One Step Across

The boy at the stairs didn't move.

He held the matchstick between his fingers like a cigarette...casual.

But everything about him felt heavy. Out of place.

Like a memory trying too hard to be human.

Ayaan spoke first.

"…Do we know you?"

The boy smiled wider. Not menacing. Not friendly.

Just… knowing.

"You were there," he said, his voice low and even. "Not for long. But long enough to forget me."

Sameer stepped back. "This can't be real."

But Rehan didn't move.

His eyes locked on the boy's face.

"I remember you," he whispered.

---

Sameer turned sharply. "What?"

Rehan's voice shook. "Not clearly. But… when I used to dream about this place — before we ever came here — I saw a boy. Always holding a match. Always staring like he knew I shouldn't be watching."

The boy descended the steps. One… two… soft...slow...thuds of his feet on old wood.

"People don't come back to this forest because it haunts them,They come back because something unfinished stays inside them."

He turned to Sameer.

"You knew what this place was when you opened that journal. You just didn't know what it would cost."

Sameer stiffened. "I never meant for this—"

"But you did open it," the boy interrupted. "And you brought it into the group. Just like we did. And now you're here… where all stories end."

---

Sameer looked at Rehan. "What is this?"

Rehan turned toward Ayaan instead. "Remember when we found that newspaper clipping… the one with the symbol scratched into the margin?"

Ayaan nodded slowly.

"This is him," Rehan said.

Ayaan froze.

"You think he's one of the kids from the missing person reports?"

Sameer's voice cracked.

"No. He's not just one of them. He's the one who lit the fire."

The boy smirked.

"I didn't burn the forest," he said. "I just tried to burn the truth out of it."

---

Back in the city…

Naira stood outside the clinic, heart hammering.

The photo she'd found inside Sameer's phone — the one of the hidden room, the photos, the cracked trapdoor — now had a second file attached.

An audio note.

She hadn't seen it before.

She tapped play.

Sameer's voice came through, tired. Broken.

"If this message ever reaches anyone… tell them it wasn't the forest. It was us.

We brought the silence. We chose to forget the night that girl went missing."

Naira nearly dropped the phone.

A girl?

Sameer had never mentioned that.

---

Back under the cabin…

The boy stopped walking. Now he stood just feet from the others.

The match in his hand flared briefly, unlit.

Rehan whispered, "You said we forgot you. Was that your trade?"

The boy nodded once.

"I gave them my face. So no one would remember what I saw."

Sameer's breath hitched. "What did you see?"

The boy looked at him.

"You."

Then the walls of the room… groaned.

All at once, the photos on the table began to smoke.

One by one, they burned themselves — curling in on their edges.

The boy dropped the match.

Flames licked upward from the wooden floor — not consuming, but surrounding the center of the room.

The match flared once. Died.

And so did the boy's smile.

"You have until morning," he said softly.

Then vanished.

---