3 27: The Counting Forest

At 3:27 AM Chaitu wakes to a slow insistent sound — it isn’t wind it isn’t his AC. It was alive. Chaitu’s chest tightened. Shadows stood in the corner. Watching. Waiting. Listening.A holiday retreat to his brother BK’s new resort begins with laughter teasing and the warmth of belonging — but soon spirals into something darker. A forest with its own memory. A banyan that counts. A tribe on the verge of losing its balance.As rituals unfold and patterns repeat Chaitu and his friends are forced to confront an ancient rhythm stitched into the land itself — a rhythm of three and twenty-seven.The numbers weren’t coincidence. They were summons.Beneath the ancient banyan rituals older than memory demand their part in the story. Shadows gather. Choices blur. And the forest begins to count again.Few survive its weight.Once you hear the rhythm you are part of it. And the forest never forgets.