Then the reflection spoke: “But you will be. Because Asur isn’t a creature, Shubhankar. It’s a choice you keep making.”

Shubhankar never believed in evil. He believed in DNA, chemical traces, and the mathematics of decay. As the head of the CBI’s Forensic Division, he had put away 47 serial killers. “Evil is just broken biology,” he would tell his trainees.

Then came the Naimisharanya killings.

“I am not a killer,” Shubhankar whispered.

Nine bodies, arranged in a spiral. No blood. No struggle. And on every chest, a single symbol carved with surgical precision: the eye within a triangle .

That was when the visions started.