It was a rainy Tuesday night. Thunder rumbled in the distance, and the street outside my house was wrapped in fog and silence. I was halfway through solving a math problem when I heard the knock.
Three short taps. Then nothing.
I froze. It was 8:47 p.m. Who knocks at this hour?
I tiptoed to the door and peeked through the peephole. A woman stood there, dressed in a black raincoat with the hood pulled low. She didn’t move. She just stood there like a shadow that didn’t belong.
Before I could speak, she said, low and clear, “Don’t trust your mother. Not yet.”
Then she slipped a yellow envelope through the door and disappeared into the night.
I didn’t open it right away. My hands trembled. But something inside me already knew—this wasn’t a prank.
I waited until my mother had gone to bed before opening it. Inside was a faded photograph, a baby girl being held by a tired-looking woman. The baby was me. On the back of the photo was a birth certificate.
Name: Rhea Deshmukh.
But my name was Rhea Sinha. That’s what I’d always believed.
Tucked behind the photo was a torn, yellowed piece of paper. It read: She’s watching you. Wait for the red moon.
I couldn’t sleep. The words haunted me.
The next day, during lunch break, I used the school library computer. I typed: “Rhea Deshmukh missing 2007.”
Just one article appeared. Twin Kidnapping Case: One Infant Found Dead, the Other Still Missing.
Two newborn girls vanished from a hospital in Pune. One body was discovered weeks later. The other baby was never found. The mother claimed a nurse had taken them, but no such nurse existed. The case was never solved.
The missing baby was named Rhea Deshmukh.
That night, I searched every drawer in our house. No birth certificate. No hospital records. No photos of me before age two.
When I casually asked my mother, she smiled too quickly. “You’re overthinking, Rhea. Someone must be playing a joke.”
But something in her eyes looked… scared.
And then it got worse.
The envelope vanished from my folder at school. My room looked slightly disturbed, like someone had searched through it. Inside my schoolbag, I found a tiny black chip tucked in the lining.
Someone was watching me.
I remembered the note: Wait for the red moon.
The next day, our science teacher mentioned a lunar eclipse that would paint the moon red—the first in over a decade.
It wasn’t a coincidence.
That evening, I received an anonymous email. No subject. No message. Just a pin—coordinates to a location outside the city. An old farmhouse.
I didn’t tell anyone. I waited until my mother was asleep, stole her scooter keys, and followed the map.
The farmhouse stood lonely, swallowed by weeds and fog. The windows were cracked. The wooden gate creaked in the wind.
Inside, everything smelled like dust and damp secrets.
Upstairs, under a flickering bulb, I saw her.
A woman. Older. Frail. But familiar. The woman from the photo.
When she saw me, her eyes filled with tears. “Rhea,” she whispered. “You came.”
I couldn’t speak. I took a step back.
That’s when I heard soft footsteps behind me.
I turned.
A girl stood there. Same face. Same eyes. Same voice.
She smiled. “I’m your sister,” she said. “Your twin.”
I shook my head. “No… that’s not possible.”
She looked at the woman, then back at me. “She took you away. Lied to everyone. Told them I died. But I didn’t.”
“Why would she do that?” I asked.
“She was trying to protect you,” the woman said quietly. “From what you were born into.”
The girl stepped closer. “We weren’t just kidnapped. We were chosen. Born into something... dark. A legacy. A ritual. She ran. She tried to bury it. But legacies don’t die. They wait.”
“What legacy?” I asked, voice barely a whisper.
“You’ll see,” the girl said. “The red moon... wasn’t just a sign.”
The woman’s face turned pale. She reached out with trembling hands. “No. It’s too early. She shouldn’t have come.”
She staggered forward, panic in her eyes. “Rhea, listen to me. You need to leave. Right now.”
The room grew cold.
The lights flickered.
My reflection in the cracked window moved a second slower than me.
The girl tilted her head, smiling. “You still don’t feel it, do you? But you will. It’s in your blood.”
The woman suddenly screamed, stepping between us. “She’s not ready! You brought her too early!”
Then the lights went out.
I felt the door slam shut behind me.
A whisper in my ear—my own voice, but not mine. “You came home.”
Everything went black.
I woke up with a start. The first thing I noticed was the heavy silence around me. I wasn’t in the farmhouse anymore. My room. But everything felt off. The air was thick. The walls closed in. My heart raced. It was still dark outside, the rain still beating on the window, but the normalcy I’d expected was gone.
The envelope. The photograph. The words. They weren’t a dream.
I reached for the envelope. It was still in my desk drawer, untouched.
There was another piece of paper inside it now, one I hadn’t noticed before. In a shaky hand, the message was clear:
You’re not safe. They will come for you. Stay hidden.
I felt my pulse quicken. They had to be talking about the woman. The girl. Whoever they were, whatever they were… they were tied to something bigger than me. Something ancient.
A knock echoed through the room, soft but distinct.
Three short taps.
I didn’t move.
“Rhea,” the voice called softly from the other side. “Rhea, open the door.”
I recognized it.
My mother’s voice.
But she hadn’t been home when I left. She hadn’t been home when I woke up.
I backed away from the door. The note in my hand fluttered in the cold breeze now creeping into my room, and the familiar shadows of the night took on an unsettling form.
I looked out the window.
The moon was red.
And something... or someone... was waiting for me.
.....
Ending Note:
They say the truth sets you free.
But sometimes, the truth is a door, once opened, it never shuts.
And not everything that waits behind it… is waiting for freedom.
—bhoomglobe
React
