Episode 5: The Flood Begins
(Part 1)
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TIME: 2:50 A.M.
LOCATION: Room 309, Sublevel B, Lakhnagar General Hospital
There are some places where silence isn't peaceful — it's predatory.
ACP Arjun Rawat felt that silence pressing down on him like a weight. The door to Room 309 had slammed shut behind him. And what should have been just another room was something else entirely.
A breathless chill ran down his spine. His torchlight had failed the second he crossed the doorway. His phone, which had 42% battery before entering, was now dead. His skin prickled. Something about the air felt wrong. Like it hadn't been touched by life in decades.
But the room didn't smell abandoned.
It smelled… fresh.
Fresh blood.
He stood frozen in the dark, heart hammering in his ears. Then, a drop landed on his face.
He touched it.
Sticky. Warm.
He looked up.
The ceiling was dripping red.
Blood was seeping through cracks in the ceiling like sweat on skin. It dripped in uneven patterns, slow and deliberate, as if the building itself was bleeding from somewhere deep above.
That's when the whisper returned.
Low. Hollow. Right behind his right ear.
"You left us there, Arjun..."
He spun around, pistol raised — but saw only shadows. Shadows that moved.
Another whisper, from the left.
"The fire wasn't an accident…"
He backed into the wall, trying to control his breath.
"Who's there?" he growled. "Show yourself!"
From the corner of the room, a small giggle answered him. Not cheerful. Not innocent. A giggle twisted by something dark and broken.
The sound of bare feet stepping slowly toward him. One step. Then another.
Arjun flicked his lighter to life.
The flame revealed a face.
A child. Maybe ten. Male.
Eyes completely black. Skin ash grey. Blood smeared across his chest.
But worst of all was his smile.
Wide. Unnatural.
As if it had been carved into his face.
Arjun took a step back. The flame flickered violently.
The boy tilted his head.
"Anay is coming."
Then — the lighter went out.
---
FLASHBACK: 1993 — NIGHT OF THE FIRE
Ten-year-old Arjun was crying.
He was trapped inside Room 309. The other kids — the twins Aryan and Advik, and the girl in the wheelchair — were whispering something in unison. A symbol had been drawn on the floor in chalk. Candles burned in a perfect circle.
They were trying to call someone. Something.
He remembered the words now.
"Red rain fall, red rain grow…
Take our pain, and don't let go.
Let him walk the path of flame…
Anay is the killer's name…"
Then — the door opened. Fire was everywhere.
A voice yelled, "Run!"
He obeyed.
He ran. He escaped.
And as he turned back to look at the room —
he closed the door on their screams.
---
PRESENT — 2025
Room 309 vibrated violently as the floor began to crack.
Red rain was now leaking through the walls.
It poured from the ceiling in slow streams, dripping along the walls like veins forming on skin. The room groaned — not the building, but the room itself, like it was alive, remembering its pain.
From every corner, children began to emerge.
Boys. Girls. Some with eyes missing. One dragging her leg behind her. Another had half his skull caved in. All of them watching Arjun.
"You didn't die," one whispered.
"You locked the door," said another.
"You forgot our names," a third hissed, "but we remember yours."
In the center of them all stood the first boy — the one with black eyes.
He raised his hand.
And from the cracks in the floor, he rose.
Not a child. Not a man.
A figure in a black raincoat, tall and grotesque. His face was scorched, but what remained of his mouth stretched into a permanent grin. From his back sprouted red veins, floating in the air like tendrils. His eyes — void, yet somehow burning.
Anay.
Arjun couldn't move.
Anay took a step forward. Then another. And when he spoke, his voice was a choir of tortured souls:
"The rain falls for me.
The town will bleed.
And every locked door will open."
He raised a finger and pointed directly at Arjun.
And in that moment — Arjun's left arm snapped back without warning.
The bones twisted.
He fell to his knees, screaming.
The children began to laugh.
---Episode 5: The Flood Begins
(Part 2 of the 19,000-word chapter)
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TIME: 3:09 A.M.
LOCATION: Below Room 309 – The Red Passage
Arjun was no longer in the hospital.
His body had been pulled through a bleeding wound in the floor — a hole that shouldn't have existed — and dropped into a place that defied reality.
He lay on cold stone. Not tile. Not concrete. Something ancient. The air down here wasn't air at all — it was thick and metallic, reeking of rusted blood and rotting memory.
He stood slowly, shoulder still throbbing from where it had twisted. His clothes were soaked. Not with water. Not even rain.
Blood.
It was leaking from the stone ceiling, dripping in long, slow threads.
He raised his flashlight — somehow, it worked again — and lit the corridor.
The walls pulsed.
They were flesh.
Veins ran through them. Eyes blinked from within the surface. Mouths opened and closed, mouthing words Arjun couldn't hear.
The Red Passage stretched out ahead of him — infinite, winding, breathing.
And from deep inside it, the sound of bells echoed.
---
FLASHBACK: 1993 – Three Hours Before the Fire
"Do you know what this place really is, Arjun?"
It was the voice of the caretaker. Mr. Naresh. The man who worked in Brijraj Mansion and watched the orphanage next door. He had brought the children down to Room 309, telling them it was "for their healing."
Only it wasn't healing. It was summoning.
Arjun remembered being brought to the room with the others. They'd been selected. Why? He didn't know. Maybe because they were broken. Alone. Forgotten. Easy to use.
"We're going to free something," Mr. Naresh had said, placing a candle in Arjun's shaking hands.
"Something old. Something that feeds on pain. But don't worry… it only takes the ones who want to be taken."
Arjun remembered now.
He had wanted to escape.
He had wished for the fire.
He had made the wish.
---
PRESENT – 3:11 A.M.
Arjun stumbled deeper into the corridor, following the sound of the bells.
Every twenty feet, a symbol was carved into the floor — identical to the chalk drawings in the old case photos from 1993.
One looked like a human figure with arms outstretched, mouth open in a scream. Another was a spiral of knives. The last one was a perfect eye.
Under one symbol lay a small object: a broken bracelet. Plastic beads, letters cracked.
"ARYAN."
Arjun dropped to his knees. "No," he whispered.
But the walls answered him.
"YES."
The bracelet twitched.
A child's voice echoed down the hallway.
"Do you remember what you heard the night of the fire?"
Arjun shook his head.
"You heard us burning," the voice whispered. "You heard us die. And you left us."
Another voice:
"Anay didn't kill us, Arjun. You did."
He began to run.
---
TIME: 3:13 A.M.
LOCATION: Niyati Sharma's Cabin – Lakhnagar Forest
Niyati's hands trembled as she sealed her front door shut with chains and nailed wooden planks across the windows.
Outside, she could hear them — footsteps too small to be adults. Children. Singing. Laughing. Scratching at the walls.
The red rain was now falling inside her home — from the ceiling, the vents, even the wooden beams.
She pressed an old cassette tape into a recorder and hit play.
A man's voice came through.
> "This is Dr. Sameer Bhagat, 1992. Room 309 is reacting. We tried sedating the boy — but the blood keeps leaking from the ceiling. He said his name was Anay. We checked the records. No child named Anay was ever admitted. But… the walls respond to him. The other children worship him like a god. And he talks about 'the flood.' I don't know what it means. But he says it's coming."
Then static.
Niyati closed her eyes and muttered a prayer. But it was no use.
The rain was already inside her lungs.
---
TIME: 3:16 A.M.
LOCATION: Red Passage – Lower Depths
Arjun reached a large open chamber.
In its center, a pool of red liquid churned, thick and alive. All around the chamber were photos, pinned to the walls with nails made of bone. Pictures of children. Missing reports. Old ID cards from the 80s and 90s. Some faces had eyes scratched out.
He saw one photo — his own. Age 10.
A tape recorder sat on a stool next to it. Dusty. Old. But still ticking.
He pressed play.
> "This is Arjun Rawat, 2005. I'm leaving this message in case I forget. Room 309 was not a room. It was a mirror. And I saw him. I saw what's underneath. Anay didn't die. He waited. The rain… the flood… it's all part of his return. I saw what I did that night. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry—"
Click. Silence.
From behind him, a hand grabbed his ankle.
He spun and saw a half-burnt child, mouth sewn shut, clawing toward him.
Dozens more followed — crawling from the walls, the cracks, the pool.
He screamed, reaching for his pistol.
But from the center of the pool… Anay rose.
Floating. Grinning.
And he said one thing:
"The first lock is broken. The second will fall at dawn."
---
TIME: 3:19 A.M.
LOCATION: The Red Passage — The Chamber of Names
Arjun staggered backward, eyes fixed on the figure rising from the red pool.
Anay.
His body glistened with blood. It dripped off him like rain from a soaked coat. He floated just above the ground, neck twisted slightly to the side, a movement that felt too broken to be natural — like his bones weren't bound by human rules anymore.
Beneath him, the other children gathered — crawling, limping, some dragging dismembered limbs behind them, others headless but somehow still whispering.
Anay's voice came again — in Arjun's head, not his ears.
> "You sealed the room. You locked the fire in. You buried me in screams."
Arjun raised his pistol, hands shaking. "You're not real," he whispered.
Anay smiled wider.
> "Neither are you anymore."
Suddenly, the ground cracked beneath Arjun's feet. The walls of the chamber began to bleed faster. It wasn't rain anymore — it was a flood.
The blood began rising, swirling into symbols as it pooled around Arjun's knees. Dozens of black veins burst from the walls, snaking toward him like tentacles.
He ran.
Behind him, the laughter of children became a chorus of madness.
---
TIME: 3:22 A.M.
LOCATION: Lakhnagar Police Station
Sub-Inspector Veer Saxena stared at the storm outside.
The rain was red. Not a metaphor. Not a warning. Literally red.
He'd seen it before — as a child, during the Sharma House Fire of '93. But back then, no one believed him.
Tonight, the police radio was going insane.
> "Sir, there are children standing outside the school. They won't move. They're just… staring."
> "We've lost contact with Ward C at the hospital. No power. Blood coming from the vents—"
> "There's something wrong with the mirrors in Lakhnagar Plaza. They're… showing things that aren't there."
> "Sir, people are disappearing in the rain."
The emergency broadcast light turned red.
Veer picked up the phone.
No dial tone. Just static.
And beneath it — a child's voice.
"We're inside now."
Then the power died.
---
TIME: 3:26 A.M.
LOCATION: The Forest – Niyati Sharma's Cabin
Niyati had barricaded herself inside the bathroom — the only place in the cabin without a window.
She had seen them. The children. They weren't alive, not fully. Their faces were cracked, melting, some still burning. One had nails driven into her face, but she smiled like it tickled.
Outside the door, she heard them giggling.
Knock-knock.
"Come out, Niyati," they whispered.
"You remember us, don't you? You're one of us."
Her phone buzzed. One notification.
UNKNOWN SENDER: "You still have the key."
Niyati's breath caught.
Her hand flew to her locket — a small silver key hidden inside since 2002. She had never dared use it.
Until now.
She took it out.
And outside, the laughter stopped.
One child whispered:
"No… not that. Don't bring her back."
---
TIME: 3:30 A.M.
LOCATION: Underground Ruins – Blood Catacombs
Arjun tumbled through a narrow shaft, landing in a pile of bones.
Dozens of skeletons — child-sized.
Some still had hospital bracelets.
Others had burnt skin clinging to them.
Some wore school uniforms from the 90s.
It hit him like a punch to the soul:
These weren't hallucinations.
They were real children.
They had died here.
And somehow — no one ever found them.
He saw writing on the wall in blood:
"HUMAN SACRIFICE — SEVEN EACH SEVENTH YEAR"
Arjun's hands clenched.
This wasn't an accident.
This was ritualistic murder.
A cult? A government secret?
No. Worse.
He picked up a file from the bones — half-burnt.
On the cover:
LAKHNAGAR SANITARIUM – 1983 INTERNAL REPORT – SUBJECT: ANAY
He flipped through.
> "Subject displays unnatural control over surrounding elements when agitated. Rain, insects, walls bleeding.
We believe he is not a child, but a vessel. A gate. Perhaps… a god.
Recommendation: Terminate all involved. Seal Room 309."
The page ended with one word, written over and over:
"DO NOT SING."
Just as Arjun read that line, a child's voice echoed through the tunnel:
> "Rain falls red, skies turn grey...
Close your eyes, we'll make you stay…"
Then came the screaming.
From every tunnel around him.
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