Chapter 45 – The Frame That Binds
Ayaan didn't want to hold the camera.
But he did.
Its strap felt heavy. Not physically — but like it remembered every hand it had passed through before his.
He could feel the lens without touching it — like it was already watching through him, not the other way around.
Sameer stepped back.
"What do we do now...?" he asked.
The man with the camera was already gone.
No sound. No door creak. Just absence, like he had never been there at all.
Rehan broke the silence. "He said it's opening both ways."
Ayaan nodded. "Then Naira's not just watching anymore."
He raised the camera. His fingers hovered over the shutter.
Rehan grabbed his wrist.
"Are you sure you want to see what it shows you?"
Ayaan's jaw clenched. "No."
Click.
---
The flash burst.
It wasn't bright.
It was loud.
A crack across something deeper than air.
The mirror didn't react.
But the floor did.
Boards curled. The old wood beneath them shifted like it was breathing — inhaling, exhaling.
And then… a trapdoor appeared in the center of the room.
Zoya whispered, "That wasn't there before."
Rehan grabbed the handle.
But it didn't move.
Ayaan stepped forward.
The camera still in his hands.
The trapdoor opened on its own.
---
Below: a staircase.
Narrow. Stone. Carved by hand.
At the bottom, dim orange light flickered — not firelight.
Something older. Deeper.
Sameer spoke without looking at anyone. "It wants us to split up."
Rehan looked around. "That's never ended well."
"But this time," Ayaan said, "maybe it's the only way to end it at all."
They didn't argue.
Because they knew — this wasn't about escape anymore.
It was about confrontation.
---
🜛
Back in the city…
Naira's house had gone silent.
After the mirror cracked, her room… changed.
The photos on the walls weren't hers anymore.
One showed the train yard.
Another — Ayaan, Sameer, and Rehan, younger, staring into a flashlight.
She picked it up. Behind the frame, something was taped to the back:
A piece of a newspaper clipping. Faded.
"Teen boy disappears near Eastbridge tracks. No body recovered. Incident ruled as a likely runaway."
Her breath caught.
She flipped the photo over.
A word was scratched into the back of the frame.
"Remember."
The lights flickered.
And her bedroom door opened.
But no one stood there.
---
🜛
Back below the cabin…
The three of them stood above the stone staircase.
Rehan looked at Zoya. "You don't have to come down."
She didn't even blink. "Neither do you."
Together, they stepped in.
Sameer stayed behind for a second.
Then turned to the mirror on the wall.
And whispered, "If I'm next…"
The mirror didn't respond.
But something behind him moved.
The swing.
The one they'd last seen days ago…
now gently rocking, right outside the window.
---
🜛
Below the staircase…
The walls were lined with carvings. Not symbols — memories.
Scenes from the forest.
A hand reaching. A girl disappearing.
A boy laughing on the tracks.
A flash. A fall.
And three figures walking away.
Ayaan raised the camera.
He didn't click.
He just whispered, "This place… remembers everything."
Zoya pointed ahead.
"There."
At the end of the hall — a single door.
Closed.
Its wood blackened. Warped. But there was something carved into the top frame.
A word.
Not "Confess."
Not "Remember."
Just one:
"Choose."
---