Dawn did not feel like safety.
It felt like exposure.
The sky turned pale grey as the five of them stood outside Manoj's house, just beyond the broken garden gate. The first birds had started calling, but their sound felt distant, almost artificial, like background noise in a dream.
None of them had slept.
None of them had spoken much on the way inside.
Manoj paused at the door.
His injured hand throbbed again, the black veins faint beneath the skin, like ink diluted but permanent.
Sayantika noticed him hesitating.
"It's your house," she said gently.
Manoj nodded once.
But something inside him resisted.
As if the garden had been honest.
And the house was not.
He pushed the door open.
The air inside felt stale.
Heavy.
Not abandoned.
Occupied.
Sibom stepped in first, trying to sound brave. "It's just a house."
Dustu refused to enter.
He stood at the threshold, whining softly.
Anirban crouched beside him. "Come on."
The dog growled at the darkness beyond the hallway.
Manoj swallowed. "Leave him."
They walked inside.
The wooden floor creaked beneath their steps. The curtains were half drawn, letting in thin strips of morning light that barely reached the center of the room.
The house smelled faintly of old paper and something damp.
Sayantika glanced at the staircase. "You said your grandfather used to live here, right?"
"Yes," Manoj replied quietly.
"And after he died?"
"We locked most of it."
Anirban turned slowly, scanning the walls.
Old photographs hung crooked.
Most were faded.
But one frame near the staircase was cleaner.
As if recently touched.
Sibom noticed it too.
He walked closer.
It was a black-and-white photo.
Four men standing in the garden.
And one young boy.
The boy was Manoj.
But he didn't remember this photo being taken.
His chest tightened.
"Who are they?" Sayantika asked.
Manoj stared.
One of the men looked like his grandfather.
The others—
Unfamiliar.
But something about their eyes.
Hollow.
Almost identical expressions.
Anirban leaned closer.
"There's a date written at the bottom."
1976.
The same year carved inside the tunnel.
Manoj's pulse quickened.
"That's the year the ritual happened."
Sibom looked around the house slowly. "Then this place isn't separate from the garden."
"No," Manoj whispered.
"It's connected."
A sudden sound came from upstairs.
A faint dragging.
Slow.
Measured.
They all froze.
Sayantika shook her head immediately. "No. We are not splitting up."
"Agreed," Anirban said firmly.
Manoj moved first toward the staircase.
Each step creaked louder than it should have.
The sound upstairs stopped.
The hallway above was darker than expected.
Even with daylight outside.
The first door on the left was slightly open.
Manoj's grandfather's study.
He hadn't entered it in years.
He pushed the door slowly.
The smell inside was stronger.
Old books.
Dust.
And something metallic.
The desk in the center was covered in papers.
Not scattered.
Organized.
Recently.
Manoj's breath caught.
"I didn't do this."
Anirban stepped forward and picked up a notebook.
The pages were filled with symbols.
The same ones carved into the fountain.
And beneath them—
Descriptions.
Ritual notes.
Warnings.
Sibom read aloud quietly.
"'Binding requires blood of the inheritor. Seal weakens if bond is disturbed.'"
They all looked at Manoj's injured hand.
Sayantika whispered, "You didn't just activate it."
"You replaced something," Anirban finished.
Manoj felt cold.
"Replaced who?"
The dragging sound came again.
Closer now.
From the end of the hallway.
A door they hadn't noticed before.
It was slightly open.
Dark inside.
Dustu barked from downstairs.
Loud.
Panicked.
Sibom whispered, "We need to leave."
But Manoj couldn't move.
He felt pulled toward the door.
As if something inside recognized him.
Anirban grabbed his arm. "Manoj."
He blinked.
Reality snapped back.
The dragging stopped.
Silence.
Too clean.
Sayantika stepped forward cautiously and pushed the door wider.
Inside was not another room.
It was stairs.
Leading down.
Below the house.
A basement.
None of them remembered there being a basement.
The air that rose from it was freezing.
Manoj's veins burned again.
The black lines shimmered faintly.
Anirban's voice tightened. "The garden is above ground."
"This," Sibom said quietly, "is the root."
Manoj's heart pounded.
"If the ritual bound something below the fountain… maybe this is where it began."
Sayantika looked at him carefully. "And maybe where it failed."
The basement light switch didn't work.
They used their phone flashlights again.
The stairs creaked softly as they descended.
Each step colder than the last.
The walls were unfinished concrete.
Marked.
Scratched.
Not randomly.
Repeated phrases carved deep into the surface.
"Do not answer."
"Do not look back."
"Do not open twice."
Manoj's breathing grew shallow.
They reached the bottom.
The room was small.
Circular.
In the center—
A chair.
Old.
Wooden.
Ropes tied to its arms.
Anirban whispered, "This wasn't a ritual room."
Sayantika finished the thought.
"It was a containment room."
There were more symbols on the floor.
Faded.
But present.
And in the far corner—
Another photograph.
Different from the one upstairs.
This one showed only three men.
Not four.
The fourth space was scratched out.
Manoj stepped closer.
The scratched face was deep.
Angry.
Removed intentionally.
And beneath the photo, written in ink:
"He volunteered."
Sibom swallowed. "Volunteered for what?"
Manoj felt the answer before he spoke.
"To hold it."
The temperature dropped suddenly.
Their breath became visible.
The ropes on the chair moved.
Just slightly.
As if something invisible shifted its weight.
Sayantika grabbed Manoj's sleeve.
"Tell me you saw that."
"I did," Anirban said.
A whisper filled the room.
Not from one direction.
From all directions.
Soft.
Layered.
Distorted.
"You opened twice."
The lights flickered.
Their phone screens glitched.
Dustu barked frantically upstairs.
Then yelped.
Manoj's heart slammed.
"No."
He ran up the stairs.
The others followed.
When they reached the living room—
The front door was wide open.
Dustu was gone.
The morning light outside looked wrong.
Dimmer.
As if the sun had stepped back behind thin clouds that weren't there before.
Sayantika's voice broke. "It took him."
Anirban looked at the photograph still in Manoj's shaking hand.
The scratched face—
It wasn't empty anymore.
It was clear.
It was Manoj.
Not a younger version.
Present.
Marked hand and all.
Sibom backed away slowly.
"It replaced him."
Manoj felt something settle inside his chest.
Cold.
Understanding.
The whisper returned.
Closer this time.
Inside his head.
"You volunteered."
The garden was no longer just calling him.
It was claiming him.
And somewhere beyond the broken gate—
Dustu's bark echoed once.
Cut short.
As if swallowed by the soil itself.
Chapter 7 ends with the realization:
The entity didn't just escape.
It is rewriting the past.
And Manoj may have always been part of the ritual.
**To be continued…**