Chapter 5: Echoes in Silence

Mitra picked up the call almost instantly.

“Sir…” Her voice was shaky. “I don’t know how to describe the session. It was… strange. Quiet. Heavy. Like the room itself forgot how to breathe. It started with just emptiness and silence. Then came the tears. A mental breakdown. And somewhere in between… truth. Or at least, something that felt very close to it.”

Pranav leaned forward in his seat, eyes narrowing. “Go on.”

“At first, we thought Raghavan was slipping — forgetting things, or delusional. But no. He remembers everything — clearly, painfully. He said he came home around 6:30 PM after his evening lecture. His routine was fixed: come home, shower, coffee, and later, dinner. But that day… he said Lakshmi insisted on giving him coffee first. It was strange, he said. Forced, almost. He felt she was acting differently. But he didn’t push back.”

There was a long pause.

“Then he went to shower. And when he came out… everything was over.”

“Over?” Pranav’s voice dropped to a whisper.

“Lakshmi,” Mitra said quietly. “She was lying on the bedroom floor. Lifeless. Her skull cracked. Blood was everywhere. He says he couldn’t even hear her scream, and that’s what haunts him. If someone had struck her that hard, she would’ve cried out. He would’ve heard something. But there was nothing. No sound. Just… silence.”

Pranav’s jaw tightened.

“He panicked. He said he ran to her, froze… and then picked up the Ganesha idol lying nearby. That was when he noticed the letter on the bedside table. It was addressed to no one, but it clearly said — ‘If I die, Raghavan is the reason.’”

Mitra’s voice shook with disbelief. “Sir… he says he doesn’t even know where it came from. But that letter — that one letter — sealed everything. Police came. Media exploded. No one listened to him.”

Pranav stood still for a few seconds. Then: “Did you ask him anything more? Try to dig deeper?”

“We tried. But… he won’t speak to us,” Mitra replied. “Raghavan doesn’t talk to anyone anymore. Not even eye contact. Only the doctor. That psychiatrist — he’s the only one Raghavan trusts. When we asked questions, he just shut down. It was like we weren’t even in the room. We just listened while he spoke to the doctor, and we took notes.”

Pranav exhaled, staring at the floor for a moment, mind racing.

“Alright,” he said finally. “Ask the doctor to come with you and Murali. Come straight to the office. I want to talk to him. I need to understand what kind of mental state Raghavan is really in… and if there’s more to this than what we’ve been told.”

“Yes sir,” Mitra replied quickly.

The line went dead.

Pranav turned to Thameem, already reaching for his keys. “Let’s go. Something about this is way off. Too clean. Too fast. Too… convenient.”

Thameem nodded silently, the gravity of the moment settling over them like a cold fog.

As the car sped through the dim Chennai lanes, night creeping in around them, neither spoke a word. But both knew: something was about to crack open — and whatever lay beneath might be darker than anything they’d faced before.

Meanwhile, at the institute, Dr. Adharsh packed his notes with a slow, deliberate calm. Mitra and Murali waited outside, their expressions unreadable.

The silence was no longer empty.

It was pregnant with answers. And horrors.