In next morning, Ahaan woke up confused.
His pillow was on the floor.
His shoes were muddy.
His hands smelled like old flowers.
But he hadn't left the room.
At least… he didn't think he did.
His uncle knocked on the door.
"You went outside last night again?" he asked.
Ahaan blinked. "No… I was sleeping."
His uncle gave him a strange look.
"You walked past me at 3 AM, Ahaan. You were humming that creepy lullaby again."
Ahaan's blood turned cold.
"I don't remember that."
He didn't know any lullaby.
But someone in his voice had sung one.
Downstairs, the TV was on, playing an old home video.
His dad.
His uncle.
And… Ahaan.
But younger. Barely five.
Laughing in a garden.
He'd never seen this video before.
He looked up at his uncle.
"When was this?"
His uncle chuckled. "Don't joke, Ahaan. You used to play there all the time. Don't you remember the White Tree?"
Ahaan's throat tightened.
There had never been a white tree in their garden.
Never.
That day, more strange things happened.
His school friend Sam called him and said:
"Hey, remember when you told me about the boy with no mouth in the old cinema?"
Ahaan paused.
"What? I never told you that."
"Of course, you did. Last week. You even said his name was Jhin."
Ahaan's stomach twisted.
Jhin.
That name was from one of the book's forgotten pages.
How did Sam know?
He never read the book.
No one did.
He opened the book again.
But this time, pages were blank.
Only one new line appeared at the bottom of a glowing page:
"Memory is now soil.
Things are planting inside you."
That night, Ahaan had a dream.
He was in a house with no furniture.
Just old photographs.
On the walls.
On the floors.
On the ceiling.
All showing his face—but in places he'd never been.
In clothes he'd never worn.
And next to people he didn't know.
One photo showed him smiling with a woman who had black tape over her mouth.
The back of that photo said:
"Mom's silence was her gift to you."
Ahaan woke up screaming.
He rushed to the journal.
Another page appeared:
CASE TWENTY: The Memory Garden
"When the Hollow Door opened, something slipped out.
Not a creature… but a curse.
It grows inside memories.
Changes them.
Swaps yours for others.
Until you forget who you are."
Now Ahaan understood.
The horrors weren't just following him anymore.
They were rewriting him.
Changing his past.
Twisting time.
Replacing memories with things he never lived—but would soon believe he did.
At school, things got worse.
His teacher called him "Aman" twice instead of "Ahaan."
Friends mentioned birthdays he never had.
Even his own handwriting in his notebook looked strange—like it belonged to someone else.
Back home, the mirror in his bathroom had writing on it.
Scratched with a nail:
"You are someone else now."
He wiped it off.
But the writing came back every time he blinked.
He flipped the journal again.
One final message appeared:
"Go to the White Tree.
Dig beneath it.
What you find will be your missing piece.
Or your final one."
At midnight, Ahaan left the house.
The garden was silent.
But there, at the edge of the yard—
A tree.
White.
Tall.
Covered in what looked like wax.
He had never seen it before.
But his body walked toward it like it remembered it.
He dug at the roots with shaking hands.
After minutes of clawing through wet soil, his fingers hit something hard.
A small wooden box.
He opened it.
Inside:
A photo of a little boy that looked just like him… but with black eyes.
A note that said:
"Bury your memories, and he'll stay asleep."
And a mirror shard… covered in blood.
As soon as he touched the shard, a voice spoke inside his head.
But this time, it wasn't like before.
It was younger.
"You're not the first Ahaan.
Just the one who lasted the longest."
"You were never real.
You were borrowed."
The world around him began to bend.
The tree cried.
The soil turned black.
The photo in his hand burned on its own.
A child's laughter echoed behind him.
Slow.
Dry.
Wrong.
Ahaan turned.
In the dark stood the boy with black eyes—the one from the photo.
He smiled.
"Give it back," the boy whispered.
"My name.
My memories.
My life."
After this....