People believe horror belongs to the night.
They're wrong.
It began at 2:26 PM.
Bright sunlight.
Crowded street.
Children returning from school.
Vendors shouting.
Normal day.
Arjun stood in the middle of it all.
Sweating.
Hands shaking.
He hadn't come here intentionally.
He just… walked.
Like something inside him was navigating.
His vision blurred occasionally.
Voices overlapping inside his head.
"We're hungry."
"Too many doors closed."
"Open them."
He pressed his palms against his ears.
"Stop."
A woman bumped into him.
"Watch it!"
The moment she touched him—
Something snapped.
Arjun's body froze.
Then jerked unnaturally.
His spine arched backward violently.
Bones cracking audibly.
People around him stepped back.
"What's wrong with him?"
His mouth opened slowly.
Too wide.
Wider than Raghav's had.
A wet, tearing sound filled the air.
His jaw dislocated.
Skin around his cheeks splitting at the corners.
Blood trickling down.
But he wasn't screaming.
He was smiling.
And then—
The shadows moved.
Not around him.
From him.
Thin black shapes exploded outward from his chest like spears of smoke with bones.
They pierced the nearest people instantly.
A teenage boy.
An old man.
The woman who bumped into him.
No warning.
No build-up.
Just sudden impalement.
Bodies lifted slightly off the ground.
Eyes wide.
No time to scream.
The shadows withdrew—
And when they did—
Skin came with them.
Faces peeled halfway.
Ribs exposed.
Blood sprayed across the pavement.
Now the screaming started.
Pure chaos.
People running.
Falling.
Slipping in blood.
Arjun stood still in the center.
His eyes fully black.
Veins dark and pulsing under cracked skin.
Inside his head—
He was still there.
Watching.
Trapped.
"No… stop… STOP!"
But the entity wasn't listening anymore.
It was feeding.
Every person touched by the shadow didn't just die.
They twitched.
Their bodies jerked.
Spines bending wrong.
Heads tilting.
Like puppets trying to stand again.
Three of them rose.
Not fully alive.
Not dead.
Skin hanging loosely.
Eyes empty.
They turned toward others.
And attacked.
Teeth tearing throats.
Fingers digging into eye sockets.
A child tried to run—
One of the twisted bodies grabbed him by the leg.
Pulled.
There was a sound like fabric ripping.
But it wasn't fabric.
2:31 PM
Five minutes.
That's all it took.
The street was silent again.
Bodies everywhere.
Blood pooling under sunlight.
Flies already gathering.
Arjun collapsed to his knees.
Control returning slowly.
He looked around.
Thirty… maybe more.
He vomited.
But again—
Soil.
Wood fragments.
And something new.
Teeth.
Human teeth.
He touched his face.
His jaw slowly slid back into place.
Bones shifting painfully.
He could feel something inside his chest—
Growing larger.
Stronger.
Satisfied.
A whisper echoed inside him:
"Doors multiply when broken."
The News
By evening—
The massacre was everywhere.
News channels.
Social media.
They called it a terrorist attack.
Chemical hallucination.
Mass hysteria.
Nobody mentioned shadows.
Nobody mentioned bodies rising again.
Because the footage—
Had glitched.
Every camera near the scene had corrupted data from 2:26 PM to 2:31 PM.
Exactly five minutes.
Like the cemetery footage.
Someone—or something—didn't want evidence.
Meera Returns Differently
That night—
Not 3:17.
Not midnight.
But 8:42 PM.
Arjun sat alone in darkness.
He hadn't turned on lights.
Didn't deserve light.
The air shifted.
Temperature dropped suddenly.
And she appeared.
Not crawling.
Not rotten.
Standing.
Whole.
Beautiful.
Just like before the accident.
Meera.
Her eyes normal.
Soft.
But too calm.
"You're becoming what they want."
He sobbed.
"I didn't mean to hurt anyone…"
She walked closer.
Touched his face gently.
Her fingers cold—but not dead cold.
"They needed you broken."
"Who are they?"
Her expression darkened.
"They're not ghosts."
"They're not demons."
"They're what remains."
"Remains of what?"
She leaned close.
"Every driver who closed their eyes for one second."
His blood froze.
"Every person who ignored warning signs."
"Every death that should not have happened."
"They attach to guilt."
"They grow through regret."
"They don't haunt houses."
"They haunt choices."
Arjun's chest tightened.
"So I'm just… food?"
She shook her head slowly.
"No."
"You're worse."
"You're compatible."
The lights flickered violently.
Her face distorted slightly.
Cracks appearing across her skin.
"They're not inside you."
Pause.
"They're becoming you."
The Twist
Suddenly—
His phone buzzed.
Unknown number.
He answered slowly.
This time—
It was a live video call.
The screen showed—
The hospital corridor.
Empty.
Lights flickering.
Camera shaky.
Then it turned—
And focused on a newborn baby in a glass crib.
Tiny.
Sleeping.
Peaceful.
A shadow moved near the crib.
Thin.
Stretching from the wall.
Arjun's heart dropped.
"No…"
The layered voice spoke calmly:
"You created thirty doors today."
Pause.
"We're expanding."
The shadow inside the hospital room leaned over the crib.
The baby's eyes slowly opened.
Completely black.
The call ended.
Final Scene
At 11:59 PM, Arjun looked into the mirror again.
But this time—
His reflection didn't wait.
It stepped forward.
Out of the glass.
A perfect copy of him.
Eyes black.
Skin cracked.
Smiling gently.
"You can't stop it now."
The real Arjun stepped back.
"What are you?"
The copy tilted its head.
"I'm the version that doesn't resist."
Behind the copy—
The mirror world wasn't empty.
It was full.
Hundreds of shadowed figures standing in rows.
Waiting.
The copy reached out.
Touched Arjun's chest.
And whispered:
"Midnight isn't special."
Pause.
"But tomorrow at 6:06 AM…"
It smiled wider.
"…we take the city."
The lights went out.