True horrors start from small mistakes which are often not looked upon ..This is the same mistake i did
LET'S start from the beginning!
The room was dim, shadows clinging to the walls like watchful eyes. A single bulb flickered above, its weak glow barely cutting through the heavy silence. The air was thick so heavy that even the faint chorus of crickets outside seemed to have quieted, as though nature itself feared what was coming.
Mary stood in the center of the room, her face taut with anger, though beneath it, something deeper stirred fear. Her fists clenched and unclenched as she paced, the weight of unspoken truths pressing down on her.
Jason, her teenage son, watched with wide, uncertain eyes. His chest tightened with unease. He had seen his mother angry before, but this ..this was different.
"I can't believe this!" Mary's voice cracked the silence, sharp and raw. "You have no idea what you've done!"
Jason shifted, guilt rising even before he fully understood why. "Mom, I… I don't understand."
Her eyes blazed, and for a heartbeat, Jason thought she might strike him—not with her hands, but with the force of her words. She turned away, muttering curses under her breath, her pacing growing sharper, faster.
"Dammit," she hissed, as though spitting out poison. "He's coming. And you—you have no clue what you've unleashed."
Jason's stomach sank. Something in her voice, in the way her jaw trembled ever so slightly, told him this wasn't about punishment. This was about survival.
He swallowed, his voice barely more than a whisper. "Who's coming, Mom?"
Mary froze, then turned slowly, her eyes locking onto his with a mixture of fury and dread. When she spoke again, her voice was low, almost reverent.
"The Guardian. The one we were supposed to leave alone."
The name settled over them like ash after a fire—silent, suffocating, inescapable. The room seemed to shrink. Even their own breathing felt too loud, each heartbeat thundering like a warning drum.
Jason's mind spun backward, replaying the moment he'd touched the door. That strange, weathered door at the edge of the old property—covered in carvings he hadn't recognized, humming with an energy he had thought was only his imagination. His mother had warned him about it, had called it forbidden, connected to something—or someone—named Zhardat.
But curiosity had been stronger than caution.
And now, as the air grew colder, Jason wished more than anything that he had left it alone.
Three Months Earlier…
The memory cracked open with the sudden warmth of Kerala's sun. The air was alive with the scent of cardamom and pepper, the earthy smell of wet soil after rain. Emerald palms swayed gently, and beyond them, the endless stretch of paddy fields shimmered in the heat.
Jason had never wanted to come here. His mother had insisted, claiming that a new start in this land of green and gold would help him find his footing again. "Kerala is different," she had told him, her eyes bright with a hope he didn't share. "It heals."
He hadn't believed her. Not then.
But as the flashback unfolded, there they were—Mary with her determined stride, carrying the weight of both their futures, and Jason, trailing behind with headphones in, unwilling to admit that the world around him was beautiful.
Neither of them could have guessed that beneath Kerala's serene surface, shadows were waiting. That the door standing hidden in the grove wasn't just wood and carvings, but a threshold—one that was never meant to be opened.
And Jason… had opened it