The next morning, at around 6 o'clock.
Surya yawned deeply as he walked through the gates of Delhi Public School, his school bag slung over one shoulder and his hair still slightly messy from sleep from the previous night.
The campus was nearly deserted at this hour. Only a few early-bird students and the maintenance staff were visible in the distance, going about their routines.
The security guard at the gate had barely glanced at him, too busy with his morning chai to question why a student was arriving so absurdly early.
He had been killed by that headless student yesterday evening around 6 o'clock while playing what felt more like a nightmare than a game.
And now he is back here again, why well do not worry he has no tendency of suicide it is just that after the mandatory 12-hour cooldown period of his substitute paper doll had finally refreshed and was ready for use again. Hurray!
The timing worked out perfectly he had simply set his phone alarm for 5:30 AM for today and dragged himself out of bed as desperately as he wanted to sleep, perfect time to wake up while the city was still quiet.
The alarm had been brutal, dragging him from dreams into the cold reality of pre-dawn darkness. He had sat on the edge of his bed for a full five minutes, willing himself to move, to stand, to get dressed.
When he reached the familiar school pathway lined with gulmohar trees, Surya found a comfortable spot against one of the larger tree trunks and settled down with his back against the rough bark.
The morning air was crisp and cool, carrying the faint scent of dew and blooming flowers with it.
Pulling himself from the intoxicating air he pulled out his phone with a mixture of anticipation and ....thrill?
His heart was already beating faster, that familiar cocktail of fear and excitement flooding his system. This was insane.
He was about to voluntarily enter a world where he had already died once. But the alternative was to never progress, never understand what this game truly offered, never unlock the potential of the Panchmukhi Art. And that was unacceptable.
"Bhoot Katha," he muttered under his breath, finger hovering over the screen. "Let us see what horrors await today."
The moment he activated the game, the world around him began its now-familiar transformation.
The gentle morning light started to dim and fade, as if someone was slowly turning down the brightness on reality itself. The fresh, clean air became heavy and oppressive, carrying again with it that strange, otherworldly quality that made his skin crawl. It was like stepping from a sunlit room into a basement, that immediate sense of wrongness and displacement.
Once again, Surya found himself in that twisted version of his school.
The colors were muted, the shadows deeper and more angular than they should be. Everything looked almost right but subtly off, like a photograph that had been slightly overexposed and then corrected badly. The uncanny valley effect made his stomach clench with unease.
The first thing that caught his eye was the small clay diya, still flickering with those eerie yellow-green flames in the exact same spot where he had first encountered it.
Based on his gaming experience, Surya had concluded that this mystical oil lamp served as some kind of checkpoint or respawn point.
It is just like a save station in traditional video games.
Every time a player died in this supernatural realm, they would return here to begin anew.
It was both a blessing and a curse, offering safety while serving as a constant reminder of failure. The flame never seemed to consume whatever fuel it burned, never grew brighter or dimmer. Just that constant, unwavering flicker that marked this spot as significant.
"There have to be more of these scattered throughout the game world," he mused aloud, brushing dust off his school uniform as he stood up.
"Though it would be incredibly convenient if there was one near my apartment. Having to wake up at dawn and travel all the way to school just to play a potentially deadly game is getting pretty exhausting."
The commute alone was eating into his already limited sleep schedule. Between school, work, and now this supernatural side project, he was running on maybe five hours of rest per night. Not sustainable in the long term, but necessary for now.
The morning breeze picked up in speed, rustling through the transformed gulmohar trees, and mixed within that natural sound was something far more unsettling the soft, heart-wrenching sobs of what sounded like a young child in distress.
The headless student was active again, somewhere in those dark woods.
This time, however, Surya had no intention of walking blindly toward certain death.
He also was not foolish enough to think he could stand and fight the supernatural entity in any kind of meaningful combat. Yesterday's encounter had stripped away any delusions of protagonist invincibility he might have harbored. This was not some power fantasy where he could punch ghosts to death. This was survival horror, and he was woefully underequipped.
Last night's encounter had made the brutal reality crystal clear to him, there was an enormous gap in power between himself and that monster.
With his combined strength and agility that totaled barely 10 points, he stood about as much chance against that thing as an ant would against a elephant. She had pinned him effortlessly, strangled him without breaking a sweat, if ghosts even had sweat. The memory of those cold fingers around his throat was still fresh enough to make him unconsciously rub his neck.
The smart play here was obvious to anyone that was to: run, run as fast as you can.
And since Surya was not venturing deep into the haunted grove this time, his retreat strategy proved remarkably effective.
The headless student, apparently bound to her territory among the trees, made no attempt to pursue him once he had put sufficient distance between himself and her domain. She seemed content to remain in her grove, waiting for foolish players to wander into her trap. Which meant she operated under specific rules, had boundaries and limitations. That was valuable information.
Now, with immediate death temporarily avoided, Surya could focus on what really mattered to him that was the systematic exploration of this twisted mirror version of his school.
The game world's version of Delhi Public School was divided into roughly three distinct areas that he could investigate:
The Eastern Section housed the athletic facilities like the various sports clubs that had their training grounds there, including areas for cricket, basketball, and the school's swimming pool tool.
It was usually bustling with activity during normal school hours, but who knew what lurked there in this nightmarish version. Sports equipment that moved on its own? Drowned spirits in the pool? The possibilities were endless and none of them pleasant.
The Northern Section contained the main academic buildings classrooms, laboratories, the library, and administrative offices. Nothing particularly exciting under normal circumstances, but in a world where headless students roamed freely, even the most mundane locations could hide terrors unknown. Libraries in horror games were always problematic. Too many dark corners, too many places for things to hide.
The Western Section featured the more social areas of campus the main cafeteria where students gathered for lunch, various smaller food stalls, and a small artificial lake where students often sat between classes to study or chat with friends. Water was another classic horror element. Anything involving water in games like this usually meant trouble.
For Surya's purposes, it did not really matter which direction he chose to explore first.
He was still in the very early stages of this Horror game, which meant he needed to systematically map out the entire area if he wanted to understand the rules and find a way to actually progress rather than just survive. Knowledge was power. Every corner explored was data gathered. Every monster encountered was a lesson learned, even if that lesson came at the cost of a paper doll.
If he died while exploring...well, that was not the end of the world for him anymore.
He had a paper substitute ready to take the hit, and each death would taught him something valuable about the dangers that awaited him. It was a morbid way to think about it, but death had become a learning tool rather than a fail state. As long as he had substitutes, he could afford to take risks.
Taking a deep breath to steady his nerves and clear his head, Surya straightened his shoulders and walked confidently toward the eastern section of the school, ready to face whatever supernatural challenges lay ahead on his path.
His footsteps echoed strangely in the empty courtyard, each sound seeming to linger longer than it should. The path ahead was shrouded in that same dim, filtered light that made everything look like an old photograph. Somewhere in the distance, he could hear water dripping, a rhythmic sound that had no obvious source.
The eastern section loomed before him, its familiar buildings rendered alien by the game's transformation. He could see the cricket pitch in the distance, though the grass looked darker, almost black in the strange light. The basketball courts were empty, their painted lines seeming to glow faintly.
"Right then," he murmured, more to hear his own voice than anything else. "Let us see what fresh hell awaits in the sports section."