The rest of the night was pretty silent and blur. Anashya had her dinner served at her own room and Narodji served served mine at my room. The night had been rather windy with the wind pushing against the tightly closed windows. The heating system was a much needed blessing given the sudden drop in temperature. The weather in this region did not care about the reputation of late May.

  I tried to sink in the night with more whiskey and some music but my mind kept circling around the mysterious conversation I just had with Anashya and my overwhelming feelings for her.

  I unzipped my bag and took the book out. The rusty brown cardboard cover some half-hearted binding work and the typical aged smell of old pages.

  I turned to the first page, the same objects and irregular shapes that didn’t follow any pattern or make sense. I flipped through the pages to find the slightest hint but nothing seemed to make sense. I was already a few pegs down and was exhausted from the leadened overhung day I had gone through.

  This night was unlike the previous one. No weird flashbacks, no nightmares nothing. Just pain silence and dark tranquility.

  Until in the wake of the early morning I heard a noise. It was a thud that sounded like someone falling from the stairs. I wore my slippers and went to see what was going on.

  Some of the lights were still on and the fireplace in the lobby was crackling. That was the first time I saw the fireplace being used. I looked up at the chandelier that reflected the yellow light of the LEDs and glimmered golden. Something didn’t feel right.

  Then I realized, when no one was in the lobby why was the fireplace lit. I went near it and was shocked to see what I found.

  The mystery book from the market lying on the floor. How on earth did it get there and where did the noise come from. I went towards the staircase and leaned closely towards the first step

  I knelt before the first step, letting instinct take the lead where logic faltered. The dust hadn’t been scattered, but gently compressed—soft, elliptical imprints near the edge, too light for shoes, too deliberate for chance. Under the low chandelier glow, I caught it—a faint sheen, the kind only left by skin. Sebum. Bare toes. My fingers brushed the wood; it didn’t creak, but it yielded slightly, as though still recovering from the weight it had borne. Wood remembers pressure longer than we think. A coarse thread clung to a rusted nail at the stair’s lip—too low to snag a trouser cuff, too stubborn to have fallen by itself. Someone had climbed down. Barefoot. Recently. Quietly. And yet, something had gone wrong. A faint scuff near the third step. A sharper shift in the dust near the bottom, like a slip or a stumble. And then the book—now lying sprawled across the floor, wide open, far from where I’d left it. That wasn’t a draft. That was the thud I’d heard. Someone had fallen.

  They clearly had time to escape before I entered the scene. I looked at the wall clock, it was 3:30 AM in the morning.

  I stared at the book, lying face-down like a wounded animal near the foot of the stairs. It hadn’t fallen. It had been placed. Or dropped. Or thrown. I couldn’t tell, and I didn’t want to. A faint scuff in the dust, a curl of thread too low for coincidence—my brain was already spiraling into analysis, layering meaning over shadows. It was what I did. It was what I’d been trained to do. But not everything needs a report. Maybe Narodji had walked barefoot. Maybe the book shifted on its own. Or the plausible, maybe he saw the book lying over my half drunk asleep body and decided to keep it somewhere safe but tripped over instead.

  And maybe Anashya was right to hate the thing.

  She hadn’t said much, but the tension in her jaw when I first pulled it from my coat pocket—the way her gaze lingered on it like it was a ticking clock—she didn’t want it here.

  I picked it up, closed it, and set it back on the low cabinet near the stairs. No cold air. No smell of rot. Just a tired man hearing things in a house full of quiet.

  “Not tonight,” I muttered. “Whatever you are, not tonight.”

  I climbed the stairs, not rushing, but not slow either. I didn’t look back. I wouldn’t have liked what I saw if I had.

  The rest of the night was peaceful. Borrowed peace. One of those nights you never wished would end.

  At roughly 8 am I heard more noises, this time I was certain it was Anashya and Narodji in the main lobby. Loud worried voices.

  I pulled on a sweatshirt and stepped out into the corridor. The sun had barely touched the frosted hills outside, but I saw the light in the lobby was already on. Anashya stood by the phone on the reception desk, frozen mid-conversation. Her posture was too still. Too quiet. Narodji stood beside her, his hands folded like a prayer he’d forgotten the words to.

  I made my way down the stairs. The moment she saw me, Anashya held up a finger — not in greeting, but in warning — and turned away, voice low and deliberate.

  “No, no relatives yet. Just registered as a temporary tenant. Yes. Room 204. She... she was alone.”

  I stopped halfway down the staircase.

  Room 204.

  There was no Room 204 at Anant Vraj.

  This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  Anashya hung up the phone slowly and turned toward Narodji, whispering something I couldn’t catch. He nodded once and quietly stepped into the kitchen, leaving her alone with me in the silence that suddenly had weight.

  She didn’t speak right away. Just stared at the floor, as if the wood had spoken and she was still translating.

  Then, without looking up, she said, “She strangled herself. With her own hands. Last night. In front of a mirror.”

  I felt the cold seep through my skin. Asphyxiation was a common way of suicide but using her own hands to strangle herself, the human brain wouldn’t allow it. The human brain is wired for self-preservation, and voluntary asphyxiation—especially using one’s own hands—is nearly impossible without external force or mechanical aid. The act of strangling oneself with bare hands would trigger an intense autonomic survival response from the brainstem, causing unconsciousness before lethal damage occurs. In short the body doesn’t allow you to strangle yourself unless it is bypassed by some external force

  “Her name was Preetika Sharma,” she continued. “She checked into a women’s PG in Lower Leh three days ago. Quiet girl. No family nearby. The landlord found her this morning… what was left of her.”

  I swallowed. The name meant nothing to me. But the act did.

  I didn’t speak. I didn’t need to.

  “She didn’t have much. A suitcase. Two books. No family nearby, at least not in Ladakh.” Her voice drifted for a second, then came back sharp. “They said she was quiet. Kept to herself. No signs of distress. Nothing… until last night.”

  That was when she looked at me.

  Something in her eyes had shifted—gone was the playful glint, the half-smirk she carried like armor. Now there was just this… tiredness. Something raw and reluctant, like she’d seen this before and hoped to never see it again.

  I stared at the floor, then at the space between us, where the wine glasses still sat untouched.“I don’t know her,” I said quietly. “I swear to you.”

  “I know,” she replied, almost too quickly. “That’s what makes it worse.”

  Her eyes were fixated on mine as if she saw an entire story in them. Then in a raspy low tone she said, “The cops found fingerprints on her neck”. That would’ve been a no-brainer until I heard what Anashya said next.

  “ They’re yours” she said in a shaky voice.

  My mind went numb for a fraction of a second. Then the words settled in like an overstretched spring jolting back to place when left loose.

  “That’s outrageous” I said in a shocked voice which barely showed a hint of certainty.

  “I have never met this girl, nor did I ever visit the scene of the crime. In fact I was her all this time” I began my desperate justification.

  Anashya raised her hand as a sign for me to stop talking and said “I am aware of that, the time of her death coincides with you being right here in your room.”

  “ When did she die?”

  “ Roughly around 3:30 AM”

  I couldn’t believe it. This was roughly the time I heard the noise and found that wretched book near the fireplace. I wished to explain what I saw to Anashya but was reluctant given her foreboding and wary attitude towards that book. Just then the wind blew. I hadn’t noticed but the main entrance was open. Like someone had visited the guesthouse before I woke up. Anashya was wearing a loose gown that had flutter sleeves. The sleeves went up her left arm and that is when I saw it. A fresh but tended to wound near her elbow. One explanation for the wound that came to my mind was that she “FELL OFF THE STAIRS” possibly with the book in her hand. Since it was recent, she had her little accident around the same time or a while before I entered the scene. That’s why the fireplace was lit.

  Was she trying to burn the book?

  “The police officer I just spoke with said they want you to go down to the station and give a statement-----“

  “where were you last night?” I cut her off as she was explaining the future measures to me. The heavy accusatory nature of my tone created a sharp void in the atmosphere surrounding the main lobby. She gave me a look displaying startled disbelief. There was no hidden guilt but her eyes clearly gave the message “ How could you?”

  “I was in my room, why do you ask? Anashya said regaining the calm composed and authoritative presence she usually maintained so effortlessly.

  “Are you sure you didn’t by any chance enter my room and try to take something?”

  “That’s preposterous… You think I would try to invade the privacy of my only guest like that”

  “Explain the wound on your arm”

  “I tripped over myself yesterday outside while I was going to buy groceries.”

  “Oh really! “ I snarled with a sarcastic ad disgruntled tone. I had had just enough of the mysterious glances, the incomplete and subtle remarks and the veiled personalities that always gave me questions to ponder over but never the answers. Now it was time to rip some wounds open. Anashya knew something. The book did have a connection with her past. Most probably something to do with Esha Mehta’s death as well. And now with my prints on the crime scene I knew that this was no longer an escape or vacation. I was neck deep into something that seemed to call out to the deepest and the darkest experiences I had buried so deep into my subconscious that I never imagined they would emerge again and try to dictate my life.

  “ yes Divyansh what else were you hoping to hear?” Anashya replied back. Her voice carried a hint of disgust and sorrow.

  I don’t know, maybe an explanation to all the vague statements clouded with darkness, maybe the unexplained and bizarre incidents that have taken place since I stepped here, or even better maybe how all of this connects with your deep apprehension with my little souvenir, the book”

  I knew that struck a nerve as I watched the look of terror creep into her face.

  “ What exactly are you accusing me of? You’re the one who just called summoned by the police the second time since yesterday.” She said in an agitated smoldering voice. That was when Narodji intervened.

  “ You mustn’t keep the police waiting, they have called three times since morning, it would be better if you were to go there and clear things out.”

  He was out of line, but right. There was a possible accusation looming over my head.

  As I stood there, caught between silence and suspicion, I realized the weight of the accusation wasn’t just in the fingerprints or the girl’s lifeless throat—it was in the way uncertainty had crept into the corners of my mind like mold. It was in how easily affection turned to doubt, and how trust, once shaken, became a cracked mirror you couldn’t look into without seeing something fractured. I didn’t know what terrified me more—that I was being dragged into something sinister I couldn't escape, or that somewhere, beneath all the veiled words and shifting glances, Anashya held the truth and chose to keep it hidden. But maybe what I feared most was this: that I still wanted her to be innocent, even if the truth turned out not to be—and in that hope, perhaps I was the one lying to myself.

  The fragile peace of the night has shattered, leaving behind shards of disbelief and a chilling question that echoes in the desolate halls of Anant Vraj: what unseen hand guides the dance of fate? The weight of the accusation against Divyansh is more than just legal; it's a suffocating blanket of the inexplicable, a stark reminder of how easily trust can erode into suspicion, leaving behind a hollow ache. The book, a silent witness to the unfolding dread, lies waiting, its secrets intertwined with a tragedy that defies human comprehension. As uncertainty coils tighter, and the line between the living and the lingering blurs, remember that in the deepest shadows, fear is not just a feeling—it's a presence. Turn the page, and brace yourself for a truth that may unravel more than just a mystery.

  And heed this: Even the clearest fingerprints can lie when death dances with shadows."