre. Every fold. Look for anything unusual.”

            Mehta nodded quickly.

            Aarav continued, “And check the footage in slow motion frame-by-frame. See if there’s any distortion around the figure. Light bending. Shadow inconsistencies.”

            “Yes sir.”

            Aarav walked out of the vault, his eyes dropping to the narrow corridor beyond. That section of the bank suddenly seemed heavier, darker, as though something still lingered there - an echo of a presence, an imprint of an absence.

            When he crouched to inspect the floor again, he noticed it.

            A mark.

            Barely perceptible. A faint crescent-shaped indentation in the dust, too shallow to be a footprint, too symmetrical to be accidental.

            He touched it lightly with his fingertip.

            It felt cold.

            Not cold like tile in the morning. Cold like metal left in the freezer. Cold like something that should not be cold at all.

            Aarav straightened slowly, every muscle in his body alert.

            “Sir?” Mehta asked.

            Aarav stepped back from the mark. “Preserve this area. Don’t let anyone walk here.”

            “But sir - it’s barely a mark.”

            “That,” Aarav said quietly, “is why it matters.”

§   

The Bank Manager’s Breakdown

            When Aarav returned to the lobby, he found the bank manager seated on a sofa, head buried in his hands, murmuring something that resembled prayers more than words.

            Aarav approached him.

            “Mr. Bhaskar,” he said calmly, “I need details about last night’s shift.”

            Bhaskar looked up with hollow eyes. “Inspector… I have worked here for twenty-seven years. Never has anything like this happened. Never.”

            “It has now. And I need cooperation, not panic.”

            Bhaskar nodded repeatedly. “Yes, yes of course. What do you need to know?”

            “Was anyone else inside the building after 10 p.m.?”

            “No. Raghav was alone. Always alone for the night shift.”

            “Any maintenance work? Any outside contractors? Any glitch in the security system? Any prior threats?”

            “No, no… nothing, sir.” Bhaskar’s breathing grew uneven. “This bank is clean. No enemies. No history of theft. We don’t even handle cash distribution. This money was stored for government housing disbursal today. How could anyone even know about the timing…?”

            “Someone knew,” Aarav said simply.

            “And Raghav… he…” Bhaskar swallowed again. “He’s a loyal man. Nineteen years. Never even took a single sick day. Sir, what happened to him?”

            Aarav didn’t answer.

            Because he wasn’t sure whether something had happened to Raghav…or through him.

§   

Raghav’s Second Confession

            Before leaving the bank, Aarav stopped once more at the office where Raghav sat.

            The guard looked worse now - drained, terrified, trapped inside his own mind. His hands were clasped so tightly that his knuckles blanched.

            Aarav sat across from him again. “Raghav, I need you to think. Try to remember anything before you lost consciousness. Anything at all.”

            Raghav took a long, shaky breath.

            “There was something else,” he whispered.

            Aarav leaned in. “What?”

            Raghav’s voice was barely audible. “Sir… just before everything went dark… I felt like someone was standing behind me. Close. Very close. But there was no sound. No footsteps. No breathing. And the air…” He shuddered violently. “…the air felt wrong.”

            “Wrong how?”

            “Still,” Raghav said, eyes darting. “Completely still. Like the world had stopped moving.”

            Aarav’s throat tightened for a moment. “Did you hear anything? Anything at all?”

            Raghav nodded faintly.

            “One thing.”

            Aarav’s heartbeat quickened. “Tell me.”

            Raghav’s voice dropped to a dry whisper.

            “A laugh.”

            Aarav froze.

            “What kind of laugh?”

            “Faint. Cold. Like someone amused… but far away. Not normal. Not human.”

            Aarav felt something in his chest tighten - not fear, but an icy clarity.

            Something intelligent had been inside this bank last night. Something silent. Something deliberate. Something that left no trace—except terror.

§   

The Disturbing Discovery

            As Aarav was preparing to leave, Mehta rushed toward him again.

            “Sir! You need to see this!”

            “What now?”

            “We found something lodged between the tiles near the vault.”

            Aarav’s eyes narrowed. “Show me.”

            Mehta opened his palm.

            A small black pen drive rested inside.

            Plain. Unmarked. Cold to the touch.

            “When did you find this?” Aarav asked.

            “Just now, sir. We almost missed it. It was jammed deep, like someone wanted it to be found… but not too easily.”

            Aarav stared at the pen drive.

            A message left at the scene of a crime.

            Not by a criminal. By a challenger.

            The Man Who Walks Without Sound had not just taken money.

            He had left a calling card. Aarav’s pulse ticked faster.

            “Send this to the cyber team immediately.”

            He didn’t say it out loud, but he knew:

            Whatever was in that pen drive would change everything.

§   

A Door That Should Not Have Opened

            The traffic outside the Bhopal City Surveillance Centre hummed like a restless organism, but inside the glass-panelled room, a colder kind of silence settled - one that belonged to people who had just witnessed something they could not yet process.

            Karan stood with his arms folded tightly across his chest, staring at the paused CCTV frame on the large wall screen. The motionlessly frozen moment displayed two figures in the employees’ corridor of Tanishq SafeBank:

·         The guard - Mukund Yadav - standing upright, eyes unfocused, posture stiff.

·         And behind him, the shadowed stranger - head slightly tilted, as if listening to a frequency only he could hear.

Mishra broke the silence first.

            “We need to enhance that outline,” he said quietly. “There might be… something we’re missing.”

            “There is,” Karan replied. “A human being doesn’t move like that. And he doesn’t make someone else move like that unless he knows exactly what thread in the mind to pull.”

            The forensic specialist sitting at the main console zoomed into the figure again. The screen pixelated, lines of digital blocks dancing and breaking, but the silhouette remained unnervingly intact.

            That stillness - too perfect. Too intentional.

            Raghav leaned closer. “If this is our ‘man who walks without sound,’ he’s not doing this alone. Look at the angle. Look at the distance. He taps the guard. Then the guard’s pulse rate never spikes. His body temperature barely changes.”

            Karan did not speak. His eyes were on the stranger’s hand, extended toward Mukund’s shoulder.

            A simple gesture. Too simple. Something in it felt surgical. Deliberate.

            Like someone quietly slicing into the fabric of another mind.

            “Play the next ten seconds,” Karan said.

            The specialist did. The footage rolled.

            Mukund blinked just once - as if a filament inside him had been switched from logic to obedience. Then he stepped toward the vault.

            The stranger remained still. Watching. Monitoring. Almost… calibrating.

            The vault door corridor swallowed Mukund from the frame, but the shadowy figure didn’t move. He simply turned his head fractionally to the left, as if observing someone behind the camera’s gaze.

            Then…He walked back into the stairwell. Head down. Steps silent. The door shut. A door that should not have opened without access codes. A door for which even the bank’s senior manager needed biometric clearance. A door that no stranger should have been able to walk through - yet he had walked with the casual ease of someone who wasn’t breaking into restricted zones, but simply moving inside a space he already owned.

            What kind of man does that?

            What kind of mind knows how to erase fear in another human so completely that he can       walk a             tightrope with his eyes closed?

            Raghav’s voice tugged Karan back from his thoughts.

            “Look at the time-stamp,” he murmured, pointing. “He enters the stairwell at 02:38:19.”

            “And Mukund opens the vault at 02:40:31,” Mishra added.

            “That’s a full two minutes later. Why didn’t the stranger follow? Why didn’t he supervise?” the forensic expert asked.

            Karan’s voice was soft, but chillingly certain.

            “He didn’t need to. The instructions were already inside Mukund’s head.”

            He turned to the team.

            “And that means this man - whoever he is - is not just using psychological manipulation. He’s entering minds with a precision no ordinary criminal possesses.”

            Raghav shivered involuntarily. “Are you saying what I think you’re saying?”

            Karan inhaled slowly. “I’m saying Mukund’s brain did not decide. It executed.”

§   

The Stranger’s Trail

            “Sir, we traced the moment he left the building,” the CCTV operator announced.

            Images flickered on the screen - stairwell, basement parking, rear exit.

            There he was again. The same posture. The same measured pace. But this time, the camera caught something else - something they had not noticed earlier.

            A small object clipped to the inside of his collar. Metallic. Reflective. Almost like a…

            “Is that an earpiece?” Mishra asked.

            Karan shook his head slowly.

            “No. An earpiece stays inside the ear. This…” He stepped closer. “This is a transmitter. Tiny. Custom-made. It relays frequencies, not audio.”

            The operator glanced at him. “Frequencies? Like… noise-cancellation?”

            “More like… noise-introduction.” Karan’s tone deepened. “Someone might be feeding him timed pulses. Rhythms calibrated to a human brain.”

            Raghav exhaled sharply. “So this stranger? He’s not the mastermind. He’s being guided.”

            “Or synchronized,” Karan said.

            A perfectly synchronized puppet moving through a world that could not hear the strings.

§   

The Elevator Discovery

            They followed the footage until the stranger stepped into the back elevator. The door slid shut. The camera inside the elevator captured him from a frontal angle for barely two seconds before he tilted his head down, letting the shadow swallow his face.

            But those two seconds were enough.

            Raghav pointed. “Look! His eyes—do a close-up!”

            The specialist zoomed. Pixelation. Noise. But beneath the distortion…A faint reflection in his pupils. A pattern. Not an image. Not a person. A pattern. Mathematical. Symmetrical. Continuous.

            A moving waveform reflected off the surface of his eye. The kind you’d see on an EEG monitor. The kind you’d see when a brain wasn’t thinking…but being steered.

            Karan felt the back of his neck tighten.

            “He’s not sleeping,” he whispered. “He’s not fully awake either. He’s in an induced semi-conscious state. The perfect zone where the mind is receptive… but not resistant.”

            “And Mukund?” Mishra asked.

            “Used the same way,” Karan said quietly. “Except Mukund received one command. This man receives many.”

§   

A Door Without Permission

            The footage showed the elevator stopping at the ground floor. The stranger walked out. Towards a door. Not the exit. Not the security gate. A maintenance door. With a digital lock panel. The kind of door no outsider should even know existed.

            And yet…The moment he touched it, the panel flickered. Not green. Not red. Just… flickered. And then the door unlocked.

            “No,” the operator whispered. “That’s impossible. That panel needs powered authentication. Someone must have sent…”

            “No one sent anything,” Karan cut in. “This is bypassing. Remote override. But not through hacking. Through signal manipulation.”

            He turned slowly toward the team.

            “Someone out there has tech capable of tricking security systems using controlled frequency bursts.”

            Raghav exhaled shakily. “That’s not street-level crime. That’s… government-lab level.”

            Karan nodded slowly.

            “And no government in this country…or any country…allows such technology for civilian use.”

            “So whoever built it,” Mishra said quietly, “is operating outside all known systems.”

            “And whoever is using it…” Karan added, “is the man we’re seeing walking through a locked door as if it’s made of warm butter.”

§   

The Vanishing Moment

            The stranger moved into the maintenance corridor, reached the back exit, stepped out into the alley…And then…He vanished. Not physically. Not magically. But practically.

            The last camera caught him walking toward a street with minimum light. After that there was nothing. No angles. No movement. No trace.

            He had walked out of the frame of the city itself.

§   

Mishra’s Question

            Mishra ran a hand through his hair, frustration simmering under his voice.

            “Sir… we have a hypnotized guard, a frequency-controlled shadow figure, a vault heist with no physical damage, and a disappearance without a trail. How does anyone fight something like this?”

            Karan stared at the darkened screen. A faint memory flickered across his mind…a whisper from years ago, from a case buried under sealed reports. A phrase he hoped he would never hear again. A phrase spoken by someone who had understood the human brain better than anyone Karan had ever met.

            “The most dangerous weapon,” Karan said softly, “is an unguarded mind.”

            Raghav swallowed. “Sir… you sound like you know something.”

            Karan didn’t answer. Because the truth was tightening around him like an invisible rope. He did know something. And that something was no longer a distant nightmare. It was here. Walking in Bhopal. Silently. Soft-footed. Mind-stealing. And now, staring through CCTV cameras as if aware that someone was watching.

            Someone like Karan.

§   

The Mind with No Echo

            The morning sun rose over Bhopal with a gentle warmth, but the city felt strangely muted - like a radio tuned slightly off its station. No crowds outside the bank. No reporters yet. No chaos.

            Just a delicate, unnatural silence that threaded itself through the air.

            It was the kind of silence that comes before people realize something impossible has happened.

§   

The Vault That Looked Untouched

            By the time Karan reached Tanishq SafeBank again, the officials were already waiting near the vault wing. The corridors smelled faintly of metal and stale air-conditioning - a sterile mix that clung stubbornly to the walls, as if it had soaked into them over years of quiet routine.

            But today, the air was different.

            It carried a subtle heaviness. A sense of intrusion.

            Raghav held a clipboard, though he kept glancing nervously at the vault door.

            “The managers double-checked, sir,” he said as Karan approached. “Nothing except the cash is missing. No seals broken. No digital override. The vault reports no tampering.”

            Karan looked at the tall steel door - smooth, polished, reflecting fluorescent light like a frozen mirror.

            Banks were built to withstand brute force. They were not built to resist invisible commands.

            He stepped closer and placed a hand on the cold surface.

            There were no scratches. No dents. Nothing.

            “How did he open this?” Mishra murmured behind him.

            “He didn’t,” Karan answered quietly. “Mukund did. Voluntarily.”

            The truth tasted metallic - unpleasant, bitter. Not forced. Not coerced. Controlled.

            The managers hovered nearby, restless yet silent, as if waiting for answers they knew would not be normal. Their faces were pale; their confidence shaken.

            One of them, a stout middle-aged man with a trembling moustache, finally spoke. “We have state-of-the-art biometric locks, sir. Our vault hasn’t been breached in twenty years.”

            Karan nodded.

            “And today it wasn’t breached,” he said simply. “It was opened.”

            A deeper fear rippled across their expressions.

            Opened from the inside by one of their own with a mind that was not his own.

§   

The Hollow Chair

            Mukund Yadav sat in the interrogation room like a statue carved out of fatigue itself.

            His head leaned slightly to the left, eyes heavy-lidded, breath slow and shallow - as if someone had placed him under an invisible pillow of lethargy.

            But this wasn’t normal tiredness.

            This was the residue of a mind forced to operate outside its natural rhythm.

            The small room held the faint odor of phenyl and old files. A lonely ceiling fan spun lazily, barely stirring the air, and the late morning sunlight crept through the blinds, striping Mukund’s face in alternating bands of gold and shadow.

            Karan entered quietly.

            Raghav stood in the corner, a file in hand, his posture taut with disbelief.

            “Sir,” he whispered, “he hasn’t spoken a full sentence. He just… stares.”

            Mukund’s eyes drifted slowly toward Karan, unfocused yet aware in some distant, broken way.

            “Yadav,” Karan said softly, taking the chair opposite him. “Do you know where you are?”

            Silence. A long one. Then…

            In a voice that sounded like a man half-dreaming, Mukund murmured, “Bank… office… maybe…”

            “Do you remember last night?”

            A small flicker in the guard’s eyes. Something shifting.
Something trying to surface.

            “I… don’t… I was tired… I think… very tired…”

            Karan watched him closely.

            “Did someone talk to you?”

            Mukund blinked. A slow, unnervingly mechanical blink.

            “I don’t… remember… talking… but I heard… something…”

            Raghav leaned forward. “Something? What do you mean? Like a sound? A noise?”

            Mukund nodded faintly, as if the motion required an unusual amount of effort.

            “It was… behind me… a whisper… no, not a whisper… like someone tapping… not my shoulder… tapping inside…”

            He tapped the side of his own head with one finger.

            Karan felt the air thicken around them.

            “A tapping inside your head?” he asked quietly.

            Mukund nodded again.

            “Yes… like a clock… but soft… rhythmic… and after that… everything felt… distant.”

            The sentence drifted off into an empty silence.

            Raghav’s skin prickled.

            “Sir… it sounds like…”

            “I know,” Karan interrupted. “Continue, Mukund. What happened after the tapping?”

            The guard frowned slowly, as if his brain were wading through mud.

            “I walked… somewhere… I think… I saw light… then darkness… then the vault door… and then…”

            His voice thinned.

            “…and then I wasn’t me.”

            The last four words hung in the air like a knife suspended by a strand of hair. Karan leaned in.

            “What do you mean by that?”

            Mukund looked at him with an expression that was not fear nor confusion but a hollow desolation.

            “When I opened the vault… it felt like I was watching… not doing. Like my body was a room someone else had entered.”

            A cold shiver ran through the room.

            Raghav swallowed. “Sir… this is not hypnosis. Not traditional. This is something far more invasive.”

            Karan didn’t respond. He didn’t have to.

            His jaw had tightened in a way that told Raghav everything - Karan had heard something like this before. Years ago. In a case that had left him with scars no one else could see.

§   

The Shadow’s Signature

            When they left the interrogation room, Karan walked in silence down the corridor. Raghav followed, matching his pace.

            “Sir,” he said carefully, “Mukund isn’t lying. His brain scans show disruptions in the prefrontal cortex and limbic system. Exactly the areas affected by induced suggestibility. This is engineered, not accidental.”

            Karan paused by a window overlooking the street outside. Below them, cars moved. People crossed the road. Rickshaws weaved between buses. Everything looked normal. But normalcy was the most fragile illusion.

            “Karan sir,” Raghav pressed, “we have to consider that someone is using tech powerful enough to interfere with brain functions. Something capable of…”

            “I know what it’s capable of,” Karan finally said. His voice was low, carrying a darkness far older than this case.

            Raghav hesitated. “Sir… have you seen this before?”

            Karan didn’t answer directly. Instead, he spoke a single sentence that made Raghav’s stomach tighten.

            “There was once a man,” he whispered, “who believed the human mind was a doorway… and he wanted to walk through it without knocking.”

            Raghav froze.

            “Sir… are you saying this case is connected to—”

            Karan’s gaze hardened.

            “No. I’m saying this case is connected to someone who learned from him.”

§   

The Phantom File

            Back in the surveillance center, the technician waved them over urgently.

            “Sir! We found something.”

            The image on the screen wasn’t from the bank. It was from a street 300 meters away. A different camera. A different angle. Captured minutes after the stranger vanished from the final alley. The frame showed a deserted lane with one flickering street lamp.

            And under that lamp…A silhouette. Not walking. Standing. As if waiting. But that wasn’t the shocking part. The shocking part was the direction he was facing. He wasn’t looking ahead.
He wasn’t looking down. He was turned toward the CCTV camera - staring directly into it. As if he knew it was there. As if he wanted them to find him.

            But the face was hidden in complete darkness, swallowed by a perfectly positioned shadow that no natural light could have created.

            A shadow shaped like a mask. A shadow that seemed almost deliberate. Karan stared at the image, his heartbeat a slow, heavy drum.

            Raghav whispered, “Sir… what is he doing? Why is he looking at the camera?”

            Karan exhaled.

            “He isn’t looking,” he said quietly. “He’s letting us know he can see us.”

            The room felt suddenly smaller. Colder. Because the stranger was no longer just a figure walking silently through corridors. He was now something else…An intelligence. A presence. A mind that could walk without sound and think without echo.

            And now, for the first time…It had turned its gaze toward Karan.

§   

The Breath in the Wires

            The city outside had woken up completely by the time Karan stepped out of the surveillance room, yet the world around him felt disturbingly muffled. Bhopal’s usual midday chaos - honking scooters, restless crowds, food carts clattering with metal ladles - reached him as if through cotton.

            It wasn’t the city that had changed. It was him.

            Something about that silhouette staring at the CCTV lens had shifted the air around his mind, shrinking the distance between hunter and hunted.

            Raghav hurried behind him, matching steps with shorter breaths.

            “Sir,” he said, voice low, “I checked the metadata. That street-lamp footage wasn’t part of the city surveillance grid.”

            Karan slowed. “Meaning?”

            “Meaning,” Raghav continued, “someone patched it in. It wasn’t recorded by us - it was sent to us. As if the camera feed was injected directly into the server.”

            Karan turned fully, eyes narrowing.

            “Injected?”

            “Yes. The frame has no digital signature. It’s phantom footage.”

            Karan stared into the middle distance, processing.

            Someone had recorded that silhouette under that flickering lamp. Then pushed it into the system’s memory space.

            Clean. Precise. Undetectable unless examined manually. It was a message. A demonstration. A quiet whisper that said:

            Look how easily I can step into your systems.Look how easily I can step into your minds.

§   

The Man in the Void

            Back in the main forensic bay, the analysts had isolated the silhouette’s outline, tracking his dimensions, posture, and height.

            “Five foot eleven,” the technician announced. “Leans slightly on the left leg. Foot pressure suggests a gait irregularity - as if his left ankle was injured in childhood.”

            Karan absorbed this.

            “And?” he asked.

            “Sir… there’s something else.”

            On a second monitor, the technician had pulled up thermal imaging variance from the frame. It wasn’t perfect - phantom videos rarely provided proper heat maps - but it was enough.

            The silhouette emitted heat. But not evenly. Not like a human.

            There were small cold zones - hard-edged, metallic-looking shapes under his clothing. Not weapons. Not electronics. Something else.

            “What are those?” Mishra asked from the back of the room.

            The technician exhaled slowly. “Sir… the shapes look like nodes. Small metal nodes placed on connective nerve points.”

            “In his clothes?”

            “Not exactly.” The technician hesitated. “More like… under his skin.”

            A silence spread through the room.

            Raghav felt his mouth run dry. “Sir… that’s neurological augmentation. Illegal in every country.”

            Karan nodded grimly. Not surprised. Not shocked.

            Because somewhere in the back of his mind, a name was already forming. A name he did not want to remember.

§   

The Name He Would Not Speak

            He stepped aside, pulling in a breath that felt heavier than the air around him.

            “Karan sir?” Raghav asked cautiously. “Who are we dealing with?”

            Karan did not answer.

Instead, his memory dragged him backward - to a dim-lit basement research lab in Delhi, to a man with quiet eyes and an obsession with the architecture of consciousness, to experiments that should never have existed, to a file marked black classification, to a disappearance that had never been resolved.

            Raghav tried again.

            “Sir… is this connected to that scientist you once mentioned…the one who…?”

            “Don’t say his name.” Karan’s tone cut through like a surgical blade.

            Raghav froze.

            Because this wasn’t anger. It was fear disguised as authority.

            Fear Karan rarely allowed anyone to see.

§   

The Signal That Should Not Exist

            A buzzing sound suddenly sparked from one of the analytics consoles.

            The technician frowned. “Sir… we’re receiving an unknown frequency.”

            “What do you mean unknown?” Raghav asked.

            The technician tapped the screen, adjusting filters. “I mean… it’s not coming from any communication tower or device registered in Bhopal. It’s local. Extremely local. Range under two kilometers.”

            Karan stepped forward. “Show me.”

            Lines appeared on the monitor - waveforms pulsing slowly, hypnotically. Uniform. Measured. Deliberate.

            It wasn’t random static. It wasn’t interference. It was rhythm. A slow, crawling, calculated rhythm that seemed to move like a pulse across the digital surface.

            Mishra shuddered. “It looks like a heartbeat.”

            “No,” Karan murmured. “It looks like instruction.”

            The technician swallowed. “Sir… this frequency… it matches something.”

            “Matches what?”

            The technician pointed at the waveform graph.

            “It matches the reflection we saw in the stranger’s eyes inside the elevator.”

            A silence wider than the room fell over them.

            Raghav whispered, “Sir… that means the signal is active again. Someone is still controlling him.”

            Karan stared at the pulsating waves.

            “No. Not controlling him,” he said.

            “Then what?”

            “Controlling others.”

§   

A New Victim

            A sharp knock erupted at the door. A breathless constable rushed inside.

            “Sir!” he panted. “We just received a distress call from Bhopal Central Hospital. A nurse there -she suddenly collapsed. Her colleagues said she was walking in her sleep. Eyes half-open. No response.”

            Karan’s head snapped toward him. “Walking where?”

            The constable swallowed.

            “To the restricted drug vault.”

            The room’s energy froze.

            Mishra’s face lost color. “Sir… don’t tell me…”

            “Yes,” Karan said sharply. “He’s expanding. He’s testing range and control. New victims. New commands.”

            Raghav stammered. “But why a nurse? Why a hospital?”

            Karan’s eyes hardened.

            “Because a hospital has drugs, sedatives, adrenaline. Chemicals that can induce mental states. He needs supplies.”

            “And he made her walk there?”

            “Not walk,” Karan said quietly. “Sleep-walk.”

§   

The Pattern Emerges

            Raghav grabbed a sheet of paper from the nearest desk.

            “Sir… the guard opened a vault. The nurse walked to a drug vault. That’s two critical-access locations. What is the pattern?”

            Karan answered without hesitation.

            “Control over controlled spaces.”

            Meaning: Places that required clearance. Places ordinary criminals couldn’t reach. Places where humans were the last line of security. Hospitals. Banks. Labs. Data centers.

            “What is he building?” Mishra asked, voice trembling.

            “Not building,” Karan said softly.

            “Rehearsing.”

§   

The Breath Behind the City

            The technician yelled from across the room.

            “Sir! The frequency spike just moved. It’s relocating!”

            Karan rushed to the screen. The waveform had shifted - jumped almost half a kilometer in seconds.

            “Sir… it’s traveling east.”

            Raghav’s voice cracked. “A moving signal? Someone carrying the transmitter?”

            “No,” Karan whispered.

            “Then how?”

            Karan stared at the screen. The frequency was breathing. Not like electronics. Like something alive.

            “It’s not a device,” he said softly. “It’s a person. Someone generating the signal. Someone whose brain is the transmitter.”

            The realization struck the room like a blunt force. A human transmitter. A human antenna. A human weapon.

            Raghav stammered, “Sir… you’re saying a human mind is emitting this? Naturally?”

            “No mind does this naturally,” Karan said.

            Only one mind had ever come close in all the cases he had ever seen. One mind that had vanished years ago.

            The technician shouted again.

            “Sir! The signal is heading toward Polytechnic Square!”

            Karan’s breath tightened.

            That area held only three things:

·         a telecommunications hub,

·         a research facility,

·         and the old government archives building.

            Raghav asked, terrified, “Which one is he targeting?”

            Karan didn’t blink.

            “The one that gives him access to more minds.”

§   

            The quiet that settled over the outskirts of Jaipur that night felt strange - too delicate, too deliberate, as if someone had adjusted the world’s volume knob and turned it one notch below silence. Not even the occasional rickshaw sputtered by. It was the kind of stillness in which a footstep should have echoed, yet none did.

            Kabir walked ahead with the same alertness that came naturally to him now - ever since the trail of “The Man Who Walks Without Sound” had begun to tighten around them. Saira stayed close, her gaze flicking between the slender dirt paths and the low, sleeping houses whose windows glowed faintly with dying lanterns.

            “Do you feel that?” she whispered.

            Kabir nodded. “Yes. It’s the quiet I don’t like… it means he’s close.”

            They approached the abandoned poultry farm that Samar had mentioned - a wide, lonely compound with rusting tin sheets, a sagging fence, and a broken sign hanging by a single nail. The moonlight fell unevenly, making the shadows stretch unnaturally long.

            Kabir pushed the gate gently. It didn’t creak.

            Saira noticed it immediately. “That gate should have made noise.”

            Kabir crouched, inspecting the hinge. A fresh smear of oil glistened.

            “He’s already been here,” Kabir said softly. “And he didn’t want anyone hearing him.”

            Saira felt a chill run through her spine.

            Inside, the farm looked like a skeleton of its former self. Empty cages, fallen beams, piles of discarded jute sacks, and traces of dry feathers. But there was something else - a pattern of compacted dust that didn’t match the rest of the floor.

            “He dragged something,” Saira observed, kneeling.

            Kabir knelt beside her. “Or someone.”

            They followed the faint drag mark deeper into a long corridor leading to a storage shed. As Kabir reached for the door, he paused, noticing a thread of black cloth stuck beneath it.

            “He left this,” Kabir murmured, brushing it between his fingers. The material felt expensive - too rich to belong to someone squatting in deserted farms.

            Saira frowned. “Is he taunting us?”

            “No… he’s warning us.” Kabir straightened. “He knows we’re chasing him.”

            He pushed the door open.

            Inside was a small, square room filled with stacked crates and old feed bags. The smell of dust was heavy, but there was something else beneath it - a faint whiff of cologne, expensive, sharp, lingering like a ghost.

            Saira closed her eyes. “This is recent… within a few hours.”

            Kabir scanned the room. “He waited here.”

            On one crate lay a single object: a small brass bell with a cracked surface, one that belonged to a child’s anklet.

            Saira’s breath caught. “This is from Anaya’s case… the missing girl.”

            Kabir’s eyes hardened. “So he’s connecting his crimes. He wants us to know.”

            The realization rippled through them both. The Man Who Walks Without Sound wasn’t escaping anymore. He was orchestrating.

            Kabir’s instincts buzzed with dread. “He’s escalating. And he wants us to follow this trail.”

            Saira gripped the bell, her fingers trembling slightly. “Why? What’s his endgame?”

            A sudden rustle outside sliced through the quiet.

            Kabir raised his hand instantly, signaling Saira to stay still. The rustle came again - soft, hesitant, deliberate. Someone was just beyond the doorway. Someone who knew how to approach without sound but had made a single mistake… perhaps intentionally so.

            Kabir moved soundlessly to the side of the doorframe, his breathing controlled, his heartbeat even. Saira positioned herself behind a stack of crates, her eyes trained on the opening.

            For a moment, the world froze.

            Then…A shadow flickered past the doorway.

            Kabir spun, reaching out…But what he caught wasn’t a person. It was a strip of paper pinned to the doorframe with a thin wooden splinter.

            Saira read it aloud, her voice tightening:

            “You’re late.”

            Kabir exhaled slowly. “He was watching us the whole time.”

            As the final word left his mouth, the distant howl of a stray dog split the unnatural silence, echoing across the barren farm. Something about the sound felt wrong - urgent, frightened.

            Kabir looked toward the far end of the compound.

            “We’re not alone,” he whispered.

            Saira swallowed. “Then let’s find him before he disappears again.”

            Kabir nodded.

            And the chase that had begun in whispers suddenly sharpened into a hunt.

 

§   

 

            The farmhouse door creaked shut behind Aarav as he stepped inside, letting the thin shaft of morning light fall across the worn wooden floor. Dust hovered in the air - fat, lazy specks drifting through the silence like they had been asleep for years. The place felt abandoned, but not in a peaceful way. It had the unsettling stillness of a room recently occupied by someone who had walked out without disturbing a single molecule.

            He inhaled sharply.

            There was a scent. A faint one. Metallic. Cold. Almost like the smell of old batteries.

            He walked deeper inside.

            The kitchen had a single wooden chair turned slightly away from the table—as if someone had risen from it in the middle of a motion and forgotten to push it back. The cup on the table held a layer of dried tea along the rim, a dark amber ring that suggested someone had sipped from it sometime last night.

            Aarav touched the cup. Stone cold.

            His pulse quickened.

            The survivor from the barn had said the man “didn’t make noise… not even footsteps.”

            Aarav walked slowly across the kitchen floor.

            Thud…Thud…Thud.

            His own boots sounded like drums in the silence.

            “If that man really moves without sound,” Aarav murmured under his breath, “then he already knows I’m here.”

            He turned toward the hallway. A shadow flickered.

            He froze. Every nerve in his body tightened.

            It wasn’t the shadow of a man walking. It was more like a curtain of darkness shifting unnaturally - distorted, stretched, as though the light itself was trying to describe a shape it didn’t understand.

            Aarav reached for his pistol.

            But something inside him whispered: Too late.

            The shadow dissolved.

            Footsteps…no, not footsteps, breathing…came from a room at the end of the corridor. Not loud. Not heavy. But slow… steady… unnervingly calm.

            Aarav kept his weapon low as he moved closer.

            The corridor grew narrower. The air, colder.

            A single room stood open…its door leaning awkwardly as though someone had forced it against its hinges repeatedly. He stepped inside and immediately felt a prickle down his spine.

            The room was empty.

            Except for a bed. And on that bed lay a man. Face upward. Eyes open. Not blinking. The same unblinking stillness Aarav had seen in the eyes of the Bhopal guard. Not asleep. Not awake.

            Caught somewhere in between.

            Aarav approached cautiously. The man’s breathing was shallow, barely perceptible. His pupils didn’t react to light. His fingertips were cold.

            “What did he do to you…” Aarav whispered.

            He checked the man’s wrist. A thin puncture mark. Almost invisible. A sedative injection?
No… too superficial.

            He looked closer.

            A tiny burn. Circular. Precise. As if a small device had been pressed against the skin…briefly…long enough to leave a scorch but not wound.

            Aarav’s heart hammered harder.

            A device?

            His mind flashed back…

            The bank guard in Bhopal rubbing his own shoulder in the interrogation room. The CCTV footage showing the shadowy figure tapping the guard’s shoulder before he walked like a sleepwalker through alarms and security barriers. The survivor at the barn insisting that the intruder “did something” to the guard who walked away like a puppet.

            Aarav stepped back from the bed. His throat tightened. A cold draft brushed past him. The window was slightly open, its latch swinging gently.

            He walked toward it and looked outside. Fields. Broken fences. Dust swirling in spirals.

            And then…A shape. Not a man. A silhouette. Motionless at the edge of the field. Watching the farmhouse.

            Aarav’s blood ran cold.

            The figure’s face was covered by a dark hood, but it wasn’t the clothing that terrified him. It was the unnatural stillness. The way the figure stood perfectly parallel to him, as though mirroring his position.

            He blinked. The figure didn’t vanish. It didn’t run. It simply drifted… sideways. Not stepping. Not turning. Gliding like a shadow sliding across the surface of the earth.

            Aarav took a step back.

            “What the hell…”

            He reached for his radio.

            “This is Aarav Ahuja. I have visual…repeat, I have visual…on a suspect matching the profile of the silent intruder. Location…”

            Static. He pulled the antenna higher. Still static.

            Aarav looked out of the window again.

            The figure was gone. He leaned out further.

            Nothing moved in the entire stretch of land…not a bird, not a dog, not even the wind. The complete stillness made his breath sound unnaturally loud.

            He withdrew from the window and turned around…And froze.

            The man on the bed was sitting up. Eyes locked on him. Unmoving. Expressionless.

            Aarav swallowed, forcing his voice to stay steady.

            “Can you hear me?”

            The man didn’t blink. Instead, his lips parted slightly…stiffly…like rusted gears being forced into motion.

            A voice emerged. But it wasn’t his voice. It echoed strangely, layered, as though it came from far behind the walls of the room.

            “He is coming back.”

            Aarav stiffened.

            “Who? The man in the field?”

            The voice didn’t respond.

            The man’s head tilted stiffly to one side, almost as if someone were pulling invisible strings attached to it. His mouth moved again, but his eyes stayed frozen.

            “He walks without sound. He sees without eyes. He knows you are here.”

            The words weren’t spoken…they were released, like pre-recorded messages in a dying machine. Aarav’s hand tightened on his weapon.

            “Who is he?” Aarav whispered.

            The man’s jaw clicked as he tried to form another sentence.

            Then…His head turned sharply toward the window.

            Aarav whipped around. And his heart nearly stopped.

            The figure was standing right outside the window now. Just inches away. Still. Silent. Watching.

            Aarav stumbled back instinctively.

            The figure raised a hand slowly. Very slowly. Almost mechanically.

            Its palm pressed against the glass.  The glass should have fogged from the warmth of a human touch. It didn’t. The palm stayed crystal clear.

            Aarav felt a chill slice down his spine.

            Behind him, the man on the bed whispered again, his voice cracking like a damaged speaker:

            “He taps the shoulder…and the mind sleeps.”

            Aarav’s breath hitched.

            Because the figure outside was lifting its other hand now…moving it toward the side of its own neck…Mimicking. Demonstrating. Almost teaching.

            Aarav took a step back.

            The figure tilted its head, as if amused.

            And the glass between them…Cracked.

            Just a hairline fracture. Thin as a thread. But visible.

            Aarav lifted his pistol.

            The figure's finger touched the glass again. The crack spread.

            Aarav steadied his aim…

            But the figure suddenly turned its head toward the stretch of barren farmland, as if hearing something distant. The tilt of its head was too sharp, too unnatural.

            Then…It dissolved back into the morning mist, leaving no footprint, no trail, no sign it had ever stood there.

            Aarav rushed to the window, flung it open, and jumped outside. Nothing. Only silence.        The kind of silence that felt engineered, controlled, designed.

            His pulse throbbed violently as he scanned the empty fields.

            No sound of footsteps. No rustle of clothes. No whisper of breath.

            And behind him, from inside the farmhouse, the man’s voice trembled one last time:

            “He doesn’t take money. He takes minds.”

            Aarav turned toward the voice. But the man on the bed had collapsed…unconscious, lifeless, limp.

            Aarav’s chest tightened.

            He whispered to himself:

            “What kind of monster walks without sound… and steals the will of men?”

            The wind finally stirred the dry grass.

            And somewhere in the distance, between the rows of dead trees…

            A faint gliding shadow moved.

            And vanished.

§   

            Aarav stepped away from the lifeless figure on the bed, feeling the farmhouse breathing around him…wood settling, walls expanding from the morning heat, old pipes groaning. But beneath all those ordinary murmurs, something else lingered…

            A residue. A vibration. A faint buzzing in his skull, as if the intruder’s presence had left an imprint in the air.

            He exhaled slowly, steadying himself. He needed to get out. He needed distance. Clarity.
Control.

            He holstered his weapon and headed toward the door. The wooden planks creaked beneath his boots…reminding him that his own footsteps still had sound. That he was still human. Still grounded in the physical world.

            Whoever that figure was… wasn’t.

            Outside, the sun had fully broken over the horizon now, spreading pale gold across the farmland. But even the sunlight failed to chase the chill that clung to the earth. Something was wrong with this place. The air felt denser, heavier, like the atmosphere itself had been altered.

            Aarav scanned the fields again. Still nothing.

            He started walking back toward where Inspector Sharma and the rest of the team were supposed to arrive. His boots crushed the brittle grass beneath him. In the distance, a windmill turned sluggishly, its rusted blades squealing faintly like an old animal refusing to die.

            His radio crackled. Faint. Staticky.

            “Aarav… where… you…”

            He raised the device to his mouth.

            “Sharma, come in. Do you hear me?”

            Static swallowed his voice.

            “…location… signal weak…”

            Then the radio died again…softly, without a pop. As if someone had pressed a finger to its pulse.

            Aarav stopped walking. He looked around. No power lines. No cell towers.

            But there was something else…something standing out in the middle of the field, half-hidden behind a patch of dying crops. A narrow wooden pole. About eight feet high. No markings. No wires. Just a lone pole, driven deep into the soil.

            He frowned. That wasn’t here before.

            He walked toward it, each step slow and cautious. The closer he came, the stranger the air felt…thicker, vibrating softly like a muffled engine.

            He reached out and touched the pole. Cold. Not wood. It only looked like wood.

            His fingertips slid across it…smooth, metallic. A disguised structure.

            He leaned closer, inspecting the grain pattern. It wasn’t natural. It was engineered, etched in precise repeating sequences…almost mathematical.

            A disguised antenna? A signal disruptor?

            Aarav stepped back, realization dawning.

            This is why his radio was useless. This is why the farmhouse felt… muted. This is why footsteps vanished. This is why the figure could move without sound.

            The device wasn’t just blocking communication. It was bending the soundscape of the entire area. A controlled silent zone.

            Aarav’s heart tightened in his chest.

The intruder wasn’t supernatural. He was operating inside a manufactured bubble…one that eliminated sound and manipulated sensory perception through micro-vibrations.

            A human weapon.

            Aarav pulled out his phone and took a picture of the pole.

            Then…A whisper brushed past his ear. Not a voice. Air. Movement.

            He spun around. Nothing. But the crops behind him… dipped slightly, like something glided through them.

            Aarav gripped his pistol, backing away toward the road. He didn’t run. Running meant noise.
Noise meant signaling.

            He moved with tight, controlled steps, eyes cutting across the empty field.

            The windmill creaked again. Only this time…The sound cut abruptly halfway, as if muted by an invisible switch.

            A chill wrapped around Aarav’s spine.

            Someone was adjusting the silent zone.

            He reached the dirt trail leading out of the farmland. Beyond it, vehicles were pulling up…two police SUVs and a federal van, dust swirling behind them.

            Aarav exhaled sharply. Finally. He waved both arms high.

            “Inspector Sharma!” he shouted.

            This shout carried. Sound returned. The boundary of the silent zone ended right at the dirt road.

            Sharma jumped out of the SUV, panting slightly.

            “Aarav! We lost your signal. What happened?”

            Aarav pointed back at the fields.

            “There’s a device here. A disguised pole…it’s suppressing all sound and blocking communication. And the suspect…”

            He stopped. Not because he couldn’t speak. But because he saw something over Sharma’s shoulder.

            Down the road, behind the arriving convoy…A man was standing halfway across the path. Still.
Silent. Motionless.

            Aarav’s breath caught.

            The figure was the same height. Same narrow frame. Same slow tilt of the head.

            Sharma turned instinctively.“What? What are you looking a…”

            But the man was gone. Just gone. Vanished from the open road without a single trace.

            Sharma looked unsettled. “Are you sure you—”

            “Yes,” Aarav snapped. “He was here.”

            Sharma raised a hand. “Alright. Okay. Show us the device.”

            They followed Aarav back into the field.

            But as they approached the disguised pole…

            Aarav froze. The pole was gone. Only a perfect circular imprint remained in the soil…dark, compressed earth where the structure had stood a few minutes ago.

            Sharma blinked. “Where is it?”

            “It was here,” Aarav said quietly. “I touched it.”

            Sharma crouched, examining the soil.

            “Something was definitely placed here,” he murmured. “But who removed it so fast?”

            Aarav’s jaw tightened.

            “He did.”

            Sharma looked up. “The silent intruder?”

            Aarav nodded.

            “He was watching us. And he didn’t want you to see the device.”

            Sharma stood straight, folding his arms tightly.

            “What kind of man removes an entire pole silently before police reach it?”

            Aarav looked back at the abandoned farmhouse. Then at the empty field. Then at the long, lonely road where the figure had appeared seconds earlier. His voice came out low, steady, almost reverent.

            “Not a man,” he murmured. “A force.”

            Sharma frowned. “What force?”

            Aarav looked him directly in the eye.

            “One that walks without sound…moves without warning…and steals control of the human mind like it’s switching off a light.”

            Sharma swallowed hard.

            “Then we’re not chasing a robber anymore.”

            Aarav shook his head slowly.

            “No. We’re chasing someone who doesn’t want money. He wants obedience.”

            He looked once more at the empty road.

            “And he’s already three steps ahead.”

§   

            As the morning sun inched higher, Inspector Sharma ordered his team to secure the perimeter. Officers moved through the fields in coordinated sweeps, marking the soil, photographing footprints -anything that qualified as evidence. But minutes stretched into half an hour, and patterns began to emerge. Patterns that did not make sense.

There were no footprints. Not a single one.

            Aarav watched the officers comb through the area with increasing confusion. The dry earth was soft, perfect for trapping outlines of shoes, tire marks, animal tracks - anything.

            But the soil lay untouched.

            Sharma walked back toward Aarav, frustration tightening his jaw.

            “It’s like he floated over the ground.”

            Aarav nodded silently. “Or walked inside a zone where the earth doesn’t react. The device wasn’t just muting sound. It was affecting pressure too. Like a localized manipulation field.”

            Sharma stared at him. “You’re saying he can alter physics?”

            Aarav looked at the empty patch where the device had stood.

            “I’m saying… he came prepared.”

            Before Sharma could respond, a uniformed constable rushed toward them.

            “Sir! We found something.”

            They followed him to the edge of the crops, where a small metallic object lay half-buried in the soil. Aarav crouched and gently brushed off the dirt.

            A fragment. Thin. Curved. Barely the size of a fingernail.

            But its surface shimmered faintly - reflecting the light in disruptive ripples, like heat rising off asphalt.

            Sharma knelt beside him. “What is that?”

            Aarav held the fragment closer.

            “It’s part of the device.”

            Sharma blinked. “A scrap? Why leave this behind if he cleaned up everything else?”

            Aarav didn’t answer immediately.

            Because this fragment was unusual. Its edges weren’t jagged. They were… melted. Not by fire. Not by heat. By frictionless disintegration. Lightning-fast extraction. Too fast for the material to stay intact.

            He pocketed the fragment carefully.

            Sharma stood, dusting off his hands. “We’ll send the field teams to sweep a two-kilometer radius. If he’s still nearby…”

            “No,” Aarav interrupted quietly. “He’s not nearby. He’s watching.”

            Sharma looked around nervously. “From where?”

            Aarav lifted his gaze toward the distant tree line. The air shimmered faintly above it. A heat mirage? No. The day was cool.

            Something else.

            “Every move we make,” Aarav whispered, “he sees it.”

            Sharma exhaled sharply. “You’re saying he’s monitoring us?”

            Aarav nodded. “And waiting.”

            Sharma turned to the team. “Alright. Wrap up here. We’re heading back.”

            But as officers began gathering equipment, a faint rumbling grew in the distance…deep and rhythmic. Not thunder. Not machinery.

            Aarav tensed.

            “Sir…” a constable murmured, “is that…”

            The rumbling grew louder until its source emerged from behind a distant hill: A white armored money-transport truck.

            Sharma frowned. “That’s… wrong. No truck was scheduled here.”

            The truck approached at a steady pace, engine humming. Its windows were blacked out. Its number plate was smeared with dust.

            Aarav felt unease bloom in his chest. “Sharma… tell the officers to fall back.”

            Sharma hesitated only half a second before barking the order.

            “Fall back! Take defensive positions!”

            Officers scrambled. Rifles clicked. Stances widened.

            The truck rolled to a stop exactly twenty meters away from them - too precisely. As though marked on the ground.

            No one stepped out.

            No door opened.

            Only silence.

            Aarav raised his handgun, voice sharp.

            “Driver! Step out with hands up!”

            Nothing. Not even a shift of weight inside the vehicle.

            Sharma stepped forward slightly. “Is it empty?”

            “No,” Aarav said. “It’s a message.”

            The truck’s engine suddenly cut off. And the world went still. A long, taut stillness.
Too long.

            Then…A single knock came from inside the truck. Not loud. Not forceful. Soft. Intentional.
Like knuckles tapping wood.

            Aarav’s skin prickled. “He’s inside.”

            Sharma signaled two officers forward. They approached the truck cautiously, weapons ready. One officer grabbed the handle of the side door… and pulled.

            The door slid open with a groan. The officers looked in. And both gasped.

            Aarav and Sharma rushed toward them.

            Inside the truck…sat the Bhopal guard. The same man who had robbed ₹3 crores while sleepwalking through laser sensors and automated locks. Now he was bound to the seat with zip-ties. Face forward. Eyes wide open. Not blinking. Not moving. Frozen in the same eerie half-alive stillness Aarav had seen at the farmhouse.

            Sharma cursed under his breath. “He escaped custody? How…”

            “He didn’t escape,” Aarav said softly.

            A small square pad was attached to the guard’s chest…pulsing with faint light.

            Aarav recognized it immediately.

            A mind-suppression node. The same type that the silent intruder had used on the man at the farmhouse.

            Aarav leaned inside the truck, inspecting the device. His heartbeat quickened. This wasn’t an accident. This was placement. Delivery. Intention.

            The silent intruder returned the guard to them. Like an offering.

            Sharma looked at Aarav. “What does this mean?”

            Aarav touched the guard’s wrist. Another puncture mark. Circular. Burned.

            Then something glinted in the guard’s closed fist. A folded piece of metallic paper.

            Aarav carefully pried it open. Inside, a message was etched in impossibly fine lines…lines so thin they were almost microscopic.

            But Aarav could read it.

            YOU ARE LATE. YOU ALWAYS WILL BE.

            Sharma exhaled shakily. “He’s mocking us.”

            “No,” Aarav whispered.

            His voice felt heavy. Dense. Weighted with realization.

            “He’s predicting us.”

            A faint hum began again…somewhere far off. Officers spun around, scanning the horizon.

            But Aarav looked at the guard.

            He gently tapped the side of the guard’s neck…where the intruder had tapped him during the robbery.

            As soon as Aarav touched that spot…The guard inhaled sharply. A deep, staggered breath.
As if rising from the bottom of a lake. His frozen eyes twitched. A tear slipped out. And he whispered, voice dry and cracked:

            “He’s not done.”

            Sharma leaned over him. “Who? Who is he?”

            The guard swallowed painfully.           “He knows you. He knows your steps. He knows your mind…” He turned slowly toward Aarav, voice trembling like a trapped child. “…and he’s waiting for you to follow him.”

            Aarav’s stomach tightened.

            “For me?”

            The guard nodded…barely. “He marked you. Back in Bhopal.”

            Aarav stepped back instinctively. “Marked me how?”

            The guard’s eyes drifted upward, unfocused, as if trying to recall something buried deep in his brain. “The tap… he didn’t just shut my mind down.” His voice cracked. “He scanned you.”

            Aarav’s blood ran cold. Scanned me?

            “When he touched my shoulder,” the guard whispered, “he looked at you… through me.”

            Sharma shot Aarav a horrified glance. Aarav’s pulse thundered.

            The silent intruder had been studying him. Targeting him. Watching him through his victims like lenses. And the guard’s final whisper was barely audible:

            “He knows your fear.”

            Aarav stiffened.

            “What fear?”

            The guard’s eyes widened in terror. And his voice dropped to a trembling rasp: “The fear you never speak about.”

            The guard collapsed forward. Unconscious.

            Aarav couldn’t move. Couldn’t breathe. Because the intruder wasn’t hunting money. He wasn’t hunting guards. He wasn’t hunting banks.

            He was hunting Aarav.

            Sharma placed a firm hand on Aarav’s shoulder.

            “Aarav… what fear is he talking about?”

            Aarav replied without turning.

            “I don’t know.”

            But he did know.

            He knew exactly what fear the silent figure was speaking of.

            He just didn’t dare say it out loud.

§   

            The night outside had deepened, but inside the rented flat where Ayan was hiding, a different kind of darkness had begun to thicken…one made of doubt, fear, and the uneasy sense that the walls themselves were listening. He sat on the edge of the bed, elbows on his knees, staring at the floor as if it held answers.

            His phone lay next to him. Powered off. Battery removed. Just the way the Inspector had instructed.

            Yet he still felt watched.

            A soft thud came from the other room. Ayan’s body tightened. He reached for the metal rod he kept under the bedframe and moved forward silently.

            Another sound. This time…a whisper of movement, like clothing brushing against a wall.

            He stepped into the hall, holding his breath.

            A shadow flickered near the kitchen.

            “Who’s there?” Ayan whispered.

            Silence.

            Ayan’s grip tightened. He took a step forward. Suddenly the lights snapped on.

            He froze.

            Standing in front of him, hands raised, was the Inspector himself.

            “Oh, relax!” the Inspector said sharply. “If I wanted to catch you off guard, you’d be on the floor already.”

            Ayan let out a shaky breath and lowered the rod, but his irritation surged. “You can’t sneak into someone’s house like that.”

            “I can,” the Inspector replied coolly, “when someone is being hunted by people who don’t knock.”

            Ayan swallowed. “Why are you here so late?”

            The Inspector didn’t answer immediately. Instead, he walked to the window, peeked through the curtains, and then locked it. His movements were quick, practiced, and tense.

            Ayan’s heartbeat accelerated.

            “What happened?” he asked.

            “They found your location.”

            Ayan felt the ground tilt beneath him.

            The Inspector continued, “You have ten minutes. Pack only what you can carry. Phone stays off. We’re leaving.”

            Ayan’s voice trembled despite his attempt to steady it. “Who found me? The real hacker? The people behind the project? Who?”

            The Inspector turned to him. For the first time, Ayan saw a flicker of something he had never expected in the man’s eyes…fear.

            “They’re not hackers,” he said quietly. “They’re something else.”

            Ayan’s breathing grew uneven. “Tell me what’s going on.”

            “I’ll tell you everything,” the Inspector replied, “but not here.”

            He grabbed Ayan’s arm, firm and urgent.

            “Move. Now.”

            Ayan shoved a few clothes, a notebook, and his hard drive into a backpack. As he zipped it, something inside him shifted…not just fear, but a cold clarity.

            Whatever he had uncovered…Whatever they were chasing him for…It was far bigger than he had imagined.

            They stepped toward the door. Before they could open it, three sharp knocks sounded from the other side. Not loud. Not rushed. Just… precise.

            The Inspector instantly raised a hand, signaling Ayan to stay silent.

            Both of them stared at the door.

            Then came three more knocks, identical in rhythm. A code. A signal.

            The Inspector mouthed one word:

            “Run.”

§   

            The night pressed against the windows like a living thing, humming with a nervous stillness that made every second feel longer than it should. Inside the small farmhouse room, Ayan stood absolutely motionless, the coded knocks still echoing in his mind…two, a pause, three… a pause, one. The rhythm wasn’t just a message. It was a signature. A mark. A pattern he had heard once before in a place he never thought he would return to in memory.

            Someone out there knew exactly where he was.

            His breathing slowed. His muscles tightened. The old wooden floor beneath him felt suddenly unstable, as if one wrong step could give him away to the invisible presence outside.

            Shiva Jain, still sitting on the bed, leaned against the wall with a trembling hand pressed to his chest.
            “Ayan… is it them?” he whispered.

            Ayan didn’t turn.

            “Don’t speak,” he murmured. “Not even a breath out of place.”

            The silence after that was terrifying…so complete it felt louder than noise. Even the insects outside had gone quiet. The wind had paused. The world held its breath.

            Ayan stepped backward until he reached the corner where the gunny bags were piled. One by one, with slow, deliberate movements, he shifted them. Beneath the bottom layer, hidden under a loose wooden plank, was a narrow recess filled with several folded tarps and a small metal box.

            He pulled the box out without making the slightest sound.

            Shiva swallowed. “What… what is that?”

            Ayan opened it. Inside were tools…strips of metallic ribbon, a slim flashlight, a set of picks, a small ceramic knife with no reflection, and a tiny folded envelope with markings only Ayan understood. Everything was arranged with military precision.

            “These aren’t for escape,” Ayan whispered. “They’re for concealment.”

            Shiva’s voice cracked. “Concealment from who?”

            Ayan’s hand froze.

            From the man who created me, he thought…but didn’t say it aloud.

            Instead, he pulled out the ceramic knife and pressed the envelope into his pocket. His eyes went to the window…still dark, still unmoving…but the silence outside had changed. It wasn’t emptiness. It was presence. Heavy, intelligent presence.

            “The one who knocked knows these fields,” Ayan said quietly. “Which means he knows me.”

            Shiva flinched. “Why would someone…”

            A sudden sound cut him off. Not a knock. Not footsteps. A breath. A human breath right outside the window. Slow. Measured.

            Like someone inhaling the scent of their prey.

            Shiva’s entire body went rigid. He clamped a hand over his own mouth instinctively, terrified that even the softest exhale would be heard.

            Ayan’s eyes turned razor-sharp.

            He moved toward the window inch by inch, his steps precise, weight-shift balanced. He didn’t break a single floorboard groan. When he reached the wall beside the window, he positioned himself flat against it, listening.

            Another breath. This one closer.

            Ayan lifted the ceramic knife, ready…not to attack, but to react.

            Then, with the gentlest movement, he tilted his head just enough to see the window’s edge.

            A silhouette shifted outside. Tall. Lean. And utterly still, like a shadow hanging in midair.

            Ayan’s heart slowed. He recognized that posture. The stillness. The way the figure blended into darkness like a natural habitat.

            It was him. The man whose presence had once dictated every heartbeat in Ayan’s life. The man whose voice could quiet storms of emotion with a single command. The man Ayan had believed dead for years.

            He whispered under his breath: “…Shadowmind.”

            Shiva swallowed hard. “Who… who is he?”

            Ayan didn’t answer.

            Not because he didn’t want to…he simply couldn’t. His throat had locked. His instincts weren’t screaming fear; they were screaming memory. Memories of corridors with no windows, drills that lasted forty hours, rooms where silence was more violent than sound.

            Outside, the silhouette moved again…and this time, its head turned toward the door.

            Ayan felt his pulse drop into a cold, controlled rhythm.

            “He’s not here to kill,” Ayan whispered. “Not tonight.”

            “Then what…”

            “He’s here to test.”

            To measure. To see if Ayan had gone soft after leaving the program.

            Ayan glanced around the farmhouse room…small, bare, vulnerable. Shiva was exposed. The door was exposed. If Shadowmind entered, he wouldn’t walk in. He would glide. He would vanish between the walls like smoke. There would be no confrontation…there would only be a failure.

            And Ayan didn’t intend to fail. He took Shiva’s arm. “We’re leaving now.”

            Shiva whispered frantically, “But the door…he’s right there!”

            “We’re not using the door.”

            Ayan moved quickly to the rear of the room and began peeling up the edge of the woven mat. Beneath it was old, cracked flooring…except in one corner where the wood looked newer.

            Shiva blinked. “How did you know that was there?”

            Ayan didn’t pause. “I didn’t. I just hoped.”

            He lifted the newer plank. Beneath it was a narrow crawl space that led into a storage shed behind the farmhouse…a dark cavity filled with tools, hay bales, sacks of seed.

            “Go,” Ayan whispered.

            Shiva hesitated. “Ayan… if he’s after you, why am I even…”

            “Because I let you see his face,” Ayan said quietly. “And he doesn’t like witnesses.”

            That was enough.

            Shiva dropped into the crawl space.

            Ayan waited…counting seconds silently…listening for footsteps outside. Nothing. Shadowmind hadn’t moved. He was waiting too. Testing.

            Ayan lowered himself into the crawl space after Shiva, then gently replaced the plank and mat above them. Darkness swallowed them instantly, the air cold and smelling of soil and old wood.

            They crawled.

            Every movement sent dust swirling in tiny streaks of pale gray. The air was tight and nearly unbreathable. Shiva’s breathing turned rapid and panicked, but he forced himself to stay quiet.

            Ayan moved like a creature born underground…smooth, steady, without scraping the walls.

            When they reached the end, Ayan pushed up the second plank and emerged into the storage shed.

            He took one breath…then froze again. Footsteps. Soft. Measured. Behind them.

            Shiva whispered, “He followed us?! How… we didn’t make a sound!”

            Ayan whispered, eyes cold: “He doesn’t follow sound. He follows intent.”

            The shed was pitch dark, but to Ayan it felt like a familiar terrain…the kind of place where shadows had edges and air had texture.

            A figure entered behind them. Tall. Silent. And impossibly close.

            Ayan didn’t see him. He felt him.

            The way one feels a sudden drop in temperature.

            Ayan squeezed Shiva’s wrist.

            “Don’t run,” he whispered.

            The figure’s breath…slow, steady…filled the dark shed. Ayan knew if he struck first, Shiva would die in the crossfire.

            So he forced his voice out, low and steady.

            “What do you want?”

            A pause.

            Then, for the first time in nine years, he heard the voice he feared and respected in equal measure…a voice with no emotion, no warmth, no human flaw:

            “You left unfinished work.”

            Ayan’s blood chilled.

            “What work?”

            The silhouette leaned closer. “The one who controls minds. The one who commands sleep. The one you call the Thief.”

            Ayan’s jaw clenched.

            “You mean Ghostwave,” Ayan said.

            Silence. A confirmation. Shadowmind stepped back, disappearing into darkness again.

            “You’re being hunted,” he whispered. “Not by me. By him.”

            Ayan swallowed.

            Shiva whispered, “Who is Ghostwave?”

            But neither of them would get an answer. Because by the time Ayan turned back toward the shed’s entrance…Shadowmind was gone. Vanished. Without a single sound. Just like always.

            Ayan exhaled, long and controlled. The chapter of his past he tried to bury had just reopened…and not gently.

            He whispered:

            “Shiva… Ghostwave is worse than a hypnotist. Worse than a handler. Worse than a thief.”

            Shiva trembled. “…Then what is he?”

            Ayan stared into the empty doorway.

            “He’s the one who taught the robber in Bhopal how to sleep with his eyes open.”

            And the night outside felt suddenly much darker.

            The shed felt colder after Shadowmind vanished, as if he had taken the last bit of warmth with him. Ayan stayed still for a moment, letting the silence settle. He needed Shiva’s breathing to calm. He needed his own pulse to level out. He needed the world to make sense again…but nothing did.

            Shiva leaned against a stack of wooden crates, still shaking. “Ayan… why did he come? Why now?”

            Ayan didn’t respond immediately. He reached for a cracked lantern hanging by a rusted nail and lit it with a strike of the old matchbox beside it. The flame flickered weakly, throwing long wavering shadows across the shed. Dust particles floated in the air like tiny ghosts.

            “Shadowmind never comes without purpose,” Ayan said finally. “If he appeared tonight, it means something has changed. Something dangerous.”

            Shiva swallowed. “Changed… how?”

            Ayan turned his face toward the doorway where Shadowmind had stood moments earlier.
“Ghostwave has begun.”

            The color drained from Shiva’s face. “You said he’s worse than a hypnotist… worse than a handler. What does that even mean?”

            Ayan closed his eyes for a moment, sifting through memories he wished he could erase.
“Ghostwave doesn’t manipulate thoughts. He erases them. He takes a person’s will and hollows it out until only obedience remains.”

            Shiva’s voice cracked.“So the robber in Bhopal…?”

            Ayan nodded slowly. “Ghostwave’s signature is sleepwalking consciousness. A half-awake, half-dead state where the victim is entirely controlled. The guard in Bhopal didn’t steal that money. He simply moved where he was directed…like a puppet.”

            Shiva pressed a trembling hand over his mouth. “And this… Ghostwave wants you?”

            Ayan stepped deeper into the shed, scanning the corners, studying the wooden beams, examining the air itself…everything with trained precision.

            “Ghostwave wants more than me,” Ayan murmured. “He wants what I escaped with.”

            Shiva’s eyes widened. “You escaped with something? What?”

            Ayan turned toward him, but before he could answer, a distant sound broke the silence.

            A low rumble. Mechanical. Steady. Growing louder.

            Shiva stiffened. “What is that?”

            Ayan raised a hand, signaling him to stay quiet.          The rumble intensified.

            Ayan’s jaw clenched. “Engines.”

            The sound belonged not to one vehicle…but several. Heavy tires rolled over the narrow dirt path surrounding the farmhouse, crushing stones and slicing through wet soil. Headlights flashed against the shed’s slats, casting brief, blinding stripes across the walls.

            Shiva whispered urgently, “Is it Shadowmind again?”

            “No,” Ayan said calmly, though his voice carried weight. “Shadowmind does not use engines. He does not arrive with noise.”

            A sharp screech followed…vehicles braking hard. Doors slammed. Boots hit the ground. Many boots.

            Ayan extinguished the lantern in one swift motion, plunging them back into total darkness.

            Shiva clutched his arm. “Ayan… who are they?”

            Ayan inhaled, slow and steady. “The ones who clean up after Ghostwave.”

            Shiva’s throat tightened. “Clean up what?”

            “People,” Ayan whispered.

            The farmhouse ground vibrated slightly as the group approached. Ayan moved silently to the wall and pressed his ear against the wood.

            Muffled voices. Coordinated movements. Not police. Not villagers. Professionals.

            Ayan motioned to Shiva. “Come.” His voice was firm but controlled.

            They moved deeper into the shed, past the tools, past an old tiller, past bags of grain that smelled of dry earth. Ayan crouched beside a large wooden chest.

            He pressed his fingertips along its edges until he found a thin line…a separation almost invisible to the eye.

            He pushed. The chest shifted. Underneath it was a square metal plate bolted into the floor.

            Shiva whispered, “What is this?”

            “A mistake,” Ayan muttered, “or a blessing. Depends on how well these people searched earlier.”

            Ayan worked quickly, unbolting the plate with tools from his pocket…tools Shadowmind himself had once forced him to master under fierce discipline. Within seconds, he lifted the plate, revealing a narrow metal shaft going straight down into darkness.

            A maintenance tunnel. Hidden. Forgotten. Unused for years.

            Shiva stared. “You knew this was here?”

            “No,” Ayan replied. “I hoped.”

            Shiva exhaled shakily. “Ayan… what if this tunnel collapses? Or leads nowhere? Or…”

            “It leads somewhere,” Ayan cut in. “Places like this farm never survive without access to water lines and old storage paths. The owner might have abandoned it, but the earth remembers old exits.”

            Above them, footsteps approached the shed door.

            A voice barked an order…low, firm, military.

            “Check every room. He cannot be far.”

            Shiva froze.

            Ayan grabbed his wrist with iron calmness. “No fear. Fear is sound. Move.”

            He lowered Shiva into the shaft. Shiva’s feet found a thin rung of an old iron ladder. Then another. Then another.

            Ayan followed.

            Just as he pulled the plate down above them…The shed doors blew open with violent force.

            Dust rained down over Ayan’s head as the sound echoed through the sheltering metal walls of the tunnel. The plate trembled. Footsteps flooded into the shed above. Three… no, four… no, six. Maybe more.

            Shiva whispered in panic, “They’re right above us!”

            Ayan whispered back, “They can search the world above.”

            He descended deeper, letting darkness swallow him.

            “They will not find us down here.”

            But even as he said it, he felt something else. A wrongness in the air. A vibration beneath the iron rungs. As if someone…or something…knew they had entered this tunnel from long ago.

            Shiva whispered, “Ayan… why is it getting colder?”

            Ayan paused mid-descent. Because he finally understood.

            This tunnel wasn’t abandoned.

            It wasn’t forgotten.

            Someone was already inside it.

            Waiting.

            And Ayan knew exactly who.

            Ghostwave.