"At 3 a.m., time stops belonging to men.
It slips into the jaws of things older,
things patient,
things hungry."
The haveli was silent.
Not peaceful silent—wrong silent.
Every creak of the rotting wood seemed to echo too loudly, stretching into places it should not reach. The group sat in a circle around the dying embers of a lantern, their eyes shadowed, their breathing uneven.
It had been three hours since Kabir left.
Three hours since his voice had last spat venom into the room. Three hours since his footsteps vanished into the black beyond the broken door.
At first, they welcomed the silence. Fewer arguments. Fewer knives hidden inside words. But as the minutes bled into hours, the absence became heavier. Kabir's voice, for all its cruelty, had anchored them. Now, without it, the haveli felt like a coffin waiting to be nailed shut.
Diya broke the silence first. "He should have come back by now."
Her voice was a whisper, but it cracked like glass.
Abhay, arms folded tightly across his chest, didn't look up. "Then maybe he's gone for good. Let him rot."
Meghna flinched. "Don't say that."
"It's true," Abhay replied, his tone flat. "He wanted to leave. Let him choke on his pride."
But even as he said it, his eyes flickered toward the door.
The others shifted uneasily. Priya hugged her knees tighter. Saanvi pressed her palms together, lips moving silently as if praying. Rohit glanced between them all, jaw clenched, eyes darting like a cornered animal.
Finally, Yashpal spoke, his deep voice cutting through the room. "I'll go."
Every head snapped toward him.
"No," Meghna whispered immediately. "You don't know what's out there—"
"That's exactly why I need to go," Yashpal interrupted. His expression was grim, his broad shoulders tense. "It's been three hours. If Kabir's alive, he's lost. If he's dead, we need to know."
"No one goes alone," Rohit muttered.
Yashpal's gaze hardened. "If we all leave, the haveli's defenseless. I'll go. Alone."
A silence heavier than stone followed.
Finally, Abhay nodded once, his voice low. "Fine. But if you're not back in thirty minutes… we bar the door."
Yashpal grunted. "Fair."
He grabbed a half-broken lantern, lit it with trembling hands, and stepped toward the doorway.
The group watched him vanish into the dark.
The forest swallowed him whole.
The air outside was thick—too thick, as if it carried weight.
Yashpal's boots crunched against brittle leaves. Each sound cracked like a whip in the silence. He held the lantern high, its trembling glow barely cutting the fog. Shadows moved where they shouldn't.
"Kabir?" His voice was low but firm.
No reply.
He moved deeper. The trees bent unnaturally, like ribs of some massive beast, caging him in. The forest smelled foul—mud mixed with decay, like an animal corpse left to rot for weeks.
The deeper he walked, the stranger it became.
Everywhere he looked, he saw Kabir.
Not his body—his outline. His silhouette behind trees. His shadow on the ground. A flicker of his face in the lantern glow. But when Yashpal spun around, there was nothing.
Only darkness.
He gritted his teeth. "Stop playing games, Kabir."
The forest answered.
"Yashpal…"
He froze.
The whisper was faint but unmistakable. Kabir's voice.
It came from the left. He turned sharply, raising the lantern.
The trees stood still. Their bark was slick, wet, like flesh instead of wood.
He stepped closer.
The whisper came again—this time from the right.
"Help me, Yashpal… please."
His heart hammered. The voice was broken, ragged, desperate.
He followed.
The fog thickened, swallowing the path. Soon he couldn't even see his own footprints. The lantern flickered, sputtering like it was choking on the air.
He moved faster. Branches clawed his arms. Roots caught his feet. The forest felt alive, conspiring to trip him, to drag him down.
Then, he saw it.
Kabir.
Or what looked like him.
Kneeling on the ground, shoulders shaking, head bowed. His clothes were torn, soaked in something dark. His hair hung wild, face hidden.
"Kabir!" Yashpal rushed forward, relief breaking through his fear.
But as the figure lifted its head, Yashpal stopped cold.
It was Kabir's face—but wrong.
The skin sagged, pale and slimy, like wax melting off bone. His eyes were hollow sockets, yet they stared straight into Yashpal's. His lips stretched into a grin far too wide, teeth black and broken.
The voice that came out was Kabir's—yet not.
"You came… for me."
Yashpal staggered back. "What—what happened to you?"
Kabir—or whatever wore his shape—laughed. A wet, choking laugh that gurgled in his throat. He rose slowly to his feet, joints cracking, body jerking like a puppet on tangled strings.
Yashpal's lantern flickered violently.
Then, all around him, more figures stepped out of the fog.
Eight of them.
Every one of his friends.
Abhay. Saanvi. Rohit. Meghna. Priya. Diya. Even himself.
All hollow-eyed. All slack-faced. All grinning too wide.
They whispered in perfect unison:
"Stay with us, Yashpal. Stay forever."
His breath caught. The lantern slipped in his shaking hand.
The fog closed in, pressing against his skin, forcing its way into his lungs. The whispers grew louder, now layered with Kabir's laughter, echoing from every direction.
Yashpal stumbled backward. His boot caught on a root. He fell hard, the lantern shattering beside him.
Darkness surged.
And in that final instant, he felt hands—too many hands—dragging him into the soil, cold and wet, pulling him down into the hollow earth.
His scream never left the forest.
Inside the haveli, the group sat in silence.
The lantern guttered. The air thickened.
Saanvi whispered, almost too softly to hear: "Why is it so quiet?"
No one answered.
Because they all already knew.
"The forest does not echo footsteps.
It keeps them.
One by one.
Until the circle is broken
and no one remembers the way back."