"What do you mean?" Karan asked quietly. Not confused. Careful.
Ahmed didn't answer right away.
The silence that followed Ahmed's words felt heavier than the groans of the infected outside.
Reyan stood frozen, daughter clutching his leg, the weight of what he'd just heard settling into his bones like lead. Around him, the others were equally still.
Ahmed adjusted the dark-tinted glasses on his face—the kind that wrapped around completely, blocking any direct line of sight to his eyes. "You think I wear these for fashion?" His voice carried an edge of dark humor. "In hell?"
"What..." Reyan's voice came out rough. He cleared his throat, tried again. "What do you mean?
"There's a type," Ahmed said carefully, measuring each word. "Not all of them. Maybe one in fifty. One in a hundred. We're still figuring out the ratio." He paused, looking at each of them in turn. "They look like the others. Move like the others. But they're... different."
"Different how?" Samir asked. His voice was steady, but his hand had started trembling.
"They make you see things." Ahmed's words dropped into the space between them like stones into still water. "If you make eye contact. Direct eye contact. They get in your head somehow. Show you things that aren't there. Things you want to see. Things you need to see."
The world tilted slightly under Reyan's feet.
No.
No, that couldn't be—
"Hallucinations," Dr. Aggarwal added quietly. He stood near the wall, arms crossed, his own dark glasses reflecting the dim light. "We lost three people before we figured it out. They'd just... wander off. Following something only they could see. Walking straight into hordes. Or off buildings."
Reyan felt his daughter's grip tighten on his leg. He couldn't move. Couldn't process.
"The glasses," Dr. Aggarwal said suddenly. His voice cracked. "You wear the glasses to—"
"To prevent direct eye contact," Ahmed finished. "The tint helps. If they can't lock eyes with you, they can't get in." He tapped the side of his glasses.
The room seemed to shrink.
Reyan's mind raced backward. The balcony. The empty street that wasn't empty. His daughter's voice calling to him when she'd been asleep the whole time. The conversation with Samir and Taj that had never happened. The relief, the hope, the crushing realization that none of it was real.
"I saw..." His voice came out as barely a whisper. "On the balcony. There was one. It was just... standing there. Staring up at me."
Everyone turned to look at him.
"It didn't move," Reyan continued, the words coming faster now. "All the others were shambling around, but this one just... stood there. Looking right at me. And then I—" He stopped. Swallowed hard. "I thought everyone was awake. I thought the street was empty. I thought we could make a run for it. But none of it was real. I was talking to people who weren't there for—for I don't know how long."
Silence.
Then Taj made a small sound in the back of his throat.
"The hallway," he said. His hands came up to grip his dark new glasses. "When we were running. There was maybe one near the stairwell."
"I dropped my glasses. That's the last clear thing I remember."
"After that, I saw them."
He frowned. "So maybe there was one there. Maybe it was staring at me."
Reyan turned to him. "Taj..."
"I saw my parents." The words tumbled out now, like a dam breaking. "They were right there. Right in front of me. Calling me home. I followed them. I left you guys behind and I followed them out into the street because they were real. They looked real, sounded real, they—" His voice broke. "But they weren't. They were in Kolkata. They couldn't be there. But... But I saw them anyway."
Reyan felt something cold crawl up his spine.
"When you ran outside," he said slowly. "You weren't just panicking. You were—"
"Chasing ghosts." Taj's laugh was hollow, broken. "Yeah. I was chasing my parents through a street full of infected because some thing looked at me and decided that's what I needed to see."
Taj's face went gray.
Then, quietly, Samir spoke.
"The gas station."
Everyone looked at him.
"This morning," Samir said quietly. "Before dawn. I went to the car to look at the map."
No one interrupted him.
"I remember looking left first," he continued. "Just for a second. I didn't see anything. So I didn't think anything was there."
His fingers curled tighter into his sleeves.
"I started reading the map. I was trying to figure out which road we'd missed." He swallowed. "And when I looked up… she was there."
"Nisha?" Reyan asked.
Samir nodded. "By the passenger door. I could see her reflection in the window. She said my name. She was so close I thought—" His voice broke. "I thought she was real."
Vikram exhaled slowly. "You were talking to yourself."
Samir didn't argue. "I know."
"There were three infected around you," Vikram said. "Close. Too close. You didn't notice any of them."
Samir stared at the floor. "I didn't see anything except her."
"One of them wasn't moving," Vikram went on. "The others were drifting, twitching like usual. But that one just stood there. Near the pumps. Facing you."
Samir looked up. "Standing?"
"Perfectly still," Vikram said. "Like it was watching."
Silence settled over the room.
"I killed it," Vikram said quietly. "And two others. You never even turned around."
The room was so quiet Reyan could hear his own heartbeat.
Ahmed watched them all with something that might have been sympathy. "You're lucky," he said finally. "All three of you made eye contact and survived. Most people don't."
"Lucky," Reyan repeated flatly.
"You had people watching your backs. People who could pull you out before you walked off a roof or into a horde." Ahmed's expression hardened. "We've seen it happen. Seen people just... walk away. Smiling. Following something only they could see. By the time we realized what was happening, they were already—" He stopped. Shook his head.
Reyan felt his daughter bury her face against his leg.
"How many?" Meera asked suddenly. She was looking directly at Ahmed. "How many of those things are out there?"
"We don't know." Ahmed spread his hands. "Like I said, maybe one in fifty. Maybe fewer. Maybe more. We haven't exactly had time for a census."
"And you can't tell which ones they are just by looking," Dev added. "They look the same. Move the same. The only difference is what they do if they catch your eye."
"They stare," Ravi said. He'd been quiet until now, standing near the door. "The regular infected, they focus on movement. Sound. They react to stimuli. But these ones... they watch. They track you with their eyes even when you're not moving. Like they're hunting."
Reyan thought back to the balcony again. The infected in the street below, staring up at him. Not lunging. Not groaning. Just... watching.
Waiting.
"How do you fight something like that?" Arjun breathed.
"You don't look at them." Ahmed's answer was immediate. "You keep the glasses on. You keep your head down. You kill them without making eye contact. And you never—" He emphasized the word. "—go anywhere alone."
"Because if you do," Dr. Aggarwal finished, "and you make eye contact, no one will be there to pull you back."
Silence settled over the group again.
Taj had sunk down to sit on the floor, back against the wall, still gripping his glasses. "I almost died," he said quietly. "I would've died. If you hadn't come after me, if those shots hadn't gone off, if the Karan's group hadn't come up right then—" He looked up at Reyan. "I would've died following ghosts."
Reyan wanted to say something. To offer comfort. But the words wouldn't come.
Because Taj was right.
They'd all almost died. All three of them. Caught by something they didn't understand, seeing things their minds desperately wanted to be real, walking willingly toward their own deaths because for a few precious moments, the horror had seemed to lift.
"Why?" Samir's voice cut through the quiet. "Why do they do it? What's the point?"
Ahmed shook his head. "We don't know. Maybe it's evolved. Maybe it's just another symptom of the infection. Maybe it's random." He paused. "But it works. Whatever these things are showing people, it's effective enough to make them drop their guard. Walk into danger. That's all that matters in the end."
"There has to be a way to stop it," Reyan said. His voice came out harder than he intended. "Besides the glasses. There has to be a way to kill them before they—"
"We're working on it," Ahmed interrupted. "We've been trying to identify patterns. Warning signs. Anything that might help us spot them before they spot us." He pulled off his glasses for a moment, rubbing his eyes. Reyan caught a glimpse of dark circles underneath, exhaustion etched deep. "So far, the only reliable defense is avoiding eye contact entirely. The glasses. Staying alert. Watching each other's backs."
"And if you can't avoid it?" Vikram asked. "If one gets through?"
Ahmed put his glasses back on. "Then you better hope someone's there to pull you out. Because once they're in your head..." He trailed off. Shook his head. "Just don't let them in."
Reyan felt his daughter shift against his leg. He looked down and found her staring up at him with wide, frightened eyes.
"Papa," she whispered. "Are we safe?"
The question hit him like a physical blow.
Was she safe? Here, in this room, with infected outside that could make you see things, make you believe lies, make you walk willingly to your own death?
"Yes," he said, because what else could he say? "Yes, baby. We're safe."
She didn't look convinced. Smart kid.
"We need to be more careful," Taj said. He'd stood up again, still clutching his glasses like they were a lifeline. "We need to watch for them. The ones that stare. If we see one that's not moving like the others, we—"
"You kill it without looking at it directly," Karan interrupted. "Peripheral vision. Or you let someone else handle it. Someone who hasn't made eye contact."
"So we wear the glasses," Reyan said finally. "All of us. Is that what you're saying?"
Ahmed nodded slowly. "Sunglasses. Tinted goggles. Even regular glasses. Anything to prevent direct eye contact." He looked around at each of them.
"And in the meantime," Karan added, "we stick together. No one goes anywhere alone. No one stands watch alone. If someone starts acting strange—talking to people who aren't there, staring at empty spaces, trying to wander off—you grab them. You pull them back. You do not let them follow whatever they're seeing."
Reyan thought about how close he'd come. Standing on that balcony, convinced his daughter was awake, convinced Samir and Taj were there with him, convinced the street was empty and they could escape. How long had he stood there? Five minutes? Ten? Talking to ghosts while infected fed on a corpse below?
"Papa?"
He looked down again. His daughter was still watching him with those knowing eyes.
"Are you okay?" she asked quietly.
The same question she'd asked on the balcony. The real one. After the hallucination had shattered.
"Yeah, baby." He forced a smile. "Papa's okay."
Another lie. But what else could he say?
No, baby. Papa almost got us all killed because a zombie looked at him and made him see things that weren't there. And he believed them. Believed them completely. And he would've acted on them if you hadn't woken up.
No. He couldn't say that.
So he lied.
And she knew it. He could see it in her face.
Seven years old almost eight and she already knew her father was breaking.
Ahmed cleared his throat. "Look," he said, his voice gentler now. "I know this is a lot to take in. I know it sounds impossible. But it's real. And now that you know, you can protect yourselves." He gestured toward a box in the corner. "We've got some spare glasses. Not enough for everyone, but enough to help. You'll also gather whatever you all can find—sunglasses, goggles, anything with lenses."
Ahmed exhaled slowly, like he'd been holding his breath for a long time.
"They found me in my house," he said. "Nisha and her people. I was alone. Hiding."
"I told them who I was," Ahmed continued. "What I used to do. I told them I was a scientist."
A beat of silence.
"They brought me here after that. This place already existed, but there was no direction. No understanding." He glanced toward the lab tables. "That came later."
"Because of him?" Reyan asked, nodding toward Dr. Aggarwal.
"Yes," Ahmed said. "I found him here. He'd been working alone. Guessing. Trying things that didn't work."
Ahmed reached for the vial on the table. Didn't pick it up. Just rested his fingers near it.
"I still had this," he said. "What I made. What caused all of this."
The room stayed quiet.
"We tested it," Ahmed went on. "On infected we captured. Restrained. Observed."
"And?" Meera asked.
No one spoke.
"We learned," he said. "Not all at once. Piece by piece." His eyes lifted to the group. "What triggers it. What it does to the mind. Why people start seeing things that aren't there."
Samir's fingers curled slowly at his side.
"So when you think you're losing your mind," Ahmed said, quieter now, "you're not."
He looked at them through the dark lenses.
"You're being targeted."
The implications of that hung in the air.
How many had died that way? How many had followed ghosts into hordes, or off roofs, or into traffic, or—
Reyan felt sick.
"Is there anything else?" Vikram asked. His voice was controlled. "Any other surprises we should know about?"
Ahmed hesitated.
"There might be," he admitted. "We're still learning. Every day we see something new. But this—the eye contact thing—this is the worst of it so far. The most dangerous."
"So far," Samir repeated. He'd finally stopped shaking, but his voice was hollow. "Great. That's great."
"We're doing research," Ahmed said. "Trying to understand the infection. Figure out how it works. What triggers the evolution. If there are other variants besides the stalkers and these... these gazers, I guess we could call them." He paused. "If you have any information. Anything you've seen or noticed that might help. We need to know."
Reyan thought back through the past. The infected who'd torn apart his wife. The ones who'd chased them through the apartment building. The horde in the street.
Had any of them been different? Had any of them stared?
He couldn't remember. It was all a blur of horror and blood and running.
"I don't know," he said finally. "Everything happened so fast. I didn't notice anything specific until..." He trailed off. "Until the balcony."
"Same," Taj said. "I thought they were all the same until the hallway. Until I dropped my glasses and saw—" He stopped. Swallowed. "Until I saw my parents."
Samir just shook his head.
"Okay," Ahmed said. "Well, if you remember anything. Or see anything new. Let us know immediately."
Reyan wanted to refuse. Wanted to say they'd manage on their own to Advait. But the truth was, after what he'd just learned, the idea of going out there without people who understood what they were facing...
"Remember," Ahmed said as they prepared to leave. "Eye contact means death. If you see one staring. If one locks eyes with you. Look away immediately and call for help. Don't trust what you see after that. Don't trust what you hear. Don't follow anything, don't believe anything. Just get away and let someone else handle it."
"What if we're alone?" Arjun asked.
Ahmed's expression was grim. "Then you're probably dead already."
The words settled over them like a shroud.
Reyan thought about the balcony. The hallucination. How real it had felt. How close he'd come to believing it completely.
And he wondered—if it happened again, if one of those things caught his eye despite the glasses, if his mind started showing him what he wanted to see—would he be able to recognize it? Would he be able to pull himself back?
Or would he follow the ghosts into darkness, smiling all the way?