The Chessboard Chapter 3: The Bishop by Sachin at Inkitt

THE CHESSBOARD-CHAPTER 3: THE BISHOP

THE CHESSBOARD-3

Part-1: The First Move

“A Bishop never attacks what’s in front of him... it destroys everything from the shadows.”

Darkness consumed everything as the shadow emerging beneath the shattered chessboard stepped into the light, but before its face could be seen, Vikram felt the ground vanish beneath him. He opened his eyes with a violent gasp, only to find himself standing alone inside the police headquarters. The corridors were silent, the lights flickered weakly, and every wall clock had stopped at 11:47 PM. Confused, he rushed toward the investigation room, but every murder file, every photograph, and every chess piece had disappeared as though the case had never existed. Suddenly, an old landline telephone rang. Its shrill echo pierced the silence. With trembling hands, Vikram answered. A calm voice whispered, “Congratulations... you’ve survived Checkmate. Now the real game begins.” The line went dead. At that exact moment, every monitor inside the station came to life, displaying a live camera feed of the building itself. Vikram searched the screens for movement until one camera revealed a lone figure walking through the deserted corridor. The man wore a long black coat and carried a white bishop chess piece in his hand. His face remained hidden, but he stopped before the camera and slowly tilted his head upward. Though impossible to see, Vikram could feel the stranger staring directly into him. Seconds later, a single sentence appeared across every screen in blood-red letters: “Kings chase the truth... Bishops create it.” Before anyone could comprehend the message, every light inside the station went out together, and in the suffocating darkness, a voice whispered from somewhere impossibly close, “Don’t look for me, Inspector... I’ve been standing beside you since your very first move.”

Part-2: The Invisible Move

“The most dangerous move... is the one no one realizes has already been made.”

The emergency lights flickered back to life one by one, revealing every officer exactly where they had been standing moments earlier. The mysterious figure had vanished without a trace. Vikram immediately ordered the entire police headquarters to be sealed, but the surveillance footage offered no answers. Every camera showed empty corridors except for a single frame recorded exactly thirteen seconds before the blackout. In that frame, every officer—including Vikram—was clearly visible. Yet standing among them was a tall man dressed in black, holding a white bishop chess piece against his chest. No one had seen him. No one had spoken to him. Even more disturbing, the officers cast shadows beneath the ceiling lights... but the stranger cast none. As the forensic team enlarged the footage, the image suddenly distorted into static before recovering on its own. The stranger was gone. In his place, a message had appeared across the monitor in elegant white handwriting: “You searched every room... but never searched your own memories.” Before anyone could react, every officer’s phone vibrated simultaneously. Each device had received the same anonymous photograph taken only seconds earlier inside the investigation room. The team stood frozen in the picture, staring at the evidence board. Behind them, reflected only in the glass of the display cabinet, stood the same faceless man. He wasn’t visible anywhere else in the room, only in the reflection. Vikram slowly turned toward the cabinet. It reflected everyone... except him. A cold silence swallowed the room as another message appeared on every screen. “The Bishop doesn’t kill the King... he makes the King doubt that he ever existed.”

Part-3: The Diagonal Truth

“The Bishop never walks toward his victim... he waits until the victim unknowingly walks into his path.”

The silence inside the investigation room became unbearable as Vikram replayed the CCTV footage repeatedly, yet each replay revealed something different. In the first recording, the faceless man stood behind Arjun. In the second, he stood beside Vikram. In the third, he had vanished completely. It was as if the footage itself refused to remember where the stranger had been. Then the final frame froze on its own. Every officer’s face slowly blurred until only Vikram remained visible. Behind him appeared a giant chessboard stretching into endless darkness, and on one distant square stood the mysterious Bishop. He did not move. He simply watched. Suddenly, every monitor in the room went black except one. A live feed showed the evidence board, even though the actual board hanging before them was completely empty. One by one, photographs of every victim appeared on the screen, connected by black diagonal lines instead of the red strings used by the police. Each line intersected at a single point that had never existed in the investigation. At the center was a faded childhood photograph taken inside the orphanage. Seven children smiled at the camera. An eighth shadow stood in the doorway, too blurred to identify. A distorted voice echoed through the speakers, calm and almost compassionate. “You spent years following the King’s path... always moving one step at a time. But the game was never controlled by the King.” The photograph slowly ignited from the corners without burning away, revealing words hidden beneath the image. “The Bishop chooses the battlefield long before the first pawn falls.” Vikram’s heartbeat thundered in his ears as another message appeared across every screen. “The murders were never my moves... they were yours.” Before anyone could process the accusation, every file cabinet inside the room burst open simultaneously. Hundreds of case files scattered through the air like falling leaves. When they finally settled across the floor, every file had been opened to the exact same page. At the bottom, written in fresh black ink that had not existed seconds earlier, were six chilling words: “Find me before I sacrifice another King.”

Part-4: The Missing Move

“A Bishop never hides the truth... it hides the move that creates it.”

The investigation room remained frozen in silence as everyone stared at the forensic report. Vikram’s fingerprints had been found on a confidential police file created twenty years before he had worn a uniform. No one spoke. No one dared to. Before Vikram could demand another analysis, every computer in the headquarters abruptly restarted on its own. A new folder appeared on every screen. It had no creation date, no owner, and no digital signature. Its name contained only three words: MOVE - 0. Arjun hesitated before opening it. Inside was a single video file. The timestamp read 17 October 2006 – 11:46:59 PM—exactly one second before the orphanage fire officially began. The recording showed the recreation hall from a hidden ceiling camera. Seven children surrounded the chessboard exactly as Vikram remembered. But something was different. No one was playing. Every child sat perfectly still, staring toward the doorway as though waiting for someone to arrive. Then, footsteps echoed through the room. One... two... three... A tall figure entered wearing a long black coat. His face remained hidden beyond the camera’s shadow, yet every child instantly lowered their heads in silence. The stranger didn’t speak. He simply walked to the chessboard and lifted the White Bishop. Instead of making a move, he placed the piece beside the board. The room fell into complete silence. Seconds later, every child—including young Vikram—stood up at the exact same moment without being told. It was as if a move had been made... without moving a single piece. Arjun leaned closer to the screen, his voice barely audible. “He never touched the board...” Suddenly, the video glitched violently. For a fraction of a second, the stranger’s reflection became visible in the dusty window behind him. The room fell silent. It wasn’t a face. It wasn’t a human reflection at all. It looked like someone wearing Inspector Vikram’s identity like a mask. Before anyone could reply to the frame, the file deleted itself from every computer simultaneously. The monitors turned black. Slowly, white letters began appearing across every screen, one at a time “You have been looking for the bishop, but no one ever asked who taught the bishop to play”

Part-5: The First Sacrifice

“A Bishop never sacrifices a piece without already knowing how the game will end.”

The haunting words lingered on every monitor long after the screens went dark. Before anyone could process them, the silence inside the headquarters was shattered by an emergency broadcast. Every police radio crackled simultaneously. “Officer down... multiple casualties... State Assembly Annex... all available units respond immediately!” Vikram and his team raced to the scene, only to find the entire building locked under maximum security. Inside the Assembly’s historic conference hall, the country’s most influential retired High Court judge, Justice Raghavan, was found seated alone at the head of a long mahogany table. There were no signs of struggle, no weapons, and no forced entry. His eyes remained open, fixed on a chessboard placed before him. Every chess piece was perfectly arranged except one. The White Bishop stood where the Black King should have been. Resting beneath the Bishop was a folded sheet of aged paper bearing the official seal of St. Gabriel’s Orphanage. As Vikram unfolded it, his heartbeat slowed. It was an adoption register dated 17 October 2006. Seven children’s names had once been recorded. Six remained. The seventh had not been erased, it had been replaced. In its place was a handwritten sentence “Identity transferred”. Arjun stared in disbelief, “Transferred... to whom?” Before anyone could answer, the forensic officer rushed into the hall, his face drained of color, “Sir... we’ve confirmed something impossible.” He handed Vikram the postmortem report. “Estimated time of death: 10:42PM” Vikram looked at his watch, it was only “10:18 PM.” The victim had apparently died twenty-four minutes in the future. A sudden silence filled the room, but didn’t last long. Suddenly, the judge’s phone sealed inside a forensic evidence bag began to ring. All were puzzled as no one touched it. The display answered only two words “Unknown Bishop”. Vikram answered, for several seconds, there was only the sound of a chess clock ticking, then a calm voice spoke “Inspector, you are investigating a wrong murder.” Confused, Vikram looked back toward the body, his blood ran cold as Justice Raghavan’s corpse was no longer sitting upright, it was gone. The chair was empty. No officer had entered; no one had left. The hall had remained under constant police surveillance. Only one thing had appeared where the body had been, a fresh black envelope. Vikram slowly opened it, inside was a single photograph. It showed Justice Raghavan alive, standing beside six children inside St. Gabriel’s Orphanage. The date printed beneath the image was unmistakable “17 October 2006.” Then Vikram noticed something that made his hands tremble as standing behind the children smiling directly at the camera was “Inspector Vikram.”

Part-6: The Eighth Name

“A Bishop never creates fear... he reveals the fear that was already waiting.”

The photograph slipped from Vikram’s trembling hands as every officer crowded around it. Justice Raghavan stood smiling beside the orphanage children, but no one could look away from the man standing behind them. It was Vikram—or someone wearing his face—twenty years before he could possibly have been there. The timestamp and photographic paper were authenticated within minutes. There was no sign of digital manipulation. Before the team could recover, the forensic laboratory called with another impossible discovery. The adoption register recovered from the murder scene contained hidden ink visible only under infrared light. Beneath the six children’s names appeared an eighth entry that had never existed on any official record. There was no name beside it. The room fell into a suffocating silence as everyone stared at the projected document. Beneath the mysterious title “THE BISHOP”, there was no name, no photograph, no identity—only a single handwritten instruction. Arjun frowned in confusion. “A title... not a person?” The forensic expert swallowed hard before projecting another hidden layer of the document onto the screen. Below the title, faded words slowly emerged under infrared light: “The Bishop is never adopted. The Bishop is appointed.” Before anyone could comprehend the meaning, every television and mobile phone across the headquarters simultaneously interrupted with an emergency broadcast. “BREAKING NEWS: A second body has been discovered.” The victim was Dr. Meera Anand, the retired forensic pathologist who had signed the original autopsy reports following the orphanage fire twenty years earlier. She had been found dead inside her sealed archive room. Every door had been locked from the inside, every cabinet remained untouched, and a thick layer of undisturbed dust covered the floor, proving no one had entered or left. Yet she sat motionless behind her desk, her hands folded peacefully over an old medical file, while a pristine White Bishop rested on her shoulder. Vikram and his team rushed to the crime scene. With trembling hands, he carefully removed the file from beneath the victim’s fingers. It wasn’t an autopsy report as expected, it was a confidential psychological evaluation. The words on the cover froze him where he stood: Patient Name: Vikram. Age: 10. His breathing faltered. “I was never evaluated...” he whispered. Arjun immediately turned to the final page, only to discover that someone had deliberately torn away the doctor’s conclusions. Only a single sentence remained, typed neatly across the bottom of the page: “Subject successfully accepted the replacement memory.” No one in the room understood what it meant. Before Vikram could ask another question, every light inside the archive room dimmed without warning. An old cassette recorder resting on Dr. Meera’s desk suddenly clicked to life on its own. A frightened child’s voice echoed through the darkness, soft enough to be almost inaudible. “If you’re listening to this... the Bishop has already chosen his next player.” The tape crackled. Then another voice interrupted the recording—older, calm, and hauntingly familiar. Vikram’s face turned pale. “No...” he whispered, taking an involuntary step backward. “It can’t be...” The voice on the tape was unmistakably his own. The recording ended in absolute silence before four final words echoed through the room, leaving every officer frozen in disbelief. “I created the Bishop.”

Part-7: The Chosen Player

“The Bishop doesn’t choose his victims... he chooses who becomes the next piece.”

An eerie silence settled over the archive room after the recorder fell silent. No one dared to speak. Every officer stared at Vikram, not with suspicion, but with fear. The words “I created the Bishop” echoed relentlessly inside his mind. Before anyone could examine the tape, it suddenly caught fire. Blue flames consumed the cassette within seconds, leaving behind nothing but molten plastic and a single unburnt strip of magnetic tape. Printed across it in tiny letters were two words: “Find Elias.” The name meant nothing to anyone in the room. A nationwide search began immediately, but every government database returned the same response: NO RECORD FOUND. No birth certificate. No school records. No passport. It was as though Elias had never existed. Yet exactly three minutes later, Interpol sent an encrypted message to Vikram’s terminal. Attached was a classified file marked LEVEL OMEGA. The subject’s name had been permanently redacted, but the codename remained visible—THE BISHOP. According to the report, over the last twenty-five years, thirteen countries had investigated a series of unsolved murders linked by the appearance of a single white bishop chess piece. The victims had been judges, psychiatrists, police commissioners, historians, and forensic experts—people whose professions had one thing in common. They preserved the truth. Every investigation ended the same way. No suspect. No DNA. No fingerprints. Only a final message left behind at each crime scene: “The truth has been relocated.” Vikram’s pulse quickened as he reached the last page of the report. The final paragraph had not been written by Interpol. Someone had typed it moments earlier. “Close the file, Inspector. You’re reading exactly what I wanted you to read.” The computer screen instantly turned black. One by one, every monitor inside the headquarters displayed live CCTV footage from different parts of the city. Hospitals. Schools. Railway stations. Shopping malls. Crowded streets. In every single location, a different person stood motionless, holding a White Bishop in plain sight. They weren’t hiding. They were waiting. The control room erupted into chaos as officers tried to identify them, but facial-recognition software failed on every face, returning the same impossible result: IDENTITY UNKNOWN. Then every figure, in perfect synchronization, slowly looked directly into their nearest camera. At the exact same second, every mobile phone inside police headquarters vibrated. A live video call had begun automatically. Vikram answered. The screen showed only a dimly lit room and a wooden chessboard. A gloved hand calmly picked up the White Bishop and placed it beside the Black King. A distorted voice spoke without emotion. “You’ve spent your entire career hunting one Bishop...” A long silence followed. Then came a quiet laugh. “...who told you there was only one?” The call ended instantly. Before anyone could recover, emergency sirens blared throughout the city. Reports flooded police headquarters from every district at once. Multiple bodies had just been discovered... each with a White Bishop placed beside them... all at the exact same time.

Part-8: The Circle Of Bishops

“A Bishop is never born... it is chosen by another Bishop.”

The simultaneous murders plunged the entire nation into panic. Every victim had died at precisely 11:47 PM, despite being hundreds of kilometers apart. The crime scenes were identical. No signs of forced entry. No murder weapon. No fingerprints. Only a pristine White Bishop placed beside each body and a small strip of paper carrying the same sentence: “The next move has already begun.” As the Special Investigation Team compared the victims, a disturbing pattern emerged. None of them knew each other. They belonged to different cities, professions, and backgrounds. Yet hidden deep inside sealed government archives, every one of their names appeared in a classified file connected to St. Gabriel’s Orphanage. Some had approved funding, some had altered records, some had signed legal documents, while others had simply witnessed events they were never supposed to remember. The realization struck Vikram like lightning. The Bishop wasn’t killing people at random. He was erasing everyone who knew a single forgotten truth. Before Vikram could issue new orders, Arjun’s phone buzzed with a classified message from Intelligence Bureau headquarters. A forgotten surveillance reel had been recovered from the orphanage ruins during demolition years earlier but had never been examined because the evidence room containing it had mysteriously burned down the same night. The restored footage was only twenty-three seconds long. Everyone gathered around the screen. The recording showed the orphanage corridor moments before the fire. Six frightened children ran toward the exit. A seventh child remained behind, staring at someone standing at the end of the corridor. The camera slowly zoomed in. The figure wasn’t threatening the child. He simply extended a White Bishop and asked a single question. “Will you remember... or will you rule?” The footage ended before the child’s answer could be heard. Silence filled the room. Vikram replayed the video again and again until he noticed something no one else had seen. The timestamp in the corner wasn’t counting forward. It was counting backward. The recording hadn’t captured the moment before the fire—it had captured the final twenty-three seconds before someone deliberately erased it. Just then, the headquarters lost power. Every monitor went black. One screen flickered back to life by itself, displaying a live feed from inside the police evidence vault—a room protected by biometric locks and guarded around the clock. The officers watched in horror as a hooded figure calmly walked inside, untouched by the alarms. Without hurrying, the stranger placed a White Bishop on the shelf containing every piece of evidence collected since the first murder. Then he looked directly into the camera and slowly removed his hood. The room fell silent. It wasn’t the second Vikram. It wasn’t Aarav. It wasn’t Father Gabriel. It was Arjun. Before anyone could react, the real Arjun, standing beside Vikram in the control room, staggered backward in disbelief. Every officer instinctively raised their weapons toward him. Arjun’s face turned pale as he whispered, “I swear... I’ve never been inside that vault.” At that exact moment, every officer’s phone received the same notification. It contained only one sentence “Trust is the first piece a Bishop sacrifices.”

Part-9: The Confession That Never Happened

“The Bishop’s greatest weapon isn’t deception; it’s making the truth confess to a lie.”

The headquarters erupted into chaos as armed officers surrounded Arjun. His service weapon was confiscated, his badge removed, and every movement was watched through trembling fingers on loaded triggers. Yet Arjun never resisted. He simply stared at the monitor showing his identical double inside the evidence vault. “That’s not me,” he whispered, though his own voice sounded uncertain. Before Vikram could intervene, the facial recognition system finished analyzing the footage. The result sent a chill through the room. MATCH CONFIRMED – 99.98%: Inspector Arjun Rao. Silence followed. Vikram ordered the biometric access logs to be checked. Every lock protecting the vault had opened using Arjun’s fingerprints, iris scan, and voice authentication. According to the system, Arjun had entered the vault exactly seven minutes earlier... while he had been standing beside Vikram in the control room. There was only one explanation—someone had not merely copied Arjun’s identity; they had copied his existence. As the officers struggled to comprehend the impossible, the evidence vault camera suddenly moved on its own. It slowly rotated toward the far wall where hundreds of sealed evidence boxes were stacked from floor to ceiling. One by one, every box fell open without anyone touching them. Case files, photographs, weapons, blood samples, and decades of forgotten evidence scattered across the floor. Hidden beneath the oldest shelf was a steel locker no one knew existed. The door creaked open by itself. Inside rested a single tape recorder and a black leather diary wrapped in rusted chains. Across the cover, embossed in fading silver letters, were four words that stopped Vikram’s heartbeat. No officer moved as they stared at the rusted black diary resting inside the hidden locker. Embossed across its weathered cover in fading silver letters were four chilling words: “PROPERTY OF THE FIRST BISHOP.” Before anyone could reach for it, the old tape recorder beside the diary clicked to life. A calm, educated voice—almost fatherly in its tone—filled the silent vault. “If you’re hearing this... then I am already dead.” Every officer stood frozen. The voice continued, “You believe the Bishop is a man.” A long pause followed before it spoke again. “He isn’t.” Another pause. “The Bishop is an inheritance.” The tape crackled as if struggling to preserve a secret buried for decades. “Every generation appoints one person to protect the truth...” The room fell into complete silence before the sentence was completed. “...by burying it forever.” Suddenly, a deafening gunshot echoed through police headquarters. Everyone spun around in shock. Arjun collapsed onto the floor as blood spread rapidly across his white shirt. Officers rushed through every corridor searching for a sniper, a hidden attacker, or any sign of an intruder, but every entrance remained sealed, every security camera showed empty hallways, and not a single person had entered or left the building. Then the forensic team made a discovery that defied all logic. Arjun hadn’t been shot by anyone. The fatal bullet had discharged from inside his own service pistol while it was still locked securely in its holster. Vikram dropped to his knees beside him. With the last of his strength, Arjun gripped Vikram’s wrist tightly and slipped a small brass key into his palm. His lips trembled as he struggled to speak. “Don’t... open... Locker... Seven...” His hand slowly loosened, and the life faded from his eyes. Before anyone could process what had just happened, every monitor throughout police headquarters flickered to life simultaneously. A live surveillance feed displayed Locker Seven. It was already standing open. Beyond the locker door stretched an unnatural darkness, and within it stood a motionless figure whose face remained hidden in shadow. Without uttering a single word, the figure slowly lifted a chess piece into the light. It wasn’t a Pawn. It wasn’t a King. It wasn’t a Bishop. It was a piece no one in the room had ever seen before. The video feed abruptly vanished, replaced by a single sentence glowing across every screen in stark white letters:

“Every chessboard has one piece history was never meant to remember.”

Part-10: Check before Checkmate

"The Bishop never wins the game... he merely prepares the board for someone who never loses.”

The headquarters remained frozen as the impossible chess piece glowed on every monitor. No officer could identify it. Historians, grandmasters, museum curators, and artificial intelligence databases were contacted within minutes. Every answer was identical. Every expert who examined the mysterious black chess piece reached the same impossible conclusion: “This chess piece has never existed.” Yet there it was, carved from ancient black stone, its weathered surface suggesting it had survived centuries. Vikram lowered his gaze to the small brass key Arjun had died protecting. Locker Seven. Ignoring every warning, he made his way alone toward the underground evidence vault. One after another, the heavily fortified security doors unlocked before he even reached them. There was no access card, no fingerprint scan, no retinal verification. It was as though the building itself had been expecting him. At the end of the deserted corridor stood Locker Seven, its door already hanging open. But beyond it was no locker. Instead, a narrow stone staircase disappeared into absolute darkness. The temperature dropped with every step he took. The polished concrete walls slowly transformed into ancient stone covered with centuries of dust. There were no electrical cables, no construction markings, and no official records that such a place had ever existed beneath police headquarters. At the bottom of the staircase lay an enormous circular chamber, its floor carved into a giant chessboard. Thousands of melted candles surrounded the room, their wax hardened by time. Dust blanketed every corner except the center square, where someone had clearly stood not long ago. Resting there upon a weathered wooden table was a leather-bound journal. Vikram carefully opened its cover. The first page contained only one sentence: “If Inspector Vikram is reading this... then my plan has failed.” His pulse quickened. He turned the page and felt the blood drain from his face. The handwriting was unmistakable. It wasn’t merely similar to his own—it was identical. Every curve, every stroke, every hesitation belonged to him. The journal stretched across hundreds of pages documenting every murder, every victim, every clue, and every move of the deadly chess game in meticulous detail... years before any of those events had actually occurred. With trembling hands, Vikram reached the final page. It was blank except for today’s date. As the entire investigation team watched through the live feed from his body camera, fresh black ink slowly began appearing across the empty paper. No hand held the pen. No one touched the journal. The first word emerged by itself. “Good.” A second line slowly formed beneath it. “You’re exactly where I wanted you to be.” Then another. “Turn around.” Vikram’s breathing stopped. Slowly... almost unwillingly... he turned. The chamber was completely empty. No footsteps. No shadows. No movement. Nothing. He looked back at the journal as another sentence slowly wrote itself across the page. “Not behind you.” Silence consumed the chamber. Then, for the final time, the ink spread across the paper. “Behind the reader.” Instantly, Vikram’s body camera lost signal. Across the country, every television, every mobile phone, every laptop broadcasting the investigation went completely black. Three agonizing seconds passed. Then a single image appeared. A massive chessboard stretched across the screen. Every piece stood in perfect formation—the Pawn, the King, and the Bishop. Beyond them towered a colossal black Rook. Without haste, the Rook extended forward and swept the Bishop from the board as though it had never mattered. Silence followed. One final message slowly faded into view. “You thought the Bishop was the mastermind.” A long pause. “The Bishop was only protecting the one imprisoned inside the Rook.” The screen fractured with a deafening crack. The signal vanished.