Chapter Six: Eyes in the Trees
574 Words
Advait crouched in the tower’s shadow, every muscle frozen, the notebook clutched tightly in his hand.
The figure moved closer—tall, broad-shouldered, dressed in black from head to toe. A hood shadowed their face. They walked slowly, carefully, like they knew someone was watching from above.
Advait backed away from the window, silently cursing the creaking floorboards.
The box. The notebook. Ira’s message. He needed to get out of here—with all of it.
Another crunch below.
The figure had stopped at the base of the tower. He heard breathing. Not heavy. Just steady… controlled. Like someone trained for this.
They weren’t from Guldarh. They weren’t police.
That’s what Ira had written. And now Advait could feel what she meant.
He crept back down the spiral stairs, careful not to let the wood groan underfoot. The figure hadn’t entered—yet. Maybe they were waiting. Or maybe they weren’t alone.
At the second floor landing, he hesitated, then ducked behind the broken cot. Through the cracks in the wooden wall, he watched the figure walk slowly around the tower's perimeter.
Then, without warning, a voice echoed from below. Calm. Chilling.
> “You shouldn’t have come back, Mr. Sen.”
Advait’s heart dropped.
The voice wasn’t loud. It wasn’t angry. But it was certain—like whoever it belonged to already knew how this ended.
He didn’t reply. Didn’t breathe.
The figure moved to the front of the tower again, then stopped directly below him.
> “Leave the notebook. Walk away. We’ll forget this happened.”
Advait clenched his jaw. That voice… It wasn’t unfamiliar. But he couldn’t place it. It was like a face from a dream he didn’t remember having.
> “You think she died for a story?” the voice asked. “She died because she didn’t know when to stop digging.”
Advait didn’t wait to hear more.
He sprinted up the stairs, back to the top floor, clutching the notebook, and shoved open the old back hatch on the third floor—the one used decades ago for emergency exits. A rusted ladder hung down the side, barely stable.
He climbed.
Below, the voice rose slightly—not panicked, not surprised—just louder.
> “You’re making a mistake.”
Advait jumped off the last rung, landing hard on the muddy slope behind the tower. He slipped but kept running, heading toward the forest line.
He didn’t stop to look back until the trees swallowed him whole.
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The forest closed in again. Thicker. Deeper. Shadows twisted between trunks. But Advait knew now—he wasn’t imagining the feeling of being watched.
He wasn’t the only one following Ira’s trail.
She had left the notebook. The tower. The message.
“Follow the red door.”
What door?
He stopped near a clearing, panting hard, and opened the book again. Flipped through more pages.
Handwritten notes. Names. Dates. Sketches. Clues.
And then—taped to the back cover—was a small photograph.
A red door, old and wooden, mounted on a white-brick wall. No number. Just a brass knocker shaped like an owl.
Below the photo, in Ira’s sharp handwriting:
“This is where it all began.”
Advait sat down on a stone and stared at the photo as the forest whispered around him.
Wherever this red door was—it wasn’t in Guldarh.
And he wasn’t alone in trying to find it.
- Writer
