When its was almost midnight.
The sky above the orphanage was black — not like night, but like ashes floating in space.
No stars.
No moon.
Ahaan stood at the back of the building, staring at the ground where the giant stone face had been buried.
But now… it was gone.
Vanished.
Only a black hole was there, wide open, like the earth had swallowed itself.
And from deep inside, something whispered:
"You found me… come closer."
Ahaan held the journal tight.
It glowed, faintly, showing him the path into the hole.
He climbed down slowly, one foot at a time, as the dirt walls pulsed like skin. The smell hit him hard — wet soil, blood, and something rotten.
At the bottom was a tunnel.
Carved in bones.
Yes—real bones. Children's bones.
Their little skulls smiled from the walls, jaws open, eyes hollow.
The flashlight flickered.
And in that flicker, they all seemed to be watching him.
The journal flipped open by itself again.
CASE THIRTY-FIVE: The Grave Beneath the Floor
"He was sealed in bone.
The children were not buried to hide their deaths…
They were used to build his cage."
Ahaan's hands shook.
So they killed them… to trap the Sleeper?
He walked deeper into the tunnel. His footsteps made wet, soft sounds, like stepping on soaked flesh.
Then — he saw it.
A giant stone door ahead.
Carved with symbols. And crying faces.
One symbol matched his father's journal cover.
Ahaan touched the door.
The air turned ice-cold.
The door opened without a sound.
Inside, he saw the grave.
But it wasn't like a normal grave.
This one breathed.
The floor moved up and down, slowly… like a giant chest rising and falling.
And in the center was a huge crack — where black smoke spilled out.
Ahaan's flashlight died.
Darkness swallowed everything.
Except the voice.
"I know you now, little mirror child.
Your blood woke me.
And your father fed me."
Suddenly, a single glowing eye opened in the center of the floor.
Huge. Slitted. Red.
It looked right at Ahaan.
And Ahaan felt it.
Inside his head.
Memories not his own flooded in:
His father standing in this same room, crying.
A child screaming in a cage made of bone.
A deal made with the Sleeper:
"Take one twin. Let the other live."
The mirror boy reaching for help… but being pulled under.
Ahaan screamed.
He fell to his knees.
The eye blinked slowly.
The voice whispered again.
"I remember your taste.
Your fear is soft and sweet."
A thousand tiny hands crawled out of the crack, grabbing his legs, arms, neck.
He couldn't move.
And then… something rose from the black crack.
Not fully human.
Not fully monster.
Just wrong.
Like it had been built by mistake.
Its face looked like wet paper melted over a skull.
Its mouth stretched sideways.
And from its chest, a baby's voice cried softly.
Ahaan shook.
This is the Sleeper…
The thing spoke again.
"One must stay here.
Forever.
Will it be you… or your twin?"
Suddenly, the mirror beside Ahaan cracked.
The mirror boy appeared again — but this time, he looked older.
Stronger.
"You brought me back. I owe you," the twin said.
"Let me take your place."
Ahaan stared at him.
"No. I won't let anyone else suffer."
The Sleeper laughed — a wet, broken laugh.
"Then stay.
Die slowly.
As your father should have."
Just as the hands began to pull him down, Ahaan opened the journal.
And screamed the word written in blood:
"RETURN!"
A flash of red light exploded from the book.
The cave shook.
Bones cracked.
The monster shrieked.
The eye closed.
The crack sealed.
And Ahaan fell backward — unconscious.
When he woke up…
He was in his room.
Safe.
Or so he thought.
Because the mirror across from him was broken.
And the journal had a new sentence glowing on its last page:
"You did not kill it.
You only fed it again.
And now… it's hungry for more."
Then...