Chapter 5: The Hypnotic Web Expands

            Inspector Raghav had investigated dozens of violent crimes across his career…murders committed in rage, robberies gone wrong, kidnappings with clear motives. But nothing prepared him for the eerie uniformity he was now seeing. Every suspect, regardless of background or temperament, displayed the same glassy-eyed hesitation, the same stuttering gap in memory, and the same inexplicable calmness when recounting the moments before the crime.

            It was as if someone had pressed delete inside their minds.

            Raghav stood in the observation room of the forensic psychology wing, arms folded, staring through the one-way mirror at the latest suspect…Harish Verma, a school accountant who had bludgeoned a colleague to death and then sat beside the body until the police arrived. Now, Harish sat silently, blinking slowly, pupils slightly dilated, as if waking from a deep and distant dream.

            Dr. Meera Saxena, the department psychologist, scanned her notepad and spoke quietly beside him.
            “Same symptoms again. Post-hypnotic suggestion. Strong. Very strong.”

            Raghav exhaled, the weight sinking deeper. “That makes it five suspects in three weeks. Five normal people turned into criminals with zero personal motive.”

            Meera nodded. “They’re responding to a trigger phrase, Raghav. A command planted earlier. Deeply. Precisely. Someone extremely skilled did this.”

            Raghav’s mind churned. Whoever this hypnotist was, they weren’t experimenting…they were orchestrating. Moving pawns. Testing limits.

            And they were getting bolder.

            He stepped into the interrogation room. Harish looked up, eyes dull but obedient.

            “Harish… tell me what happened before you picked up that metal rod.”

            A slow blink. A swallow. “Someone… spoke to me. A man with a soft voice,” Harish murmured. “He told me… ‘You will correct the mistake.’ And then… everything disappeared.”

            Raghav’s pulse quickened. That phrase again. Correct the mistake. Every suspect had uttered those words, as if carved into their mental walls.

            Back outside, Meera joined him again. “This isn’t mere hypnotism. This is mastery. Whoever did this is using a technique that crosses ethical, clinical, even neurological boundaries.”

            Raghav stared at the glowing city map on the wall…five dots across three states. No pattern. No link. No shared history.

            “But why these people?” he muttered. “Why random targets? Why spread across states? What is he trying to prove?”

            Meera’s voice turned grim. “Maybe he’s not proving anything. Maybe he’s preparing for something bigger.”

            A chill slid down Raghav’s spine.

            Somewhere out there, a man with a velvet voice and a monstrous talent was weaving a web the police couldn’t even see. And Raghav could sense the unspoken truth…

            This wasn’t the beginning of the case. This was the beginning of his entry into it.

            And the hypnotist had just taken his first steps toward Raghav.

            The morning sun had barely risen when Inspector Raghav stepped into the Crime Analytics Unit. A faint hum of servers filled the room, accompanied by the frantic tapping of keyboards. Analysts who usually carried a relaxed air now looked tense, caffeinated, and sleep-deprived.

            Raghav's junior, Constable Arjun, approached him with a tablet in hand. “Sir… we found something. Not a pattern exactly, but… something strange.”

            Raghav raised an eyebrow. “Strange is our new normal. What is it?”

            Arjun tapped the screen, zooming in on a cluster of digital footprints. “All five suspects visited different cities, different malls, different cafés… but one element is common.” He paused. “A kiosk.”

            Raghav leaned closer. “What kind of kiosk?”

            “A mental wellness pop-up. Branded as MindEase Workshops. Free five-minute ‘stress-relief sessions.’ Portable. Sets up anywhere. Disappears in hours.”

            He flipped through images collected from CCTV around the country. A small, neat set-up. A reclining chair. A soothing background screen. And a tall man with a face always half-hidden—sometimes by a cap, sometimes by a surgical mask, sometimes by shadows. But the posture… the presence… consistent.

            Meera, who had just entered, froze when she saw the footage. “That’s not a wellness coach. That’s a trained hypnotherapist. Look at his body language. The controlled proximity. The micro-gestures. He’s doing rapid induction techniques in under ninety seconds.”

            Raghav clenched his jaw. “So he isn’t chasing the suspects. They’re coming to him. Voluntarily.”

            Arjun swallowed. “Yes, sir. And the sessions are offered for free. He probably records their voice patterns, checks susceptibility, then plants the trigger.”

            Meera added quietly, “And chooses whom to turn into a weapon later.”

            Raghav felt the temperature drop inside him. This wasn’t random. This was recruitment.

            He pointed at the footage. “Track the movement of this kiosk. Each city. Each date. Each disappearance. And I want to know where it is today.”

            Arjun nodded and rushed away.

            Meera stepped closer to Raghav, lowering her voice. “This is someone who understands the psychology of crowds. Someone who knows anonymity. Someone who wants reach.”

            Raghav looked at her. “What’s his motive? Why plant murder commands in harmless people?”

            Meera hesitated. “He’s building a pattern of chaos…no motive, no links, no consistency. It destabilises investigative logic. It challenges law enforcement. It sends a message.”

            “To whom?”

            “To you,” she said softly.

            Raghav’s chest tightened. “Why me?”

            “Because you’ve cracked cases others couldn’t,” she replied. “Because you see through things too quickly. And someone like him… wants to test someone like you.”

            Before Raghav could respond, Arjun came running back, breathless, panic in his voice.

            “Sir… we traced the kiosk! It’s live. Right now.”

            Raghav snapped his attention to him. “Where?”

Arjun’s voice trembled. “At the Lakshmi Heritage Mall, sir… barely five kilometres from your home.”

            A chill passed through Raghav’s spine.

            The hypnotist hadn’t just left a trail.

            He was closing in.

            Lakshmi Heritage Mall was usually a weekend paradise…bright lights, loud music, kids dragging parents toward toy shops, couples sharing waffles, and a thousand footsteps echoing over polished tiles. But that morning, as Inspector Raghav and his team rushed across the atrium, it felt strangely muted. Too calm. Almost… pre-arranged.

            Raghav scanned the floors from the railing on Level 2. Nothing suspicious at first glance. Just morning walkers and shopkeepers preparing to open.

Arjun pointed toward the far corner near the elevator bank. “Sir… there.”

            A neat, minimal setup. A reclining chair. A soft pastel backdrop. A small sign flashing Free Stress-Relief Session. And a tall figure wearing a grey hoodie, head bowed slightly as he spoke to a young man seated in the recliner.

            Raghav’s pulse quickened.

            “Team Alpha, seal all exits quietly,” he ordered into his radio. “No alarms. No panic in the crowd.”

            Meera, standing beside him, whispered, “He’s doing rapid induction. Look how the subject’s fingers are relaxing one by one. He’s good.”

            Too good.

            The hypnotist leaned forward just a fraction…such a subtle movement that an untrained eye wouldn’t notice. But Raghav saw the controlled rhythm of his breathing, the calculated cadence of his words.

            The young man in the chair exhaled deeply. Too deeply.

            Meera’s eyes widened. “Raghav, he’s implanting something right now.”

            Raghav didn’t wait another second.

            He started walking fast…head down, steps heavy, weaving through the slow-moving crowd. His team fanned out behind him, forming a loose perimeter.

            The hypnotist didn’t react. Not yet.

            But then…As if sensing a presence rather than hearing footsteps…He slowly lifted his head.

            Raghav’s eyes locked onto a pair of sharp, mesmerizing eyes beneath the hood. Unblinking. Focused. Assessing.

            A faint smile tugged at the corner of the man’s lips.

            Not surprise. Not fear. Recognition.

            He knows me.

            The young man in the chair suddenly jerked upright, confused, dazed. The hypnotist had broken the induction mid-way. Not ideal, but effective enough to avoid drawing attention.

            The man in the hoodie tapped the subject lightly on the shoulder. “You’ll feel refreshed. Drink water,” he murmured softly…too softly for anyone except the subject to hear.

            Then he stood. Straightened. And in one smooth motion, reached for a small black case behind the backdrop.

            Arjun whispered behind Raghav, “Sir… should we grab him now?”

            “No,” Raghav muttered. “Wait. He’s expecting us.”

            The hypnotist zipped the black case. His movements were precise, almost graceful, lacking the panic of a cornered criminal. He looked at Raghav again, and this time the smile became clearer.

            A knowing smile. A smile that said: I’ve been waiting for you.

            Then…in a blink…he tossed a small silver disc onto the floor.

            “Smoke!” Arjun shouted.

            A dense white burst expanded outward, swallowing the kiosk, scattering the crowd in shock.

            Chaos erupted.

            Raghav covered his nose and pushed forward, eyes watering, coughing through the haze. “Fan out! Find him! Block the escalators!”

            But the hypnotist was already gone.

            Vanished into the stampede like he’d dissolved into the smoke, leaving behind only the empty kiosk, the confused subject, and a single folded note on the recliner.

            Arjun picked it up with gloved hands and handed it to Raghav.

            The note had four words, handwritten in elegant curves:

            “Not yet, Inspector Raghav.”

            Raghav stared at the message, jaw tightening.

            This wasn’t a chase.

            This was an invitation.

            The mall was sealed within minutes. Security shutters clanged down, teams moved into formation, and the smoke slowly thinned into a faint gray mist hovering above the tiles. But the hypnotist had vanished with surgical precision…as if he had rehearsed every possible escape route.

            Raghav paced around the abandoned kiosk while forensics photographed every inch of it. Nothing seemed out of place. No fingerprints on the metal frame. No footprints distinct enough to isolate. No stray hair, no fabric fiber, not even a smudge of sweat.

            The man was a ghost. A talented one.

            Arjun jogged toward Raghav. “Sir… CCTV analysis is almost ready. But, uh…there’s a problem.”

            Raghav looked up sharply. “What now?”

            “Every camera facing the kiosk glitched exactly thirty seconds before we reached it,” Arjun said, holding out his tablet. “Visual distortion. Horizontal noise. Then full blackout. It comes back only after the smoke clears.”

            Meera joined them, frowning. “That’s not just a jammer. That’s patterned interference. Someone designed it to break CCTV sync without triggering a security alert.”

            Raghav muttered, “So he predicted mall CCTV protocols too.” The net around this hypnotist was tightening in all the wrong places…around them, not him.

            One of the forensic officers approached with a small transparent evidence pouch. “Sir, we found something inside the black case he left behind.”

            Inside the pouch were three objects: A clean, unused surgical mask, A tiny Bluetooth earpiece & A folded slip of paper

            Raghav unfolded it carefully.

            It wasn’t a threat this time. It wasn’t a taunt. It was a timetable.           A list of dates… and cities. Starting from three months ago. Ending yesterday.

            Each date matched when a suspect had visited a “MindEase” kiosk.

            And then…One last entry at the bottom, handwritten in darker ink:

            “Next activation: 48 hours.”

            Meera inhaled sharply. “He’s planning another trigger event… two days from now.”

            Arjun stepped closer. “Sir, we need to alert all cities on the list. Increase surveillance around malls. Shut down any similar kiosks.”

            Raghav didn’t respond immediately. He was staring at the timetable, noticing something the others hadn’t.

            The cities were spread across three states, but the pattern wasn’t geographical. It wasn’t chronological. It wasn’t demographic. It was behavioral.

            Each city linked to a previous suspect’s life…childhood home, college location, former workplace, relative’s residence… all minor connections they hadn’t yet mapped.

            Meera noticed his silence. “Raghav… what are you seeing?”

            He pointed at the list. “He’s not choosing random cities. He’s choosing random people…but from their pasts. He’s studying their vulnerabilities. Their memories. Their unresolved conflicts.”

            Arjun frowned. “But why study them at all? They’re not connected to each other.”

            “They’re connected to him,” Raghav said slowly. “Or to what he wants to prove.”

            Meera’s voice tightened. “This isn’t just hypnosis. This is psychological architecture. He’s building something out of people’s minds.”

            Raghav folded the timetable again. “And he plans to activate the next ‘constructed mind’ in 48 hours.”

            Arjun hesitated before asking, “Sir… what if the next target isn’t a random citizen?”

            A pause. A deep one.

            Raghav turned toward the shattered calm of the mall.

            Because that thought had already entered his mind.

            What if the next person under hypnotic control…was someone closer? A colleague? A neighbor?
Someone from his own family?

            The hypnotist had already come within five kilometres of his home.

            What if he hadn’t come for a suspect this time?

            What if he had come for a host?

            Raghav’s fist tightened around the timetable.

            The hypnotist wasn’t fleeing. He was planting something. Someone.

            And the countdown had already begun.

§   

            Back at headquarters, the tension felt heavier than the late-afternoon humidity pressing against the windows. Everyone moved faster, spoke sharper, and scanned data with a kind of urgency that only a ticking clock can create.

            Forty-eight hours.

            Raghav felt every minute like a weight around his neck.

            He stood before the task-force whiteboard now packed with photographs, timelines, maps, and sticky notes. Faces of the five hypnotised suspects looked back at him…blank, confused, lost. Normal people turned into weapons.

            Meera entered with a thick folder. “We profiled the hypnotist’s pattern based on the induction methods you observed.”

            Raghav nodded. “Tell me.”

            “He uses a hybrid technique…stage hypnosis, clinical therapy, and covert neuro-linguistic triggers. Whoever he is, he’s trained internationally.”

            Raghav rubbed his jaw. “A doctor? A performer? A military researcher?”

            “Could be any,” Meera said. “But whatever his background, he’s not improvising. He’s following a psychological blueprint.”

            Arjun stepped in with two cups of coffee, handing one to Raghav. “Sir, new update. We scanned the MindEase brand. It doesn’t exist. The website domain is fake. Payments routed through servers abroad. The kiosk is a shell identity.”

            “Which means,” Raghav said, “he wanted to attract the kind of people who seek easy fixes for mental stress.”

            Meera added, “People with unresolved trauma, guilt, suppressed anger… those most susceptible to suggestion.”

            Raghav paced slowly.

            “So he builds a pool of candidates. Studies them. Picks the perfect subject for each trigger event. And now…”

            Arjun finished the sentence for him.

            “Now he’s picked someone for the next event. And that someone is already primed.”

            Silence settled in.

            Raghav looked at the timetable again. “Where does the pattern converge? What’s the center of the spiral?”

            Meera sorted through a few sheets. “If we align the suspects’ life histories, one thing stands out. Every victim they attacked had a minor connection to them…office rivalry, old feud, unresolved dispute.”

            “So the hypnotist activates their deepest buried emotion,” Raghav said. “He doesn’t plant random orders… he weaponises their own feelings.”

 

            Arjun swallowed. “Sir… what if the next activated person has a grudge against—”

            He didn’t finish. He didn’t need to.

            Raghav’s phone buzzed loudly in his pocket.

            A message. Unknown number.

            He opened it. A single image. A photo of his own house. Taken from across the street. Taken recently…there were today’s newspapers stacked outside the gate.

            Below the photo, one line of text:

            “You should check who came for help yesterday, Inspector.”

            Raghav’s blood froze.

            Yesterday…His mind raced. His nephew had dropped by. The delivery boy from the pharmacy came around noon. The neighbor’s son had stopped to ask for directions. The maid’s cousin had come to pick up documents. A cable technician had come to “check the router.”

            Raghav felt a sharp sting in his spine.

            Someone had already entered the house. Not to harm. But to plant a command.

            Meera read the message over his shoulder, her face draining of color. “One of them… one of those people… could be under hypnosis right now.”

            Arjun whispered, “And we have less than forty-eight hours to find out who.”

            Raghav closed his fist around the phone.

            “No,” he said quietly. “We have less than forty.”

            Because the hypnotist never sent messages without purpose. If he had photographed the house yesterday…The activation window might already have started.

            This time, the weapon wasn’t a stranger.

            It was someone who had walked through Raghav’s own door.

§   

            Night settled over the city like a blanket stitched with unease. The usual hum of traffic outside Raghav’s home felt sharper tonight…every horn, every footstep, every passing bike sounded like a possible trigger.

            Inside the task-force meeting room, the air buzzed with controlled chaos. Officers worked in rotating shifts, analysing visitor logs, CCTV feeds, and call details of anyone who had entered Raghav’s home in the last forty-eight hours.

            But the hypnotist had planned this too well. Too neatly.

            Meera stood beside Raghav, her eyes scanning his face. “You haven’t slept.”

            Raghav didn’t bother denying it. “Someone who came yesterday is a potential sleeper. A trigger waiting to be activated.”

            She nodded. “We’ll identify them. Before activation.”

            Arjun rushed in with a file. “Sir… we’ve shortlisted five high-risk individuals who visited your house yesterday. Any of them could be primed.”

            Raghav took the list.

      The cable technician, the maid’s cousin, the neighbor’s son, the pharmacy delivery boy and lastly…your nephew, Aarav

            Raghav paused at the last name.

            A tight knot formed in his chest…not fear, but a sharp, cold anger. Aarav was barely nineteen. A bright kid. Soft-spoken. Came by only to pick up some old books.

            Meera read Raghav’s change in expression. “Hypnosis doesn’t discriminate by age if the subject is emotionally open. Especially if they trust the hypnotist’s disguised persona.”

            Arjun added, “Sir, the hypnotist could have approached anyone under some excuse. Your nephew might not even remember if a stranger spoke to him on the way.”

            Raghav exhaled slowly. “Bring them all in. Quietly. No panic, no accusations. I want them checked by Meera.”

            Meera nodded firmly. “There are subtle tests. Eye-tracking delays. Response patterns. Micro-suggestions. I’ll know if someone is carrying a hidden command.”

            A phone rang.

            Arjun picked it up, listened for a few seconds, then turned pale. “Sir… it’s the PCR unit stationed near your house.”

            Raghav stiffened. “What happened?”

            “They found the cable technician.”

            “Where?”

            Arjun’s voice dropped. “At a bus stop. Sitting alone. Motionless. Staring into space.”

            Meera’s eyes widened. “A suspended hypnotic state?”

            “That’s not the worst part,” Arjun added shakily. “He had a note in his pocket.”

            Raghav’s heartbeat hammered. “What note?”

            Arjun swallowed hard. “It says: ‘Wrong one, Inspector. Try again.’”

            For a moment, no one spoke.

            The hypnotist was watching their moves. Predicting them. Staying three steps ahead.

            Meera whispered, “He’s narrowing your focus. He wants you searching in exactly the direction he designs.”

            Raghav felt a slow burn rising inside him. “Then he wants a game. Fine. But games reveal patterns.”

            He turned to Arjun. “Get the other four here. Immediately.”

            Arjun hurried out.

            Meera touched Raghav’s arm gently. “He’s pushing you emotionally. He wants you unsettled. He wants you to doubt the people close to you.”

            Raghav looked at the list again.

            Four names left. One of them was carrying a mental trigger wired to explode at the hypnotist’s next command.

            And somewhere in the city, the hypnotist must have been smiling in the dark. Watching.
Studying. Waiting for Raghav to make the next move.

            The countdown continued.

§   

            The conference room felt colder than usual, though the AC wasn’t even on. Everyone sensed it…the danger was no longer “out there.” It was now walking dangerously close to Raghav’s own doorstep.

            Arjun entered with updates, his face drawn tight with worry. “Sir, we’ve secured all four individuals in separate rooms. No external communication allowed. Surveillance is live. But…”

            Raghav looked up sharply. “But what?”

            Arjun hesitated. “Sir, the hypnotist knows we’re checking them. He wants us to.”

            Meera agreed. “Every message he sends is calculated to steer your attention. His goal isn’t to hide the sleeper. His goal is to make you fear the sleeper.”

            Raghav clenched his fists. “Fear won’t help him. But misdirection will.”

            He spread the files across the table…photos, timelines, statements. Four possible sleepers.
One real threat.

            And the hypnotist, like a puppeteer, pulling invisible strings from the shadows.

§   

            A forensic tech rushed in. “Sir! We analysed the silver disc he used at the mall…the one that released smoke.”

            Raghav turned toward him instantly. “What did you find?”

            “It’s not regular smoke. It’s laced with micro-fine menthol crystals and a specific essential oil blend used in induction therapy.”

            Meera’s eyes widened. “He’s not just using smoke as a cover. He’s using it to sharpen or dull sensory response. Even a two-second exposure can enhance suggestibility.”

            Raghav stiffened. “Meaning?”

            The forensic tech swallowed. “Meaning… everyone who inhaled even a small amount could have been pushed into a mild hypnotic receptivity state for a few seconds.”

            Arjun whispered, horrified, “Sir… you were in that smoke.”

            Raghav’s jaw tightened, but his voice stayed calm. “I’m not his target. He needs me awake. He needs me chasing.”

            Meera added quietly, “Still… it means he wasn’t escaping the mall. He was preparing someone even there for a later activation.”

            Arjun flipped through the crowd footage. “Sir… what if the sleeper isn’t from your house only? What if we’re chasing a decoy list, and the real sleeper was planted at the mall?”

            Raghav nodded slowly. “Exactly what he wants us to fear.”

            The hypnotist wasn’t creating confusion randomly. He was layering it. Stacking doubts.
Building psychological pressure like a tightening coil.

            Raghav’s phone buzzed again. Another unknown number.

            Meera stepped closer. “Don’t pick it.”

            Raghav answered anyway. A soft, calm male voice spoke…smooth as velvet, chilling as a winter draft.

            “Inspector… you’re wasting time.”

            Raghav felt his muscles tighten. “Who are you?”

            The voice chuckled lightly. “You know. You’ve always known. Some minds are predictable… even yours.”

            Meera’s eyes widened…she could hear the faint echo from the speaker.

            The hypnotist continued:

            “Four people in your custody. But only one is important. And remember… the mind I’ve prepared will not fail. Even you cannot save them now.”

            Raghav’s grip tightened around the phone. “What do you want from me?”

            A pause. A dangerous, deliberate pause.

            “I want to show you,” the voice said softly, “that even the sharpest mind… can be broken from the inside.”

            The line cut.

            Arjun’s voice trembled. “Sir… he called you directly. He’s escalating.”

            Meera stepped forward. “Raghav…this changes everything. A hypnotic seed grows faster when the emotional environment is triggered.”

            Raghav knew what she meant.

            This call was designed to accelerate the activation.

            The hypnotist had just given the mental command its first push.

§   

            The hallway outside suddenly echoed with a sharp shout.

            “Sir! Room 3—come quickly!”

            Raghav sprinted. Arjun and Meera close behind. They burst into Room 3…the room holding the pharmacy delivery boy, Sameer.

            He was standing now, rigid, eyes unfocused. Breathing slow. Mechanical.

            Meera’s blood ran cold. “Oh God… he’s entering a trance!”

            The officer inside tried to approach him gently. “Sameer? Can you hear me?”

            Sameer didn’t blink. Didn’t speak. Didn’t turn.

            Then, in a flat, eerie voice, he whispered:

            “Correct… the mistake…”

            Raghav froze.

            The same trigger phrase as the other hypnotized killers.

            Arjun whispered, horror-struck, “Sir… he’s the sleeper.”

            Meera shook her head. “No. Listen carefully… that tone… that delay… this isn’t full activation.”

            Raghav understood instantly. This was not the command. This was the pre-activation leak…a subconscious spillover when the mind begins slipping toward suggestion.

            The hypnotist had started the countdown.

            And Raghav had no idea who the intended target was.

Whether Sameer would kill…or die…or destroy something…or become a message. But one thing was certain:

            The real activation hadn’t happened yet.

            The hypnotist had started the clock.

            And the next move belonged to him.

§   

            The evening sky over Delhi had deepened into a violet haze by the time Inspector Raghav stepped out of the forensic psychology wing. He pressed the bridge of his nose, feeling the weight of every page Dr. Nupur had shown him…brainwave anomalies, memory disruptions, patterns of suggestion embedded so subtly that even seasoned experts had taken hours to detect them.

            But one detail refused to leave his mind.

            Every victim… every suspect… every unwilling pawn…They all reacted to the same trigger phrase.

            A whisper in the mind. A spark. A command buried under layers of conscious thought.

            Raghav sat in the jeep, staring blankly through the windshield. “We’re not dealing with influence,” he muttered. “We’re dealing with control.”

            Before he could crank the ignition, his phone buzzed. ACP Mehta.

            Raghav answered instantly. “Sir?”

            Mehta’s voice was tense. “You need to come to Hauz Khas right now. We’ve got a live one.”

            “Live what?”

            “Someone who just attempted a crime under hypnosis. But this time… we may have caught him mid-command.”

            Raghav straightened. “Mid-command? How?”

            “Because he collapsed,” Mehta said. “And he’s been repeating a single sentence ever since.”

            “What sentence?”

            A pause. Then Mehta whispered, almost as if afraid the words might do something just by being spoken aloud:

            “The eyes are everywhere.”

            Raghav froze.

            “Sir, keep him isolated. No auditory or visual cues.”

            “We already locked him in a sensory-controlled room,” Mehta replied. “But that’s not the strangest part.”

            “What now?”

            “The moment he said that sentence for the third time…” Mehta exhaled shakily. “…every CCTV camera around the street glitched. All of them. Same second.”

            Raghav felt the temperature inside the jeep drop. This was no longer a manhunt. This was a hunt for someone who could manipulate minds and technology…someone whose reach extended far beyond state lines.

            Someone who treated people as chess pieces and cities as a giant game board.

            Raghav turned the ignition sharply. “I’m on my way.”

            The jeep shot forward through the dimly lit streets, siren cutting through the night. For the first time, Raghav felt it clearly…not fear, but the awareness of stepping into the shadow of a grander design.

            A web he could feel around him. Tightening.

            And somewhere at the center of it…the hypnotist was watching him back.

§   

            The corridor outside the sensory-controlled room felt colder than the rest of the Hauz Khas station. Two constables stood guard, their shoulders stiff, as if afraid the man inside could somehow influence them through the walls.

            Raghav flashed his ID and stepped in.

            The room was dim, padded, stripped of sharp edges, stripped of stimulus…no windows, no screens, no reflective surfaces. A single low-intensity bulb glowed like a dying ember.

            On the floor, hunched over like a child hiding from thunder, sat the suspect.

            A thin man in his mid-twenties. Clothes dusty. No ID. Hair disheveled, as if he had been running for hours.

            His lips moved, barely audible.

            Raghav approached slowly. “What’s your name?”

            No answer.

            Only the mumble continued, rhythmic, mechanical, like a failing recording:

            “The eyes are everywhere… the eyes are everywhere…”

            Raghav crouched.

            “Who told you to say that?”

            The man’s pupils flickered upward, unfocused—almost as if he was trying to look through Raghav, not at him.

            And then, abruptly, he froze.

            His whispering stopped. Complete silence filled the room. The man tilted his head slightly, listening to something Raghav couldn’t hear.

            Raghav felt a chill crawl up his spine. “Listen to me,” he said carefully. “You’re safe. No one can reach you here.”

            The man’s fingers twitched. His mouth opened.

            For a split second, Raghav felt a strange sensation…like the air around them had tightened, like the room itself was drawing a breath.

            Then the man spoke in a voice that wasn’t entirely his own:

            “You shouldn’t have followed the threads, Inspector.”

            Raghav’s stomach dropped.

            This wasn’t a hallucination. This wasn’t a breakdown. This was a live command channel. Someone, somewhere, was speaking through him.

            Raghav leaned in slightly. “Who are you?”

            A faint smile curled on the man’s lips, eerie and puppet-like.

            “He sees you now.”

            Raghav didn’t move.

            “Who sees me?”

            The man blinked once. Slow. Controlled.

            Then he whispered one final sentence…soft, but sharp enough to slice through Raghav’s nerves:

            “The Master does not like being watched.”

            Before Raghav could react, the man’s body convulsed. A sudden collapse.

            The heartbeat monitor…silent till now…spiked wildly, then flatlined in a piercing tone.

            Raghav lunged forward. “Medical team! NOW!”

            The door burst open, paramedics rushing in, but Raghav already knew. The suspect was gone.

            Not killed by poison. Not by physical trauma. Something else. Something that shut him down the moment he revealed too much.

            Raghav stood back, fists clenched, heartbeat pounding.

            Someone had just sent him a message.

            And had killed a man to deliver it.

§   

            The medical team worked in frantic silence, but Raghav wasn’t looking at the dead man anymore.
His eyes were fixed on the corner of the ceiling…where a tiny, pinhole-sized black dot stared at him.

            A CCTV camera. Supposedly turned off. Supposedly disconnected. Supposedly impossible to activate inside a sensory-controlled room. But it was on. A faint red diode glowed. The same red diode Mehta had mentioned… during the citywide glitch.

            Raghav stepped closer.

            “Who turned this on?” he asked sharply.

            A constable swallowed hard. “Sir, the entire panel is disabled. That camera shouldn’t even have power.”

            “Yet here it is,” Raghav murmured.

            Watching. Recording. Or worse… transmitting.

            Raghav pointed at two officers. “Shut down the main grid feed for this wing. Not the breakers…the primary node. Rip the line if you have to.”

            “Yes, sir!”

            As they ran, Raghav pulled out his phone and dialed Mehta.

            “Sir, we have a breach.”

            “What now?”

            “The sensory room camera was active.”

            A pause. Then Mehta’s voice dropped. “That’s impossible.”

            “So was a man dying seconds after being used like a puppet,” Raghav snapped. “But both happened.”

            Before Mehta could respond, a sudden burst of static flooded Raghav’s ear. A sharp, crackling distortion. And beneath it… a whisper. Not from Mehta. Not from the phone network. Something else. A voice. Soft. Slithering. Calm.

            “Stop chasing shadows, Inspector. You won’t like what you uncover.”

            Raghav froze. It felt like the whisper wasn’t coming through the device…but around him.

            He stared at the phone’s screen: CALL ENDED.

            The line had been dead for five seconds. He was standing alone. But the whisper… still echoed faintly inside his skull, like an intrusive thought implanted deep.

            Raghav switched the phone off instantly and pocketed it.

            Two officers returned, breathless.

            “Sir, main grid offline. Entire node cut manually.”

            The camera’s diode dimmed.

            Raghav exhaled, but it wasn’t relief washing through him. It was confirmation. Someone had tapped into secure police infrastructure…remotely, invisibly, and with frightening precision.

            Raghav looked at the dead man once more, lying limp under a white sheet. He wasn’t a criminal. He wasn’t even a pawn. He was a listening device. A node. A mouthpiece.

            And when the Master felt threatened… he severed the connection.

            Raghav faced his team.

            “We’re done reacting,” he said quietly. “It’s time to hunt him.”

            “But how do we find someone who can control minds and machines both?” a constable asked.

            Raghav’s eyes hardened.

            “We find his oldest victim,” he said. “The one he slipped up on. The one who survived his influence long enough to remember something.”

            “Who is that, sir?”

            Raghav paused, recalling a case file from months ago…one that never made sense back then.

            A man who had tried to kill himself after hearing a voice no one else could hear.

            He survived. Barely.

            Raghav turned toward the exit.

            “His name is Arjun Pratap. And he said the Master visited him in his dreams.”

§   

            The rain had started by the time Raghav reached the psychiatric rehabilitation centre on the outskirts of Delhi. Sleek droplets clung to the barred windows like trembling beads, blurring the yellow glow from inside.

            Ward 3. Long-term observation. Severe auditory hallucinations.

            Arjun Pratap.

            Raghav flashed his credentials and stepped through the sliding security door. The corridor smelled faintly of antiseptic and wet earth. Nurses moved quietly, their footsteps echoing off the tiled floor.

            A senior psychiatrist walked beside him…Dr. Anjali Varma.

            “He’s stable now,” she said. “But only because he’s kept under controlled sedation. When he first came here, he was convinced a presence lived inside his mind.”

            “A presence?” Raghav asked.

            Dr. Anjali nodded. “He said it spoke to him at night. Whispered instructions. Tried to make him do things he couldn’t remember after waking.”

            Raghav felt his pulse quicken.

            “Did he ever describe the voice?”

            “Yes,” she said softly. “He called it ‘The One with No Face.’”

            Raghav’s jaw tightened.

            “Can I speak to him?”

            “We can reduce sedation for ten minutes,” she said. “But be careful…he’s extremely suggestible.”

            They reached Arjun’s room. A small chamber. Soft lighting. A chair bolted to the floor. A bed pressed against the wall.

            Arjun sat near the window, staring blankly at the rain outside.

            He looked older than his years…dark circles under his eyes, brittle hair, thin trembling fingers. But his gaze, when it shifted toward Raghav, carried a strange alertness.

            “Arjun,” Dr. Anjali said gently. “This is Inspector Raghav. He wants to ask you something.”

            Arjun blinked slowly. Almost too slowly.

            Raghav took a seat across from him.

            “Do you remember why you came here?”

            A long silence.

            Then Arjun’s lips parted.

            “I… heard him.”

            Raghav leaned forward. “Who?”

            Arjun’s voice cracked, trembling. “The Master.”

            Raghav didn’t react outwardly, but every nerve inside him tightened.

            “What did he say to you?”

            Arjun lifted one shaking hand to his forehead, pressing his fingertips into his temples.

            “He said…” His breath hitched. “…he said I was chosen because my mind was soft. Because I was easy to shape.”

            Raghav swallowed.

            “And what did he want you to do?”

            Arjun’s eyes darted around the room suddenly, as if checking for invisible watchers.

            “He wanted me to open a door.”

            “What door?”

            Arjun looked at him directly…pupils wide, terrified.

            “A door in my head.”

            Raghav felt a chill crawl up his spine.

            “And then?”

            Arjun’s voice dropped to a whisper, thin as paper tearing:

            “He walked in.”

            The rain against the window suddenly sounded louder.

            Raghav steadied his voice. “Arjun… if he walked in, how did you break free?”

            Arjun’s hands clenched into fists.

            “I didn’t,” he rasped. “He let me go.”

            “Why?”

            Arjun’s body shook. “He said he didn’t need me anymore. He had… bigger minds to control.”

            Raghav’s breath caught.

            Arjun leaned forward abruptly, gripping Raghav’s wrist with surprising strength. His eyes burned with a sudden intensity.

            “Inspector,” he whispered, “he’s inside more people now. You won’t see them coming.”

            Raghav swallowed hard. “Arjun…how do I find him?”

            Arjun’s gaze sharpened unnaturally.

            “You don’t.”

            “What do you mean?”

            Arjun looked past Raghav…staring at something behind him. Something that wasn’t there.

            “He finds you.”

            Dr. Anjali stepped forward. “Time’s up, Inspector. His vitals are spiking.”

            But Arjun didn’t look away. His grip tightened, and his next words felt like they were being pulled out from a place deep inside him:

            “Be very careful. The Master already knows your name.”

§   

            Raghav stepped out of Arjun’s room feeling a tightness in his chest that no amount of deep breathing could loosen. The corridor lights flickered once…just once…but enough to make the hair on his arms rise.

            Dr. Anjali walked beside him. “I’m increasing his sedation again,” she said. “He gets… agitated when he talks about this ‘Master.’”

            Raghav nodded, but his mind was elsewhere.

            He already knows your name.

            Those words echoed like a warning carved into stone.

            Raghav reached for his phone, then paused. He remembered the whisper that slipped into his mind earlier through a dead call. For the first time in years, he hesitated to use his own device.

            He slipped it back into his pocket.

            Dr. Anjali stopped at the end of the hallway. “Inspector… whatever you’re dealing with, be careful. Arjun wasn’t hallucinating the way typical schizophrenia patients do. His brain scans show externally induced triggers. Artificial patterns.”

            Raghav turned slowly. “Are you saying someone tampered with his neural pathways?”

            “I’m saying,” she replied quietly, “if someone spoke inside his mind… it wasn’t through imagination.”

            Raghav left the facility with that thought burning in his head.

§   

            Outside, the rain had turned into a steady downpour. The parking lot was nearly empty, just a few staff cars and a flickering streetlight at the far end. Raghav stepped towards his jeep…then stopped.

            A shadow moved. Not a person. A shape. As if someone had been standing behind his jeep and stepped away the moment he arrived.

            Raghav drew closer. Hand instinctively going to his holster. He rounded the jeep…Nothing. Just the sound of rain on metal and asphalt. But his instincts screamed wrong.

            He scanned the ground. Damp footprints were visible on the pavement…fresh ones…leading to the rear of the jeep. But they did not lead away.

            As though someone was standing there a minute ago… and vanished without turning around.

            Raghav crouched and touched the prints. Warm. Someone had been here.

His phone vibrated suddenly. A single notification. Despite himself, he pulled it out. A text message. Unknown number. No contact name.

            “You’re asking the wrong questions.”

            Raghav’s grip tightened.

            Another message followed instantly, as if the sender was watching him in real time:

            “Stop looking for me outside.”

            Raghav exhaled through clenched teeth. “Then where should I look?”

            A third message appeared.

            “Inside.”

            The phone screen flickered violently…static, lines, distortion…before shutting off completely.

            Raghav stood there in the rain, jaw clenched, breath heavy. Someone was playing with him. Not just stalking him. Not just observing. Anticipating.

            Suddenly the jeep’s dashboard lights turned on by themselves. The wipers moved once.
The engine choked as if trying to start without a key.

            Raghav rushed to the driver’s door and yanked it open.

            The engine died instantly. Lights off. Silence. As if someone had been testing boundaries. Pushing limits.

            Raghav sat behind the wheel, water dripping from his hair, and whispered to himself:

            “Alright, Master. If you want to look inside”…he tapped his temple…“you’ll have to come closer than that.”

            Before driving off, he checked the rear-view mirror one last time. For a brief moment, he could’ve sworn he saw a faint, blurred reflection in the backseat. A silhouette with no face. He switched on the cabin light. Empty.

            But the chill in the air did not leave.

§   

            The drive back to the central station felt longer than usual. Every passing vehicle, every lone pedestrian, every dark patch between streetlights seemed to hide a watcher. Raghav wasn’t paranoid by nature…but this wasn’t paranoia.

            This was presence.

            A low hum under his skin. A feeling like someone’s breath was on the back of his neck even when the jeep was empty.

            When he reached the precinct, ACP Mehta was already waiting in his cabin, a thermos of hot tea untouched on the table.

            “You look like hell,” Mehta muttered.

            Raghav shut the door behind him. “Sir, Arjun Pratap confirmed what we feared. The Master isn’t just hypnotizing people…he’s entering their minds.”

            Mehta stiffened. “Entering?”

            “Not metaphorically.” Raghav sat down. “Their neural patterns show induced triggers. Not self-generated. Someone is manipulating them from outside.”

            Mehta rubbed his forehead. “Raghav… do you hear how that sounds?”

            “I know how it sounds,” Raghav replied, voice firm. “But Arjun repeated something we’ve heard before.”

            “What?”

            “He said the Master has… big minds now. Important ones. People in positions of influence.”

            Mehta froze mid-motion.

            Raghav continued, “Sir, we’re not chasing a criminal operating in back alleys. We’re dealing with someone who sees people as…” he hesitated, remembering Arjun’s words, “…doors.”

            “And once the door opens?”

            “He enters,” Raghav finished.

            The room fell silent for a long moment.

            Mehta finally leaned back. “There’s something else you need to know.”

            Raghav frowned. “What?”

“This morning, before you reached Hauz Khas, we logged two incidents.” He pulled out a file, thick and hastily compiled. “Both from different districts. Both at the exact same timestamp.”

            Raghav flipped it open.

            Case 1: A schoolteacher suddenly walked out of class, went to the principal’s office, picked up a paperweight, and smashed the CCTV screen. Then she collapsed.

            Case 2: A retired army officer abruptly walked into a market street, pointed at the sky, and screamed: “He’s looking back.”

            Then he fainted. Both victims unconscious. Both with abnormal brainwave spikes.
Both repeating fragmented phrases when revived.

            Raghav looked up sharply. “Sir… both of these incidents happened before the suspect in Hauz Khas spoke through that command channel.”

            “Yes,” Mehta said gravely. “Which means he was connected to multiple people simultaneously.”

            Raghav’s heartbeat quickened. “He’s scaling up.”

            Mehta nodded. “And Raghav… there’s more.”

            He handed over another sheet. A blurry black-and-white image.

            Raghav’s breath hitched.

            A distorted silhouette. No clear features. Just a vague outline of a man with… nothing where his face should be. Captured for half a second on a street CCTV before the feed glitched.

            “I thought it was corruption in the footage,” Mehta said. “But now…”

            Raghav stared at it. This wasn’t a camera glitch. It was deliberate. A signature. A taunt. The Master wasn’t hiding anymore. He was announcing himself.

            Raghav placed the photo gently on the desk. “Sir… where was this recorded?”

            Mehta hesitated. “Outside your apartment building.”

            Raghav’s jaw clenched. His heart pounded once…hard.

            “He’s already near you,” Mehta said quietly. “And if he can walk into minds… he may not just be watching.”

            Raghav stood abruptly.

            “I need to check something,” he said, voice steady but brittle. “Immediately.”

            “Raghav…where are you going?”

            Raghav stepped out the door.

            “My home.”

            Because suddenly, a terrifying realization hit him:

            If the Master already knew his name…maybe he knew much more. Where he lived. Who he spoke to. Who mattered to him.

            And if the Master wanted a new door to walk through…Raghav feared which one he might choose next.

§   

            The hotel felt unnaturally still the moment Raghav pushed open the door. Rooms in such places always carried ambient signatures…AC hums, faint corridor echoes, distant lift bells…but here, inside this room, there was nothing. A vacuum of sound. A place where even thoughts seemed to lower their voice.

            Nisha stepped in behind him, her torch slicing a narrow beam through the gloom.

            Raghav scanned the walls first. “Whoever stayed here didn’t want to leave a trace.”

            And he was right.

            The room wasn’t empty. It was erased. No suitcase. No toiletries. No clothes. Not even the faint indentation on the mattress that a sleeping body leaves.

            Just one thing remained. A wooden chair placed exactly in the center of the room. Facing the door. As if waiting. As if watching.

            Nisha whispered, “Sir… why only this chair?”

            Raghav moved toward it slowly. “Because this room wasn’t used for staying. It was used for something else.”

            He crouched. His fingers hovered inches from the chair’s legs. Something about it felt wrong. Too clean. Too polished. Too… positioned.

            He didn’t touch it. Instead, he pulled out a portable UV-light and flicked it on. A faint gasp left both of them.

            On the floor, invisible to normal eyes, a circular pattern glowed. A perfect ring, spanning almost five feet in diameter. Thin, sharp, precise.

            “Hypnotic circle…” Nisha whispered. Not a question. A realisation.

            Raghav nodded, jaw tightening. “A high-level induction setup.”

            Used by stage hypnotists only for demonstrations. Used by criminal hypnotists only for conditioning.

            Someone had sat on that chair…victim or subject…and had been drilled with post-hypnotic suggestions inside this perfect ring.

            Raghav stood. “Get photographs. Full set.”

            As Nisha began, he turned to the curtains. They were drawn and pinned with tiny metal clips in such a way that no outside light leaked in. The room was designed to trap focus…nothing for the eyes to wander to, nothing for the brain to latch on to except the hypnotist’s voice.

            The closer Raghav looked, the colder his spine grew. This wasn’t makeshift. This wasn’t improvisation. This was a lab. A carefully constructed mental surgery theatre. And the person who created it wasn’t an amateur criminal…it was someone who understood human cognition on a surgical level.

            A sound broke the silence. Not from inside the room. From his phone. A new message. Unknown number. Masked ID. Untraceable channel. Only one line.

            “If you want to find me, look where your eyes hesitate to look.”

            Raghav stared at the message, heartbeat slowing.

            Nisha moved closer. “Sir… what does that mean?”

            He didn’t reply. Not because he didn’t know. But because he did. Too well.

            The message wasn’t meant for confusion. It was meant for him. Specifically him. It struck him like electricity.

            This hypnotist…this shadow threading through states, through minds, through lives…wasn’t hiding randomly.

            He was following Raghav. Watching him. Studying him. Anticipating him.

            And now…He was talking to him.

            Raghav put the phone away, eyes drifting slowly around the room again. The walls. The windows. The door frame.

            Where do your eyes hesitate to look?

            A chill crawled up his arms. Behind the chair…In the center of the hypnotic circle…Barely visible even under UV…A faint handprint. But not on the floor. On the ceiling. Upside down.

            As if someone had been hanging above the subject…Watching. Whispering. Controlling.

            Nisha didn’t see it yet.

            Raghav whispered to himself, “This is no ordinary predator…”His breath grew heavier. “…he’s turning human minds into puppets.”

            And somewhere in that silent room, Raghav felt it unmistakably…

            The hypnotist had been here… less than an hour ago.

§   

            The forensic team had taken charge of the room, but Raghav couldn’t leave.
Something about the hypnotic circle still throbbed in his mind like a half-decoded signal.
Nisha had gone to fetch building CCTV logs, yet the air around him hadn’t relaxed.

            It had thickened.

            He walked to the chair again, this time standing exactly where the subject would have sat…inside the circle, directly beneath the faint upside-down handprint on the ceiling.

            The room felt… wrong from here. Like standing inside someone’s memory. A memory that wasn’t his.

            He closed his eyes for a moment, not to meditate, not to concentrate…just to feel the arrangement.

            The silence. The darkness. The symmetry.

            The hypnotist wanted a subject’s mind stripped of external anchors. And Raghav could almost imagine how it would begin:

            A low whisper above the head. Soft breath brushing the ear. Words sinking in like needles dipped in honey.

            Raghav opened his eyes sharply. He hated that he could feel it so clearly. He stepped out of the circle with a heavy exhale.

            That was when he noticed the mirror.

            A full-length panel on the wardrobe door…ordinary at a glance, but positioned directly in front of the chair… yet angled perfectly to avoid reflecting the hypnotist.

            No accidental angle could do that. Someone had adjusted it with surgical accuracy.

            He crouched. The nuts on the mirror’s hinges had fresh marks…scratches from recent tightening.

            “How many small details…” he murmured. “How many layers…”

            He moved closer again, pressing his face near the surface.

            And froze.

            On the lower edge of the glass…so low it would be invisible unless someone knelt…was a smear. Not fingerprint. Not dust. A faint trace of moisture. As if someone had exhaled there.

            Raghav’s throat dried. He placed his hand near it. Still cold. Still recent.

            He took a slow step back.

            Someone had stood here not long ago, close enough for their breath to fog the bottom of the mirror. But why there? Why so low?

            He bent even closer, angling himself to catch any hidden detail. And he saw it.

            A tiny dot. Black. Barely visible. Embedded in the wooden frame next to the fog smear. Not paint. Not dirt. A micro-pinhole. A camera. Hidden. Motion-triggered. Almost undetectable.

            Raghav felt the rush of adrenaline hit him like a punch.

            The hypnotist wasn’t just using this room. He was recording every induction. Every reaction. Every collapse of resistance. Every fragment of obedience.

            He grabbed his phone and snapped a picture. Just then, something shifted behind him. A soft crackle. Barely a sound. He spun. The curtains. The metal clip holding one side…loose now, dangling, swinging slightly. As if recently touched. As if recently released. As if someone had been standing behind them. Recently. Very recently.

            His pulse climbed. He moved toward the window, pushed the curtain wider. Nothing. Just an openable service panel beside the AC shaft. A narrow exit. A human could slip out.

            But they would have to be fast. Very fast.

            He pressed his fingers to the inside edge. Warm. Warm. Someone had used it only minutes ago.

            Nisha burst back into the room, breathing hard. “Sir! CCTV…someone erased footage from the entire floor for the last two hours!”

            Raghav didn’t look at her yet.

            He kept staring at the warm metal of the service panel.

            And he whispered, almost to himself:

            “He was in this room while we were here.”

            Nisha’s eyes widened. “Sir… are you sure?”

            He turned slowly toward her.

            His voice low, steady, chilling.

            “He didn’t erase the footage because he was running.”

            He looked at the chair. The circle. The mirror. The breath mark. The warm panel.

            “He erased it because he was watching us before he left.”

            Nisha swallowed hard.

            Raghav finally pocketed his phone and walked toward the door. His face had changed. Not fear.
Not panic. Focus. Quiet, deadly focus.

            “We’re not chasing him anymore,” he said.

            Nisha blinked. “Then who is?”

            Raghav stepped into the corridor.

            “He’s chasing me.”

§   

            Raghav moved down the hotel corridor with long, sharp strides, the kind that came from instinct more than intention. Nisha followed close behind, matching his pace but unable to match the storm gathering in his eyes.

            She finally spoke. “Sir… if he was here while we were inside, why didn’t he attack?”

            Raghav didn’t slow. “He didn’t come here to kill.”

            “Then what?”

            He glanced at her…just once, but it was enough to silence the air around them.

            “To measure me.”

            They reached the lift lobby. The elevator door was still half open, as if someone had held it for an extra second before letting it slide shut. A tiny detail, but not invisible to Raghav.

            He pressed the call button. The lift arrived immediately. Empty. Too empty.

            Nisha stepped in behind him, scanning every corner. Nothing. Just sterile silence.

            Raghav looked up.  A light vibration tingled against the ceiling panel…again, the kind you only feel if you know what to look for.

            “Sir…?”

            He pressed the emergency-stop button.

            The lift froze.

            Then he climbed up the side railing, pushed at the ceiling hatch, and lifted it open just enough to peek inside the shaft. Warm air. Not machine heat. Human heat.

            He dropped the hatch shut. And his voice came out like a razor.

            “He rode on the lift roof.”

            Nisha’s jaw clenched. “He was that close?”

            “He wants proximity,” Raghav said. “He wants to study how close he can get without being noticed. Every step he takes is a test.”

            The lift resumed as Raghav released the button. They reached the ground floor and walked toward the hotel lobby.

            People moved normally…staff, guests, luggage trolleys, housekeeping carts. The world outside the hypnotic room felt loud again, real again.

            But Raghav wasn’t fooled. He could sense it. That invisible pressure. That faint discomfort.
The presence of a mind too sharp, too focused, too deliberate.

            The hypnotist was still somewhere nearby. Watching him observe. Watching him deduce.
Watching him react.

            And then Raghav saw something. A man at the reception desk. Ordinary clothes. Ordinary posture. Head slightly tilted down as he checked out. Nothing special about him…

            Except one detail. He was tapping his thumb on the counter. Slow. Rhythmic. Measured. Tap… tap… tap… tap…Four taps. Repeat. Four taps. Repeat. A common pattern. But also a hypnotic cadence used for grounding or subtle induction triggers.

Nisha noticed nothing. But Raghav’s senses went sharp as needles.

            “Sir?” she whispered.

            He didn’t answer. He walked closer to the man. Not fast. Not slow. Just natural enough. The man didn’t turn. Didn’t look. Didn’t notice. Or pretended not to. The taps continued. Then stopped.

            The man straightened. Lifted his bag. Walked away calmly toward the exit.

            Raghav followed with eyes narrowed.

            Nisha whispered again, “Is it him?”

            Raghav exhaled, steady and cold.

            “No.”

            “Then…?”

            “He’s been conditioned.”

            The man wasn’t the hypnotist. He was a carrier. A vessel wired with hidden cues. A sleeper ready to be activated.

            Raghav stepped back.

            “It’s a message.”

            Nisha looked confused. “A message for us?”

            “No,” Raghav said softly.

            “A message for me.”

            The tap pattern replayed in his head. Four taps. Four. Not random. Because four taps meant something in hypnotic theory…especially in advanced conditioning.

            It meant: “Observer acknowledged.”

            Nisha whispered, goosebumps rising on her arms, “He knows you’re reading the signs…”

            “No,” Raghav corrected, eyes turning to glass.

            “He knows I’m the only one capable of reading them.”

            He turned toward the exit. Jaw clenched. Mind locked. Pulse silent and deadly.

            The circle wasn’t just widening.

            It was tightening around him.

            And somewhere in this city…maybe in this very building…the hypnotist was watching the moment unfold. Smiling.

            Because Raghav had stepped exactly where he wanted him.

            Into the center of the web.

§   

            Raghav and Nisha stepped out of the hotel’s revolving door into the late evening heat. Traffic hummed, vendors shouted, vehicles honked…but beneath all that noise, Raghav felt something deeper.

            A vibration. A watching. A presence.

            Nisha noticed his shoulders stiffen. “Sir… what now?”

            Raghav scanned the street, not for a face, but for a pattern.

            The hypnotist always left patterns. Echoes. Shadows of intention.

            And then Raghav saw him. Not standing. Not hiding. Not running. Just sitting. A man on a parked scooter across the road. Helmet on. Visor down. Meaning no face visible. Ordinary. Forgettable. Except for one thing. He. Didn’t. Blink. Not once.

            Most people blink every 3–5 seconds. This man stared straight at the hotel entrance without a single flicker.

Raghav felt it. That unmistakable puppeteer’s signature. Another conditioned subject.

            “Sir,” Nisha whispered, following his gaze, “you think he’s here for us?”

            “No,” Raghav murmured. “He’s here to confirm something.”

            The man tilted his head a few degrees…unnaturally slow, unnaturally precise…toward Raghav.

            The visor reflected the streetlight, showing nothing. No eyes. No expression. Just a blank surface pointed directly at him.

A strangely chilling gesture. Like a mirror held up by a mannequin. Then the man lifted his hand. Two fingers. A tiny gesture. A signal. Not threatening. Not dramatic.

            A cue.

            Nisha whispered, “Sir… should we approach? Or call local police?”

            “No,” Raghav said almost instantly. “Don’t move. Don’t alert anyone.”

            “Why?”

            “Because he’s waiting for a response. If we act wrong, he’ll either shut down… or activate.”

            “Activate what?”

            Raghav didn’t answer. Because he suddenly realized…The man’s other hand was inside the scooter’s storage compartment. Not moving. Just resting. But deeply. Too deeply. Like it was touching something important. Something dangerous.

            Raghav quietly steadied his breath. “Whatever you do… don’t startle him.”

            The man raised the two fingers again, flicking them twice. A coded prompt. A question.

            Raghav stepped forward slightly, letting the distance shrink. Nisha reached out to stop him, but he shook his head once.

            He walked across the street slowly, carefully, without threat.

            Cars passed between them. A bus blocked sight for a moment. A cyclist swerved around Raghav. When the bus moved away, the man on the scooter was still there…Staring. Frozen. Waiting.

            Raghav stopped three meters away. Close enough to see. Close enough to be seen. The man’s breathing was too even…almost mechanical. He wasn’t here by choice. He was here under a command.

            “Who sent you?” Raghav asked quietly.

            The man didn’t respond.

            Raghav switched tactics.

            “What did he tell you to do?”

            Another stillness. No blink. No breath shift. No muscle twitch. Just those two raised fingers. As if the gesture itself was the message.

            Raghav suddenly understood.

            It wasn’t a signal. It was an instruction embedded in the subject’s psyche. Two taps. Two blinks. Two breaths. A trigger loop.

            Nisha whispered from behind, “Sir… I don’t like this.”

            Raghav didn’t like it either.

            Because two meant something specific in hypnotic conditioning:

            “Awaiting command.”

            A sleeper waiting to be told what to do.

            And right now, Raghav was the only one standing close enough…Being stared at intensely enough…Being scanned carefully enough…To deliver that command.

            The hypnotist had left this man here as a test.

            A test of how Raghav handles a conditioned mind.

            A test of whether he understands…or fears…the hypnotist’s language.

            Raghav took a slow breath.

            Then, with absolute calm, he spoke the words the hypnotist expected him to speak:

            “Break the loop.”

            The man’s fingers trembled. Just slightly. A crack in the trance.

            Then Raghav added a second command:

            “And stand down.”

The man’s hand slipped out of the scooter compartment. Empty. Thank God. His shoulders sagged. A long breath escaped his lungs. As if waking from a nightmare. He blinked. Once.
Twice. Three times. The trance shattered.

            He looked up at Raghav, confused, terrified, lost. “Wh-where am I? What… what’s happening?”

            Raghav stepped closer gently. “You’re safe. What’s your name?”

            “S-Shaan.” The man’s voice trembled. “Sir, I… I don’t remember coming here.”

            Nisha exhaled in relief, but Raghav didn’t.

            Because behind the lifted visor, Shaan’s face told another story:

            He wasn’t just hypnotized.

            He was overwritten. Layers of suggestions. Commands. Safeguards. Failsafes. A mental landmine.

            Nisha approached. “Sir, should we get him to the police van?”

            Raghav’s eyes stayed locked on Shaan’s pupils. Dilated. Uneven. Still trembling faintly.

            “No,” Raghav said softly.

            “Why not?” Nisha asked.

            Raghav stepped back slowly, his heartbeat tightening.

            “Because someone else is watching him.”

                        Nisha’s face turned pale. “From where?”

Raghav didn’t answer immediately.

He turned his head…just enough…toward a tall building across the street. A window on the sixth floor. Curtains moved. A silhouette shifted. And disappeared. Not running. Not hiding. Just stepping back from the glass.

            Raghav whispered,

            “He saw everything.”

            And then, colder:

            “He saw how I broke his command.”

            Nisha swallowed. “Sir… this means…”

            Raghav finished the sentence for her.

            “He isn’t just watching me.”

            A long breath.

            “He’s learning me.”

§   

            Shaan was taken to the police vehicle, wrapped in a thin blanket of confusion, still mumbling half-formed fragments of memories that didn’t belong to him. Nisha stayed with him while two constables recorded his statement.

            Raghav didn’t move. He kept staring at that sixth-floor window.

The curtain was still now. The silhouette long gone. But the air around that glass still pulsed with intent.

            Nisha returned, breath tight. “Sir, Shaan remembers nothing. No interaction, no travel, no task.”

            “He won’t,” Raghav said softly. “Suggestions that deep erase the trail behind them.”

            “What kind of hypnotist can do this at such scale?” Nisha asked.

            Raghav didn’t answer. Because there was no simple answer.

            Only a name. A name he hadn’t spoken aloud in years. A name he hoped he’d never hear again.

            He finally pulled his gaze away from the building and walked toward the hotel driveway. Nisha followed.

            “Sir, where are we going?”

            “To the manager’s office,” Raghav said. “We need to see something.”

            When they entered the office, Raghav didn’t sit. He stood behind the manager’s desk and began scanning the CCTV wall…nine screens, each showing a different corner of the hotel.

            The manager stammered, “S-sir… CCTV footage was erased on the fifth floor, but other floors are running normally.”

            Raghav pointed at the screen showing the main entrance.

            “Play the last one hour again.”

            The manager rewound it. The footage rolled. Guests entered. Guests left. Cabs stopped. Cabs moved. Everything normal.

            Until…A man entered the frame. Not strange at all. Not suspicious. Just another figure in a city full of passing stories. Dark shirt. Cap pulled low. Sunglasses on.

            He walked toward the hotel. The guard greeted him. He nodded back. Nothing unusual.

            But Raghav’s eyes sharpened.

            “Pause.”

            The manager froze the screen.

            “What did you see, Sir?” Nisha asked.

            Raghav pointed at the man’s right hand. A handshake. The guard shook his hand casually.
A normal gesture.

            Except…

            Except the guard reacted strangely after the handshake.  In the footage, the guard blinked rapidly for a moment, looked disoriented, then resumed normal posture as if nothing happened.

            Nisha frowned. “Sir… is that…?”

            “Yes,” Raghav said quietly.

            “A trigger handshake.”

            The hypnotist didn’t need to break into the hotel. He didn’t need to sneak around. He simply walked in…shook the guard’s hand…and walked freely to any floor he wanted.

            Nisha whispered, “Sir… what if he shook other hands too?”

            Raghav’s voice deepened. “He didn’t have to.”

            “Why?”

            “Because one handshake is enough. A conditioned guard can guide him anywhere.”

            They resumed the footage. The man walked to the lift. Entered. The doors closed. He never reappeared.

            Nisha whispered, “Sir, this is getting too dangerous. He’s everywhere… and nowhere.”

            Raghav didn’t reply. He zoomed the footage…frame by frame…staring at the man’s face. Dark glasses. Cap pulled down. Not a hint of identity.

            But something whispered inside Raghav:

            You know him. You’ve seen this movement. This posture. This aura.

            The hypnotist wasn’t choosing random locations. He wasn’t improvising. He was layering his presence like patterns in a maze.

            “Sir?” Nisha asked again, softer this time. “What are you thinking?”

            Raghav’s voice barely came out.

            “A man who can leave no trace…can also leave a perfect one…if he wants.”

            “Meaning?”

            “He wanted us to see this.”

            He turned away from the screen, jaw locked.

            “This footage isn’t evidence.”

            Nisha blinked. “Then what is it?”

            “A message.”

            Nisha swallowed. “Saying what?”

            Raghav exhaled slowly.

            “That he could have controlled the guard… the staff… the guests… even us…anytime.”

            A silence fell. Not fear. Something deeper. Respect. And challenge.

            Nisha whispered, “Sir… how do we fight someone who can turn the whole city into his puppets?”

            Raghav finally looked at her.

            “We don’t fight the city.”

            His eyes sharpened.

            “We fight the pattern.”

            And then, almost under his breath:

            “And somewhere inside that pattern…is the man I’ve been dreading for years.”

§   

            Raghav read the message again and again, each time feeling the same chill crawl up his spine.

            Just as he lowered the screen, two familiar figures stepped into the dimly lit operations room. Aisha Verma, the cyber-cell analyst who had been assisting him since the Jaipur data breach, clutched her tablet, her eyes already darting across the open windows on Raghav’s screen. Beside her stood Arjun Mehta, the junior field officer assigned to Raghav for the last three major cases, quick-witted and fiercely loyal. Though they had been working in the background throughout this operation…tracking signals, cracking logs, coordinating field notes—this was their first direct entry into the turning point of the investigation.

            “He’s testing you, sir,” Aisha whispered, standing behind him. Her voice held no tremor…just calm observation, which somehow made it scarier.

            Raghav didn’t respond. His eyes were fixed on the sentence blinking on his screen:

            LET THE NEXT MOVE BE YOURS, INSPECTOR.

            The taunt wasn’t loud, but it echoed.

            Arjun stepped forward, analyzing the screen. “Sir… he’s not just confident. He knows your psychology. He wants to see what you do when you feel cornered.”

            “That’s exactly why I’ll do nothing,” Raghav muttered.

            Aisha blinked. “Sir?”

            Raghav straightened. “If he wants my next move… he won’t get it. We move in silence. No sudden arrests, no media leaks, no official trail. We let him think he’s controlling the board.”

            Arjun’s shoulders relaxed slightly. “So we observe him while he observes us.”

            “Exactly.”

            But even as he said it, Raghav felt the noose tightening. The mastermind wasn’t just watching…they were anticipating.

            A sudden buzzing sound filled the room.

            Aisha’s tablet lit up. “Sir… you asked for transcripts of the intercepted calls between Dr. Kartik and the unknown number? They’re here.”

            “Put them up,” Raghav said.

            Lines of text filled the large screen. Most of it was meaningless chatter…coded, routine, careful. But one sentence stood out like a slash of blood:

UNKNOWN: “He won’t survive Phase Three. Prepare to detach.”
DR. KARTIK: “Understood. No memories left, no traces left.”

            Arjun stared, stunned. “Phase Three? Sir, what is Phase Three?”

            Raghav’s jaw tightened.

            “Phase Three,” he said slowly, “is the point where the victim becomes disposable.”

            Aisha whispered, “Meaning… the subject is no longer useful?”

            “Meaning,” Raghav replied, “they’re planning to eliminate someone whose memories they’ve already erased.”

            A cold silence settled on the room.

            Then Arjun asked the obvious question.

            “Sir… who is the subject?”

            Aisha scrolled. Her eyes widened. “Sir, the file is locked. It’s an encrypted code. Same pattern as the Chhattisgarh incident.”

            Raghav froze.

            That case had ended… badly. An officer who turned into a puppet. A witness who had no memory of testifying. And one dead body…someone who was hypnotized long enough to forget how to breathe.

            He stepped back, as if distance could weaken the punch of realization.

            “This mastermind…” he whispered, “has done it before.”

            Arjun swallowed hard. “Sir, we need to identify the current subject before they reach Phase Three.”

            Aisha looked at both of them, fear finally breaking through her composure.

            “Sir… what if Phase Three is already happening?”

            Raghav didn’t even blink.

            “It hasn’t.”

            “How do you know?” Arjun asked.

            Raghav turned slowly, his face pale but certain.

            “Because Phase Three would require a location with absolute control…” His voice trailed off as a memory hit him.

            Then he spoke the words out loud…quiet, heavy, terrifying:

            “And there’s only one place in the last three months where each suspect was taken… alone…”

            Aisha whispered, “Sir… that rehabilitation centre?”

            Raghav nodded.

            The room felt suffocating. He breathed once. Then he said what all of them feared:

            “We’ve been chasing shadows, but the hypnotist has been operating from a registered government-funded wellness clinic…right under our noses.”

            And that was the moment the hunt shifted.

            The web hadn’t expanded.

            They had just stepped inside it.

§   

            Raghav didn’t waste another second.

            “Aisha,” he said sharply, “pull up the entry logs of the wellness centre. I want names, timings, visitor records, CCTV…everything.”

            She nodded and immediately began typing, her fingers moving with the urgency that now filled the room.

            Arjun paced behind her, restless. Something about the centre had bothered him even earlier, but at that time it felt too ordinary to be suspicious. Now it felt like a trap that had been waiting for them in plain sight.

            Within seconds, Aisha spoke.

            “Sir… logs are here.”

            “Display them.”

            The screen brightened, showing a long list of patients…addiction cases, stress cases, trauma cases…typical entries for a rehabilitation and wellness facility.

            But something was wrong.

            Raghav narrowed his eyes. “Scroll slower.”

            Aisha slowed the feed. Then… it hit them.

            Arjun stepped closer. “Sir… look at these names.”

            Raghav exhaled sharply.

            The suspects. Every one of them. All five. Each had been brought to the centre for different reasons…exams stress, mild depression, anxiety, sleep disorder. Not alarming on paper.
Completely normal for a wellness clinic.

            But the timestamps…

            Raghav leaned in. “Aisha… put these times side by side with the dates of their episodes…when they acted under hypnotic commands.”

            She nodded, her face paling as the comparison grid filled the screen.

            The room fell silent. Every suspect’s clinic visit was exactly 24 hours before their hypnotized behavior.

            Arjun whispered, “This is not coincidence.”

            “It’s precision,” Raghav said. “He rewrites their minds… then triggers them a day later.”

            Aisha swallowed, her voice thin. “Sir… the clinic has a hypnotherapy wing.”

            Raghav closed his eyes for half a second. Of course it did.

            He steadied his breath. “Find the hypnotherapist assigned to these patients.”

            Aisha typed again. Then the screen froze.

            “Sir…” she said slowly, her voice dropping into something more fragile, “this can’t be right.”

            “Show me.”

            The file opened.

            HYPNOTHERAPIST-IN-CHARGE:
            Dr. AADITYA SENGUPTA

            Arjun frowned. “Who’s that? Another fake name?”

            Raghav didn’t answer.

            He stepped closer, eyes fixed on the name.

            Aisha whispered, “Sir… do you know him?”

            Raghav’s throat tightened. His heartbeat stumbled. Because he did. He knew the name. He knew the man. He knew the voice. He knew the methods. And he knew the darkness behind that calm, polished smile.

            Arjun saw the change in Raghav’s face. “Sir… who is Dr. Aditya Sengupta?”

            Raghav didn’t speak for a moment.

            When he finally did, his voice was barely above a whisper.

            “He’s the reason I left my training program halfway.”

            Aisha froze. Arjun’s eyebrows shot up.

            Raghav continued, eyes distant, as if staring into a memory he had locked away for years.

            “He was my senior. My mentor. And the first person who taught me how dangerous hypnosis can be when used without ethics.”

            Arjun felt his stomach drop. “Sir… you mean…?”

            Raghav nodded.

            “He was expelled from the program for conducting unauthorized psychological experiments on volunteers.”

            “And now?” Aisha whispered.

            Raghav’s jaw clenched.

            “Now he’s running a government-funded clinic… and turning people into weapons.”

            The weight of that truth settled like dust on their skin.

            Arjun stepped back. “Sir… this means he’s always been ahead of us.”

            “No,” Raghav said quietly. His gaze was fixed on the screen, but his mind was already somewhere else.

            “He’s ahead of everyone.”

            Aisha looked up. “Sir, what do we do next?”

            Raghav turned toward the door, his expression steeled with a resolve that made the air tense.

            “We pay him a visit.”

            Arjun blinked. “Right now?”

            Raghav didn’t blink.

            “Right now.”

§   

            The night outside the police headquarters was unnervingly still. The sodium lights hummed faintly as Raghav, Aisha, and Arjun stepped out toward the SUV. No one spoke. Because now… this wasn’t just a case.

            This was personal. Raghav drove.

            The city blurred past…silent roads, shuttered shops, distant dogs barking. But inside the vehicle, the tension was so tight it felt like a string ready to snap.

            Arjun finally broke the silence.

            “Sir… what exactly happened between you and Dr. Aditya during training?”

            Raghav didn’t answer immediately. His grip tightened on the steering wheel.

            Then he said quietly, “He wanted to prove that the human mind has no boundaries. That any person, with the right technique, can be reprogrammed.” He paused. “And he wanted to prove it using real people… without their consent.”

            Aisha exchanged a horrified look with Arjun.

            Arjun leaned forward. “But sir… how far did he go?”

            Raghav’s jaw tightened. “Far enough that the board expelled him. But not far enough to stop him.”

            Silence again. The SUV finally turned into a long isolated road…dense trees on either side, moonlight barely cutting through.

            Aisha looked at the GPS. “Sir… the wellness centre is two minutes ahead.”

            Raghav didn’t slow down. But as they approached the gate, something immediately felt wrong.

            Arjun whispered, “Why is it so dark?”

            The entire building was unlit. No security lights. No guard at the gate. Not a single window glowing. It wasn’t just quiet. It was abandoned.

            Raghav parked the SUV slowly. The three stepped out, their footsteps crunching against gravel.

            Aisha murmured, “Sir… this place was fully operational this morning.”

            “Which means,” Raghav said, “they shut it down in a hurry.”

            Arjun scanned the perimeter. “Sir, there’s no movement. Even the security booth is empty.”

            They walked to the gate. It wasn’t locked. It creaked open on its own as Arjun pushed it gently. The centre loomed in front of them…a three-storey building, once brightly maintained, now sitting like a silent, brooding ghost.

            They moved in with caution.

            The front lobby was a mess…papers scattered, chairs overturned, computers unplugged.
As if someone had stripped the place in panic.

            Aisha held her breath. “Sir, this is not a planned shutdown. This is evacuation.”

            Raghav nodded.

            “He knew we were coming.”

            Arjun exhaled sharply. “But how? We didn’t inform anyone. We didn’t even speak openly in headquarters.”

            Aisha looked up, her eyes trembling. “Sir… what if he has access to something inside the department?” She swallowed. “Or someone?”

            Raghav didn’t respond.

            They walked deeper into the corridor. Stale air. A faint chemical smell. Lights flickering weakly from backup generators.

            Aisha opened the patient log room…empty. Arjun checked the therapy hall…chairs pushed aside, monitoring devices missing, cupboards left open.

            Everything useful had been removed. Everything incriminating had been erased.

            But then…Aisha stopped.

            “Sir… door at the end.”

            It was the only door still closed. A narrow metal one with a biometric lock panel…now shattered.

            Raghav approached it cautiously and pushed.

            The room was cold. Unnaturally cold. Inside, dim lights flickered above a single reclined therapeutic chair…straps dangling from its arms and legs.

            Aisha covered her mouth. “Oh God…”

            Beside it lay a tangle of wires… sensors… a projector-like device… and a headset with multiple lenses…like something between a VR mask and an interrogation tool.

            Arjun whispered, “Sir… what is this?”

            Raghav crouched beside it. His voice was low, dark, resigned.

            “This is where he did it.”

            “Did what?” Aisha asked.

            Raghav touched the chair lightly.

            “Where he hypnotized them… deep enough to write over their minds. Where he erased memories. Where he built his weapons.”

            Arjun shivered. “This… this is like a lab.”

            “No,” Raghav said quietly. “It’s a command centre.”

            Aisha looked around, trembling. “Sir, there must be something left behind. Some clue. He evacuated fast.”

            Raghav scanned the floor, the corners, the table. Nothing. Then he spotted it.

            A small silver USB drive. Almost too clean. Placed exactly in the centre of the chair. Not dropped. Not forgotten. Left intentionally.

            Aisha’s breath halted. “Sir… a message?”

            Raghav didn’t touch it. He stared at it with the dread of someone looking at a snake ready to strike.

            Arjun took a step back. “Sir… don’t plug it in. It could be a trap.”

            Raghav nodded slowly.

            “It is a trap.”

            He paused.

            “But it’s also the only thing he wants us to find.”

            The cold air in the room seemed to thicken.

            Aisha whispered, “Sir… what do we do?”

            Raghav finally spoke.

            “We take it.”

            “And then?” Arjun asked.

            Raghav exhaled deeply, eyes darkening with the weight of what lay ahead.

            “Then we open it.”

            Because whatever was inside that silver drive…was meant for him.

§   

            The ride back to headquarters was suffocating.

            Aisha sat in the back seat, holding the small silver USB drive as if it were a ticking bomb. Arjun kept glancing at it too…uneasy, restless. Raghav drove silently, his eyes fixed on the road but his mind far away.

            This wasn’t a clue. This was a challenge. When they reached the cyber lab, the air felt heavier, as if the entire building sensed what they were about to do.

            Aisha set the USB on the table gently. “Sir… if we plug this into any department system, it could compromise everything.”

            Raghav nodded. “We’re not risking that.”

            Arjun frowned. “Then how do we open it?”

            Raghav turned to Aisha. “Use the isolated machine. The one not connected to any network.”

            She blinked. “…the quarantine system?”

            “That one.”

            Aisha nodded and walked toward a separate room…small, windowless, containing a single old desktop that was deliberately kept offline for dangerous data.

            Raghav and Arjun followed her inside.

            The hum of the CPU started. The monitor flickered to life. Aisha plugged the drive in. Nothing happened for three seconds. Then a single folder appeared:

            “FOR RAGHAV”

            Arjun swallowed. “Sir… he made this personal.”

            Raghav didn’t comment. His face was unreadable, carved from stone. Aisha opened the folder. Inside it, there was only one file:

            “PLAY_ME.mp4”

            Arjun took a step back. “Sir, are we sure we want to open a video he prepared for you?”

            “We’re opening it,” Raghav said.

            Aisha double-clicked. The screen went black. Then a figure slowly appeared…backlit, face hidden in the shadows, posture calm. A voice emerged…soft, educated, disturbingly composed.

            “Hello, Raghav.”

            Arjun froze. Aisha stopped breathing. Raghav felt something cold grip his spine. The voice continued.

            “You’ve grown. More than I expected.” A faint chuckle. “But still predictable.”

            The figure leaned closer, though the face remained obscured.

            “If you’re watching this, it means you found my clinic. Good. That was the intention.”

            Aisha whispered, “He wanted us there…”

            The voice resumed.

            “You must be wondering why I left so suddenly. Why I abandoned the facility. Why I removed every trace…” A pause. “…except the memory chair.”

Arjun clenched his fists. “Bastard.”

            The figure’s silhouette shifted slightly.

            “You see, Raghav… the chair was never a tool. It was a lesson.”

            Raghav’s jaw tightened.

            “You always believed hypnosis should have ethical limits. You believed the human mind is fragile… that people should be protected.”

            A soft laugh.

            “And you were right.” A beat. “Which is why I can’t let people like you stand in my way.”

            Aisha’s eyes widened.             The screen flickered, and suddenly the backlit figure raised something…a slip of paper.

            Then he spoke in a tone that chilled all three to the bone.

            “The one you’re trying to save… Phase Three begins in less than 72 hours.”

            Arjun’s heart skipped. “Sir…he has someone alive right now!”

            The silhouette continued, almost kindly:

            “Find the subject if you can. Or… let them go. Some minds are too damaged to rebuild.”

            Aisha’s hands trembled. The video wasn’t over. The figure leaned in one last time. His face still hidden.

            “And Raghav…” A slow, deliberate pause. “…you should never have returned to this world.”

            The video cut to black. Silence crushed the room.

            Aisha whispered the first words: “Sir… he’s provoking you.”

            Arjun spoke next, voice tight: “Sir, we need to identify the subject. We have a 72-hour window.”

            Raghav didn’t react at first. His breathing was calm… too calm. Finally, he spoke…low, controlled, dangerous.

            “He wants a chase.”

            Arjun nodded. “Yes.”

            Raghav continued:

            “So we’ll give him one.”

            Aisha met his eyes. “Sir… step one?”

            Raghav turned to both of them. Something dark, determined, icy sharp had settled in his gaze.

            “Find out who disappeared in the last one month after visiting that clinic.”

            Arjun blinked. “Sir… that could be dozens of people.”

            Raghav shook his head.

            “No. Only one fits Phase Three.”

            Aisha asked softly, “And how will we know which one?”

            Raghav looked back at the blank screen where the shadow-man had threatened him.

            His voice dropped:

            “Because Phase Three is never random.”

            He paused.

            “He always chooses someone connected to me.”

            Aisha’s breath caught. Arjun looked stunned. Raghav finished, his voice like a verdict:

            “The subject… is someone from my past.”

§   

            The room felt smaller, as if the walls were closing in the moment Raghav spoke those words.

            “Someone from my past.”

            Aisha stepped closer. “Sir… who? A colleague? A friend? Someone from training?”

            Raghav didn’t answer. Not yet. He was staring at the blank screen as if the shadowy figure would reappear and finish the sentence for him.

            Arjun finally spoke. “Sir… whoever it is, we need a list. Anyone connected to you who visited that clinic.”

            Raghav closed his eyes for a moment…a calm, heavy exhale escaping him.

            Then he turned toward Aisha.

            “Pull every entry from the clinic for the last 30 days. Cross-check with anyone who’s ever been associated with me professionally.”

            Aisha nodded and rushed to her system. Arjun followed her, scanning names as they appeared…students, constables, visiting officers, clerks, therapy patients, wellness visitors.

            Most names were irrelevant. Then Aisha’s voice dropped.

            “Sir… there’s a name here you might want to see.”

            Raghav walked over slowly..Aisha pointed.

            “Shalini Rao.”

            Arjun frowned. “Who’s she?”

            Raghav stiffened.

            A long silence followed before he answered.

            “She was… a friend.” A pause. “We trained together. She left the force five years ago because of a trauma case involving hypnosis.”

            Aisha whispered, “Sir… did she suffer something?”

            Raghav nodded once.

            “She was one of Aditya’s early experiments. The board found out too late. She survived… but barely.”

            Arjun exhaled sharply. “And now she visited the clinic?”

            Aisha clicked the timestamp.

            “She checked in three weeks ago… for stress counselling. Supposedly.”

            Raghav didn’t move. Didn’t blink.

            Arjun stepped forward, voice tight. “Sir… if she was one of his earlier victims…”

            Raghav finished the sentence for him. “—then she’s the perfect subject for Phase Three.”

            Aisha swallowed. “He’s targeting her because she’s linked to you.”

            Raghav’s gaze darkened. “He’s punishing her… to punish me.”

            Arjun’s fists tightened. “Sir, we need to find her. Now.”

            Aisha searched quickly. Her face drained of color.

            “Sir… her address shows she hasn’t been home for eight days.”

            Raghav straightened. “Track her phone.”

            “Switched off.”

            “Bank transactions?”

            “None in a week.”

            “Transport logs?”

            “No entries.”

            Arjun cursed under his breath. “Sir… she’s already in Phase Two.”

            Raghav didn’t respond. His eyes had gone cold…calculating, not panicked. But inside, something twisted painfully.

            He whispered:

            “Aditya always finishes Phase Three exactly on the 72nd hour.”

            Aisha checked the timestamp again. “Sir… the countdown already started when the video was recorded.”

            Arjun leaned forward. “How much time do we have left?”

            Aisha turned the monitor slowly. Her voice cracked slightly as she said:

            “Fifty-eight hours.”

            The three exchanged a look.

            And with that, Chapter 5 drew its final breath…the exact moment when the investigation stopped being a pursuit…and turned into a race against death.

            Raghav stepped toward the exit, his voice steady but burning with urgency.

            “Gear up. No breaks. No sleep.”

            Arjun nodded instantly. “We’re with you, sir.”

            Aisha grabbed her devices. “I’ll map her last known routes.”

            Raghav paused at the door.

            “This isn’t just a rescue.” A beat. “This is a confrontation.”

            Arjun whispered, “Sir… with him?”

            Raghav finally spoke the truth out loud, the one he had been avoiding since the moment the video ended:

            “Yes. Chapter Six begins with meeting Aditya Sengupta.”

            He walked out.

            And Chapter Five closed on three words:

            “Time is bleeding.”