The room was still—too still.
Only the low hum of Arya's laptop filled the silence, broken occasionally by the crackling of the old tape recorder. Its head clicked against the reel, but nothing played. The screen showed an error once more: DATA CORRUPTED.
Arya's lips tightened. The device lay on the table like a relic possessed. Isha watched from the couch, concern deep in her eyes.
"It's been three days," Arya said, still staring at the lifeless recorder. "I gave it to the lab for data recovery. They promised to extract whatever's inside."
"Will it work?"
Arya nodded slowly. "They'll mail me the full file set—audio, maybe visuals too. A week at most."
Isha let out a breath, sitting forward. "Good. Because I don't think we're done digging yet."
She reached for her bag and pulled out a USB drive. "You're not the only one with unresolved business."
Arya blinked. "What's that?"
"Our friend Mike. Remember him? The guy from college who used to build hacking bots for crypto trades? He owed me a favour." Isha smirked darkly. "He just repaid it in full."
Digital Dirt
Arya opened the folder. At first glance, it looked innocent—just screenshots and cloud-synced files from Rihaan's archived accounts. But the moment she clicked on one image, her stomach clenched.
There they were—Rihaan and Meera—arms around each other in a dim-lit cafe she'd never been to. Another photo in a hotel room. Then one in a car, lips locked in blurred motion.
The screen kept filling.
Dirty texts, dripping with lust.
"Last night was wild. She's clueless. I'm yours tonight."
"Let her go. You don't need to pretend anymore."
Then a video. Meera giggling on Rihaan's lap, shirtless, her hands trailing down.
Arya didn't flinch. But her grip on the mouse tightened until her knuckles turned white.
She clicked next.
"I miss your touch. I can't stop thinking about your scent on my skin."
"She still sleeps next to you? Ugh."
Another picture—Meera wearing Arya's gifted earrings, naked in bed.
"That was the night of my birthday," Arya whispered. "She left early… said she was sick."
Isha's face twisted. "These people are demons."
But Arya didn't cry.
Instead, a tea cup at the edge of the table shivered… lifted half an inch into the air… and dropped.
CRACK.
It shattered.
Isha stared, stunned. "That cup just—levitated."
Arya stood slowly, her body trembling, but her voice steady. "It's not just pain anymore."
Her skin burned under her sleeve. She yanked it up—the mark glowed faintly even without the moonlight.
"It reacts to betrayal too, it seems."
Past Lies, Present Fury
Flashes of the past flooded Arya's mind.
Meera fixing her lipstick in Arya's mirror. Rihaan's sly smile during group photos. The time they planned a "surprise" dinner for Arya, only for her to arrive late—no one had waited.
She'd laughed it off then.
Now she knew why.
"They made me the villain in my own story," she said bitterly. "For two years… they wore masks around me."
She turned to Isha, her eyes like fire now.
"I'll make them bleed emotionally. Let them rot in shame before anything else comes for them."
Retribution in Ink
The printer in Arya's room buzzed to life. Photo after photo rolled out—every screenshot, every selfie of Meera on Rihaan's lap, every video frame that proved their betrayal.
They printed them all.
In total silence.
Next came glue and tape.
By sunrise, the walls of their office and the walls of their neighborhood were smeared with truth. On lamp posts. On doors. On Meera's apartment gate. On Rihaan's workplace billboard.
Each print bore the same red label: BASTARDS.
Letters and Farewells
Later that afternoon, Arya sat quietly at her writing desk. The city buzzed beyond her balcony, but her world was already distant—frozen somewhere between vengeance and visions.
She pulled out a fresh paper sheet.
Grandma,
By the time you read this, I'll be gone. Isha is with me. We're returning to the place I tried to forget—the snowy forest.
I saw something that night. A man… a beast… and something else inside me awakened. I'm not crazy. I know what I saw. I know it was real.
The mark glows for a reason.
I can't stay here pretending anymore. Answers wait in the cold, and I intend to find them.
Don't try to stop us. I'll return when I understand what I've become.
Arya.
She left the note folded neatly beside a warm cup of tea for her grandmother.
As she stepped outside, bag slung across her shoulder, her grandmother came to the door, reading the letter slowly.
Tears welled in her eyes—not of fear, but of silent understanding.
And in a voice barely above the breeze, she whispered:
"Now it can't be stopped. Destiny will play… and nature will break."
Awakenings
The train toward the north rumbled steadily.
Arya watched the window as landscapes blurred by. She no longer felt tethered to her past. The city was behind her, and ahead was frost… truth… and maybe him.
The man with golden eyes. The one who called her name in dreams and bit her in visions. The one whose voice once said, "Wake up before I lose you again."
Her journal lay open on her lap. Her pen wrote the words unconsciously:
"He's coming. The blue moon is near."
Beside her, Isha asked gently, "What about the tape? The one you gave for recovery?"
Arya's lips curled into a faint smile.
"They'll mail it soon. Within a week. With full visuals and audio. Every buried truth will surface."
She leaned her head back against the seat, eyes closing briefly.
The mark beneath her sleeve pulsed once, faintly warm.
And somewhere in the wild cold north, something ancient stirred awake.