It was a quiet night.
Inside a dimly lit room, a boy sat cross-legged on the cold floor. Candles burned weakly in a circle around him, their flames trembling as if afraid of the shadows they cast. Strange symbols were drawn on the ground in chalk, and animal skulls lay at each corner of the circle, staring blankly into the void.
The boy's voice echoed in the silence:
"In the name of the Great Demon Satan, please accept my sacrifice."
He repeated the words again.
And again.
Each time, his tone grew heavier—more desperate.
"Uhh…"
He paused. Something behind him stirred.
"In the name of the Great Demon Satan, please accept my sacrifice."
"Umm… kuu…" came a muffled sound.
He clenched his jaw, annoyed.
"Can you please stop screaming, bro? I'm doing something important here. Just stay quiet for a few minutes."
The boy—Morris, sixteen, pale-faced, and cloaked in black—kept his gaze fixed on the ritual circle. The hood of his robe shadowed his eyes, but the faint candlelight revealed a grin tugging at his lips.
"Ku… hu…" came the sound again.
Morris exhaled sharply.
"You just can't shut your mouth, can you?"
He stood abruptly, picked up a blood-stained knife, and walked toward a figure lying on the floor. A man—his wrists and ankles tied tightly with rope, a cloth gagging his mouth—struggled weakly.
Morris grabbed him by the hair, yanking his face upward. He tore the gag away.
"Now," he said, his voice eerily calm. "Say what you want to say."
The man coughed, his eyes wide with disbelief.
"Wha… what the hell are you doing, Morris?"
Blood trickled down the side of his face from a wound on his head.
"Are you out of your mind? You hit me with a hammer! When father and mother come back...God help you...I'll tell them everything! You and your… your little bitch.....what the hell are you wearing? Have you joined some cult or something? Untie me right now, Morris, or .."
He stopped mid-sentence. His eyes froze on the glint of metal near his throat.
"W-What…"
A soft, melodic voice interrupted.
"Can you please be quiet?"
It was the girl. Vency. She held the knife with steady hands, its tip kissing the man's neck.
Morris who was reading the book which have black cover .
"Did you get the last item, Vency?"
"Yeah, Morris. I got it."
She smiled faintly, lifting something in her other hand.
It was the head of a cat. Blood still dripped slowly from its severed neck, forming a small dark puddle on the floor.
Morris takes the head of cat and put in the ritual and by the knife he cut his finger and blood drops pour in the strange mark.
The man's face drained of color. His breath hitched as the horrible truth dawned on him what his brother had become.
And that's when it all started to make sense.
---
???'s POV
I was an ordinary guy. A college student from a middle-class family.
My father was a lawyer, my mother a homemaker. We weren't rich, but we were happy. My younger brother, Morris, was in high school....quiet, clever, and always smiling.
Things changed the day a new family moved into the neighborhood. A mother and her daughter, Vency. The mother worked as a nurse at the government hospital. The father had died in a car accident....a tragedy that shadowed them.
At first, they seemed like any other family. But the girl, Vency, gave me a strange vibe… and where the hell was I getting this feeling from a fifteen-year-old girl?
Vency was the same age as Morris, and the two quickly became friends.They went to school together, played together, even studied together.
But soon, I started to notice strange things.
Morris, who couldn't go a single day without me, had started talking less. He even avoided our parents. The boy who once laughed at everything had become distant and secretive.
And then there was that utterly crazy incident.
Whenever my parents and I went out, we would return to find pictures of the gods hanging upside down on our walls, along with strange drawings etched into the walls and floors.
It made me deeply suspicious… why were all these things happening?
And I knew Morris wasn't the problem—it was that girl named Vency. My parents dismissed it as children's play, but I couldn't buy that.
I visited Vency's mother to ask about it.
After I told her about the strange incidents at my home, she looked tired—haunted. She explained that after her husband's death, Vency had fallen into a deep depression. Her mother had taken her to a psychologist, but even that didn't solve the problem. For Vency, only books had become a habit—and the only thing that helped her.
"She reads everything," her mother said. "It keeps her mind off… darker thoughts."
At first, it sounded harmless. But then she mentioned the book.
It was a strange novel—one Vency carried everywhere. When I asked why, her mother said it contained "the knowledge to bring her father back… to let her be reborn in a new world."
I froze, my face twisting. Really? You dumb… I wanted to shout.
Her mother sighed. "I know how it sounds. That's why we moved here… away from the old house. The doctors said the memories of her father were disturbing her there."
I left feeling sorry for Vency. But I shouldn't have.
That night, while my parents were away at a wedding, I went into Morris's room. He wasn't there. I assumed he had gone to his coaching class.
Just as I was about to leave, something on his desk caught my eye—a book.
No cover.
No title.
Just plain black.
I picked it up and opened it. On the first page, in simple print, were the words:
"Heroes of the Present."
It seemed like some kind of freedom fighter story… or maybe about the present day. Wait… Present? Modi ji?
"Just joking. What a stupid title," I muttered. Still, I began to read.
Minutes passed. Then hours. The story was strange, but I couldn't stop. It was as if the words themselves were alive. By the time I looked up, it was 5 p.m. the next day… and I had finished it.
I stared blankly at the final page. My hands were trembling.
"What…
what the fuck did I just read?"