The Last Room

Chapter Ten: The Man from the Photograph

Advait returned to Guldarh under a new name—Rahul Banerjee, an environmental surveyor. It bought him just enough anonymity to check back into Cloudview Retreat without raising immediate alarm.

The receptionist didn’t recognize him. Or pretended not to.

The same fog clung to the pine trees. The same cold silence wrapped around the town like a warning.

He locked the folder in his suitcase, double-checked the door, and then headed back into town with one goal:

Find the man from the photograph.

The photo from Room 205. Ira and a man in the snow. The face only half-visible. But the jacket—faded army green with a red shoulder patch—was unmistakable. The same as Bhairav’s.

He wasn’t just a driver. He was part of something bigger.

Advait walked into a local tea stall and ordered a bun maska and chai. He waited, pretending to read the newspaper left behind on a table. After twenty minutes, he leaned over to the owner.

“You know a guy named Bhairav? Wears an old army jacket.”

The man raised an eyebrow. “Bhairav? Thought he left town.”

“Where to?”

“Didn’t say. Just vanished. Like they all do.”

Advait tried a different angle. “Anyone else around here who worked with him? Friend, cousin?”

The man hesitated. Then nodded toward a boy wiping tables near the back. “That’s his nephew.”

---

The boy’s name was Ajeet. Sixteen, sharp eyes, suspicious of strangers.

Advait sat across from him on the stone bench outside and held up the photo. “You ever see this man before?”

Ajeet squinted at the image. “That’s Bhairav.”

“I know. But this was taken four years ago. I need to know where it happened.”

Ajeet looked away. “He never told me anything. Said there were things that could get a man disappeared.”

“Like Ira?”

The boy flinched.

“You know that name,” Advait said gently.

“He said she wasn’t missing,” Ajeet whispered. “He said she was taken.”

“By who?”

Ajeet hesitated, then leaned in closer. “Not one person. A place. There’s a building. Looks abandoned. Always locked. Near the edge of the forest—close to the east cliff.”

Advait frowned. “A house?”

“No. Older. Stone walls. No windows. Locals call it Purani Kothi. But no one lives there. No one’s supposed to even look at it.”

Ajeet pulled something from his pocket and placed it in Advait’s palm.

A small, rusted button.

“Bhairav dropped it the night before he disappeared. Told me if anything happened to him… I should give it to the man who came asking about Ira.”

Advait turned the button over in his hand.

Engraved on the back was a code: R-17 / 024-B

Ajeet added, almost in a whisper, “That place has a door. Painted over now. But Bhairav called it ‘the second red door.’ Said no one ever comes out once they go in.”

---

Back at the hotel, Advait couldn’t shake the feeling that someone had followed him back. He kept glancing over his shoulder, scanning alley corners and rooftop shadows.

He checked the lock. Sat down at the desk. Took out Ira’s notebook and flipped to the final page.

Blank.

Except… under the right light, a faint line of ink shimmered into view.

“Two red doors. One truth. Only one opens from the inside.”

Advait stared at the words, heart thudding.

The red door in Shimla had led to knowledge.

The second one… led somewhere else.

Not just secrets.

Not just silence.

It led to the reason Ira was gone.