*Author's Note – The Unstoppable Queen Aish 🖤🎀**
Welcome back, my bold little ShadowHearts. Chapter 5 isn't just ink—it's memory clawing its way back. If Chapter 4 made your heart flinch, this one will make it *remember*.
Keep your candles close.
Keep your name hidden.
Because the House is no longer whispering.
It's watching.
---
**Recap of Chapter 4:**
Veer stepped out of the shadows, and Aanya found the pendant—black obsidian, tied to a forgotten pact. The House remembered. So did Veer. And when she spoke a name—*Ananta*—the house *screamed.*
A hallway opened like torn skin. A face emerged, crying black tears, whispering Aanya's name.
And the pendant shattered.
---
**Aanya's POV**
The pendant lay in pieces.
Still warm in her trembling palm, as if the memory had been alive. As if the name had a pulse.
The mist from the open hallway slithered into the room like a crawling fear. The candle flames around the hall didn't flicker—they froze, stiff in the air, like time held its breath.
Her voice had cracked with that name.
"Ananta..."
The moment it left her lips, something ancient had shifted. Something watching from behind the mirrors had smiled.
And now it was coming closer.
She backed away.
Her silk nightgown clung to her skin from sweat and fear. The midnight blue robe she wore billowed behind her, tugged by windless shadows. Her damp hair, tied loosely behind her neck, now curled at her nape like tendrils pulled by unseen fingers.
"Veer," she whispered, "What was that? Who was Ananta?"
But he wasn't looking at her. He was staring into the hallway—his face taut, his ringed hand clenched like he was holding back more than memory.
**Veer's POV**
He remembered the ritual.
The salt. The chanting. The circle they'd drawn that night with trembling hands and reckless hearts.
But he remembered something Aanya didn't.
*She had wanted to bring someone back.*
His silver ring pulsed as he stepped closer to the hallway. The mist hissed around his boots like steam rising from cursed soil.
"It's not a spirit," Veer said softly. "It's not a ghost."
He turned to Aanya.
"It's your memory. The one you buried. The one that refused to stay dead."
** Five Years Ago – The Blood Moon Pact**
Aanya stood barefoot in the garden behind the Withered House. The moon had bled red that night.
She wore a white dress. Innocent. Out of place in a place built on rot.
Veer had stood beside her. His hand wrapped in hers.
"We bind what hurts," she had whispered.
"We bury what remembers," he answered.
They had placed something into the earth.
Something wrapped in silk.
She had wept.
He had bled.
The earth swallowed the secret.
"No one must speak the name again," Veer said.
"Not even us."
And just before the moon vanished behind clouds, she'd kissed his knuckles—right above the silver ring.
"Promise me we'll forget."
He hadn't answered.
He never could.
**Back to Present**
Aanya turned from the hallway. Her heart was racing.
"I don't remember what we buried. But I can feel it now."
The House groaned. Something above them creaked.
She glanced up. The attic latch had opened. Barely.
Dust rained down slowly, gently—like forgotten snow.
"No," Veer said. "You're not going up there."
"Then come with me."
His jaw clenched. The ring gleamed. But he followed.
Together, they climbed the creaking staircase.
Each step moaned beneath their weight. Shadows slithered like snakes along the cracked walls.
When they reached the attic door, Aanya's hand paused at the wooden latch.
"Ready?" she asked.
Veer didn't answer.
He just touched her shoulder.
Soft. Hesitant.
And everything she didn't know she missed.
She opened the door.
**The Attic – Unopened Truths**
The attic was colder than the night outside.
Old trunks. Broken frames. Cobwebs woven like memory nets.
In the center: a wooden music box.
And beside it—
A page.
Faded. Torn. Written in a child's shaky hand.
*"I'll protect you, even if it kills me."*
Signed:
*Aanya.*
Her breath hitched.
"I wrote this?"
Veer didn't answer. He walked to the window, brushing aside the dust.
"You wrote it the night your sister disappeared."
Aanya froze.
"I don't have a sister."
The House creaked like laughter.
**– Memory Reborn**
Aanya stepped toward Veer.
His back was to her, but she could see the rise and fall of his breath. The tightness in his shoulder blades. The pain in his silence.
"Why didn't you ever tell me?" she asked.
"Because I loved you more than I hated the truth," he said, turning.
She stood still.
And then slowly, carefully—he reached out.
His fingers grazed her wrist. The lightest touch.
It wasn't lust.
It wasn't comfort.
It was the ache of remembering someone you'd once buried beside your own soul.
"Tell me," she said.
"Everything."
And he did.
About Ananta.
About the pact.
About what the House had done.
And about the day she forgot him.
The page in her hand curled at the edges.
The music box sprang open.
A lullaby played.
Off-key.
Wrong.
And in the dust near her feet… a single white shoelace.
Child-sized.
Veer stared at it. His lips trembled.
"We didn't bury a secret, Aanya."
"We buried a body."
The mirror near the attic's corner fogged.
And in its reflection—Aanya wasn't alone.
---
**Author's Note – The Unstoppable Queen Aish 🖤🎀**
Did the attic chill your spine, my little sinful shadows?
Did the touch between Aanya and Veer burn softly like memory lit on fire?
From the ritual to the music box, secrets are no longer sleeping.
Next up: *"The Forest Officer with Hollow Eyes"* – we descend into forbidden woods, whispered names, and Veer's first night outside the House since the pact.
Vote. Cry. Breathe.
But remember:
**Not all memories die. Some learn to whisper back.**
Stay haunted,
**Aish 🖤 Your Unstoppable Queen of Shadows**