The voice that echoed through the room was cold, final, and suffused with an ancient power. “Only one can leave...” it whispered again, a shiver in each syllable, sending a tremor through their very bones. The temperature in the room dropped even further, and the walls seemed to pulse with a life of their own.

The mirror flickered again. The woman’s face twisted into a grotesque grin, her lips curving unnaturally wide, and the room seemed to tighten around them, as if the walls themselves were watching their every move.

Guna, still kneeling on the floor, shook his head, his breath coming out in ragged gasps. “What does that mean? Only one can leave? What’s the catch?”

Ragini stepped closer to the mirror, her eyes blazing with a strange determination. “It’s testing us,” she muttered under her breath. “The house is a trap, feeding on fear... and it’s giving us a way out. But the price is one of us. It’s tempting us.”

Deepika’s hand tightened around Rajesh’s arm. “This isn’t real. We can’t believe this. This is all in our heads... right?”

But Rajesh’s usually confident demeanor faltered for the first time. His eyes darted to the mirror, to the woman whose face was now staring directly at him, as though she had been waiting for his response. Her hollow eyes glowed, beckoning him.

“It’s real,” he said quietly. “This thing... It’s not just a ghost. It’s something much darker.”

Rohan clenched his fists. He had been the skeptic, but even he couldn’t deny the palpable energy in the room, the suffocating weight of something ancient and powerful that gripped their souls. His voice was tight. “So, what? One of us has to die? Is that the price? Is that what it wants?”

The woman’s voice, now like a whispering wind, floated through the room. “No, not death. Just choice. One must leave. The rest will remain, bound to me...”

Deepika’s breathing quickened, her chest rising and falling rapidly. “We can’t just pick someone! We need to get out of here—together.”

Ragini turned to the group, her face etched with a cold, knowing calm. “What if... what if none of us chooses to leave? What if we refuse the bargain?”

The group went silent, the weight of her words sinking in. The woman’s smile widened as she observed them. The walls groaned, the house seeming to shift, like it was preparing for something.

“Do you think you can defy me?” the voice asked, now a hiss. “One of you must leave, or I will take you all.”

Rajesh’s hand tightened into a fist. “We don’t have to play by your rules,” he spat, his voice full of defiance.

“Rajesh...” Deepika whispered, but he cut her off.

“No. We’re not going to let some ghost, some thing tell us what to do. We’ll stay. All of us. And we’ll face whatever this is together.”

Guna, still on the floor, slowly stood up, wiping his face with the back of his hand. His voice was shaky but firm. “I don’t know what this thing is, but I’m not running from it either. I’m not letting it make us turn on each other.”

Ragini nodded, her eyes locking with the reflection in the mirror. “We’ll face it head-on. Together.”

The woman’s face twisted in fury, her form flickering violently as if the very air in the room were rejecting her presence. The mirror cracked, the glass splintering, but still, the figure remained, her hands pressed to the glass as though she were pushing against an invisible barrier.

“You are all fools,” she hissed, her voice filled with rage. “You could have been free.”

But none of them moved. Not a single one of them stepped forward to take the escape that the house offered. Instead, they stood their ground—together, united against the force that had tried to tear them apart.

The whispering intensified, the house groaning like it was alive, as though it were trying to swallow them whole. The temperature dropped even further, and then—suddenly—the lights flickered, and the room fell into darkness.

There was no scream. No final judgment. Just silence. Then, the soft sound of wind. The scent of decay filled the air.

When the lights came back on, the mirror was empty. The woman was gone.

But the air still felt thick. The shadows had grown longer,

darker.

The house was still watching them.

***