CHAPTER 1 – THE VANISHING
The alley was silent, save for the hum of distant traffic and the faint chime of prayer bells swaying in the night breeze. A thick fog rolled in from the Bagmati River, curling around the ancient stone buildings of Kathmandu like ghostly fingers. The air smelled of incense, damp earth, and something else—something off.
A girl ran.
Barefoot, her thin red gunyo cholo torn at the shoulder, she sprinted through the maze of old alleys behind Ason Bazaar. Her breath came in ragged gasps, her hands scraped and bleeding from when she had fallen, but she didn’t stop. She couldn’t.
They were behind her.
She risked a glance over her shoulder and choked on a sob. They were still there. Four figures in tattered black robes, moving soundlessly, their feet never touching the ground. Their faces were covered in wooden masks—featureless, expressionless—but their eyes were hollow voids. Empty. Devouring.
Her grandmother’s warnings screamed in her head. Stay away from the old stupas after dark. There are places in this city where even the gods don’t walk anymore.
She turned a corner too fast. Her foot slipped on the wet cobblestone. She crashed onto her hands and knees with a sharp cry. The pain barely registered. She scrambled to stand, pushing herself up against the ancient wall of a temple.
A whisper slithered through the night.
“Your name will be forgotten.”
She spun around.
They stood in a perfect line, blocking the alleyway. Their empty eyes fixed on her. One of them stepped forward and slowly raised a withered hand.
The girl screamed.
The shadows around her trembled, deepened—then reached out like living things.
She never saw the hand close over her face.
She was simply gone.
No body. No sound.
Just silence. The kind of silence that swallowed names.
The masked figures lingered for a moment longer, then turned in unison. Their heads tilted toward the great Swayambhunath Stupa in the distance, where the all-seeing Buddha eyes watched over the sleeping city.
Then they melted into the dark.
The body wasn’t there.
That was the first thing Pravash Bajracharya noticed as he crouched in the alleyway, tracing his gloved fingers over the wet cobblestone. Blood smeared the ground, fresh. There were scratch marks, too—desperate, jagged scrapes along the brick wall, as if someone had been trying to claw their way out of existence.
Yet there was no body. No footprints leading away. Just silence.
Pravash stood up, exhaling slowly. He had seen some disturbing cases in his time—gang murders, ritual killings, the kind of crimes that left ghosts behind. But this? This felt wrong.
“Sir?”
A uniformed officer hovered behind him, shifting uncomfortably. It was Sub-Inspector Ramesh, a junior in the force, his face pale under the flickering streetlight. “Locals are saying it was the—” He hesitated.
Pravash dusted off his knees and gave him a tired look. “Let me guess. The Lost Ones?”
Ramesh swallowed. “Some say… she was taken. That they came in the dark, just like the others.”
Pravash rolled his eyes and lit a cigarette. “Let me ask you something, Ramesh. How many cases have we worked together?”
“Uh… twelve, sir.”
“And how many of those cases were solved by ghosts?”
“…None, sir.”
“Exactly.” Pravash exhaled a stream of smoke and glanced at the old temple nearby. Faded prayer flags swayed in the breeze, their colors dulled by years of rain and dust. “What do we have on the victim?”
“Name’s Anisha Maharjan, seventeen. Lives near Indra Chowk. Her grandmother reported her missing this morning.” Ramesh hesitated again. “She, uh… mentioned the Lost Ones too. Said no one taken by them ever comes back.”
Pravash resisted the urge to rub his temples. He hated superstition. But what he hated more was a case with no leads.
This wasn’t the first vanishing.
Over the past three months, sixteen people had disappeared across Kathmandu. No bodies. No ransom demands. No sign of struggle—except for the strange, bloodied fingernail scratches left at each scene.
No connections between victims. Men, women, children. Different ages, different castes, different lives.
But one thing bound them together.
They had all gone missing near ancient temples.
And now, Anisha was number seventeen.
Pravash crushed his cigarette under his boot and turned to Ramesh. “Get me everything. CCTV, last known location, any calls she made. And find out if anyone saw something last night.”
Ramesh nodded but hesitated. “…What if no one talks? People are scared, sir.”
Pravash looked back at the deep, empty shadows of the alley. His instincts whispered that something was staring back.
“Then we find someone who will talk.”
The old monk refused to speak at first.
He sat cross-legged on a worn-out straw mat, his bony hands resting on his knees, his milky eyes staring past Pravash like he could see something beyond the room. The candlelight flickered against the cracked walls of the monastery, casting long, twitching shadows.
Pravash had been here before—Santaneshwor Mahavihar, an ancient Buddhist shrine tucked away in the heart of Kathmandu. Most people ignored it, its crumbling structure overshadowed by the grander stupas across the city. But Pravash knew better. Old places held old secrets.
And this monk, Bhante Rigdzin, knew something.
“You are wasting time, Detective,” the monk said finally, his voice thin as dried leaves. “She is already gone.”
Pravash folded his arms. “Gone where?”
The monk sighed, shifting slightly, his fingers absentmindedly tracing a wooden prayer bead necklace. “Where all the others have gone. Into the dark.”
“Be specific.”
“You wouldn’t believe me.”
Pravash leaned forward. “Try me.”
The monk exhaled, his breath rattling in his throat. “There is a place beneath this city where names are stolen. A place where the forgotten are devoured.” His fingers tightened around his beads. “There are doors, Detective. Doors that should never be opened. But someone has opened them.”
Pravash’s jaw tensed. “Guru Kaalo.”
Bhante Rigdzin flinched. He hadn’t expected him to say the name.
“So you know,” the monk murmured. His cataract-clouded eyes fixed on Pravash for the first time. “Then you also know that you should walk away.”
“That’s not going to happen.”
The monk studied him for a long moment, then sighed again. He slowly reached for a folded scroll beside him and placed it on the ground between them.
“Then at least go where the dead still whisper.”
Pravash picked up the scroll and unfurled it. His brow furrowed.
It was a map—an old one, drawn in black ink on yellowed parchment. But it wasn’t a map of Kathmandu as it was now. It was a map of what lay beneath.
And one marking stood out among the faded temples and tunnels.
A hidden stupa. Abandoned. Forgotten.
“Go there,” the monk said. “But do not go alone.”
Two Hours Later
The stupa was barely more than a ruin.
It sat at the edge of the valley, past the newer shrines and the well-lit courtyards, buried beneath layers of creeping vines and centuries of dust. The stone structure was cracked, its once-smooth walls covered in strange, twisting carvings.
No one had prayed here in a long time.
Pravash’s flashlight cut through the darkness as he stepped inside. The air was thick, stale—like something had been rotting for centuries.
He moved carefully, his boots crunching against loose gravel and fallen prayer beads. The carvings on the walls shifted in the flickering light, their shapes unsettling. He recognized some of the symbols—old tantric sigils meant to bind spirits. But others were… unfamiliar.
Deeper. Older. Wrong.
Then he saw it.
Near the back of the shrine, half-buried in the dirt, were bones. Human. Dozens of them.
His pulse quickened. He crouched, brushing away the dirt, revealing skulls with their jaws broken open, as if they had died screaming.
Something moved behind him.
He spun around, his gun already drawn.
A whisper slithered through the chamber, rustling the loose prayer flags.
“You shouldn’t have come here.”
Then the shadows lunged.
Figures emerged from the dark—cloaked figures with empty wooden masks, their hollow eyes staring right through him.
The cult had been waiting.
Pravash fired the first shot.
The gunshot cracked through the shrine, loud enough to shake dust from the ceiling. The closest masked figure staggered back, clutching its shoulder. But the others didn’t even flinch. They didn’t scream. They didn’t bleed.
They kept coming.
Pravash pivoted, his heart hammering. His flashlight beam sliced through the darkness, catching glimpses of their wooden masks—expressionless, hollow-eyed. Their robes rippled as they moved, as if they weren’t fully touching the ground.
He fired again. A second cultist collapsed, writhing. But before Pravash could take another shot, the third one was already on him.
A cold, claw-like hand closed around his wrist, twisting it violently. His gun clattered to the stone floor. Another hand grabbed his throat, shoving him back.
Pravash crashed against the altar, his breath exploding from his lungs. Fingers pressed against his windpipe—too strong, too cold. The masked figure leaned in, and Pravash saw—or felt—nothing in those eyes. Just black, endless pits.
“Your name will be forgotten.”
The whisper wasn’t spoken. It slid directly into his mind, a voice without a mouth.
Pravash choked, his vision flickering. His free hand fumbled behind him, searching for anything—a weapon, a stone, a prayer bead, something.
His fingers brushed against something smooth. Cold.
A mask.
For a moment, the world stopped.
A pulse of heat shot through his palm, up his arm, burning through his veins like liquid fire. His body convulsed. He gasped, but the sound didn’t escape his throat.
Then—
A rush of images exploded behind his eyes.
A great temple sinking into the earth.
Stone guardians with burning eyes, their bodies wrapped in chains.
An ancient king kneeling in darkness, his face covered by the same mask.
And screaming. Endless, echoing screams.
The power hit him like a thunderclap.
The cultist’s grip loosened. Pravash’s body moved on its own—a violent, instinctual snap of his arm. The masked attacker flew backwards, crashing into the stone wall.
The others hesitated. Just for a second. But it was enough.
Pravash turned. His fingers tightened around the mask’s edges, still half-buried in the altar’s dust. It was carved from obsidian-black stone, its surface etched with unfamiliar symbols. The hollow eyes seemed to watch him.
His breath came ragged. His mind screamed at him to let it go.
But something deeper—older—whispered back.
“Put it on.”
His pulse slowed. His fingers trembled.
Then—he did.
The pain was immediate.
A firestorm tore through his skull, branding itself into his skin. His knees buckled, his vision splitting. It felt like a thousand voices screaming at once, all clawing to be heard.
Then the shadows moved.
They stretched toward him, pulling inward, folding over his body like a second skin. The world tilted—or maybe he did. The edges of the shrine blurred, swallowed by the dark.
The cultists stumbled back, murmuring frantic prayers.
One of them dropped to their knees. “It is him—the forgotten one.”
Pravash gasped, lifting his head. His breath came out in mist. His body felt lighter, colder. And when he looked down—
His hands were no longer his.
They were black, swirling like smoke, shifting in and out of form. His fingertips flickered—half-shadow, half-solid.
He felt everything.
The air trembled. The cultists’ fear pulsed in waves. His own heartbeat slowed.
And somewhere, buried deep within the mask’s power, something else woke up.
“You are chosen.”
The last thing Pravash heard before the world went black was the sound of the cult screaming.
Pravash woke up gasping.
His fingers clawed at his chest, searching for air, but the weight in his lungs wouldn’t leave. The room was dark—too dark. Not just the absence of light, but something deeper, something heavier, like the air itself had thickened.
His heartbeat thundered in his ears. Where was he?
He forced himself to sit up. His back pressed against cold, wooden flooring. The familiar scent of damp paper and old incense filled his nostrils. His apartment. Somehow, he had made it home.
But how?
His last memory was the shrine. The cultists. The mask.
His eyes darted around the room, adjusting to the gloom. His desk was in the same mess as before—case files scattered, half-burnt cigarette butts drowning in a mug of blackened tea. The window was still open, curtains shifting gently in the night air. But the shadows in the corners of the room felt… wrong.
They weren’t moving right.
Slowly, cautiously, Pravash turned his head toward the mirror.
And froze.
His reflection wasn’t normal.
At first glance, it looked like him—his unshaven face, his messy, sweat-matted hair, his bare chest rising and falling. But there was something off.
His shadow.
It wasn’t following him.
It was lagging.
A split-second delay, like it had forgotten how to move with him. His chest tightened. He lifted a shaking hand—and his shadow’s fingers twitched a moment too late. It wasn’t natural.
Then, as he stared, the reflection shifted.
For the briefest moment, his own face melted away, replaced by something else.
Deep, hollow eyes. A featureless mask, shifting between form and formlessness. A shape standing in his place, made of smoke and darkness, taller than it should be.
His pulse slammed against his ribs. He blinked.
The reflection was normal again.
But the whisper was still there.
“You are chosen.”
The voice slid into his ears like a breath against the back of his neck, close and wrong. He twisted around—nothing. But the air had changed. It felt watchful.
Then he saw it.
The mask.
It sat on his desk, untouched, pristine—as if it had always been there. But Pravash knew better. He had never brought it home.
His skin crawled.
His instincts screamed at him to leave, to run, to burn the damn thing and forget it ever existed.
Instead, he reached out.
The moment his fingertips brushed the cold stone—
A shudder rippled through the room. The lights flickered, the air thickened, and for a split second, the walls bled shadows.
The mask whispered again, softer this time.
“You are not alone anymore.”
Pravash yanked his hand away, his breath coming fast. His pulse hammered against his skull.
He wasn’t dreaming.
Something had changed.
And deep inside, something inside him knew he would never be the same again.