The hostel was quiet. Too quiet.
Two of the ten were gone now — Rohit had vanished into thin air, and Sameer was lying in a hospital bed, locked in silence. The remaining eight boys tried to hold on to normalcy, but fear had crept into every corner of their minds.
Aryan hadn't spoken much since Sameer fell. He kept looking at the stairwell, as if expecting someone—or something—to come down.
That night, Aditya stayed back in his room while the others gathered for dinner. He said he had a headache.
He shouldn't have stayed alone.
The mirror in his room had always felt out of place. It wasn't nailed to the wall — just hanging loosely by an old chain. Cracks ran along the edges, as if something had once tried to break out from within.
Aditya, trying to distract himself, stood in front of it to fix his hair.
But the reflection didn't match his movements.
He smiled — the reflection didn't.
He stepped back — the reflection stayed.
Then… the reflection smiled.
But it wasn't his smile. It was wider. Twisted. Almost human, but not quite.
Aditya froze in terror. "What the hell…" he whispered.
The reflection raised a finger and pointed — not at him, but toward the corner of the room behind him.
Slowly, he turned.
There was nothing there.
When he looked back at the mirror… his reflection was gone.
The glass now showed something else — a black hallway, the same as the one upstairs. Footsteps echoed inside it, slow and deliberate.
And then came the whisper:
"Three…"
The mirror shattered.
The others found Aditya's room empty. Blood on the floor, and mirror shards everywhere — but no body.
Just a single message, scrawled onto the wall behind the glass in something dark and thick:
"He saw too much."
Now, only seven remained.
Aryan didn't sleep that night. He sat at his window, staring out into the rain, wondering who would be next… and why they were being chosen.