Ravi drove fast,too fast;through the morning traffic, weaving through cars with the precision of someone who had outrun death before. 🚀
Feriha pressed her back into the seat, trying to steady her breathing. The city blurred past her window, but nothing could blur the voice she had heard calling her name.
"He knew me," she whispered. "How could he possibly know me?"
Ravi didn't look at her.
"He knows everyone the Glass Circle marks."
"Marks?" Feriha repeated. "Like targets?"🎯
Ravi nodded. "Once you're marked, they watch you. They study your life. Your habits. Your secrets."
A chill crawled up her spine.
"Why would they mark me? I'm just a journalist. I didn't expose anything big."
"That's what you believe," Ravi said quietly. "But the killers think you have something they want."
"What? That folder? I didn't even know what was inside."
"Doesn't matter. They think you do." 📸
Ravi took a hard turn into an old industrial area at the edge of the city. Abandoned warehouses lined both sides of the road, their windows dusty and shattered.
"Where are we going?" she asked.
"To the only safe place I know." 🧠
He pulled into a narrow alley and parked behind a rusted metal door. It looked like it hadn't been opened in years. Ravi punched a code into a keypad hidden behind a loose brick. The door clicked open.
Inside was a dim, underground space;dusty shelves, old case files, scattered maps, a single desk with a flickering lamp. 🕯
"A safe house?" Feriha guessed.
"An old CID archive room," Ravi corrected. "No cameras. No signals. No one comes here." 🔕
He closed the heavy door behind them and locked it.
Only then did Feriha feel her lungs loosen, even slightly.
Ravi sat at the desk and took out a thick, weathered notebook. He opened it to the first page.
Feriha moved closer.
Her breath caught. 😳
The notebook was a timeline…
But not of events.
Of disappearances.
Children. Adults. Witnesses. Journalists. Detectives.
Names scribbled, crossed out, circled.
Dates spanning nearly three decades.
"This…" she whispered, "this can't be real."
"It's very real," Ravi said. "These are the cases connected to the Glass Circle. Every trail leads to nothing. Every witness vanishes."
He flipped to the next page. 📖
A page full of photos of victims—faces with blank eyes, each crossed with a thin red line.
Feriha's stomach turned.
Then Ravi stopped flipping.
He turned the notebook around so she could see a single page… the only one with no red cross.
A page with two photos:
A young girl with tangled hair and frightened eyes;around seven years old.
And beside her;
Feriha.
The same face.
Same eyes.
Just younger. 👩
Her knees almost gave out.
"That's you," Ravi said softly. "Twelve years ago. The girl I pulled out of a locked storage facility. You were shaking, bleeding, and barely conscious. And everything you said was incoherent."
"No," she whispered, stepping back. "No, I don't remember any of this."
"You weren't supposed to," Ravi said. "Someone covered it up. Perfectly. They erased the reports. They erased your identity from the case. They erased me." 🔇
Feriha's vision blurred as fragments flashed in her mind;dim lights, metal doors, cold hands pulling her away, someone whispering, "Don't look back."
She grabbed the edge of the table to steady herself.
"Why would they kidnap me?" she asked, voice cracking. "I was just a child." 🤔
Ravi hesitated.
Then he opened another envelope;one she hadn't noticed before.
Inside was an old map.
Marked with five red circles.
"Because you were taken with five other children," Ravi said.
"Only you survived." 🙂
Her breath stopped.
"You're lying," she whispered.
Ravi looked at her, eyes heavy.
"The red circles mark where each child was found. Except one."
He pointed to the center of the map,
a location unmarked.
A place no one searched.
"The last child was never found," he said.
"And I think the killers believe you know where that child is." 🎬