Beneath the violet sky

Noor arrived at the old mansion after ten years, carrying nothing but her mother’s ashes and a past too heavy to speak of. The estate in Elmsbrook, inherited from an aunt she barely remembered, stood still under the eerie violet dusk — a sky too calm for the storm that was coming.

On the first night, she heard the music.

A haunting melody coming from the lake behind the mansion. When she followed it, she found a stranger sitting at the water’s edge — his eyes dark, deep, and eerily familiar.

“I used to know you,” he said without looking up.

Noor froze. “I’ve never seen you before.”

He smiled, soft and broken. “Not in this life, maybe.”

He said his name was Ayaan. Said he couldn’t remember anything else — not where he came from, not even how he ended up near her estate. But he kept showing up, at the same place, every evening under the violet sky.

And every time, Noor found herself remembering things she’d buried — the fire, the screaming, the girl who vanished when she was fourteen. Her best friend, Tara. They said she ran away. Noor always knew better.

It started with a dream. Tara calling her from the basement. Then Noor found a rusted key behind a loose brick in the cellar. And a hidden door she’d never seen before.

She opened it.

Inside were old letters, recordings, and photographs of Ayaan — with Tara. Dozens of them. Smiling. In love. But they were dated over fifteen years ago.

None of it made sense.

When she confronted Ayaan, he whispered: “They made me forget. They buried me here. And you… you’re the only one who can finish it.”

“What do you mean?”

He reached into his pocket, pulling out the same necklace Tara wore the night she disappeared.

“Because you were there too.”

The memories came crashing back — the secret society Tara had uncovered, the night Noor and Tara found the tunnel beneath the mansion, the betrayal. Noor had suppressed it all. But Ayaan… he had tried to protect them, and paid the price with his mind.

In the climax, as Noor and Ayaan unlocked the final chamber beneath the estate, the truth was revealed: her aunt had been part of the secret group responsible for erasing lives, silencing truths. Tara was gone — but not forgotten.

Noor lit the final match. Burned the evidence. Burned the mansion. Let the sky turn violet one last time.

As they stood watching the flames, Ayaan turned to her.

“You saved me.”

Noor held his hand. “No. We saved each other.”

And for the first time, under the same haunted sky, they kissed — not out of romance, but survival. A bond born in darkness. A love forged in truth.