Chapter 1: The Apartment and Its Rumours

I searched online: The ceiling fan creaked above me, the air thick with the late afternoon heat.

Beef only takes 6 to 8 hours to dry into jerky.

So I wondered: for a person to be dried into a mummy, would it take about the same amount of time?

As I read that, the memory of seeing dried red chilies strung across verandas in Varanasi flashed through my mind—the sharp scent of chilies, the sun making their colour almost glow against the faded paint. Sun and wind transforming things in the open air. But a human body? That’s something else. In India, we hear stories from childhood—about mummies, ancient curses, the hot, relentless sun. But does flesh really dry so quickly, even in our peak summer, with the loo winds howling?

1

Before the story begins, please remember these two floor plans and study the details carefully:

This is a rental apartment in a city located in the middle and lower reaches of the Ganga basin.

What can be confirmed is that this apartment truly exists, and in it, there is a corpse.

Please treat this story as a deduction game:

Based on the clues, do your best to uncover the cruel truth.

Now, before you scroll further, take a minute. Grab a chai, sit back, and see if you can solve it. Don’t peek at the comments—dare yourself first.

As you read, picture the kind of place this is—a city where people jostle in narrow lanes, where the smell of samosas and agarbatti floats up from the bazaar, where the ghats and the river are witnesses to secrets both old and new. Apartments here are cramped but full of life—and, sometimes, secrets.