Sameer didn't move.
His fingers hovered just above the key, but something about it felt wrong. Not in a cursed way — not cinematic. Just… personal.
Like it was made for a hand that wasn't his.
Ayaan finally whispered, "Don't touch it yet."
Sameer pulled back, eyes locked on the symbols carved into the wood. Some were sharp and clean. Others looked like they had been scratched in a hurry — by someone desperate, maybe even injured.
Rehan stepped closer.
"I've seen this pattern before."
Sameer turned. "Where?"
Rehan pointed to the far wall, where faint markings had bled through the cabin's old wooden panels. They matched.
"Same symbols were on the page I tore out," Rehan said. "The one I burned."
Ayaan frowned. "You burned a page?"
Rehan nodded slowly. "Back when we first found the journal… there was a page that made me sick to my stomach. I didn't even read it all. I just... lit it. I thought destroying it would keep it away from us."
The girl's voice cut through the quiet.
"But it doesn't leave. You burned the ink. Not the memory."
---
The cabin creaked again — loud this time.
The kind of sound that felt like something shifting inside the walls, not outside them.
Ayaan slowly crouched and picked up the key.
It was heavier than it looked.
Warm to the touch.
Not metal. Not plastic.
Real wood.
But the second he touched it, his mind blinked.
A flash — not a memory, but a feeling.
Standing in this same spot.
Sameer next to him.
And a fourth person.
Not Rehan. Not Naira.
A boy.
Smiling. Dirty. Holding a matchstick.
Then — gone.
He blinked.
Sameer was watching him. "What did you see?"
"I think... we weren't the only ones here back then."
---
Rehan stepped forward and bent down near the trapdoor.
The symbols didn't react.
But the moment the key touched the lock —
They did.
The symbols pulsed once, like lines catching a breath.
Then dulled.
Click.
The door unlocked.
The air changed.
Sameer shivered. "Why does it suddenly feel like we're the only one being watched?"
The girl stood still behind them.
She didn't answer.
She just stepped forward — and knocked once on the trapdoor.
From below…
Something knocked back.
---
Meanwhile…
Back in the city.
Naira stood in the back hallway of the old clinic.
It wasn't abandoned — just forgotten.
But the file room? It hadn't been used in years.
She found the cabinet labeled Missing Persons – 2002–2011.
It took five minutes to find the name.
Kashif Khan.
Rehan's father.
The report was short. Sudden disappearance. No trace. No debt. No travel.
But a note was scribbled on the bottom:
"Last known location: Civil Survey Trail, Path 46 — near restricted woodland boundary."
Naira's breath caught.
Same trail. Same zone.
Same forest.
She took a picture, heart pounding. But when she turned to leave, she froze...A small mirror was hanging on the wall beside the cabinet,in which her reflection was standing still.
But she had already stepped away.
---
Back in the forest...
The trapdoor creaked open.
No stairs.
No tunnel.
Just a short drop.
A dark room.
Sameer looked inside first, flashlight cutting through the heavy air.
Dust floated thick like snow that never fell.
There was only one thing down there.
A table.
And on it — a series of old, faded photos.
One by one, the boys dropped down into the room.
Ayaan was the first to reach the table.
He picked up the top photo.
Three kids.
Same cabin.
Same forest.
Not the same faces.
He handed it to Rehan.
Rehan's hands shook as he stared at it.
"It's them," he whispered.
"Who?" Sameer asked.
"The kids who disappeared in '97. It was in the article I read once, but I didn't believe it."
Ayaan looked around. "So this… this isn't just about us."
Rehan's voice cracked.
"No. It started before us. But we're the first ones who came back."
---
Suddenly, a voice echoed from the open trapdoor above...saying...
"Then why didn't you tell them?"
The boys turned fast — but the girl was no longer standing there.
It was the fourth boy.
The one from Ayaan's flash of memory.
Real now. Or close enough to seem real.
Same age. Same face.
Same burnt matchstick in his hand.
He smiled.
And said,
"Welcome back."
---