Breathless, Arjun descends once more into the basement. His flashlight catches on something black at the far corner. An old reel-to-reel tape recorder lies hidden behind a crate. Curiosity warring with fear, he lifts the dusted recorder. "Do not listen," is scrawled in faded ink on a worn tape cover.
Against his judgment, Arjun loads the tape and presses play. A scream of static, then his own voice emerges. It says calmly: "If you're hearing this, you failed again." Every hair on his arm stands on end. It's the exact tone he used last week, editing audio quietly in an apartment. But how…? He never recorded something like this.
Clutching the recorder, he backs away. The room grows colder. On rewind, the tape starts over: "—must change the past." The phrase is cut off. Arjun trembles as he rewinds it to hear more, but the machine fails. Now there's only silence. All around him, the basement feels oppressively still.
His mind is racing – the voices, the writing, the missed call – they're all converging. Something very old turns on behind him: footsteps. Arjun spins, but only his pale shadow on the wall moves. Then, a thud above. He flinches. In the silence, a second knock comes – right on the hatch above the basement.
Arjun panics and presses the record button. The crackling audio lights up with static – and through it, loud knocking as if someone is frantically pounding on that hatch from above