*Chapter 1: The Day I Played the Wrong Formula*

Kolkata , 1809.

It has been raining for three days. I have no umbrella, no job, three annas in my pocket. I am sitting in the mess in gollamari. Lizards are calling on the wall. My name is Arindam Sen. I have run away from Dhaka College for two months. Why did I run away? Because in 2026, I woke up and saw that it was 1809, and I was a philosophy student.

Transmigration. It sounds like a story, but it doesn't fill my stomach.

There was a knock on the door. The mess owner, Haripada.

"Sir, rent?"

"Uncle, two more days."

"Two days have passed and it has been a month. If you don't pay the rent, I will float you in the Ganges."

Haripada left. I looked out the window. The street was sparkling with gaslight. Horse-drawn carriages were passing. The gentlemen's servants were walking with umbrellas on their heads. And me? I was thinking whether to take poison or steal.

There was an envelope lying on the table. I found it this morning on the street in Chitpur. The envelope read: *"Only for the desperate"*.

I am desperate, after all. I opened it.

Inside was a yellow piece of paper. Written in ink:

> *Recipe No. 9: Secret scribe*

> *Ingredients*: 3 crow feathers, a pinch of cremation soil, 7 drops of your own blood.

> *Method*: On the night of the new moon, mix blood with soil and write on the feather—"What I see, no one sees." Then eat it.

> *Result*: You will see secretly, write secretly, and it will remain secret.

> *Caution*: If you make a mistake, your head will explode and your brains will come out.

I laughed. Surely it was the work of a madman. Crow feathers? Crematorium soil? But...

My stomach is pounding. I can't pay the rent. I'm an engineer from 2026, now I'm a beggar. It's better to have my brains out than this.

12 midnight. New moon. The rain has stopped. I'm walking towards the Keoratola crematorium. People will say I'm crazy. I know I'm crazy myself. But the burning in my stomach doesn't accept logic.

I took the soil from the crematorium. Crow feathers in my hand—I picked them up on the roof at noon. I cut my finger and let 7 drops of blood fall. I wrote on the paper: "What I see, no one sees."

Then I ate it.

The taste? Like burnt paper and iron. It stuck in my throat. I drank water.

A minute. Two minutes. Nothing happened.

I laughed. "damm it."

Just then, someone played a flute inside my head.

A sharp, ear-piercing sound. I fell to the ground. The world was spinning before my eyes. I was vomiting. Blood was pouring from my nose.

And then... silence.

I sat up. The crematorium was empty. But no, not empty.

A man was standing by the ghat. White clothes, bare body. He had no head. Smoke was rising from his severed throat. He was "looking" at me.

I started to scream. No sound came out of his throat.

The decapitated man walked towards me. A voice came from inside his chest, as if opening a rotten wooden box:

"You... saw..."

I ran. I didn't look back. I turned back to the mess and closed the door, shaking.

I looked in the mirror. My eyes... my eyes were completely black. No pearls. No white parts. Just black, like the night sky.

And inside the mirror, on my shoulder, sat that decapitated man. He raises his finger and writes on my forehead:

*"Sequence 9: Cryptographer — Complete."*

*"Welcome, Shadow-Seeker. Now you'll be crazy, or a god."*

I fainted.

When I regained consciousness, it was dawn. In the mirror I was normal. My eyes were fine. The decapitated man was gone.

A new piece of paper on the table. My handwriting, but I didn't write:

> *Rule 1*: Don't tell anyone what you saw.

> *Rule 2*: Write a secret every day. If you don't, you'll get a headache.

> *Rule 3*: Your shadow is no longer yours.

I looked down.

My shadow was standing on the floor. I was sitting, but it was standing. And it was looking at me and smiling.

It wasn't smiling with my teeth. My shadow had its own teeth. Thin, like needles.

The formula worked.

I was now a cryptographer.

And I realized—the thought of paying rent was the last normal thought in my life.

___

Three days after becoming a cryptographer.

My headache started. It was as if someone was hammering my forehead. I remembered Rule 2: *Write a secret every day. If you don't write, you will get a headache.*

I sat down at the table. I took paper and pen. What should I write?

I wrote: "Haripada Kaka steals rice from the mess at night and sells it."

As soon as I finished writing, the pain disappeared. My head felt light. And the writing on the paper... the ink dried up and turned into smoke.

I understood. To gain power this way, you have to "act". Cryptographer means writing secretly.

I couldn't sleep at night. Suddenly, the world before my eyes blurred. It felt like I was sinking under water. I was drowning... I was drowning...

I opened my eyes and saw that I was no longer in the mess.

I am sitting at the head of a huge gray table. Fog all around. 6 chairs at the table. I am sitting in a high-backed chair. A brass nameplate appeared in front of me through the fog: *"Empty"*.

What is this? A dream?

Just then, information entered my head. As if someone swallowed it. This is my *"shadow-fog"*. I have a "domain" even though I am Seq 9. If I want, I can drag the shadows of those whose shadows I have touched here.

I closed my eyes to test. Yesterday I saw a man on the street. Burn marks on his hand, doctor. I stepped on his shadow. I remembered his face.

"Come."

The fog settled on the chair to the left of the table with a thud. A shadow-figure sat down. No face, but his voice was trembling.

"E... where is it? I was sleeping!"

I cleared my throat. You have to dress up as a "mysterious boss" like Klein Moretti.

"You are in the court of the universe. I called you. I gave you your name... *Butcher*."

The man shuddered. "You... you know I am Seq 9 of the blood-path?"

I didn't know. I guessed, it stuck. I shook my head lightly.

"I know everything. Your sequence is stuck. You can't get the materials. Can I give it. In exchange?"

"What... what do you want?"

"Information. Information on Shadow-Calcutta. It will come here every new moon."

Butcher lowered his head. "Joe's order, Universe."

I sent him away. The shadow-figure disappeared into smoke. I sat alone. My chest was pounding.

I created a secret organization. My own tarot club.

Suddenly, there was a knock on the door. In reality.

"Arindam Babu! Open the door! Police!"

Police? I jumped up. As soon as the door opened, there were two sepoys and a sergeant. The sergeant's eyes were red. He had the paper I had written on in his hand. Which had turned into smoke!

"What were you writing about Haripada?"

My throat went dry. "What... nothing."

"Don't lie. Haripada hung himself this morning. Before he died, he was holding this paper in his chest. Here it was written—'Haripada is a thief'. How did you know?"

I looked behind the sergeant.

His shadow... no shadow.

Instead, the shadow of a black dog was sitting at his feet. The dog was looking at me and licking its tongue.

The sergeant grabbed my collar. "You are a shadow seeker, aren't you? We are from Company Bahadur. Come with us."

I understood. I became a cipher. Now the hunt begins.

My eyes are turning black again. And my shadow... my shadow stands up from the floor. He has a knife in his hand. Not my knife. The shadow's own knife.

I whispered, "Sir, tell me something."

"What?"

"No one sees what I see."

And my shadow slits the throat of the sergeant's shadow-dog.

The sergeant screams. Blood is pouring from his leg. But there are no cuts on his body.

I laugh. For the first time, a real laugh.

"Welcome, Company Bahadur. The game is on."