Location: Pune City – Meera's ApartmentTime: 9:04 AM
Meera wasn't a morning person, and even less of one after the last few days of chaos. She stretched lazily, annoyed by the aggressive thumping at the door.
"Coming! Stop banging like you're collecting taxes!"
She opened the door to find no one. Just a brown envelope, damp from morning dew. No stamps. No markings. Just her name written in old-school fountain pen ink.
"Meera P."
No one called her that—not even on official records. Only one person used to call her that. Someone who had vanished without a trace when she was sixteen.
Her father.
Heart thumping like a bass drum, Meera tore it open.
Inside:A single page.No address. No date.But the handwriting? Unmistakable.
"My Little Puzzle,
You're probably angry I disappeared. I can't explain everything now, but know this: it wasn't abandonment. It was preservation.
The project we worked on… the 'Mirror Equations'... it worked. Too well.
You're in danger because of it.
Don't trust everyone in your circle—not even the one who believes in 'realities.'
And Meera… don't try to solve everything. Some puzzles exist to keep things hidden.
If you must go forward, look at what we built together.
Love,Papa"
P.S. Flip the page only when you're ready to remember everything.
She froze.
The 'Mirror Equations' were just bedtime fun for them when she was a kid—little scribbles her father used to doodle on napkins and chalkboards: numbers that turned into patterns, time that folded onto itself. She thought it was just playful genius.
Vicky was already at her door five minutes later, summoned by a voice note that was 70% shrieking and 30% actual words.
"Okay okay, breathe, show me," he said, accepting coffee with one hand and the letter with the other.
Vicky scanned it once. Then again.
Then, silently, he flipped the paper over.
Nothing.
But he pulled out his phone, opened a filter app, and ran the infrared mode.
Hidden ink glowed across the back like veins.
A diagram. A complex set of loops. Time stamps. Place coordinates. And a Sanskrit line at the bottom:
"सत्यं नष्टं न भविष्यति।"(Truth lost is never truly gone.)
Cut to: Mercer's Apartment
Mercer had barely slept. The train haunted him. The voice of the little girl looped in his head like a broken lullaby.
Then, the news flashed on TV:
"—Pune Railway Yard, 3:30 AM. Watchmen report seeing an unregistered steam train that disappeared mid-track. Investigation underway."
He dropped his coffee.
Then his phone vibrated.
A message from an unknown number.No words.Just a picture. Of him. As a child. Holding the same key he found yesterday.
Meanwhile, Back at the Workshop
Detective Prakash Singh frowned at the newspaper crossword Meera had saved.He circled five answers. The first letters spelled:
K-A-R-L-A
Then below it, in faint, uneven ink:
"Mirror Equation unlocked. Follow the child. The one who doesn't exist."
Next Chapter Tease:
Vicky and Meera visit Meera's childhood home to search for clues. But something's wrong. The house layout has changed. Doors that weren't there before, rooms with memories that don't belong to her.
Meanwhile, Mercer discovers his own photo in a government file… labeled: "Time Displacement Subject 11-B."