Chapter 3: The Warm Mug

Chapter 3: The Warm Mug

The morning light felt like an accusation.

Rohan woke with a jolt, tangled in his sheets, his heart still pounding a frantic rhythm from a nightmare he couldn't fully recall. It was a chaotic slideshow of skittering shadows, a hunched figure in a parking lot, and the gut-wrenching sound of a knock from inside a wardrobe. He sat up, the pale light of day streaming through his window, and for a blissful second, he managed to convince himself it had all been a dream. A collective, stress-induced hallucination fueled by cheap beer and a creepy old building.

He fumbled for his phone on the nightstand. His hands were still shaking. A new group chat had been created in the dead of night, simply titled "Last Night." The logs told a story of shared panic and desperate attempts at rationalization.

Kunal: Everyone get home okay? Zoya: Yes. Can't sleep. Rohan: I'm home. We all saw it, right? In the parking lot? Kunal: Trick of the light, man. Streetlight was flickering. We were all freaked out. It was mass hysteria. Zoya: It wasn't a trick of the light. It was standing with us. Sneha: Did anyone hear from Pranav? He hasn't replied. Aman: I'm outside my building. Can't bring myself to go back up.

That was the last message, sent at 3:47 AM. Rohan’s stomach twisted. Pranav was still silent. And Aman had spent the night in his car.

Rohan typed, his thumbs feeling clumsy. Rohan: Aman, you okay? Maybe just call the landlord and break the lease. Tell him the place has rats. Giant, scuttling rats.

He was trying for levity, but the words felt hollow. The image of that thing moving with its dry, leafy rustle under the bed was seared into his brain.

A few minutes later, the chat blinked to life again. Aman: Going up now. It's daylight. It's just an apartment. I'll check it out and let you guys know. Kunal: That's the spirit. Probably just some weird squatters who ran out the back. Zoya: There was no back door, Kunal.

An hour passed in agonizing silence. Rohan paced his small bedroom, unable to sit, unable to think about anything else. He felt a phantom chill, the memory of the bathroom mirror fogging over, the impossible image of those sunken eyes behind his own reflection. It was a shared experience. That had to mean something. It couldn't be a delusion if they all saw different pieces of the same puzzle.

His phone buzzed, but it wasn’t a text. It was a call. From Aman. Rohan answered so fast he nearly dropped the phone. "Aman? Are you okay? What's going on?"

Aman didn't answer right away. Rohan could hear his friend's breathing, shallow and shaky. There was a faint clinking sound in the background, like ceramic on a countertop. "Aman?" Rohan pressed, his voice rising with alarm.

"I... I cleaned up a little," Aman finally said. His voice was unnervingly calm, stripped of all emotion. It was the flat, toneless voice of someone in profound shock. "I picked up the plastic cups we were using. Threw them out."

"Okay..." Rohan said slowly, confused. "What does that have to do with anything?"

"There were six of us, right, Rohan?" Aman asked, his voice cracking on Rohan’s name. "Last night. There were six of us."

"Yes, of course. Me, you, Kunal, Zoya, Sneha, and Pranav. Six." Rohan’s heart began to hammer against his ribs again. He knew this wasn't going to be good.

"I was putting the cups away," Aman continued, his voice dropping to a whisper. "And I saw the mugs. The coffee mugs I have. I hadn't unpacked them all, just a few I brought over in my backpack." He paused, taking a ragged breath. "They're on the kitchen counter. Lined up in a neat row."

Rohan waited, dread coiling in his gut.

"Rohan," Aman whispered, "There are seven mugs."

The words hung in the air, cold and heavy. Seven. The number from the distorted song. ...the seventh is coming...

"Maybe you just unpacked more than you thought?" Rohan offered weakly, knowing how pathetic it sounded.

"No," Aman said, his voice breaking completely. "The other six... they're dusty. They've been sitting out. But the seventh one... it's different. It’s a plain black mug. I’ve never seen it before. It's perfectly clean. Like someone washed it."

Rohan sank onto the edge of his bed, the phone slick with sweat in his hand. This was it. The concrete, physical proof they had all been dreading. This wasn't a trick of the light or a faulty speaker. Something had been in the apartment. Something that left evidence.

"Aman, just get out of there. Right now. Go to your parents' place. We'll figure this out," Rohan said, trying to force authority into his voice.

"That's not all," Aman choked out. "Rohan... I picked it up."

"Picked what up?"

"The seventh mug." There was another pause, longer this time. When Aman spoke again, his voice was so faint it was barely audible.

"It's still warm."

A wave of nausea washed over Rohan. Warm. The word was a physical blow. Warm like it had just been held. Warm like it had just been used. A silent guest, sitting at their table, leaving behind its cup.

"Aman!"

The line went dead.

Rohan stared at his phone, his screen showing the ended call. He immediately tried calling back. It went straight to voicemail. He typed frantically into the group chat.

Rohan: EVERYONE. Aman just called me. He found something in the apartment. He's not okay. He hung up and isn't answering. Rohan: He found seven mugs. One of them was warm. Rohan: Aman? Kunal? Anyone?

Silence.

No one replied. The chat, their digital fortress against the encroaching fear, was now a dead space. A list of names, each one now isolated, alone with the terrifying knowledge that the thing from Apartment 5B was real, and it had left a calling card.

A sense of profound isolation descended on Rohan. He was alone. They were all alone. He stood up and walked to his own small kitchen, driven by a primal need to do something, anything, normal. He decided to make coffee, the ritual a comforting anchor in a world that had suddenly tilted on its axis.

As the coffee maker gurgled, he leaned against the counter, his eyes drifting to his own reflection in the dark screen of his laptop on the table. For a split second, a flicker of movement in the reflection behind him made him whip his head around.

Nothing was there. Just his empty living room, bathed in the morning light.

He shook his head, blaming his frayed nerves. He poured the steaming coffee into his favorite mug and took a deep, bracing gulp.

He spat it out instantly.

The liquid that filled his mouth wasn't coffee. It was thick, foul, and sickeningly salty. It tasted like brackish pond water, of rot and deep, cold earth. He retched over the sink, coughing and sputtering, the vile taste coating his tongue. He looked down into the white porcelain basin.

What he had spat out wasn't brown coffee. It was an oily, brackish, black liquid, swirling with a faint, greasy sheen, like crude oil mixed with seawater.

As he stared, horrified, a new sound reached his ears. It started softly, a faint electronic hum from the living room. He straightened up, his eyes darting to his laptop. The screen was still dark, the machine supposedly asleep.

But the sound grew louder. A slow, tinny melody. A warped, distorted tune that he recognized with a fresh surge of ice-cold terror.

It was the song from the speaker. The funeral dirge version of the cheerful pop song. His laptop, completely inert, was playing the music of their haunting. And through the distorted notes, he could almost hear the words slithering into his silent apartment.

...don't... let... him... in...