The letter arrived on a cold October morning. No return address, no postmark. Just her name, Dr. Maya Singh, printed in precise black ink on the front.
She hesitated before opening it.
Inside, a single sheet of paper.
Anya Ember.
Below the name, an address.
Moideen Badusha Mental Home
Erwadi village, Tamil Nadu
Maya’s breath hitched. The name rang faintly in her mind, but she couldn’t place it. A half-remembered whisper from another life.
She pulled her laptop closer, fingers hovering over the keys.
She typed.
The first result made her blood turn cold.
Anya Ember (14) presumed dead in Moideen Badusha Mental Home fire, 1999.
Her pulse thudded.
She knew Moideen Badusha. Everyone did.
The asylum had burned to the ground twenty-five years ago, killing nearly every patient and staff member inside. The official story was faulty wiring. But the town’s rumors told another story—whispers of something darker, something that had been buried with the ashes.
And now, someone had sent her this.

Maya picked up her phone and dialed a number she hadn’t called in a long time. Detective Kael Drake was the last person she wanted to see, but he was the only one with access to the asylum’s old case files.
Years ago, Maya Singh testified that one of Kael's arrests was based on a false confession, forcing him to release a man who later vanished without a trace. Kael, in turn, exposed irregularities in Maya's past research, leading to a patient’s lawsuit that nearly destroyed her career.

The man on the other end answered with a tired sigh. “Harrow. To what do I owe the pleasure?”
“I need a favor, Kael.”
Detective Kael Drake groaned. “Last time you needed a favor, I ended up with two cracked ribs and a suspension.”
“This one’s different.”
“Somehow, I doubt that.”

Now, they both have reasons to keep each other close—Kael needs Maya's insight to redeem himself, and Maya needs Kael's access to the case files to uncover the truth. But beneath their uneasy alliance, neither fully trusts the other, and both are hiding something they won’t admit—even to themselves.

A knock at the door made her jump.
Through the peephole, she saw a familiar face.
Kael Drake.
Detective. Cynic. The only person who might know what the hell was going on.
She opened the door.
Kael’s blue eyes flicked over her face. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
She handed him the letter.
He read it and exhaled sharply. “Where did you get this?”
“It was in my mailbox this morning.”
He rubbed a hand over his jaw. “Anya Ember.” His voice was quieter now, almost reluctant. “You don’t remember her?”
Something about the way he said it sent a prickle down Maya’s spine.
“No. Should I?”
Kael hesitated, then pulled a folder from inside his coat. He dropped it onto her table.
“Take a look.”
She flipped it open.
Black-and-white photographs. Faded medical reports. And then—
A picture of a girl.
Dark hair. Pale skin. Eyes too solemn for fourteen.
Anya Ember.
“She was a patient at Moideen Badusha,” Kael said. “No family. No records of where she came from. She was admitted in ‘98, listed as severely dissociative, possibly schizophrenia.”
Maya frowned. “And the fire?”
“No bodies were ever recovered.”
Her stomach tightened.
Kael slid another document toward her.
A missing person’s report.
Dated three weeks ago.
Maya’s breath hitched.
A woman is seen wandering near the ruins of Moideen Badusha. Pale, disoriented.
Whispering the same words over and over.
"My name is Anya Ember. I need to go home."
Maya stared at the paper, her pulse hammering.
“That’s impossible,” she whispered.
Kael’s jaw tensed. “Yeah. That’s what I thought too.”

The ruins of Moideen Badusha loomed in the distance, skeletal remains swallowed by the fog.
Maya shivered as they stepped through the rusted front gates. The ground was damp beneath her boots, the air thick with the scent of wet earth and decay.
The main building was half-collapsed, vines creeping up the blackened walls. Windows shattered, doors hanging open like yawning mouths.
“Remind me why we’re doing this at night?” Kael muttered.
Maya pulled out her flashlight. “Because whoever sent me that letter didn’t want this seen in daylight.”
They walked inside. The hallway was a graveyard of peeling wallpaper and rusted gurneys. Old medical charts littered the floor, names long faded.
Maya swept the light across the debris.
And froze.
A footprint in the dust.
Fresh.
“Kael,” she whispered.
He knelt, tracing the edge of the print. His shoulders tensed. “Someone’s been here.”
A soft creak echoed from deeper inside the building.
Both of them turned sharply.
A whisper followed.
Low. Faint.
Then, clear as day—
"Dr. Singh."
Maya’s blood turned to ice.
Kael pulled his gun. “Who’s there?”
Silence.
Then—
A slow, deliberate knock.
One.
Two.
Three.
Coming from behind a rusted door.
The patient rooms.
Maya’s breath was shallow. The air around them felt… wrong.
“Should I open it, or do you want to?” Kael asked, voice low.
Maya swallowed hard. Then, before she could second-guess herself, she turned the knob.
The door groaned open.
Inside—
A single chair.
And sitting in it—
A girl.
Pale. Dark-haired. Her hands folded neatly in her lap.
Alive.
Maya’s knees locked. “Anya?”
The girl lifted her head.
Smiled.
And whispered—
"I knew you’d come back for me."
Maya’s breath left her in a rush.
Not because of the words.
But because she suddenly knew where she’d seen Anya Ember before.
In a photograph.
One taken inside Moideen Badusha.
The same year as the fire.
And standing beside Anya—
A man.
Dark-haired. Solemn-eyed.
One she recognized.
Dr. Gabriel.
Her father.
Evelyn never talked about her father. She had spent years burying his memory beneath her work, beneath the layers of time and silence. But seeing his name in Alice Wakefield’s file felt like digging up a corpse.

Evelyn felt her blood run cold.
Kael frowned. “What is it?”
“My father—".
“My father was her doctor.”
But that wasn’t possible.
Was it?