The CBI reached the Vidhayak’s mansion early in the morning. Police had already sealed the entire area. The massive concrete wall that had appeared overnight stood like a grotesque monument in front of the property. Forensic teams carefully removed the bodies one by one and sent them for autopsy.

  Mahendra Rathore and thirteen other men. Each of them had been nailed to the wall in unnatural positions that formed the message the entire nation had already seen.

  MONSTER IS REAL.

  By the time the CBI arrived, the media had been pushed far away from the crime scene, but the damage had already been done. Videos of the horrifying display were circulating across the country.

  Inside the mansion, the investigation had begun.

  Forensic teams worked carefully around the property while officers documented every detail. The preliminary reports brought an unsettling conclusion.

  No physical contact had been found between the killer and the victims. There were no fingerprints. No skin traces. No struggle marks that indicated a direct fight.

  It was as if the victims had been controlled without being touched. The only physical evidence recovered at the site was a handwritten note left near the wall.

  “The MONSTER is real.”

  Raghav walked into one of the rooms where Mahendra’s house manager was waiting nervously.

  The man looked pale, his hands trembling slightly as he spoke.

  “I swear, sir,” the manager said, his voice shaking, “no one entered the mansion last night. The security guards were outside all night. I never saw any nineteen-year-old boy enter the property.”

  Raghav studied him carefully before nodding. After finishing the questioning, he stepped outside and walked toward Director Anant Mehra.

  “Brutal work, sir,” Raghav said quietly. Mehra looked at the crime scene in silence.

  “He is challenging us,” he said.

  Raghav nodded grimly. “What do we do now? The whole nation knows about him. And we believed he wanted to remain hidden.”

  Mehra’s expression hardened. “Then we find this bastard before he attacks again.”

  The two officers returned to the CBI headquarters later that afternoon. When they entered the operations room, Aditi was already waiting beside the large display screen with a stack of files in her hand.

  “Sir,” she said, stepping forward, “here is the list you ordered.”

  Mehra took the file from Aditi and flipped it open. Several pages were clipped together, each filled with names, addresses, complaint IDs, and timestamps.

  “The customers who filed repeated complaints against AirFlow,” she continued.

  “How many?” Mehra asked.

  “Two hundred and thirty-seven,” Aditi replied. “These are the customers who filed repeated complaints against AirFlow over the last year.”

  Raghav leaned over the table and looked at the list. “That’s a lot of angry customers.”

  Mehra did not respond immediately. He slowly turned the pages, scanning the information carefully. “What pattern do you see?” he asked.

  Aditi walked toward the screen and displayed a map of the country. Red markers began appearing across different cities.

  "These complaints come from different locations across Maharashtra." She said.

  Raghav frowned slightly. “That still doesn’t narrow it down much.”

  “There is something else,” she said.

  The display changed to show a complaint record.

  Complaint ID: 187

  Issue: Severe internet instability

  Number of complaints filed: 46

  Raghav whistled softly. “Forty-six complaints from the same user?”

  “Yes,” Aditi replied. “Filed over eight months.”

  Mehra’s eyes remained on the screen. “Name?”

  Aditi zoomed in on the record. “Aarav Vardan.”

  Raghav looked up. “Age?”

  “Nineteen.”

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  The room fell silent. Raghav glanced at Mehra. “That’s the same age range the witness mentioned after the Pune incident.”

  Aditi nodded. “There’s more. This customer repeatedly contacted AirFlow customer support. In fact, the last recorded call from this account happened only minutes before the Pune building collapse.”

  Raghav folded his arms. “That’s… too convenient.”

  Mehra closed the file slowly. “Where does he live?”

  Aditi typed quickly. “Student hostel. Subhash Engineering college. Pune.”

  Raghav exhaled slowly. “So our monster might be a college kid.”

  Mehra looked at the glowing markers on the screen. “No,” he said quietly.

  Raghav frowned. “What do you mean?”

  Mehra closed the file and placed it on the table.

  “I mean, why would a killer who is this smart, this intelligent, a brilliant strategist, ignore such a tiny mistake?” Mehra said.

  Raghav thought for a moment before replying. “We’ll know that when we go there, sir.”

  “Not yet,” Mehra said firmly. “First we watch him. We gather information about him. Where exactly he lives, who his parents are, his background and everything.”

  Raghav nodded. “Alright, sir. Consider it done.”

  Mehra nodded in return.

  Aditi looked up from her desk. “Anything for me, sir?”

  Mehra leaned back slightly in his chair. “Yes,” he said calmly. “A coffee, please.”

  Aditi chuckled lightly. “Sure, sir. On it.”

  Later that night, Anant Mehra was in a deep sleep when the doorbell suddenly began ringing repeatedly. He stirred in irritation as the sharp sound echoed through the quiet apartment.

  The bell rang again. And again. Mehra groaned, pushed the blanket aside, and walked toward the door. When he opened it, he saw Raghav standing outside, slightly out of breath and holding a thick brown file.

  “What are you doing here, Raghav?” Mehra asked, rubbing his eyes. “It’s midnight.”

  Raghav stepped inside without wasting a second. “Sir, you need to see this,” he said, lifting the file slightly.

  Mehra closed the door behind him, his annoyance slowly fading as he noticed the seriousness on Raghav’s face.

  “What happened?”

  Raghav opened the file and began explaining. “I started digging into Aarav Vardan’s background,” he said. “And something doesn’t add up.”

  Mehra leaned against the table, listening carefully.

  “There is no record of his parents,” Raghav continued. “No birth certificate, no school registration from early years, no medical records before his teenage years. It’s like his life simply begins in the system when he is already a teenager.”

  Mehra’s expression hardened.

  “Go on.”

  “He currently lives with a man who claims to be his uncle,” Raghav said, turning another page in the file.

  “The man goes by the name Khurana.”

  “Claims to be?” Mehra asked.

  “Yes, sir. Because that identity doesn’t exist in any official database.”

  Mehra straightened slightly. “No voter ID. No Aadhaar. No tax record. Nothing.”

  Raghav nodded grimly. “And that’s not all.”

  He pointed to another document in the file.

  “The house where Aarav lives isn’t owned by them. It’s a rented property. The landlord confirmed that he receives rent every month through bank transfer, but he has been instructed not to interfere.”

  “Not interfere?” Mehra repeated.

  “Yes,” Raghav said. “The landlord told me that Aarav doesn’t actually live there most of the time. He stays in a college hostel.”

  He turned another page in the file. “The house is only used when Aarav returns during vacations. The landlord receives rent every month and was instructed to simply collect the money and lock the house again once Aarav leaves for college.”

  Mehra narrowed his eyes slightly. “So the house is just a temporary residence.”

  Raghav nodded. “And the man who rented it under the name Khurana hasn’t appeared there in years.”

  Mehra remained silent for a few seconds, absorbing the information.

  “So the boy has no parents in the system,” he said slowly. “An uncle whose identity doesn’t exist… and a house that’s only used during vacations.”

  Raghav nodded. “Exactly, sir.”

  Mehra walked toward the window and looked out into the dark street below. “Which means someone built this identity for him,” he murmured.

  Raghav placed the file on the table.

  “There’s more,” he said.

  Mehra turned back.

  “I checked his academic records. Aarav Vardan is one of the top students in his department. Computer science. Exceptional grades. No disciplinary records.”

  Mehra gave a faint, humorless smile. “So he’s smart.”

  “Very,” Raghav replied. “And quiet. According to his professors, he keeps to himself most of the time.”

  Mehra picked up the file again and flipped through the pages.

  “Any friends?” he asked.

  “A couple,” Raghav said. “Two roommates in the hostel. Anish and Ritesh. Both normal students from what we can tell.”

  Mehra’s expression darkened slightly.

  “This means one of two things,” he said.

  Raghav looked at him.

  “Either the uncle is extremely careful about staying invisible,” Mehra continued, “or the identity itself is fake.”

  Raghav nodded slowly. “And if it’s fake,” he said, “then someone has been hiding Aarav’s real past.”

  The room fell quiet again. Mehra tapped the file lightly against the table.

  “Tomorrow,” he said calmly, “we visit the college.”

  Raghav frowned slightly. “Directly?”

  “No,” Mehra replied. “Quietly.”

  He looked at the file one more time. “Before we confront a monster,” he said, “we need to understand how it was created.”