Arjun stumbled backward in horror.
The corpse in the wheelchair twitched again.
Crack.
Its neck bent sideways unnaturally.
A thick black liquid dripped from its mouth.
Still smiling.
The drowned woman stood at the doorway silently watching him.
Then the lantern died.
Darkness swallowed the room.
Arjun ran.
He crashed into the corridor wall, nearly falling down the stairs. Behind him came dragging sounds.
Slow.
Wet.
Following him.
When he reached downstairs, Devika grabbed him immediately.
“What happened?!”
Arjun couldn’t speak.
His hands shook uncontrollably.
Kuttappan closed every window and door while chanting prayers.
Meenu sat quietly near the prayer lamp, drawing something on the floor with chalk.
Arjun looked down.
A woman standing in water.
Beside her, a small child.
And behind them—
A tall house.
Their house.
“You saw grandfather?” Meenu asked softly.
Arjun nodded slowly.
The little girl looked sad.
“That wasn’t him.”
The dragging sound upstairs stopped.
Complete silence followed.
Then came a loud creak.
As if the wheelchair had begun moving.
By itself.
Kuttappan whispered urgently, “Before sunrise we must leave this house.”
But Lakshmi Amma’s voice suddenly echoed from the kitchen corridor.
“You cannot leave.”
Everyone turned.
The old woman stood there holding a rusted red diary.
Rainwater dripped from her grey hair although she had clearly been inside.
“She won’t allow it anymore,” Lakshmi Amma whispered.
Arjun walked toward her cautiously.
“What is happening to my family?”
The old woman slowly handed him the diary.
“This belonged to your mother.”
His heart stopped.
The cover carried faded initials scratched into the leather.
M.M.
Madhavi Menon.
His mother.
The drowned woman.
Arjun opened the diary carefully.
The pages smelled old and damp.
Most entries were ordinary at first.
Family notes.
Village festivals.
Pregnancy cravings.
Little memories.
Then the handwriting changed.
Uneven.
Disturbed.
"The child keeps calling from beneath the water."
"Every night I hear crying under the house."
"He says I imagined the girl, but I know what I saw."
"The room upstairs should never be opened."
Arjun swallowed hard.
Further pages became worse.
Dark stains spread across them.
Some looked like fingerprints.
Others like dried blood.
Then one sentence froze him completely.
"If anything happens to me, do not trust Narayanan."
Narayanan.
His father.
Arjun looked up immediately.
“What did Appa do?”
Lakshmi Amma’s cloudy eyes filled with tears.
“He brought her into this house.”
“Who?”
The old woman whispered one name—
“Yakshi.”
The prayer lamp blew out instantly.
A sharp smell of jasmine filled the hall.
Meenu suddenly looked toward the staircase and smiled brightly.
“She came down.”
Footsteps echoed above them.
Slow.
Graceful.
Not dragging anymore.
Like a woman calmly walking through her own home.
Step.
Step.
Step.
Devika began crying silently.
The footsteps stopped halfway down the staircase.
Then a woman’s voice whispered softly into the darkness—
“Where is my son?”