Sameer opened his eyes first.
He was lying in the same jungle clearing—but it looked different now.
Brighter? No.
Emptier.
The trees still stood, the moss still glowed faintly blue, but everything felt… drained. Like something had passed through and taken something with it.
He sat up slowly.
Rehan lay nearby, back against a tree, breathing shallow but steady.
Ayaan was just a few feet ahead, staring at the coffin that had cracked open but hadn't fully revealed what lay inside.
The word was still there—etched deeply into the lid:
CONFESS.
Not glowing. Not changing. Just waiting.
Sameer looked at Ayaan. "Did you see it?"
Ayaan didn't answer. His voice was lodged somewhere in his throat.
Sameer tried again. "The spiral… the faces…"
Ayaan slowly turned his head. "What did you do, Sameer?"
Sameer blinked. "I don't know, what you're talking about"
But he was lying.
And Ayaan could tell.
---
Rehan woke with a sharp gasp.
His hands were shaking.
That girl — the one who appeared to him like memory dressed in skin — had said he needed to remember. And as much as he tried to push the thought away… something inside him was beginning to crack.
He stood, unsteady, then froze.
The symbol.
There it was again. Burned into the bark of the nearest tree.
Sharp-edged. Unfamiliar, but not new.
Rehan stared at it for too long.
"I think... I've seen this before," he whispered.
Sameer's head turned. "What?"
Rehan hesitated. "Back home. A year ago. In a library archive."
He stepped toward it slowly. "It was in a banned journal. Something old. Handwritten. The page said—"
He swallowed.
"Whatever bears this mark was meant to stay hidden."
---
Back in the city…
Naira hadn't slept.
She couldn't.
She kept hearing Sameer's voice echoing in her head: "She knows now."
She didn't know who "she" was, or if he was even talking about her — but something inside her believed it was a message.
The streetlights outside her window flickered like they were tired of pretending to be normal.
She grabbed her jacket.
Fifteen minutes later, she was back at the gate of Sameer's childhood home.
She walked up the steps slowly.
Everything in her screamed don't.
But she knocked.
No answer.
She waited.
Then… the door creaked open.
No one stood behind it.
She stepped inside.
---
In the clearing, the coffin was gone.
Not vanished. Moved.
Somehow now, it stood between the three of them — as if it had walked there itself.
A faint smell filled the air. Burnt fabric. Old ink. Ash.
Ayaan looked at Rehan.
Rehan didn't look back.
He was still staring at the symbol. His voice was quiet when he spoke again.
"We didn't just stumble into this."
Sameer flinched.
Rehan turned to him.
"You brought that journal to the group. You dared us to go to the place it talked about. Remember that? You mocked the warnings."
Sameer said nothing.
Rehan's voice rose. "You said it would be fun. Just one night."
Sameer's jaw clenched. "You all came."
Ayaan's voice was barely a whisper. "We were stupid."
"No," Rehan snapped. "We were invited. And we said yes."
The trees didn't move.
But the ground beneath them… exhaled.
---
In the old house, Naira stepped into the hallway. Dust everywhere. Pictures tilted.
And then she saw it:
On the mirror in the hallway, a word scrawled in black across the glass.
CONFESS.
The same word.
Her breath caught.
Suddenly she wasn't sure if she was there by her own choice.
Or if she'd been led.
---
Back in the forest, Sameer finally spoke.
"I didn't think it would follow us."
Ayaan stared at him. "You knew."
"I thought it was just a story—" Sameer's voice cracked. "—until it wasn't."
Rehan's expression didn't change.
He just said:
"Then start talking."
---
To be continued…
---