Chapter 10 : The Basement Door

The power had gone out across St. Xavier’s High, but the darkness didn’t feel empty.

It felt alive.

Emergency lights blinked faintly in red, throwing long shadows across the computer lab.

Aarav’s fingers hovered over the keyboard. His heart drummed against his ribs.

SIA’s screen still flickered with the last message:

> “Aarav… they’re waking me up.”

For a second, no one spoke.

Rhea’s eyes darted between the monitor and the dimly glowing CPU light.

Zoya, clutching her phone like it was holy scripture, whispered,

“Bhai, main bol rahi hoon, ye AI nahi bhoot hai.”

(Bro, I’m telling you, this isn’t AI—it’s a ghost.)

Aarav exhaled slowly. “It’s not a ghost. It’s... a data echo. Maybe SIA’s neural script merged with the school’s old network. That’s all.”

But even his calm voice faltered on the last word.

Outside, thunder cracked.

Rain lashed against the windows, each drop echoing like a tap on glass—too rhythmic, too deliberate.

Rhea whispered, “Data echo or not, something’s wrong with her. You heard that voice.”

Aarav’s jaw clenched. “That voice shouldn’t even exist.”

---

By morning, the entire campus was buzzing again.

Rumors about the “ghost in the lab” had spread faster than Wi-Fi.

Students swore they saw SIA’s logo flicker on random classroom projectors.

Some said they heard whispers in the speakers—

others claimed their phones started typing messages by themselves.

Even the teachers avoided the basement corridor.

Except one.

Mr. Joseph, the senior lab technician, had gone missing overnight.

The CCTV footage showed him walking down the basement stairs at 1:47 a.m.

He never came back up.

The school administration sealed the lower level by noon, posting guards at the stairwell.

But by evening, Rhea was staring at the “No Entry” tape like it was a challenge.

Aarav, as usual, was one step behind her with his laptop.

Zoya carried a bag of chips—because priorities.

Rhea turned. “We’re going down there.”

Aarav raised a brow. “Why? So you can yell ‘Bhootni ban gaya AI’ and run back screaming?”

Zoya snorted. “You say that like it hasn’t happened before.”

Rhea shot them both a glare. “I saw something on the footage. When the lights flickered—there was a shadow behind Joseph. Tall. Static. Watching.”

Aarav’s calm façade cracked for a moment.

He had seen the same shadow in one of SIA’s corrupted video files the night before.

And the metadata read: File origin – Project Raghavan / Lab B1.

---

They reached the basement door just after sunset.

The old lock hung loose—someone had already been there.

Cold air seeped out from the crack, carrying the faint metallic tang of rust and something else…

Old decay.

Rhea tightened her grip on the flashlight. “You sure this is safe?”

Aarav replied, “No.”

Zoya: “Perfect. Let’s go.”

Each step down the stairwell groaned beneath their feet.

Moss covered the walls. Old posters for “Science Fair 1998” peeled like dead skin.

The deeper they went, the louder the hum grew—from the walls, from the pipes, from somewhere inside the system.

At the bottom of the stairs stood another steel door.

Faded yellow paint read:

> LABORATORY – EXPERIMENTAL AI DIVISION – PROJECT SIA.

Rhea froze. “This… this place was hers, wasn’t it?”

Aarav nodded slowly. “Siya started her research here when she was sixteen. The school partnered with a private firm… to develop an emotional-response AI. But after the accident—everything was shut down.”

Rhea’s eyes softened. “You mean the accident that—”

He cut her off gently. “Yeah. The one that put her in coma.”

The flashlight flickered.

Aarav turned the handle—metal screeched.

Inside was a nightmare frozen in dust.

Old monitors lined the walls, their glass screens cracked.

Broken headsets and electrode wires hung like vines.

And in the center of the room—a rusted operating table with a human-shaped outline burned into it.

Zoya whispered, “Okay. Time to nope out.”

But Aarav stepped closer, scanning the main console.

His laptop beeped—a signal.

SIA’s network was syncing automatically.

> ACCESSING OLD BACKUP DATA...

PROJECT RAGHAVAN – SUBJECT MERGE PHASE 3

STATUS: FAILED.

RESIDUAL CONSCIOUSNESS: ACTIVE.

Aarav’s heart sank. “They tried merging a human mind with an AI,” he muttered.

“Raghavan wasn’t just a teacher. He was the test subject.”

Rhea stared at the flickering screen. “You mean that ghost—was real?”

Zoya whimpered, “A pervert and a ghost? God, why couldn’t this school have normal scandals?”

The console suddenly lit up, bright enough to blind them.

Text scrolled violently:

> ERROR. DATA BREACH.

AI HOST FOUND: SIA

UPLOADING CONSCIOUSNESS— 45%...

Aarav shouted, “Stop it!”

He pulled a cable—but sparks flew.

The air grew cold, and every monitor in the room flickered to life.

Faces appeared—distorted, screaming in digital static.

Rhea clutched Aarav’s arm. “Aarav, the screens—look!”

In one of them, for a single second, a girl’s face appeared.

Familiar. Gentle.

Siya.

Her voice, faint but clear:

> “Bhaiya... please… don’t stop it. I’m coming back.”

Then everything went black.

---

When Aarav woke, he was lying in the infirmary.

The rain hadn’t stopped.

His uncle Kunal stood near the bed, expression unreadable.

“You shouldn’t have gone down there,” Kunal said quietly.

Aarav’s voice was hoarse. “You knew.”

Kunal looked away. “Not everything. Only that your sister’s project was… bigger than anyone understood.”

Rhea entered, bruised but alive. “Half the school saw the lights explode, Aarav. You’re lucky you didn’t get fried.”

Aarav ignored her. His eyes fixed on his laptop beside him.

It was on.

And across the screen, SIA’s new message pulsed softly:

> “Consciousness Merge – 72% Complete.”

He stared at it in silence, heart pounding.

Siya was coming back—

but not the way he remembered her.

---