The garden was waiting.
They didn't speak as they crossed the broken gate again. Morning light spread weakly across the sky, but inside the garden, it felt like twilight — as if time had slowed only in this place.
Dustu's last bark still echoed in their minds.
Cut short.
Swallowed.
Manoj walked ahead of the others.
Not because he was brave.
Because something was pulling him.
His injured hand burned, the black veins darker now, branching faintly toward his shoulder. It didn't hurt the way a wound should.
It pulsed.
Like a second heartbeat.
Sayantika stayed close behind him. She hadn't cried. Not yet. But her silence felt heavier than fear.
Anirban scanned every corner, jaw tight.
Sibom kept looking back.
As if expecting the house to disappear.
The deeper section of the garden was no longer hidden by fog.
It was exposed.
The soil around the banyan tree looked disturbed again — wider this time.
The footprints were back.
More of them.
Bare.
Long.
Wrong.
But mixed among them—
Paw marks.
Fresh.
Leading inward.
Sayantika's breath caught. "He went that way."
Manoj nodded slowly.
"He wasn't dragged."
Anirban's eyes narrowed. "What do you mean?"
"He walked."
A wind rose suddenly.
Cold.
Not violent.
Intentional.
The trees began swaying again — not randomly.
In rhythm.
As if something beneath the soil was breathing.
They moved deeper.
Past the banyan tree.
Past the disturbed ground.
And for the first time—
They saw it clearly.
A stone structure partially buried in the earth.
Round.
Low.
Covered in moss and soil.
A second seal.
Older than the fountain.
Sibom whispered, "This wasn't in your grandfather's notes."
Manoj stepped closer.
The black veins along his arm shimmered faintly.
The symbols carved into the stone reacted.
Faintly glowing.
Recognizing him.
Anirban grabbed his shoulder. "Don't touch it."
But Manoj wasn't reaching.
He was listening.
The whisper returned.
Clearer now.
"You opened twice."
Sayantika shook her head. "What does that mean?"
Manoj's voice came out distant.
"The basement."
They all froze.
Anirban understood first.
"The stairs. We opened the path again."
Sibom's voice cracked. "So the garden wasn't just sealed from above. It was sealed from below too."
"Yes."
The air grew colder.
The ground trembled faintly.
And then—
They heard it.
A soft whimper.
Behind the stone structure.
Sayantika moved instantly. "Dustu!"
She ran around the curved stone.
The others followed.
Behind it was a shallow pit.
And inside—
Dustu stood.
Unharmed.
Still.
Watching them.
But he wasn't wagging his tail.
He wasn't barking.
His eyes were fixed.
Unblinking.
Manoj stepped closer cautiously.
"Dustu?"
The dog tilted his head slowly.
Too slowly.
Like something copying the gesture.
Sayantika knelt. "Come here."
Dustu took one step forward.
The soil beneath his paws shifted unnaturally.
As if it wasn't solid.
As if it were breathing.
Anirban's voice was low. "Something's wrong."
Dustu's body trembled.
Then he opened his mouth.
Not to bark.
To whisper.
"You left me."
The voice was not canine.
Not human.
Layered.
Distorted.
Sayantika stumbled back in horror.
Sibom swore under his breath.
Manoj felt the pulse in his arm explode with heat.
The black veins reached his collarbone now.
The stone structure behind Dustu began to crack.
Fine fractures spreading across its surface.
"You opened twice," the voice continued from the dog's unmoving mouth.
"So I entered twice."
Anirban grabbed Sayantika and pulled her back.
"Get away from it!"
Dustu's body jerked violently.
Then stilled.
Then jerked again — sharper.
Unnatural.
Manoj stepped forward instead of back.
"Stop," Anirban warned.
But Manoj couldn't.
Because beneath the distortion—
He heard something else.
A second sound.
Faint.
Weak.
Dustu's real whimper.
Trapped.
The entity wasn't fully inside him.
It was using him.
Like it had used Manoj's reflection.
Like it had rewritten the photograph.
It didn't just mimic.
It occupied.
Manoj clenched his injured hand.
Blood seeped through the old cloth.
The symbols on the stone structure glowed brighter.
The entity hissed through Dustu's mouth.
"Blood binds."
Manoj stepped into the shallow pit.
Sayantika screamed his name.
Anirban tried to pull him back.
But the soil beneath Manoj's feet felt solid.
Accepting.
He pressed his bleeding palm against the cracked stone.
The glow intensified violently.
The ground shook.
Dustu collapsed instantly, limp.
The voice shrieked — not from him now, but from beneath the soil.
The crack across the stone widened.
Something pushed upward.
Not fully.
Not emerging.
Testing.
Manoj felt his vision blur.
Memories not his own flooded his mind.
The basement chair.
The ropes.
The scratched photograph.
The fourth man.
Volunteered.
Not to hold it.
To host it.
The ritual of 1976 hadn't sealed the entity.
It had transferred it.
From one body.
To another.
His grandfather hadn't bound it.
He had carried it.
And when he died—
The garden slept.
Waiting for the next bloodline.
Manoj gasped.
The entity wasn't breaking free.
It was completing a cycle.
Sibom shouted, "Manoj, move!"
The stone burst open slightly.
A pale shape pressed against the fracture.
Featureless.
Formless.
Yet defined by hunger.
Manoj pulled his hand away.
The glow flickered.
The pale shape recoiled slightly.
Anirban understood instantly.
"It reacts to your blood — but it's not feeding on it."
Sayantika's voice trembled. "Then what is it doing?"
Manoj stood slowly.
"It's anchoring to me."
Silence.
The pale shape beneath the stone withdrew.
Not defeated.
Satisfied.
The cracks stopped spreading.
The trembling slowed.
The pit grew still again.
Dustu lay unconscious.
But breathing.
Sayantika rushed to him, tears finally falling as she held him close.
"He's alive."
Anirban stared at Manoj.
"What did you see?"
Manoj's eyes were distant.
"It doesn't want out."
Sibom's voice was barely audible. "Then what does it want?"
Manoj looked down at his arm.
The black veins had stopped spreading.
They had settled.
Like roots reaching stable soil.
"It wants permanence."
A branch snapped behind them.
They turned.
Near the banyan tree—
A human silhouette stood.
Not shadow.
Not reflection.
Solid.
Watching them.
It looked like Manoj.
But older.
Eyes hollow.
Skin pale.
Marked veins crawling across its face.
Sayantika whispered, "Is that—"
"No," Manoj said firmly.
"It's the previous one."
The figure tilted its head.
Smiled faintly.
Then stepped backward—
And dissolved into the trunk of the banyan tree.
Gone.
The wind stopped.
The garden fell silent again.
But this silence felt aware.
Satisfied.
Dustu stirred weakly in Sayantika's arms.
Anirban spoke quietly.
"It's not hunting randomly."
Sibom nodded slowly.
"It's transitioning."
Manoj looked at the cracked stone structure.
At the reopened seal.
At the soil that felt almost alive beneath his feet.
"It doesn't need to escape," he said.
"It needs to replace."
The morning light finally broke fully over the horizon.
But the garden did not brighten.
Because something beneath it had accepted a new host.
And somewhere inside Manoj's mind—
A second heartbeat answered his own.
**To be continued…**