Alex slept for three hours and woke up feeling like a bus had parked on him.
It wasn't the fight with the summon. It was the Tier 5 throw. Even at his "stable" form, his arm muscles were sore, like after his first day at the gym in Class 9, when John had dragged him there and then he couldn't lift a spoon for two days. The Vessel Sync window was still sitting in the corner of his vision when he opened his eyes.
[Vessel Sync: Tier 5 · Stage 1/5 · Next stage: 15%]
Alex- " Yes, yes. I know. Go away. "
It went away.
He brushed his teeth, ate two slices of bread with butter, and went to tuition. Halfway through the physics class John poked him with a pen.
John- " Bro. You look dead. "
Alex- " Thank you. "
John- " Seriously. Were you up all night talking to Serena again? "
Alex- " Something like that. "
John- " Whatever you do, don't fall asleep in college. Sir will throw you out. And those idiots will make a video. "
Right on cue, Sir turned from the whiteboard. He was a thin man with a big voice who taught physics like he was angry at it personally.
Sir- " Alex. Since you are so busy talking. A ball is thrown upward at twenty metres per second. Maximum height? "
The whole class turned. Alex blinked once. He had thrown a brick through a monster's skull at roughly the speed of a bullet less than twelve hours ago, and somehow this felt harder.
Alex- " …Around twenty point four metres, sir. If g is nine point eight. "
Sir looked at him for a moment, disappointed that he couldn't shout, and went back to the board. John let out a low whistle.
John- " Since when do you know physics? "
Alex- " Since I started throwing things. "
John didn't understand that, and Alex didn't explain.
Alex knew which idiots. Vikram Malhotra and his gang. In school they had made his life hell for four years: his tiffin thrown in the dustbin, his notebook "lost", stupid nicknames written on the board. Back then he had been a weak boy who kept his head down. Then he had spent what felt like years in another world as a god. And now here he was, in a college classroom, with the same Vikram throwing erasers at the back of his head like a Class 6 kid. Vikram was big and loud, with gel in his hair and a new iPhone every year. His father ran some finance business in the old market, and Vikram talked about it the way boys in films talk about their father's gun.
It was almost funny.
In the afternoon the college was even louder than the day before. Banners for sports day were going up. Some boys were painting white lines on the main ground with a small trolley. Girls from the cultural committee were arguing about whose speaker was better. Alex walked past the ground slowly, and for a second, he stopped.
Under the noise, under his feet, there was the same thing he had felt near the kiln. The cold thread. Here it was faint, much deeper, like a pipe running far under the soil. But it was there. Right under the football field.
Sara- " Alex! Over here! "
Sara was waving from the canteen steps with Marina beside her. And standing with them, holding a book against her chest, was the girl from the road. The one he had pulled away from a speeding car the other night, while a man in the passenger seat watched her instead of the road.
She looked different in daylight. Thin, with straight hair tied in a plain ponytail, and big round glasses that made her eyes look serious. There was a small beige hearing aid in her left ear that he hadn't noticed that night. When she saw him, she straightened like a student when the principal walks in. He would learn the rest over the next few days. Second-year commerce. Lived with her mother in a rented flat near the tram depot. Her father had left when she was small. Born hard of hearing in one ear, and so used to people talking over her that she had stopped expecting anyone to wait for her answer.
Marina- " She was asking for you. She's from the B section, second year. "
Girl- " Hi. I'm Riya. "
She said it a little too loudly, and then winced and said it again, softer.
Riya- " Sorry. Hi. I'm Riya. I wanted to say thank you properly. That day I didn't even ask your name. "
Alex- " Alex. And it's okay. You were scared. "
Riya- " I wasn't scared. "
She paused.
Riya- " Okay. I was very scared. "
Sara laughed. Alex noticed that while he talked, Riya watched his mouth and not his eyes. She was reading his lips. She did it fast and smoothly, like someone who had been doing it her whole life.
Alex- " Do you want me to talk slower? "
Riya blinked.
Riya- " …Most people don't notice. "
Alex- " I noticed. "
Riya- " Normal speed is fine. Just don't turn away when you talk. People always turn away. "
John came from behind with four cold coffees in a paper tray and handed them out. He gave his own to Riya without saying anything. Alex liked him a little more for that.
Riya held the cup in both hands and didn't drink it, just held it, like it was the cold she wanted.
Marina- " Riya's doing chemistry. She topped the first year. "
Riya- " Marina. "
Marina- " What? It's true. Be proud. "
Riya's ears went pink. She pushed her glasses up with one finger.
Riya- " It's only because I can't hear the lectures properly. So I read everything twice. "
Alex- " Since when? Your ear, I mean. If you don't mind. "
Sara gave him a look, the kind that said you can't just ask that. But Riya answered easily, like it was a question she was tired of people being too scared to ask.
Riya- " Since I was seven. Typhoid, very high fever, for nine days. When I woke up, my right ear was gone and my left was half. The machine helps the left one. The right one is just… quiet. "
She tapped the right side of her head.
Riya- " Mostly quiet. "
There was something in the way she said mostly that made Alex look at her again. But before he could ask, the canteen speaker crackled and somebody announced that all relay participants should give their names by tomorrow, and the moment slipped away.
Then, of course, Vikram arrived.
He came with three friends, all in matching black track jackets with the college cricket team logo. He was tall and had the kind of face that girls in school had called handsome, and the kind of smile that teachers always believed. He put one hand on Alex's shoulder like they were old friends.
Vikram- " Arre, look who it is. The superhero. Whole college is talking about you, yaar. Saving the deaf girl. "
Riya's face went still. She had read every word.
Alex looked at the hand on his shoulder. Then at Vikram.
Alex- " Remove it. "
Vikram- " What? "
Alex- " Your hand. Remove it. "
He didn't say it loudly. He didn't need to. Vikram's friends laughed, but Vikram himself took his hand away a little too fast, and then looked annoyed with himself for doing it.
Vikram- " Relax, hero. I came to invite you. 4×100 relay on Saturday. Our class is sending two teams, and John's team is short one runner. My team versus his. Unless the superhero is scared. "
John- " He's not running. Go away, Vikram. "
Alex- " I'll run. "
Everyone turned to him. John's mouth opened and closed.
Vikram grinned wide.
Vikram- " Great. Saturday, then. Try not to cry like in Class 8. "
He left with his friends, laughing. John grabbed Alex's arm.
John- " Are you mad? He runs for the district team! "
Alex- " Then it'll be a good race. "
John- " Good race? Bro, in Class 8 he tripped you in the hundred metres and you broke your wrist! You had a cast for six weeks! I signed it! "
Sara- " He did what? "
John- " Everyone saw. Sir said it was an accident. "
Alex remembered the cast. Blue. John had drawn a very bad Spider-Man on it, and Marina had written get well soon in three colours of gel pen, and nobody else in the class had signed it at all. He remembered lying in bed that night with his arm throbbing and thinking that the world was a place where people like Vikram always won.
He didn't think that anymore.
Alex- " That was Class 8. "
John- " And this is college, and he's faster now! "
Alex- " So am I. "
John opened his mouth, closed it, and looked at Marina for help. Marina only shrugged and sipped her coffee.
Marina- " Let him run. If he loses, we'll buy him KFC. If he wins, he buys us KFC. "
Alex- " Deal. "
John- " You're all mad. "
He was thinking about something else. If he was going to be on that ground on Saturday morning anyway, he needed a reason to be close to the middle of it. Running in the relay was a very good reason.
When the others went to buy samosas, Riya stayed back. She stood next to him and looked at the football field, where the boys were still painting lines.
Riya- " Can I tell you something strange? You'll think I'm mad. "
Alex- " Try me. "
Riya- " Since last week I hear something. With my bad ear, not my good one. Even when I take the machine out. "
She touched the hearing aid without thinking.
Riya- " It's like… singing. Very low. Like a temple bell, but underwater. At night it's loudest. That day, near the college gate, it was so loud that I got a headache. That's why I didn't hear the car. "
Alex kept his face calm.
Alex- " And now? "
Riya turned her head slowly, the way a dog does when it hears a whistle. Then she pointed. Not at the sky, not at the canteen. Straight down at the green grass in the middle of the football field.
Riya- " Now it's coming from there. And every day, it's getting louder. "