The fog had settled thick over Mussoorie, wrapping the hills in a shroud of silence. Trees stood like shadowed sentinels, and the cold wind carried whispers only the heart could hear. Manisha Malhotra pulled her shawl tighter around her shoulders as she stepped onto the balcony of her old cottage, her eyes drifting toward the path that led into the forest.

It had been a year.

A year since Shivam Singhania’s laughter echoed through these woods. A year since his motorcycle slid off the rain-slicked road, vanishing him into the valley below. The villagers said he died instantly. They found no body — only a shattered helmet and a bloodstained jacket. That was the end of Shivam, for everyone but Manisha.

She hadn’t moved on. Couldn’t. The world expected her to forget, but her heart refused. Every night, she felt him near — in dreams, in the way the wind called her name, in the scent of wild roses that had once been his favorite.

That evening, as twilight crept in, the air around her turned still. She heard footsteps on the gravel path below. Not loud, not rushed — soft, measured, familiar. Her breath caught.

"Shivam?" she whispered into the mist.

Silence answered. But then, a whisper floated on the wind.

"Manisha..."

She turned sharply, her heart racing. There, standing at the edge of the forest where the trees swallowed light, was a figure. Tall. Lean. Wearing the same leather jacket he wore that night. His face was in shadow, but she would know that presence anywhere.

"Shivam," she breathed, stumbling forward, tears brimming in her eyes.

The figure didn’t move closer. He only watched, as if unsure whether to reach out or vanish.

Manisha’s legs trembled. She wasn’t afraid — not of him. She was afraid he wasn’t real.

But as the mist parted and his face came into view, her world shifted.

He was real.

And yet… not.

"Why are you here?" she asked, voice quivering.

Shivam’s eyes met hers — the same warmth, the same sorrow. "Because I never left."

And just like that, the veil between the living and the dead thinned, and their love — fragile, forbidden, and eternal — began its second life.