Rudra didn't sleep that night.
He lay in his bunk, staring at the ceiling, replaying the conversation with Bhairav over and over. Every word. Every pause. Every micro-expression.
Disappearances. Secrets. A town with layers.
It sounded like conspiracy theory nonsense. The kind of thing paranoid teenagers posted on Reddit at 3 AM.
But Rudra's gut said otherwise.
He'd learned to trust that gut. It had kept him alive when logic failed. When adults lied. When the world proved, time and again, that it didn't care about fairness or truth.
By morning, he'd made his decision.
He would dig deeper. But carefully. And he wouldn't tell anyone—not even Bhairav. Not yet.
Trust was a luxury Rudra couldn't afford.
The Library
The Kupam Institute had a small library—dusty, poorly lit, filled with outdated textbooks and forgotten encyclopedias. Most students avoided it. Too boring. Too quiet.
Which made it perfect.
Rudra spent his free period there, combing through old newspapers archived in binders near the back. The librarian—an elderly man who barely looked up from his crossword—didn't notice.
Rudra started with the past five years.
Student disappearances weren't headline news. They were buried in back pages, sandwiched between ads for fertilizer and wedding announcements.
But they were there.
2019: A girl from Bangalore. Last seen near the forest trail. Case closed as "runaway."
2021: A boy from Pune. Disappeared during a night trek. Search called off after two weeks.
2022: Another girl. Delhi. Vanished from her dorm. No evidence. No leads.
Three cases. Three different years. All during field programs at Kupam Institute.
Rudra's jaw tightened.
He pulled out his phone, took photos of each article, and cross-referenced the dates. All three disappearances happened in October. All within the same two-week window.
Rudra checked the calendar on his phone.
It was October 12th.
They were in the window.
The Forbidden Wing
That afternoon, Rudra skipped the geology lecture. He told the teacher he had a headache—an excuse so mundane no one questioned it.
Instead, he went to the old wing. The abandoned section of the compound. The one the teachers said was off-limits due to "structural damage."
The entrance was chained, but the chain was rusty. Old. The lock looked like it hadn't been touched in years.
But when Rudra examined it closely, he saw fresh scratches on the metal. Someone had picked it. Recently.
He didn't force entry. Not in broad daylight. Instead, he circled the building, looking for other ways in.
At the back, behind a tangle of overgrown bushes, he found a window. The glass was broken. Covered with a piece of plywood from the inside.
But the plywood was loose.
Rudra glanced around. No one in sight. The forest loomed behind him, thick and silent.
He crouched, wedged his fingers under the plywood, and pulled. It came away easily.
Inside was darkness. And the smell of damp concrete. Mold. Decay.
Rudra climbed through.
Inside the Darkness
His eyes adjusted slowly. The room was empty. Broken desks piled in the corner. Cobwebs stretched across the ceiling like silk curtains.
But there were footprints in the dust. Fresh ones. Leading deeper into the building.
Rudra followed them.
The corridor was long and narrow. Doors on either side, most of them locked or jammed shut. The air was thick, oppressive. Every step echoed.
At the end of the hall was a staircase. Leading down.
Rudra hesitated. Going deeper meant risk. If something happened, no one would hear him. No one would know where he was.
But he'd come this far.
He descended.
The basement was colder. The walls were bare concrete, stained with water damage. The ceiling low enough that Rudra had to duck in places.
And then he saw it.
A door. Metal. Heavy. With a padlock that looked brand new.
Unlike everything else in this building, this door was being used. Maintained.
Rudra tried the lock. Solid. No way to pick it without tools.
But there was a gap at the bottom of the door. Just wide enough to slide his phone under.
He turned on the flashlight, set the phone to video mode, and carefully pushed it beneath the door.
Then he pulled it back and watched the footage.
The room was small. Concrete floor. Metal shelves lined with boxes. And on those boxes, labels.
"Field Program Archives 2015-2023."
Rudra's heart pounded.
This wasn't storage. This was evidence. Hidden. Locked away. Deliberately kept from anyone who might ask questions.
He needed to get inside that room.
But not today. Not alone.
He backed away, retraced his steps, climbed out the window, and replaced the plywood exactly as he'd found it.
As he walked back toward the main compound, his mind raced.
Bhairav was right. Kupam was hiding something.
And Rudra was about to pull it into the light.
The Confrontation
That evening, Rudra found Bhairav near the same clearing in the forest. No surprise. No preamble.
"I need your help," Rudra said.
Bhairav looked up from his journal, one eyebrow raised. "That was fast."
"There's a locked room in the old wing. It has archives. Field program records going back years."
Bhairav's expression darkened. "You went in there?"
"Yeah."
"Alone?"
"Yeah."
Bhairav stood, suddenly tense. "Do you have any idea how stupid that was? If they'd caught you—"
"They didn't."
"This time."
Rudra stepped closer, voice low. "You said Kupam has secrets. I found proof. Now help me get inside that room, or step aside and let me do it myself."
For a moment, neither spoke.
Then Bhairav exhaled slowly, running a hand through his hair. "You're reckless."
"I'm effective."
Bhairav shook his head, but there was a faint smile on his lips. "Fine. But we do this my way. No rushing in. No heroics."
"Agreed."
Bhairav pulled out his journal, flipping to a page filled with sketches—floor plans, maps, guard rotations.
"I've been mapping this place for months," he said. "The old wing isn't just abandoned. It's monitored. Not officially. But there's a night watchman who does rounds. And he's not just some random hire."
"Who is he?"
"Ex-military. Works for someone in the administration. I don't know who. But he's not here to watch for vandals."
Rudra absorbed this. "When does he patrol?"
"Midnight. Every night. Like clockwork."
"Then we go at 2 AM. After he's done."
Bhairav nodded slowly. "Tomorrow night. I'll bring tools. You bring your cameras."
"Why cameras?"
"Because whatever we find in that room, we need proof. Real, undeniable proof. Otherwise it's just our word against theirs."
Rudra met his eyes. "You think they'll try to cover it up?"
"I think they already have. For years."
Rudra clenched his fists. "Then we make sure they can't. Not this time."
Bhairav extended his hand. "Partners?"
Rudra hesitated. Trust didn't come easy. But survival sometimes required it.
He shook Bhairav's hand. "Partners."
As Rudra walked back through the darkening forest, he felt something shift inside him.
For the first time in years, he wasn't alone.
And that terrified him almost as much as what they were about to uncover.