The days after Hollowridge fell were strange.
There were no news reports.
No satellite images.
Nothing.
Almost as if the house, and all it contained, had never existed.
But Veer remembered.
And so did Father Desai.
They had walked away from ash. From fire. From a scream that was not of this world.
But Aarohi…
Aarohi hadn't walked away at all.
Veer stopped eating.
He barely slept.
Desai tried to comfort him, but there was a hollowness in Veer that no words could fill.
Each night, he dreamed the same thing:
Aarohi in white.
Standing in the ruins.
Eyes glowing silver.
Mouth moving.
But he could never hear what she said.
On the seventh night, he saw something new.
A forest.
Silent.
Still.
And Aarohi was there again—but this time, she was walking through trees made of bone.
Not wood. Not bark.
Bone.
Their branches curved like ribs overhead, creaking as if the forest itself breathed.
She turned, looked at him…
And this time, he heard her voice:
"The gate isn't closed."
Veer woke up gasping.
The clock read 3:33 a.m.
The window was wide open—though he had locked it.
And scattered across the floor was ash.
Again.
But this time, it wasn't in circles or words.
It was in the shape of a handprint.
Small.
Delicate.
Aarohi's.
He called Desai the next morning.
"She spoke to me. She said the gate isn't closed."
Desai was silent.
Then: "I feared this. Blood seals aren't permanent unless the vessel dies. Entirely."
Veer's breath caught. "You mean… she might still be alive?"
Desai hesitated.
"Or something wearing her face might be."
That day, Veer returned to the site of Hollowridge.
There was nothing there.
No debris.
No bricks.
No ash.
Just a flat stretch of untouched land, like the house had been swallowed by the earth itself.
But something felt wrong.
The birds didn't sing here.
The wind never crossed this patch of land.
And in the exact spot where the foyer had stood—
Veer saw a flower.
A single, dark red bloom.
Growing from blackened soil.
He bent to touch it.
And the ground whispered:
"She is beneath."
That night, the dream came again.
But it had changed.
The bone forest was darker.
Aarohi was not walking anymore.
She was floating.
Her skin was pale and glowing.
And her eyes—
—were no longer human.
"Veer," she said in a voice layered with echoes, "You sealed the gate…"
"…but the god chose me."
He woke up screaming.
Desai rushed into the room. "What happened?"
Veer couldn't speak. He just pointed to the wall.
Where her name was written.
Over and over.
In dripping black letters:
AAROHI
AAROHI
AAROHI
Desai sank to his knees.
"It's not over," he whispered.
"She became the gate."
Elsewhere, beneath the world as we know it, in a place with no light, no time, no sound—
Aarohi stood.
Or what used to be her.
She looked up.
And the bones of the god curled around her like vines.
She did not cry.
She did not scream.
She whispered:
"I will not be forgotten."
And the shadows answered her:
"You will be worshipped."