The house that watches
Some houses don't haunt. They remember.
Some ghosts don't linger. They wait.
___________________________________________
They say no one crosses Ruh Ka Mahal after noon.
It's not just a house.
It's a wound in the earth.
And everyone in town knows you don't wake what's buried.
Perched on a forgotten cliff, veiled in mist and moonlight, the mansion once belonged to royals who vanished mid-feast. A place of unsaid rituals and shuttered windows that rattle in windless nights. No one knew who lived there last. No one dared to find out.
Until her.
Inaaya Rae was not fearless.
She was simply... numb.
A bestselling erotica author with ink-stained fingers and hollow eyes, she came carrying a velvet notebook and a past no therapist could unwrite.
Her mother vanished when Inaaya was six. Not murdered. Not missing. Just gone-leaving behind a strange key, an unfinished manuscript, and the scent of rose attar that haunted every page Inaaya ever wrote.
For years, she turned her grief into stories.
Stories that aroused others.
But never herself.
Love was a lie. Sex was ink. Touch was fiction.
And yet... when an envelope arrived with no name and no seal-just a key and her mother's handwriting-it didn't matter where it led.
"The house you seek has always been seeking you."
That's why she came to Ruh Ka Mahal.
Not to write another ghost story.
But to unwrite the one that began with her mother's disappearance.
The house resisted her at first. The gate squealed. The lock fought. The wind held its breath.
But the moment she stepped in-
The door closed on its own.
The air shifted.
And the silence felt... aware.
She wandered through the mansion like a trespasser in someone else's nightmare.
Faded portraits of faceless lovers.
A piano missing keys but echoing faint notes.
A grand chandelier swaying slightly... though the air stood still.
Her steps led her upstairs.
To a room where the bed still held its royal silk covers.
She laid her bag down.
Undressed in quiet surrender.
Pulled the sheets over her bare shoulders.
And slept.
That's when he came.
At first, it was a whisper under her breath.
Then a warmth against her spine without weight.
Inaaya stirred, still in the dream.
The air thickened.
Something was in the room.
No on the bed.
She tried to speak.
Her lips parted, but the voice didn't come.
Then, behind her, a hand. Not warm. Not cold. Not flesh.
Just pressure.
Fingers tracing the inside of her thigh... as if pulled straight from her last erotic scene. But she hadn't written this.
Her back arched slightly in sleep.
A whisper, rough and low, grazed her ear.
"Write me again, Inaaya..."
Her eyes fluttered open in the dream.
In the corner of the room, a mirror draped in velvet began to breathe.
The fabric moved, though no wind stirred.
Then it fell.
And on the glass - one palm. Pressed from inside. Long. Male. Watching her.
The chandelier above swayed harder.
The bedsheets slipped off her shoulder by themselves.
Then came the letters-
Typed out on the wall.
R
U
H
V
She gasped awake.
Drenched in sweat.
Sheets tangled.
Heartbeat reckless.
The room was still.
The mirror was covered again.
But in her hand - the velvet notebook she hadn't opened in years.
And on the first page...
a fresh line of ink:
You dreamed of me, but I never left.
Ruhv had returned.
From where? She didn't know.
Why now? She wasn't ready.
But she had written him once.
Now he would write her.
