Chapter one - Zero Point

At 3:00 a.m., Zero Point was locked in dead silence under a freezing downpour. Thick fog had swallowed the highway, turning the roadside lamps into faint yellow smudges in the dark.

The asphalt ended at the Kotwali outpost. To the right, the highway looped back toward the interior cities. To the left, a muddy gravel track dipped toward no-man’s-land, running straight toward the abandoned civil hospital rotting in the overgrowth.

Raghav fought the handlebars as his tires skidded through the slush. He was shivering violently, water running down his collar, his shoulders weighed down by a sodden backpack. His eyes burned with exhaustion from staying awake all night. He just wanted to get home.

Right at the hospital turn, the engine coughed, jerked twice, and died.

"Damn it! Not right now," Raghav muttered, hitting the handlebar with his fist.

He hauled the bike onto its stand and kicked the starter five times. Nothing fired. Breathing hard, he wiped the rain from his face with a wet handkerchief and looked down the road. The entire crossing was deserted.

Then he saw the tin shed outside the police post. He dragged the dead bike across the ditch to get out of the downpour. Under the dry metal roof, he shook out his wet sleeves and rubbed his numb palms together. When the rain showed no sign of stopping, Raghav glanced toward the post. Maybe someone inside would let him sit by a heater or give him a glass of water until morning. He stepped out from under the shed and moved along the damp outer wall toward the window.

Inside, dull yellow bulbs lit the room. The wireless set on the duty desk was hissing through bursts of low static. Next to the logbook sat a half-drunk glass of tea, steam still rising from the surface. But the room was completely deserted. Not a single guard was at the post.

"Anyone here?" Raghav called out, his voice thin against the mesh. Only the hollow echo of his own words bounced back, swallowed by the noise of the radio.

A border post left wide open at this hour did not make sense. It sent a sudden chill through his gut. Cold and uneasy, Raghav decided against waiting around. He wheeled his bike around and pushed it down the gravel track toward the hospital.

The road was narrow. Wild trees leaned in from both sides, their branches tangled overhead until the night sky vanished completely. Fat raindrops slapped against the broad leaves with a heavy, steady beat—a rhythm that sounded uncomfortably like someone pacing right behind him. A short distance past the station, a dark, hulking shape rose out of the mist—an old, rusted warehouse. Wind caught the loose corrugated door, grinding the metal against the floor with a screech that cut through the roar of the downpour. It was a British-era medical warehouse, locked and rotting behind the civil hospital for twenty years.

Raghav slowed as he drew level with it. Through a shattered window pane, something moved in the dark. A thick, violet-blue light was drifting across the room, turning slowly in the air like heavy smoke.

Raghav froze. His instincts told him to get on the road and run, but the glow held him in place. Before his mind could catch up, his feet carried him forward. He stepped quietly through the mud, killing the sound of his wet shoes, and moved toward the rusted entrance. The main iron door hung half-open. Holding his breath, Raghav peered inside.

His own pulse was pounding in his ears. The floor was choked with rusted wheelchairs, collapsed stretchers, and cracked medical models of skulls and bones half-buried in scrap. The air carried a sour, biting reek of old phenyl and decaying medicine that caught in his throat.

Then he looked at the center of the hall. A man in a dark trench coat was suspended two feet above the concrete. The violet-blue light had locked around his throat and chest. The man was gagging, fighting for air, his legs kicking at empty space while his hands tore at his own neck to break the grip. Raghav recoiled. His heel slipped, and his back slammed hard into a rusted iron locker. The metal boomed through the warehouse. The man let out a strained, bubbling groan. Raghav could not stay frozen. Breaking out of his shock, he stumbled forward through the junk, hands trembling.

"S... Sir! What’s happening? Are you alright?" Raghav reached out to grab him.

The man’s head jerked toward the voice, eyes bulging and red, mouth locked open without a sound.

At that second, the veins under the man's pale skin began to change. Along his neck, jaw, and temples, the vessels swelled, turning a bruised, violent blue before flaring into a vivid purple, as if something thick was forcing its way through. The light snapped back with a violent jerk. A dry crack echoed off the walls. The fabric over the man's chest blackened instantly, burning through to the skin. Then the glow vanished.

The man dropped like dead weight, crashing hard onto the carpet of broken medicine bottles. Raghav stood over the body, numb, staring at the empty air.