It was the kind of rain that smothered sound.
Thick sheets of water fell from the darkened sky, blotting out the hills and turning the winding road to a ribbon of mud. Mira had just shut the window against the wind when the doorbell rang. Not a knock—an actual ding-dong. Precise. Measured. The kind you hear in old-school movies where the villain always rings politely before stepping inside.
She stiffened, the ceramic mug in her hand suddenly too hot. Her eyes darted to the clock. 10:47 PM.
The cottage was far from the village—on purpose. She had come to the hills of Wayanad to write her next book, to find silence again. The last time someone had shown up at her door unannounced, it had been a wandering cow. But this wasn’t a cow.
This was a person.
Mira tiptoed toward the door, barefoot on the cold floor. She flicked the porch light on.
There he was.
A man in a brown raincoat, soaked to the bone, hair plastered to his forehead. Mid-forties, maybe older. Not particularly threatening. But not forgettable either. His posture was straight, too straight, like someone who was used to being watched.
He didn’t move when the light came on. Didn’t wave. Just stood there, eyes fixed on the door.
Mira hesitated.
Then, cautiously, she opened the door an inch, the safety chain still latched.
“Yes?”
“I’m sorry to disturb you,” the man said, his voice calm, almost too calm. “My car broke down. I saw your porch light from the road.”
“There’s no road visible from here,” she replied, instantly alert.
He smiled faintly. “I meant the trail. I followed a path up.”
“There is no path.”
Now his smile faded. “Look, I know how this sounds. I just need to use your phone.”
“There’s no signal,” Mira said flatly. “Storm took it out. And I don’t have a landline.”
That was a lie. She did have a landline, one of those rotary types she kept for emergencies. But something about him felt wrong. Off. As if he were testing her. Watching for her reactions.
She began to close the door.
“Wait,” he said quickly, stepping forward. “Please. I know you don’t trust me, but I’m not a criminal. I’m a history teacher. I can show you my ID.”
Mira hesitated. He could be telling the truth. And it was raining hard. If she shut the door now, and he really was stranded…
“Do you have any bags?” she asked.
He nodded. “Just one. It’s in the woods. I dropped it when I slipped climbing up.”
Convenient.
“Alright,” she said, unlatching the chain but still holding the door. “You can come in. Just the phone. Then you go.”
The man stepped inside. The smell of wet fabric and something else—metallic, sharp—hit her immediately. He looked around the room like he was cataloging things: the bookshelves, the fireplace, the knife block on the counter.
“What’s your name?” she asked.
“Prakash.”
“Last name?”
He smiled again. “Everyone just calls me Prakash.”
He reached into his coat.
“Don’t move,” Mira said quickly, backing toward the kitchen drawer.
Prakash froze. “It’s just my ID.”
“Slowly.”
He pulled it out—a plastic card. Karnataka University. Department of History. His name and a decent photo.
Mira studied it. It looked real. But so did fakes on the internet.
“You were headed where?” she asked.
“Kalpetta. Visiting an old student.” He glanced at the storm outside. “Can I sit for a minute? Just to dry off?”
“No. Phone’s over there.” She pointed.
He walked over, picked up the receiver, then hesitated.
“You said there’s no signal?”
“Just try.”
He did. The line was dead.
“Storm,” she repeated.
Something shifted in his face. A flicker. Not anger. Something like amusement.
“You live here alone?” he asked, setting the receiver down.
“That’s not your concern.”
“Must get lonely.”
“Not at all.”
He took a step toward her. “It’s funny, though. You let a stranger into your home, knowing there’s no phone, no help nearby. That’s brave.”
Mira’s hand tightened on the edge of the kitchen drawer.
“Or stupid,” he added.
“I’ve been both,” she said coldly. “Which one are you?”
He didn’t answer.
Instead, he looked around again, then walked toward the fireplace. He stopped in front of a photo frame.
“You and your husband?” he asked.
She didn’t respond.
“He’s not here, is he?”
“No.”
“Dead or just gone?”
“Both.”
Prakash turned back to her. “You write books, don’t you?”
Mira felt the blood drain from her face. “How do you know that?”
“I’ve read one. The one about the journalist who uncovers the minister’s black money trail. ‘Echo in the Wires,’ right?”
She didn’t answer.
“That book ruffled a lot of feathers.”
Now Mira’s voice was steady. Cold. “Who sent you?”
“No one.”
“Liar.”
He raised both hands. “Okay. Someone did.”
She took a step back, opened the drawer slowly, wrapping her fingers around the pistol she kept taped under the cutlery tray.
“You’ve got five seconds to explain,” she said.
He exhaled. “I’m not here to hurt you. I’m here to warn you. Your next book—about the land scam? The files you’re working on? They know. They know everything.”
Mira blinked.
Prakash continued. “They sent someone. Not me. Someone else. I’m ex-Bureau. I know what’s coming. That’s why I came first.”
“Why warn me?”
“Because I’ve seen what they do to people like you. And because I owe someone who believed in your work. Someone who didn’t make it.”
Outside, thunder cracked like a warning shot.
Inside, Mira lowered the pistol slightly.
“How long do I have?”
“Hours. Maybe less.”
She stared at him.
Then, finally: “Can you still run?”
He nodded.
“Then help me pack.”
They moved fast.
Mira grabbed a duffel bag from the wardrobe and began stuffing it with the bare essentials—laptop, hard drive, notebooks, a few clothes. Prakash moved through the cottage like he’d lived there, unplugging electronics, checking the windows, peeking through the curtains.
“They’ll expect you to go to the highway,” he said. “Don’t. Take the old forest road. Do you still have the Jeep?”
Mira stared at him. “How do you know about that?”
“I told you,” he said. “I came prepared.”
Minutes later, she threw the bag into the back of the Jeep, rain pelting her face. Prakash slid into the front passenger seat. She jumped into the driver’s side, started the ignition.
“Buckle up,” she said.
They sped down the winding trail, mud spraying the fenders, headlights slicing through the stormy dark. Mira’s pulse thundered in her ears. She didn’t speak. She didn’t need to. Her instincts had kicked in—writer’s logic meeting survivor’s grit.
They’d gone a full kilometre before she looked back.
And froze.
Over the ridge, she could see her cottage—her home—lit up in flames.
Three silhouettes stood nearby. Watching. Not speaking. One of them tossed what looked like a bottle into the fire. The crack of glass. A new burst of flame.
Mira gasped.
She turned to Prakash.
“Thank you,” she whispered.
But the seat beside her was empty.
The door was shut. The seatbelt still neatly buckled.
No trace of him. No footprints. No voice.
Just rain.
She slammed the brakes.
“Prakash?”
Nothing.
Her breath fogged the windshield. She sat in stunned silence for several seconds, heart thudding like a war drum.
Was she hallucinating? Was he ever really there?
Suddenly, up ahead, she noticed something.
A crashed sedan.
Its front end had plowed into a tree, hazard lights blinking weakly through the storm. Mira slowly pulled up beside it. The forest around them was eerily still, the rain hissing over leaves and metal.
She stepped out, boots sinking into wet soil.
The driver’s door was ajar. She walked slowly, her hand instinctively moving toward the pistol at her waist.
Inside, slumped over the steering wheel, was a man.
A brown raincoat clung to his body like second skin.
“No…” she whispered.
She reached out, gently turned his face toward her.
It was him.
Prakash. His face pale, lips blue. He’d been dead for hours.
Mira staggered back, hands trembling. This wasn’t possible. She had just—he had just been with her.
Her eyes drifted to the passenger seat. A large suitcase sat there. She opened it, fingers numb.
Inside were documents. Printed emails. Photos. Satellite maps. Bank records. Land deeds. Everything she had been researching—and more. Even files she hadn’t found yet. Even names she didn’t recognize.
And tucked into one side, she found a sealed envelope.
Her name was written on it.
In her husband’s handwriting.
Mira.
She tore it open with shaking hands.
⸻
My dearest Mira,
If you’re reading this, something has gone wrong. And someone has chosen to make it right.
The man you met—Prakash—was a friend. A good one. He promised to watch over you when I couldn’t anymore. I told him everything—about your next book, the threats, the files I had kept hidden. He took the evidence and went underground.
They got to him too, eventually. I feared they might.
But if he reached you, even just once, then he kept his promise. He always believed in things beyond our understanding—souls with unfinished business, debts unpaid.
Maybe that’s how he found you, even in death.
Use what you found. Finish what you started. Don’t look back. The truth is waiting.
And Mira—live.
Yours, always,
Aarav
⸻
The letter slipped from her fingers.
Mira stood in the middle of the rain, her eyes burning, her mind unraveling and reassembling all at once.
The fire in the distance still glowed. But it no longer mattered.
She had everything she needed now.
Not just evidence. Not just truth.
She had purpose.
She wiped the tears from her cheeks, looked one last time at Prakash’s body—and closed the door of the crashed car.
Then, slowly, she got back into the Jeep, placed the suitcase on the backseat, and drove into the storm. Alone. But not afraid.
Because somewhere in the spaces between memory and myth, between the living and the dead, a man in a brown raincoat had come to her door… and saved her life.
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