chapter - 0.3 Clues and Mind Mapping

The board in my office had started to breathe.

Not literally — not yet — but sometimes, when the light flickered, I swore the red threads pulsed like veins. Every photograph had grown heavier on the wall, every pinned clue a weight tugging at my skull.

Sleep had become a myth. Every time I tried, the case followed me.

The woman’s painted smile.

The number.

My name on her map.

I told myself it was stress. But deep down, I knew better — obsession is a quieter word for possession.

---

By the third day, I had begun rebuilding the case from scratch.

Each photo, each report, each forensic detail.

Pinned. Tagged. Connected.

My mind worked faster than my hands — thoughts darting like insects, colliding, reforming patterns. When I couldn’t see the answers on paper, I saw them behind my eyes: glowing lines across darkness, a vast mental maze that only I could walk through.

Every investigation has a rhythm — a heartbeat that you learn to follow.

This one, though, had two.

One was mine.

The other… I wasn’t so sure.

---

Sana Verma, the first victim, had no direct ties to the old 1987 murders. Different cities. Different decades. But their psychological profiles matched almost perfectly.

Both women had withdrawn from social circles in the weeks before their deaths. Both had reported hearing “whispers.”

Both were obsessed with patterns — numbers, drawings, sequences.

And both had written letters they never sent.

I found one among Sana’s belongings — a torn note inside a poetry book. The writing was uneven, shaky.

“He comes when the light bends. When you see yourself where you shouldn’t. Don’t look at mirrors after midnight.”

I Stared at the words until they blurred. Something about them itched beneath my skin.

---

I began drawing the mind map on my wall again — not the evidence, but what connected the people.

Behavior. Belief. Fear.

Those are the real clues. Always have been.

I marked the center with a single word: MIRROR.

Every victim had something reflective near their body — coins, glass, water.

Ritual symmetry.

Reflection.

The killer wasn’t leaving trophies. He was leaving messages.

For me.

---

That night, Meera found me still in the office, sketching circles on the glass board.

“Sir, you haven’t eaten in two days,” she said.

“Food can wait. Patterns can’t.”

She hesitated. “You’re… talking to the wall.”

“I’m not talking to it.”

I looked at the map — at the lines, the pins, the names — and for a brief moment, I thought I saw movement behind the transparent glass.

A figure. My own reflection.

But it didn’t move when I did.

I blinked. Gone.

She left without another word.

---

Sometime after midnight, my phone buzzed.

No number. No voice. Just static. Then, through the noise — a faint whisper.

“You’re drawing it wrong.”

I Froz !

“Who is this?”

Silence.

Then a low sound, almost like laughter, but distorted — like a tape warping.

“You missed one dot.”

The call ended.

I looked back at the board. At the hundreds of red lines.

And then I saw it — a small gap between the victims’ names. A missing connection.

In my memory, I saw the candle again — its flame flickering in perfect rhythm, casting two shadows instead of one.

Two killers.

Or one — with two faces.

---

By dawn, I redrew the entire web. Lines upon lines, looping endlessly. The patterns began to form a symbol — not random, but ancient, geometric, like something older than language.

It wasn’t just a map anymore.

It was an eye.

Right in the center — where all the threads met — was a small empty space.

My marker hovered above it.

I didn’t need to write it, but I did anyway.

ARIN.

---

For a long time, I just stared at it.

The sound of my own breathing filled the room, uneven, too loud.

In the silence, I heard faint tapping behind me — like fingertips against glass.

When I turned, the board was empty.

All the lines, the names, the photos — gone.