The black apple sat on Rohan's table,
its faint heartbeat pulsing like a warning.
But something else caught his attention now—
a sound he thought he'd imagined.
Paper.
Softly sliding.
Softly moving.
Rohan turned.
A book lay on his bed.
Old.
Dusty.
Brown leather cover.
And wet at the edges…
as if someone had held it with cold hands.
Rohan frowned.
"I didn't leave this here."
The room grew colder.
The lights dimmed.
The silence thickened.
He walked slowly to the bed
and picked up the book.
The moment his fingers touched the cover—
the black apple pulsed sharply.
THUMP.
As if warning him.
Rohan opened the book.
On the first page, written shakily:
"Shruti's Diary"
Rohan's breath hitched.
Shruti.
The red-dress girl.
The girl who vanished in the orchard years ago.
He turned the next page.
A sentence written in broken handwriting:
"If you can read this… the orchard has already noticed you."
Rohan felt his body freeze.
"Noticed me…?
But why me?"
The page fluttered on its own,
as if pushed by invisible wind—
but the air was dead still.
New words filled the page
in front of his eyes,
appearing like ink leaking from nowhere:
"The orchard chooses only those
who can hear what silence hides."
Rohan stepped back,
holding the diary tightly.
"What does that even mean?"
The room temperature dropped again.
The black apple's heartbeat grew louder.
And suddenly—
from the corner of the room—
mist began forming.
Red.
Faint.
Recognizable.
Shruti's silhouette.
Not solid.
Not real.
But present.
Her head tilted the same way as before,
and a silent message entered Rohan's mind:
"…you found my diary…"
Rohan swallowed.
"Shruti…
what happened to you?"
Another message—
sharper this time:
"…I didn't disappear…
I was taken."
Rohan's chest tightened.
"Taken?
By who?"
The lights flickered.
The mist thickened.
And her final message
hit Rohan's mind like a punch:
"…not who…
what."
The orchard's presence
flooded the room.
The apple throbbed.
Shruti vanished.
And Rohan stood alone
holding a diary that should not exist.