Chapter 11 - The Secret Room
January 12 - 3:45 p.m.
Location: Mira City - The Malhotra Estate (Abandoned)
The house sat like a mausoleum, shrouded in ivy and silence. Kabir hadn't been here in years - not since Aarya's mother was declared mentally unfit and the estate was sealed off during the investigation into her father's death.
But now he stood at the front door, court order in one hand, flashlight in the other.
He wasn't here for nostalgia.
He was looking for a room that wasn't in the blueprints.
A room that Aarya had mentioned in a fragmented memory during last week's hypnosis session.
"She told me not to go past the mirror.
That's where the others live."
"Others?" Kabir had asked.
"The ones who remember what I shouldn't."
.....................
Flashback - Age 6, Aarya (or was it Tara?)
A little girl in a blue dress tiptoes into her mother's room.
She turns the ornate mirror on the wall slightly to the left.
A click.
A breath of cold air.
A door slides open behind the bookshelf.
She steps inside, clutching a stuffed rabbit.
On the walls: photographs. Drawings. Faces with their eyes scratched out.
And one whisper:
"If you ever leave, they'll take your name too."
.....................
Present Day
Kabir stood before the same mirror. His fingers trembled slightly as he turned the frame.
Click.
The scent hit him first: mold, metal, and something sterile? like an old clinic.
He stepped inside.
The secret room was no bigger than a hospital ward, with walls lined in white padding and fluorescent lights flickering overhead.
And on the far wall - a corkboard covered in overlapping Polaroids.
Faces.
Children.
All of them labeled.
TARA - circled in red.
SIYA - written twice.
NINA / UNKNOWN / 17B / "WOKE UP EARLY"
ARYA - with a question mark beneath.
There were notes too. Sloppy handwriting. Red ink. A madness that had method:
"Only one can remain."
"Phase 3 = CHOICE."
"Conscious integration FAILED."
"Override protocols initiated - voluntary confession required."
.....................
Case File #X342-B - "Project Nestling"
Hidden in a filing cabinet behind an old mattress was a folder marked Confidential - Experimental Neurological Reprogramming (Mira Foundation).
Kabir flipped through it.
? Project: Phase 1 - Induced Split
? Project: Phase 2 - Memory Erasure & Reconstruction
? Project: Phase 3 - Integration via Confession (Psychosocial Collapse Method)
? Final Test Subject: Aarya Malhotra (DOB: Redacted)
? Status: Unstable
Then a single note clipped to the back:
Observation - January 2007:
"Subject demonstrates lucid crossover between false and authentic identities. Risk of full psychotic break. Subject 'Tara' appears increasingly dominant in high-stress environments. Recommend containment or personality euthanasia."
Kabir dropped the file.
"Personality euthanasia?"
This wasn't therapy. This was psychological warfare.
.....................
January 12 - 5:15 p.m.
Kabir's Phone Call with Dr. Saloni Deshmukh (Retired Therapist)
She had refused contact for weeks.
Today, she answered on the second ring.
Saloni: "You shouldn't have gone there."
Kabir: "I found the secret room. The files. The photos."
Silence.
Kabir: "You knew they were splitting her deliberately."
Saloni: "It wasn't a split."
Kabir: "?What?"
Saloni: "They weren't creating parts.
They were transferring memories."
Kabir froze.
Kabir: "From who?"
Saloni:
"From those they considered? dispensable.
From orphans. From failed subjects.
They didn't just experiment on Aarya.
They built her."
.....................
Journal Fragment - Unknown Author (Found in the Room)
"Today, she cried and said she dreamed she was me.
But I haven't cried in years.
I told her I was her shadow.
She said:
'No? you're the one they left behind.'"
.....................
January 12 - 7:00 p.m.
Back at Kabir's Apartment - Digital Forensics Upload (Recovered Memory Drive)
Kabir uploaded what he found onto his laptop.
An encrypted folder, hidden beneath layers of corrupted code, finally opened.
Inside were hours of therapy footage.
A young Aarya - maybe 10 - talking to an unseen therapist.
But the voice didn't sound like hers.
"I remember fire. I remember a boy's hand. He screamed for me to run."
"But when I looked down? I was holding the match."
"They said I was born to replace her.
But what if she never left?"
The screen glitched.
Kabir rewound.
The nameplate on the therapist's desk flashed in the corner frame.
Dr. Rajesh Dev.
He wasn't dead.
.....................
Flashback - Sia and Tara's First "Meeting" (Inside the Facility, 2005)
Two girls. Identical. Crying.
One watched. One screamed.
"I don't want her name!"
"She can't keep mine!"
A nurse said, "Whichever one stops crying first? gets to stay."
.....................
Aarya's Call to Kabir - 8:00 p.m.
She was quiet. Unusually so.
"I went back to the mirror today."
"There was something etched on the floor.
A message in crayon? from Tara."
Kabir listened.
"It said:
'You may wear my skin, but you'll never hold my story.'"
A click.
She hung up.
.....................
January 12 - 10:15 p.m.
The Return to the Facility - Burnt Records Room
Kabir used the code Aarya gave him: T17-R45
The lock buzzed. The hidden drawer popped open.
A USB drive inside.
Label: LAST TAPES - DEVGARH INSTITUTE
He watched one.
A young girl strapped to a bed.
She was whispering over and over:
"I'm not her. I'm not her. I'm not her."
Then louder:
"I am the one who was taken.
She's the one who was made."
.....................
Kabir's Notes - Final Line of Day
He wrote it under the photos of Tara, Aarya, and the mystery girl Sia:
"They didn't just split her mind?
They stitched her together."
"But who is the original?"
.....................
If Aarya was built from fragments of others? then who is she really protecting now, and from what truth?
January 12 - 3:45 p.m.
Location: Mira City - The Malhotra Estate (Abandoned)
The house sat like a mausoleum, shrouded in ivy and silence. Kabir hadn't been here in years - not since Aarya's mother was declared mentally unfit and the estate was sealed off during the investigation into her father's death.
But now he stood at the front door, court order in one hand, flashlight in the other.
He wasn't here for nostalgia.
He was looking for a room that wasn't in the blueprints.
A room that Aarya had mentioned in a fragmented memory during last week's hypnosis session.
"She told me not to go past the mirror.
That's where the others live."
"Others?" Kabir had asked.
"The ones who remember what I shouldn't."
.....................
Flashback - Age 6, Aarya (or was it Tara?)
A little girl in a blue dress tiptoes into her mother's room.
She turns the ornate mirror on the wall slightly to the left.
A click.
A breath of cold air.
A door slides open behind the bookshelf.
She steps inside, clutching a stuffed rabbit.
On the walls: photographs. Drawings. Faces with their eyes scratched out.
And one whisper:
"If you ever leave, they'll take your name too."
.....................
Present Day
Kabir stood before the same mirror. His fingers trembled slightly as he turned the frame.
Click.
The scent hit him first: mold, metal, and something sterile? like an old clinic.
He stepped inside.
The secret room was no bigger than a hospital ward, with walls lined in white padding and fluorescent lights flickering overhead.
And on the far wall - a corkboard covered in overlapping Polaroids.
Faces.
Children.
All of them labeled.
TARA - circled in red.
SIYA - written twice.
NINA / UNKNOWN / 17B / "WOKE UP EARLY"
ARYA - with a question mark beneath.
There were notes too. Sloppy handwriting. Red ink. A madness that had method:
"Only one can remain."
"Phase 3 = CHOICE."
"Conscious integration FAILED."
"Override protocols initiated - voluntary confession required."
.....................
Case File #X342-B - "Project Nestling"
Hidden in a filing cabinet behind an old mattress was a folder marked Confidential - Experimental Neurological Reprogramming (Mira Foundation).
Kabir flipped through it.
? Project: Phase 1 - Induced Split
? Project: Phase 2 - Memory Erasure & Reconstruction
? Project: Phase 3 - Integration via Confession (Psychosocial Collapse Method)
? Final Test Subject: Aarya Malhotra (DOB: Redacted)
? Status: Unstable
Then a single note clipped to the back:
Observation - January 2007:
"Subject demonstrates lucid crossover between false and authentic identities. Risk of full psychotic break. Subject 'Tara' appears increasingly dominant in high-stress environments. Recommend containment or personality euthanasia."
Kabir dropped the file.
"Personality euthanasia?"
This wasn't therapy. This was psychological warfare.
.....................
January 12 - 5:15 p.m.
Kabir's Phone Call with Dr. Saloni Deshmukh (Retired Therapist)
She had refused contact for weeks.
Today, she answered on the second ring.
Saloni: "You shouldn't have gone there."
Kabir: "I found the secret room. The files. The photos."
Silence.
Kabir: "You knew they were splitting her deliberately."
Saloni: "It wasn't a split."
Kabir: "?What?"
Saloni: "They weren't creating parts.
They were transferring memories."
Kabir froze.
Kabir: "From who?"
Saloni:
"From those they considered? dispensable.
From orphans. From failed subjects.
They didn't just experiment on Aarya.
They built her."
.....................
Journal Fragment - Unknown Author (Found in the Room)
"Today, she cried and said she dreamed she was me.
But I haven't cried in years.
I told her I was her shadow.
She said:
'No? you're the one they left behind.'"
.....................
January 12 - 7:00 p.m.
Back at Kabir's Apartment - Digital Forensics Upload (Recovered Memory Drive)
Kabir uploaded what he found onto his laptop.
An encrypted folder, hidden beneath layers of corrupted code, finally opened.
Inside were hours of therapy footage.
A young Aarya - maybe 10 - talking to an unseen therapist.
But the voice didn't sound like hers.
"I remember fire. I remember a boy's hand. He screamed for me to run."
"But when I looked down? I was holding the match."
"They said I was born to replace her.
But what if she never left?"
The screen glitched.
Kabir rewound.
The nameplate on the therapist's desk flashed in the corner frame.
Dr. Rajesh Dev.
He wasn't dead.
.....................
Flashback - Sia and Tara's First "Meeting" (Inside the Facility, 2005)
Two girls. Identical. Crying.
One watched. One screamed.
"I don't want her name!"
"She can't keep mine!"
A nurse said, "Whichever one stops crying first? gets to stay."
.....................
Aarya's Call to Kabir - 8:00 p.m.
She was quiet. Unusually so.
"I went back to the mirror today."
"There was something etched on the floor.
A message in crayon? from Tara."
Kabir listened.
"It said:
'You may wear my skin, but you'll never hold my story.'"
A click.
She hung up.
.....................
January 12 - 10:15 p.m.
The Return to the Facility - Burnt Records Room
Kabir used the code Aarya gave him: T17-R45
The lock buzzed. The hidden drawer popped open.
A USB drive inside.
Label: LAST TAPES - DEVGARH INSTITUTE
He watched one.
A young girl strapped to a bed.
She was whispering over and over:
"I'm not her. I'm not her. I'm not her."
Then louder:
"I am the one who was taken.
She's the one who was made."
.....................
Kabir's Notes - Final Line of Day
He wrote it under the photos of Tara, Aarya, and the mystery girl Sia:
"They didn't just split her mind?
They stitched her together."
"But who is the original?"
.....................
If Aarya was built from fragments of others? then who is she really protecting now, and from what truth?
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