Location: Sector 13, Old Delhi
The convoy halted before the gates of the Malhotra residence.
Rain drizzled in thin, cold threads, and the streetlamps flickered like dying eyes.
Beyond the rusted iron gate, the two-storey bungalow crouched in silence — paint peeling, windows black, a house that looked as if it was remembering itself wrong.
Moksh stepped out first. The moment his boots touched the pavement, his Sage's Eyes flickered faint lime. The world brightened, details sharpening — every heartbeat of the street, every whisper of residual energy visible as faint trails of light.
"We start with observation," he said quietly.
"No weapons until the field stabilizes."
M. Chakraborty joined him, adjusting her coat collar.
The faint blue shimmer in her pupils — the Spectral Recall already half-active — made the raindrops look like falling stars.
"Two officers died here. One torn open, one… rebuilt," she murmured.
"I can still hear the echo of their screams under the sound of the rain."
Aarav's voice cut through, calm and precise.
"Anchor Field ready. Once we cross the gate, reality holds within a five-meter radius. Stay inside it."
He lifted his wrist console; thin blue filaments spread in a circle around them, humming faintly. The air steadied.
Meera followed last, pulling her gloves tight.
"Runic interference on the gate. Cursive Sanskrit pattern — broken intentionally. Someone wanted the wards disabled, not erased."
The four of them stepped inside.
Inside the House
The air changed immediately — thick, damp, electric.
Each breath carried a whisper too faint to separate into words.
The entry hall was littered with dust-covered furniture and half-melted candles.
A pizza box still lay near the stairs, fossilized in time.
Amit Verma, standing with the junior team by the doorway, froze.
"Sir… that's… that's where I was standing."
Moksh's gaze followed his trembling finger to a blood-dark stain on the floor.
"Meera," he said.
"Mark it as Point A. Resonance strongest here."
She nodded, placing a small rune-chip on the spot. The light pulsed faint gold, recording the psychic frequency.
M. Chakraborty closed her eyes.
Blue radiance seeped from her irises as the Spectral Recall awakened.
The room shivered.
For an instant, the present peeled away — flashes of the past overlapping reality like torn film.
Two policemen stood in the memory, guns raised.
Then the light burst red.
One screamed — skin peeling from his back, spine exposed to the air like polished bone.
The other collapsed, ribs cracked outward, forming a grotesque cage.
Chakraborty gasped, snapping back. Her breath shook.
"It's precise. Surgical. Not human anger — design."
Aarav's Anchor Field flared, neutralizing the residual energy before it reached her.
"Easy, Ma'am. You're safe inside the field."
Moksh knelt beside the stain, tracing his hand above it. The Sage's Eyes glowed again — now darker, almost storm green.
For a heartbeat he felt the terror, the adrenaline, the cold blade of something unseen slicing through flesh.
He stood abruptly.
"This wasn't random. Whoever or whatever killed them wanted their bodies rearranged — a message."
Meera, scanning her runic tablet, frowned.
"Coordinates of the cuts form a spiral — identical ratio to the Anomaly Glyph: Serpent of Memory. Someone built a sigil out of corpses."
Chakraborty's voice was quiet but steady.
"That's old-school ritualism. Whoever did it isn't just killing — they're binding the deaths to the house."
Amit Verma whispered, almost to himself:
"Sir… when I was here… I heard laughter. A child's. But there was no child…"
The lights flickered.
All four turned toward the staircase.
At the top, faint footprints appeared — small, wet, leading upward — though none of them were moving.
Aarav's hand went to his sidearm.
Moksh raised a hand.
"No bullets. Not yet."
He looked back at Chakraborty.
"Director, time-window?"
She summoned the Night-Hound.
A low growl filled the room as a spectral beast, translucent and blue-flamed, materialized beside her. Its eyes burned like twin moons.
"Two days' vision," she said. "Let's see what the house remembers."
The hound sniffed the air, padding toward the stairs.
Every step left a shimmer — frames of the past flickering like ghostly film:
— The journalist, Sana Kapoor, struggling.
— The moment of her death.
— A shadow behind her, face unseen, watching both her and the camera.
Meera whispered, horrified, "The hound's seeing through the walls of time…"
The vision snapped. The hound whined and dissolved into mist.
Chakraborty pressed a hand to her temple, eyes dimming back to human blue.
"Two days limit reached. Anything older, and we'd be blind."
Moksh's voice was low, measured.
"It's enough. We know the murder was deliberate — not by the house. But the house kept the memory alive. It's feeding on remembrance."
Aarav holstered his weapon slowly.
"So the anomaly isn't a ghost. It's the memory of the crime itself, looping until someone ends it."
Meera looked at Moksh.
"Then how do we end a memory?"
Moksh turned toward the staircase, his expression unreadable.
"By finding who gave it life."
The hall fell silent again.
Outside, thunder rolled across the city.
And deep within the Malhotra house, something — or someone — listened.