The morning air hung heavy with dampness and decay. In the grimy office of Bhubaneswar’s Central Police Station, Inspector Arvind Mishra swirled his whiskey in a chipped teacup. It was barely 9 a.m.

On paper, Mishra was a decorated officer. In reality, he was the city’s most dangerous liability. His uniform was a shield for payoffs, bribes, and silence. His loyalty wasn’t to justice—it was to whoever paid the most. The death of another girl meant another case to bury.

He stared at the crime scene photo on his desk—face mutilated, wrists tied, eyes open. “Fucking shame,” he muttered. But there was no sorrow in his voice. Only calculation.

Across town, inside the cramped office of an independent media outlet, Nikita Rao, a 27-year-old investigative journalist, scribbled furiously into her notepad. She had been tracking the string of disappearances long before the first body surfaced.

Nikita had grown up in Bhubaneswar, and she knew how its beauty often hid its brutality. Her sources were silent, scared. Too many stories had been killed before they ever saw print. But something about this case was different—ritualistic, almost theatrical. She sensed a pattern the police refused to see.

She opened an envelope that had arrived that morning—no name, no return address. Inside was a single photo.

A girl tied to a chair. Still alive.

On the back, a message scrawled in red ink:

“The Lotus Blooms in Blood.”

Two nights later, in the belly of the city where shadows were deeper than night, he watched them.

The man had no name—not one he remembered, anyway. Locals whispered of a ghost that moved through alleys, whose eyes reflected moonlight, whose blade never dulled. But he wasn’t a ghost. He was something worse.

He walked in silence, his face masked, his rituals precise. He believed in purity. In punishment. In the old gods. And in pain as a form of release.

He’d seen Jagendra at the last crime scene. He admired him. A man who walked with truth stitched into his bones. But even truth bleeds when cut deep enough.

And soon, Jagendra would bleed too.