chapter 1 - the first flow in the system

It has been exactly one week since I moved into this big, new house with my husband Rohan .he is a lawyer, and he is the reason why we moved to this place to find peace. Seven days of total quiet, seven morning of forced claim But the Quit In

Enclave was a costly lie. Rohan paid Forty million rupees for this feeling of safety it cost me my job, my peace and most of whom I used to be

I sat in the upstairs library full of books I was not really using anymore .this was a place I used to love -- I grew up reading murder, miseries, thriller and that addiction To solving puzzle is exactly the reason is why I pursued investigative journalism in the first place. Now my anxiety pill - a small chalky tablet -always made the world feel soft blurring the edge just enough to keep my worries away,, but it couldn't stop me from seeing The bright splash of color outside. The house was too big and The floor was cold marble. I didn't feel comfortable hear.

​It was 6:30 AM.

​The street in this secured Gurugram community was perfectly neat. Trimmed lawns, expensive cars, and secrets hidden behind locked gates. This sterile place was good for Rohan, my lawyer husband, and what my doctor said I needed.

​But at 6:31 AM, the perfection broke.

​A child’s bright, yellow bicycle was on the road outside House #11. It had fallen on its side, and one tire was turning slowly. It was messy. The problem wasn't the bike, but the man who came out of House #9, two doors down—Mr. Kulkarni.

​Mr. Kulkarni was fifty years old. He was the Head of the Enclave committee. Everyone trusted him. He was the creator of the Enclave’s order.

​He was wearing a simple white linen kurta and pyjamas. He moved quietly. He just walked to the road, bent down, and picked up the yellow bicycle.

​He didn't roll it away. He carried it carefully, like glass. He walked straight to his own large, black-tiled garage. The door went up silently. He disappeared inside.

​The door came down without a sound. The street was perfectly clean again.

​I was the only witness, watching from my window. My medicine couldn't stop the cold reality of what I saw.

​I didn't know the child was missing yet. That news would come in two hours. But my journalist's mind, the part I promised Rohan I had shut down, immediately started looking for a pattern.

​He didn't pick up trash. He hid proof that someone was here, before anyone even knew they were gone. He was the flaw.

​This was the first scary problem in Aakriti Enclave. And I, the one person supposed to ignore the truth, was the only one who saw it. I pressed my silver ring—Rohan’s gift for my recovery—so hard that the metal cut into my skin.

​I had a choice: Trust the quiet safety I paid for with my mental health, or trust the unseen pattern that asked for everything I had left.

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