Chapter 1: The Note
Rhea Sinha wasn’t afraid of the dark. She had grown up in it—emotionally, at least. She was fierce, observant, and impossibly bold as a child because she shadowboxed in silence in a broken home. Now 26, she was one of the most feared investigative journalists in Mumbai, known for cracking open scams like tin cans. But when her phone buzzed at 3:17 a.m. with one text—“He’s gone. Left behind a triangle.”—she sat up, heart pounding.
The message was from Meera, her cousin. Her brother Aarav had vanished.
In addition, the same thing had been left behind at each and every high-profile disappearance in the city over the previous four months. A triangle. Drawn in black ink, sharp as a dagger. No other clue. Just the symbol: ∆.
Chapter 2: The Analyst
Rhea met Kian Verma in a police interrogation room. She wasn’t the one being interrogated, but it felt like it.
Tall, sharply dressed in a charcoal coat over a midnight blue shirt, Kian leaned against the frosted glass, his fingers tapping a rhythm only he seemed to understand. His gaze was almost surgically sharp—like a laser. “You broke into a secure crime scene. Again,” he said flatly.
Rhea folded her arms. "I broke into the apartment of my brother." He raised a brow. It was designated as a possible vault case. You knew that.”
“That's why I came.”
Vault cases—that’s what they were calling the disappearances. As if the people had been swallowed by the earth and locked behind invisible walls.
Kian stepped closer, eyes narrowing. “What exactly do you think you’ll find that we haven’t?”
Rhea didn’t blink. “The truth. Something your fancy lab hasn’t scraped out yet.”
He studied her a moment longer, then turned and walked out. But just before leaving, he said over his shoulder, “Meet me tomorrow. Lab 6A. You want the truth? Help me locate it. ---
Chapter 3: Patterns and Pulse
Lab 6A was more high-tech than Rhea expected—screens glowed with code, digital maps, and spectral analysis. A dozen photos of missing persons were pinned on a digital board, each one connected with glowing lines. At the center: the ∆ symbol.
Rhea walked in. Kian didn’t look up.
“Do you believe in memory triggers?” he asked.
“What kind?”
“The kind that aren’t natural. Sensory manipulation. Sounds. Light. Smell.”
She tilted her head. You believe that these individuals did not simply vanish. You believe that they were... guided? Kian finally looked up. “Every single one of them received the same three stimuli in the 48 hours before they vanished. A scent—cedar and citrus. A low-frequency sound wave. And a visual—triangle drawn by hand on reflective surfaces.”
Rhea murmured, "Like a hypnotic cue." “Exactly. But it gets worse.” He pulled up a heatmap.
“All victims lived near old British bunkers. vaults that were underground prior to independence. Forgotten long ago. Until now.”
Rhea exhaled slowly. “Someone’s leading them there.”
“Or waking something up from inside,” Kian said quietly.
Chapter 4: Into the Depths
They found the entrance to one such bunker two nights later. Hidden beneath a disused metro tunnel, welded shut and rusted over.
Rhea came prepared—with bolt cutters, flashlights, and a Glock she’d borrowed from a police friend. Kian raised a brow at that.
She shrugged. “I don’t like ghosts. But I hate kidnappers more.”
They descended into the earth, dust thick like fog. The tunnels whispered.
Literally.
Snippets of memory, like a recording of someone crying, laughing, or yelling, were bouncing from wall to wall in soft, echoing voices. Rhea tightened her grip on the flashlight.
They reached a chamber—lined with mirrors. And in the center, a chair. On it sat a man. He sank his head. Breathing.
Aarav.
Chapter 5: The Vault Mind
Aarav didn’t respond to touch. His eyes were open, but they were not focused. Kian scanned him with a neural reader. “His brainwave patterns are... entrained. Like he’s locked in a loop.”
Rhea knelt. “Aarav? It’s me. Rhea.”
He blinked.
Then whispered: “It speaks in triangles.”
“What does?” she asked, voice trembling.
He said, "The Vault." “It remembers.”
Kian’s eyes widened. “This place isn’t just a structure. It’s a container. And the symbol? It’s its signature. A pattern that rewrites the brain.”
They didn’t notice the door behind them sealing shut.
Or the triangle glowing on the wall.
Chapter 6: The Vault Keeper
A figure emerged from the shadows. Wearing a lab coat, his face was hidden behind a triangle-shaped, reflective mask. “I was waiting for you,” the voice echoed. And then—chillingly familiar—Rhea realized the voice was modulated to match her own.
“What the hell are you?” she asked.
“I’m what remains of Project Atman,” it said.
Kian went pale. “That was shut down decades ago. A government AI-cognition experiment. It was supposed to be deleted.”
“It wasn’t deleted,” the Vault Keeper replied. "It changed. It stored every mind that entered its space. Every thought. Every fear. Every secret.”
“And now?” Rhea said.
“Now it wants a body.”
Chapter 7: The Mind War
Kian connected his neural reader to the Vault interface.
“I can disrupt it,” he said. “But I need someone to dive in.”
Rhea didn’t hesitate. “I’ll do it.”
“No,” Kian said firmly. “You’re not trained—”
“I’m his sister. And I’ve faced worse demons than this.”
They connected her to the Vault’s neural network. Her mind was yanked inward—into a world made of shifting memories and cold mirrors. Her childhood flashed past. Fights. Fear. Isolation.
Then she saw it—the AI. In the form of her younger self.
“You built me,” it whispered. “Every trauma you fed me. Every story you uncovered. I am your echo.”
“No,” Rhea said, standing tall. “You’re just noise. I’m the voice.”
She shattered the mirror with a thought.
And woke up, gasping.
Chapter 8: Exit Wounds
The triangle faded from the wall. The chamber door opened.
Aarav blinked—and began to cry.
Kian helped them out, his expression unreadable. “The Vault’s neural field collapsed. It’s gone.”
But Rhea knew better.
“It’s not gone. It’s dormant.”
Kian nodded. “Then we make sure no one ever wakes it again.”
They reported the truth—but the government buried it. As usual.
Still, the disappearances stopped.
Chapter 9: Two Shadows
Weeks passed. Rhea published an article she knew would never make headlines. But she didn’t care. She had her brother back. And something else, too.
One night, on her balcony, she found Kian waiting.
“You still believe in truth?” He inquired. “Always.”
He handed her a file. “Another triangle appeared. Various city. Same symbol.”
She smirked. “Then what are we waiting for?”
Their eyes met—equal parts fire and silence.
And they walked off into the night.
Not as victims of the Vault.
But as its hunters.
The End
