"The most dangerous place to hide... is in plain sight."— Unknown Bureau Operative, File 73-A
The city hadn't stopped — but it had begun to twitch.
Bangalore's traffic still moved, the cafes still buzzed, the startup towers still pulsed with ambition… but something was off. Beneath the surface, a current of dread had started to form. Unspoken. But electric.
A fifth mark had appeared that morning — this time drawn across the windshield of a government vehicle parked inside a supposedly secure compound.
No alarms. No cameras. No witnesses.
Just the mark. And the body inside.
Kabir had stood over it, teeth clenched, ignoring the rain slicing down his coat.
Another death. Another impossible breach. Another signature in red chalk.
And again… no trace.
Back at his apartment, the wall had turned from theory to madness.
There were photos pinned edge to edge — shots of the first five scenes, overlaid with maps, CCTV loops, and cross-referenced personnel logs. But it still wasn't enough.
He was missing something. A piece of the puzzle just out of reach.
And it came to him not through tech — but through silence.
He rewound one of the camera feeds for the third time.
There. Between 02:17 and 02:24.
A seven-minute blackout in a night college. A room with a blackboard.
And a ghost who had drawn stick figures — three Xs and one check — in red chalk.
He checked the student list again.
One name stood out now. Not because of guilt… but because of silence.
Zayen Mehra.
Eighteen. No family. No heat. But always there.
Kabir's pulse slowed. Not from calm — from clarity.
He didn't know if the boy was the killer.
But he was not ordinary.
And he was in Kabir's city.
Kabir stared at the screen.
The chalkboard in the footage had been erased. Almost clean.
But not clean enough.
He enhanced the contrast. Then zoomed in.
Near the corner of the board, barely visible, was the tail of a checkmark — unfinished, and drawn fast. Like someone was interrupted. Or watched.
The timestamp was brutal.
Seven minutes of lost video. No explanation.
But that wasn't what caught him.
It was the shape of the checkmark. Tilted at a sharper angle. A stroke that cut rather than curled.
It wasn't the original killer.
Someone was mimicking RED X.
And they were close.
Kabir grabbed his coat, slipped his sidearm into the holster, and left his apartment without another word.
He reached the old college building in Koramangala by 1:42 AM.
It looked abandoned — a night school turned administrative storehouse for state curriculum. The hallway smelled of mold and mothballs.
But the classroom?
Too clean.
No dust. No scratch marks. Chalk box still on the tray. CCTV light blinking.
He stepped in.
Silence wrapped around him like a second skin.
He pulled out his flashlight and scanned the room. Nothing. Until—
On the teacher's desk, a paper.
Unmarked envelope. Inside it: a single Polaroid photo.
His face.
Not now. From years ago. Northern command. Classified mission.
Someone had history on him.
And they were saying one thing:
"We see you."
Kabir stepped back toward the board. He clicked on his pocket recorder.
"Subject has transitioned. This is no longer a hunt. It's a setup."
Then he froze.
At the corner of the window, a glint. Movement.
He ducked.
The chalkboard behind him exploded.
Silencer rounds.
He rolled behind the desk and drew his weapon, but there was nothing outside. Just the glow of the streetlamp and the sound of retreating footsteps.
He bolted out the door, down the hall, and—
Gone.
Whoever had been watching was trained. Not a random teenager. Not a copycat.
A third player had entered the board.
Elsewhere, across the city…
Zayen wiped the chalk from his hands in a quiet tech café lit only by vending machines and flickering monitors.
He wasn't angry.
He wasn't scared.
He was calculating.
Something had shifted. The new marks weren't his. They were sloppier. Bolder.
And whoever was doing it?
They were framing him.
Zayen opened a chat window. One that didn't exist on public networks. A backdoor built for one-time communication.
He typed:
"They're here. And they know about the marks. But I'm not the only one they're after."
He hit send.
No reply.
Instead, the power flickered. Once. Twice.
Then the screen went black.
On the blank monitor, his reflection looked back.
But in the reflection… something moved behind him.
Back in Kabir's safehouse
He locked the door, bolted the windows, and checked the chalk mark from the classroom again.
He placed it beside the photo from the first kill.
Not the same hand.
Which meant only one thing:
"RED X is not one person anymore."
He stared at the mirror in the hallway.
And for a fraction of a second…
…he saw a red check drawn across his reflection.
He blinked.
Gone.