Episode 6: The Girl in Room 309
"You locked the door, but the flood remembers."
---
TIME: 4:00 A.M.
LOCATION: Lakhnagar — Abandoned Brijraj Sanitorium
The final bell tolled.
Four. Sharp. Rings.
And the world shifted.
Not with an earthquake. Not with sound.
But with a breath, like the entire town exhaled in pain.
Every streetlight in Lakhnagar flickered red.
Crows began falling dead from the sky — not one or two, but hundreds.
From the center of town, a scream echoed so loud, windows shattered across the city.
It came from Room 309.
The room they buried.
The room that was never supposed to open again.
But it was open now.
And something was stepping out.
---
TIME: 4:05 A.M.
LOCATION: Blood Catacombs — The Heart Vein
Arjun stood frozen as Anay walked toward him.
His skin was cracked porcelain. Veins visible like ink beneath thin flesh. His eyes glowed red, irises spinning.
And with every step he took, the blood around Arjun froze — mid-air droplets hanging like glass.
Anay raised one hand, and Meera's suspended body began to convulse.
He didn't touch her — he commanded her pain.
> "She tried to stop the ritual," he whispered, "so I turned her into a piece of it."
Arjun shouted, raising his gun.
"I don't know what you are… but I swear I'll end you."
Anay grinned.
> "You already did. Back in 2002. When you set fire to Room 309."
Arjun froze.
His gun lowered slightly.
"No. That's not possible… That room— that fire was an accident."
Anay's voice turned into a chorus of children.
> "You were the accident, Arjun. You locked the door. You thought she burned alone."
Suddenly, blood on the ground began swirling. A face appeared in it.
A girl's face.
Her eyes… were the same as Arjun's.
> "You left your sister behind."
---
FLASHBACK: LAKHNAGAR, 2002 — 11:41 P.M.
Arjun, just 18, ran through the hallway of Brijraj Sanitorium, barefoot.
The fire had started in Room 309 — the isolation ward for unregistered children.
He could hear her scream.
His sister.
But the voices — the whispers — they were already in his head.
They told him:
> "She's the lock. The flood must be sealed. Don't open the door."
So… he didn't.
He ran.
And the flames took her.
Or so he thought.
---
TIME: 4:07 A.M.
LOCATION: Present — Room 309
Niyati stood at the threshold of the reopened room.
The door, once fused shut with steel and concrete, now swung open silently. Not creaking… whispering.
Inside: a girl floated three feet above the bed.
Unmoving.
Face pale, eyes closed, lips stitched.
But she was breathing.
On the walls — hundreds of names carved in blood.
Every missing child from Lakhnagar since 1983.
Every one of them — documented, erased, rewritten.
And in the center:
"Tanya Rawat."
Arjun's sister.
Still alive.
Still here.
Still… sealed.
Niyati stepped closer.
> "I remember you," she whispered. "You were the first… the key."
Then Tanya opened her eyes.
Red.
Like the rain.
---
TIME: 4:09 A.M.
LOCATION: Lakhnagar Streets
Every child under the age of 12 across Lakhnagar stood up at once.
Whether asleep, injured, or unconscious — they rose.
Eyes glowing faintly red.
Speaking in unison.
> "The heart is awake.
The flood is near.
The locks must fall."
They began walking — in perfect synchronization — toward Room 309.
From rooftops.
From hospitals.
From homes.
All of them.
Heading toward her.
---
TIME: 4:11 A.M.
LOCATION: Blood Catacombs
Arjun collapsed as the blood froze him in place.
The catacombs pulsed — and then cracked.
A red pillar of light shot through the ceiling and up into the skies of Lakhnagar. The sky didn't part — it screamed.
And then…
Tanya's voice echoed across the entire town, layered with thousands of other children.
> "We were never dead.
We were stored.
And now… we remember."
---