Ahaan sat under the dark trees, the wind still dead, the world too quiet. His hands were shaking as he held the journal. The last line burned in his mind:
"If she becomes the door, kill the lock before it kills the world."
Kill Saira.
He couldn't. She was innocent… wasn't she?
But the way she looked at him, the cracks in her skin, the way her shadow moved on its own…
She wasn't just a girl anymore.
Ahaan wiped the blood from his arm and turned another page in the journal. His heart almost stopped.
A folded paper was tucked between the pages.
He pulled it out slowly. It was a letter. Old, yellow, and stained with something dark — maybe ink, maybe blood.
The handwriting was his father's.
"Ahaan,
If you are reading this, then the lock is breaking. And The Watcher is awake."
Ahaan's chest tightened as he read on.
"You have questions. I owe you answers, even if you hate me for them. The truth is, The Watcher is older than anything. It was never a myth — it was a god in the dark before there was light. And it doesn't just kill. It eats stories. It eats worlds."
Ahaan swallowed hard. The trees around him seemed to lean closer.
"When I was young, I found the orphanage because of a rumor — children disappearing, strange dreams. I thought it was a simple haunting. I was wrong. The Watcher had already started opening the first door. And I… I made a choice."
Ahaan's hands trembled as he turned the page of the letter.
"The only way to trap it was inside a soul strong enough to hold it. Saira was that soul. She was brave. She trusted me. And I… I betrayed her. I told her it was just a game."
Ahaan's stomach twisted. He could almost hear Saira's humming again, soft and sad.
"I thought I saved the world. But I didn't know the truth. A lock cannot last forever. It breaks. And when it breaks, the curse falls on the one with my blood."
Ahaan froze.
"It will come for you, Ahaan. Because you are the last key. The Watcher needs both — the lock and the key — to open the bone door."
His hands shook so hard the letter almost slipped from his grip.
The last line was the worst.
"If you can't stop it… you must kill her. Because if she becomes the door, the world ends. Forgive me."
Ahaan crushed the letter in his fist. His throat burned.
Kill her? Saira? The girl who didn't ask for this? The girl his father used?
"No," Ahaan whispered. "There has to be another way."
The journal suddenly grew warm in his lap. A new sentence appeared on the page — in ink that dripped like blood.
"She's not waiting anymore."
Ahaan's breath caught.
From deep in the forest came a sound — soft at first, then louder. A humming.
Not human. Not beautiful.
A broken tune, twisted and sharp.
Saira's tune.
He stood slowly, the letter still in his fist. The forest had changed. The trees were bending toward him like arms reaching out. The ground pulsed faintly, like it had a heartbeat.
And then he saw her.
Far down the path, standing still among the trees. Her long black hair hid her face. But her arms hung wrong, like they were too long now. And her shadow stretched across the ground like a river of black ink, crawling toward him.
"Ahaan…"
Her voice was soft, almost gentle.
"Come back. It's cold without you."
His heart slammed against his ribs. He stepped back.
Her head tilted, and as it did, the sound of bones cracking filled the silence.
"Don't run," she whispered.
"You promised you'd stay."
A claw tore through the soil behind her — long, black, dripping.
The Watcher was with her now.
Ahaan turned and ran.
The forest twisted around him, paths changing like a maze. No matter where he turned, the humming followed, closer and closer. The journal burned in his hand, the words shifting as new ones appeared:
"The door will open when the song ends."
He didn't know what that meant, but he knew one thing.
He was running out of time.
and now then.....