The Hidden Room and a Family's Shame

The silence in the Aggarwal bedroom was no longer a symbol of peace; it was a drumbeat of a new, terrifying reality. Vikram, a man who had built his life on the foundations of cold, unyielding reason, looked at the small, beautiful locket in Anika's hand, his face a mask of a thousand shifting emotions. His initial skepticism, a logical, rational thing that had been his shield for a lifetime, had shattered, replaced by a grim, fierce determination. The ghost was real. The secret was real. And the woman he loved, a woman who had, with her courage and her love, saved his legacy, was now a woman who was a bridge to a past that was not yet ready to be forgotten.