Zara woke up to an eerie silence. She looked out the window and froze. The blue house across the street—the Qureshi house—was gone. Not a trace remained: no walls, no roof, no garden. Just empty grass where it once stood.
She rushed outside, where a small crowd had gathered. Police officers were talking quietly with neighbors, trying to make sense of what had happened.
"This is the third house to disappear this week," one officer said grimly. "We don't know how or why."
Zara's heart pounded. No one believed her when she said the houses vanished like magic. But she couldn't forget the rusty key she found near the old graveyard days ago. The one that seemed to glow when she touched it.
She pulled Ali aside. "The key… it's connected to all this. I know it."
Ali nodded. "Then we have to find out what's really going on."
As the sun began to set, they packed a flashlight, the key, and a notebook. Hand in hand, they walked toward the graveyard, ready to uncover the village's deepest secret.