~ The game begins to reflect back ~
At 4:02 AM, the city was still asleep.
But Kabir Sharma wasn't.He stood inside an abandoned warehouse off Ulsoor Lake, waiting. The only light came from a broken industrial lamp swinging overhead like a dying pendulum. Every creak of metal sounded like a scream in slow motion.
Neha Sharma — not related — arrived seven minutes late, wearing civilian jeans and a plain grey hoodie. No gun. No earpiece. Just tired eyes and a face that had once survived Syria.
"You're not on this anymore," she said without hello.
"I was never officially on it," Kabir replied, throwing her the burner phone.
She caught it. Flipped through it. Noticed the number.
"International?" she asked.
"UK-based. Masked ID. Could be rerouted. But it's clean. No GPS, no Wi-Fi. It was left near the last crime scene — along with a chalk stick."
Neha didn't flinch. But Kabir saw the pause in her breath.
She knew something.
"This isn't an amateur, Neha," Kabir continued. "Every mark is on a corrupt individual. Low-profile, buried in bureaucracy, just enough to keep it under radar. Whoever this is... they've been preparing."
"Or it's someone with a grudge," she offered.
"No. It's too methodical. The signature, the symmetry, the silence — it's all patterned like an operation."
Neha shook her head. "You're reaching."
Kabir stepped forward. "Am I? Or is that what they want you to say?"
She hesitated. "What are you saying?"
"I think I'm being framed."
She narrowed her eyes.
Kabir pulled out a secure tablet and tapped a few commands. A grainy image appeared — security footage from a metro platform.
A figure in a hood. Medium height. Chalk in hand.
The timestamp: 2:19 AM, the night before the first killing.
The face was obscured, but the walk... it resembled Kabir.
Too much.
"They're leaking this," Kabir said. "I've already seen threads on private networks. 'Rogue agent turned killer.' They're setting me up."
Neha looked at him long and hard. "Do you trust anyone?"
"I did. You."
She didn't respond.
Then, before she could speak, her burner phone buzzed.
One message.
"Red X confirmed. Agent compromised."
She stared at it. Then at him.
Kabir took a step back, realizing. "You didn't send that."
"No," she said. "And it's not from my chain."
They turned toward the entrance at the same time.Nothing. No footsteps. No wind.
But then the lamp above flickered.And on the wall beside them, scrawled in red chalk, were two words:
"KEEP WATCHING."
They were not alone.
Elsewhere, in the dim corridor of a silent hostel...
Zayen stared into a cracked mirror, his hands smudged with red.He wasn't trembling. His eyes were clear.
On the table beside him: a list of names. Some were crossed.One had a small question mark beside it.
Kabir Sharma.
He circled it.
No smile. Just breath. Just silence.
Then, one line in chalk:
"Make them doubt their protector."
And just like that, Zayen was gone again.