The air inside the boiler room felt thick, tasting of ozone and formaldehyde. Aryan stood frozen at the threshold, the heavy iron door groaning on its hinges behind him. The "Doctor" stood under the flicker of a clinical blue light, the surgical mask hiding everything but eyes that looked like cold, polished glass.
Aryan's heart hammered against his ribs—a frantic, rhythmic reminder of the biology he was slowly losing. He looked at the girl strapped to the chair. She couldn't have been more than twenty. Her head hung low, her long dark hair veiling her face, but the rhythmic rise and fall of her chest told him she was still part of the world of the living.
"Don't look at her with pity, Aryan," the Doctor said, his voice a dry rasp that sounded like sandpaper on wood. "Pity is a luxury for those who are whole. You? You are a work in progress. A masterpiece currently suffering from a terrible case of rot."
"Who are you people?" Aryan asked, his voice trembling but gaining strength. He stepped further into the room, his gloved right hand—the wooden hand—twitching rhythmically. "The man in the Villa... he called himself a creator. You look like a butcher."
The Doctor let out a short, hollow laugh. "Names are for the mundane. Here, we are simply Architects. And you... you are the foundation of something much larger. But your foundation is crumbling. The oak is spreading too fast, isn't it? If we don't graft fresh marrow into your structure tonight, the wood will reach your heart by dawn. And once the heart turns to timber, the soul has nowhere to sit. You become a hollow shell—a true puppet."
Aryan felt a wave of nausea. He remembered his father, a simple carpenter back in the foothills of the Himalayas. His father used to say that wood has a memory; it remembers the sun, the wind, and the rain. Aryan wondered what his father would think now, seeing his son literally turning into the medium of his craft.
Suddenly, a memory flashed in Aryan's mind—vivid and painful. It was his seventh birthday. His mother was baking bread, the scent of yeast and warmth filling their small cottage. His sister, Rhea, was laughing, tugging at his sleeve.
"When I grow up, Aryan, I'll be the Queen and you'll be my Knight. You have to protect me forever, okay?"
The memory acted like a jolt of electricity. He looked at the girl in the chair. She wasn't Rhea, but she was someone's sister. Someone's daughter. If he allowed this "grafting" to happen, he might save his skin, but he would lose the very thing that made him Aryan—his conscience.
"I won't let you touch her," Aryan said, his voice now a low growl.
The Doctor paused, the serrated bone-saw glinting. "Then you choose death? You choose to become a statue in a park, frozen forever while birds nest in your ears?"
"I choose to be a man," Aryan retorted.
Just as the Doctor stepped forward, the heavy silence of the mill was shattered. A window high above the boiler room imploded. Shards of glass rained down like diamonds, and a figure descended on a steel cable with the grace of a predatory bird.
The newcomer landed between Aryan and the Doctor. It was a woman, dressed in rugged tactical gear, her face partially obscured by a scarf. She didn't look like a puppet; she looked like a hunter.
"Step away from the girl, Malphas," the woman said, pointing a specialized crossbow at the Doctor.
"Ah, the scavengers have arrived," the Doctor—Malphas—sneered, not looking at all intimidated. "The Guild of Broken Strings never knows when to stay in the shadows."
Aryan backed away, confused. "Who are you?"
The woman didn't turn around. "My name is Mira. And if you want to keep that heart of yours beating red instead of brown, you'll help me get this girl out of here. Now!"
Suddenly, the floor began to vibrate. From the dark corners of the boiler room, the shadows began to take shape. They weren't puppets this time. They were 'Constructs'—nightmarish fusions of metal, wood, and flesh, their limbs elongated and ending in sharp blades.
The horror was no longer confined to a lonely villa in Shimla. It was here, in the heart of the city, hidden in plain sight.
"Aryan!" Mira shouted as a Construct lunged toward her. "The control panel behind the Doctor! Smash it! It's the only thing keeping the security locks active!"
Aryan looked at his wooden hand. He could feel the power in it—a strange, heavy strength that didn't belong to a human. For the first time, he didn't fight the wood; he leaned into it. He charged toward Malphas, not as a victim, but as a weapon.