The beeping of machines was the only thing anchoring him to reality.
Dr. Jay sat beside her bed, watching the slow, stubborn flicker of life.
Three weeks. Three weeks since they found her crumpled at the bottom of her stairs, skull fractured, no witnesses. Three weeks since the police had given up hope of ever finding her attacker.
Three weeks of newspapers and news channels running the same headline: Renowned child therapist Sara Sahay attacked and still in coma. Attacker still at large. Police investigation under scrutiny.
And now, against all odds, she stirred.
"Jay..." Her voice rasped, thready and uncertain.
He leaned in, heart hammering. "I'm here. You're safe."
She blinked up at him, confusion clouding her gaze. "I don't remember... What happened?"
"It's okay," Jay said gently. "You don't have to."
Outside the sterile calm of the hospital room, the city spun on. Inside, an old life — or something similar — slowly reassembled itself.
Her apartment smelled the same.
Lavender soap. Dust. Old paper.
But something was wrong.
She could feel it, a vibration under the floorboards, under her skin. Like a second heartbeat.
The first letter arrived the next morning.
No envelope. No sender. Just a scrap of paper, folded neatly.
"You can never be Sara."
Her hands trembled as she showed it to Jay.
He frowned, turning the note over as if the backside might reveal some truth. "How could anyone know?" he muttered. "No one—no one except us—"
Her throat closed. Someone knew. Someone knew that Sara was dead.
"You said you'd handle it," she rasped. "You said—"
"Ria."
Her name snapped through the air like a whip.
"Ria, you offered to do this. For Sara. We agreed. You need to hold it together. If we can find the killer—"
The truth cracked open between them like a jagged scar.
Three weeks ago, when the machines whispered that Sara’s brain was dead, Jay—desperate to find an answer—had agreed to a plan.
Her plan.
No one knew Sara had a twin. Ria, hidden away after their childhood broke like glass.
Ria had slid into Sara's life: her clothes, her voice, her memories. All to lure out the monster who had taken Sara down.
But something inside her was splintering — a fear she couldn't tell Jay, couldn't tell anyone.
And that fear became real.
Three days later, another letter, no name, no address.
"You can deceive Jay and everyone else, but not me. I know what you did."
Ria couldn't breathe. Couldn't think.
Someone knew. She had to find that person—and silence them. Silence them like she had silenced Sara.
The memory burst open like a festering wound.
How she killed her own sister.
Her hand clenching the iron rod. Sara’s screams, muffled. One blow to the skull.
Sara crumpled in a pool of blood.
Not an accident. Not mercy.
Murder.
Ria pressed her fists against her skull. No one saw. No one could know.
Unless—
*******
Locks. Cameras. Alarms.
She sealed herself inside the apartment like a coffin.
Yet the third letter waited for her.
Ria felt her throat constrict.
Paranoid, she checked the security footage. Nobody entered. Nobody left. No tampering.
This time she found it on the floor—it was slid from under her bedroom door.
How was that possible?
Trembling, she read the note again:
"I am coming for you."
It clicked.
She tore through Sara's old desk, pulling out her journal—her breath freezing in her lungs.
It was Sara’s handwriting.
"No," she whispered, the word a scratch in her throat. "You're dead. I killed you. I—"
The dead were writing to her. Sara was writing to her.
She crumpled the letter, lit it on fire, and watched it blacken into ash.
That night, she hid a tiny camera in the bookshelf, with the view of her room, Sara's room.
She triple-locked her bedroom door, heart rattling against her ribs.
She slept with one eye open.
She woke with a jolt.
Checked the floor. No letter.
Relief loosened her spine—until her gaze snagged on the desk.
A corner of white, peeking out from under a book: The Myth of Sanity.
Ria staggered forward, snatched it up with shaking fingers.
"You can't hide from me."
She screamed, dropping the letter, scrambling for the phone.
"Jay," she sobbed the moment he answered. "It’s her. Sara's ghost. She’s haunting me."
Jay arrived minutes later, bewildered, concern etched into every line of his face.
"What are you saying?" he demanded. "Are you out of your mind?"
"I killed her!" Ria cried, shaking violently. "I took the rod. I hit her. I killed Sara! Now she's coming back for me."
Jay's expression twisted in horror.
"You… what?" He stumbled back, as if she'd struck him too.
"You killed her?" he whispered, his voice breaking.
"I—" She gulped for air. "She had everything! The perfect life! Perfect parents! I wanted her life. I didn't want to be the broken one anymore."
Jay’s hands tightened into fists. He grabbed her shoulders, his voice low and venomous.
"You killed your own sister. Pretended to help me find her killer. And you—" He shook his head in disbelief.
Ria tore away from him, desperate. "It doesn't matter now, she is coming to get me, to take me with her."
Jay didn't care anymore and dialed to call the police.
"I'll prove it!" she shrieked. She yanked the memory card from the hidden camera, jammed it into her laptop.
Her breath caught.
The footage, timestamped 2:06 AM, showed her.
Waking from sleep.
Walking calmly to the desk.
Pulling out a sheet of paper.
Writing the note.
Sealing it in the envelope.
Returning to bed.
She watched herself betray herself.
Watched the ghost in her own hands.
It was her.
Herself.
"No," she whimpered. "No—I'm possessed. She's inside me—"
The room spun around her. Jay’s voice was a distant roar.
She didn't feel the police come in. Didn't feel the cuffs bite into her wrists.
She was still staring at the screen when they dragged her away.
All she could think was:
I'm possessed. Sara's spirit has taken me over. And she’s going to finish what I started.
Six Months Later
Jay sat across from an older woman, her face lined with grief.
Mrs. Sahay. Sara and Ria’s mother.
Tears streamed down her cheeks as she spoke.
"Sara was... everything good," she said, voice trembling. "Our golden child. And Ria... she was our rebellion, or broken maybe."
Jay swallowed the lump in his throat.
"We kept telling Ria to be more like Sara. We thought it would make her better. But it made her angry, which she would occasionally take out on Sara"
"We sent Sara away to boarding, to keep her safe, that's when Ria began to change."
Her hands trembled.
"There were signs," she whispered. "Ria dressing like Sara. Writing like Sara. Speaking like her. We thought she idolized her. But then there were rages, days when she snapped back into herself. Into Ria. Uncontrollable. That's when we sent her to the asylum."
Her voice cracked.
"Seven months ago... she escaped. We even called Sara to warn her. But maybe... maybe we never spoke to Sara that day at all."
Jay closed his eyes, the truth too heavy to bear.
"Sara is gone," Mrs. Sahay said, voice hollow. "And so is Ria. Only the ghost remains."
Jay visited the psychiatric hospital that day.
She sat on the metal chair, her hands resting neatly in her lap, humming under her breath.
Stacks of letters surrounded her. The same message, over and over. Rewritten by her own trembling hand.
She didn’t look up when he entered.
Jay stepped closer, heart pounding.
She glanced at him then—eyes gleaming with unnatural brightness—and smiled sweetly.
"I'm almost finished," she said. "Then Sara will forgive me."
Jay knelt beside her, his voice breaking.
"Sara's gone."
She tilted her head, studying him like he was the crazy one.
"Don't be silly," she said with a small laugh. "I'm Sara."
Somewhere deep inside, Ria—the real Ria—was gone, and she had finally, fully become the ghost she had killed.