Ayaan's eyelids fluttered open. He sat up slowly, his breath heavy—like a weight was pressing down on his chest. Reaching for his head, he winced. The pain wasn't just physical—it was rooted deep inside his heart.
He glanced around.
The same place.
The same house.
But something was off.
A chill breeze drifted in through the cracked window, and a faint mist clung to the glass—like it had rained all night. His heart started pounding. He looked down.
No blood.
No bodies.
Only silence.
His throat went dry. "How is this possible?" he whispered.
Panic crept in. Every corner of the room stared back at him like a memory he couldn't grasp. The table. The chair. The photo. Everything looked untouched. Untouched… and wrong.
"Friends…" His lips moved, but the word barely escaped.
He rose shakily to his feet and searched the room, checking each wall and floorboard. Nothing. No sign of what had happened. No trace of what he felt he had seen.
Tears welled in his eyes—but now they were mixed with rage.
"Was it all a dream? Or is this world playing with me?"
With sudden fury, he slammed his fist onto the table.
Thud!
It rattled slightly. His knuckles turned red. The pain didn't matter.
There was no reason left to stay in that house anymore. He turned around and walked away.
Ayaan now sat in the metro, staring blankly at the floor. His hands rested on his knees, his eyes empty.
A child's laughter echoed nearby. A little boy clutched his mother's hand, smiling. Ayaan looked at them without emotion, as if he no longer belonged to the same world.
"Roshit… Varun…" his lips moved again.
His fist clenched. Anger surged through his veins.
'What was their fault?
They were just starting a new journey too…'
Now Ayaan's steps reached near the gate of Sanjay Van. It was already night. There was a strange chill in the air, as if even the forest had gone silent. He stopped near the hut, and the guard sitting there noticed him from afar—the same old chair, the same guard sitting quietly.
The guard looked at Ayaan's face. His eyes were dipped in a strange calm but there was a storm brewing inside. "Hey, Ayaan, you here?" the guard asked, a little surprised.
Without showing any expression, without a second's delay, Ayaan said, "I want to go down."
The voice was completely cold.
Straight.
The guard stared at his face carefully.
The boy who had come yesterday full of excitement and curiosity, had now turned into a stone made of sorrow and rage.
"Alright, go," the guard said, letting out a deep breath, as if he understood something terrible had happened.
Without stopping, without thinking, Ayaan just kept moving forward.
The lift's metal floor stopped with a faint vibration. The doors hissed open. Ayaan stepped out without hesitation.
His steps were swift, his breath ragged, and each movement radiated a strange, simmering rage. The steel corridors of the first layer—the place that had once filled him with awe—now felt like the walls of a prison. His mind circled one thing: the manager. The questions. The truth. The revenge.
Inside his cabin, the manager was flipping through a newspaper. A trail of cigarette smoke curled in the air. On the laptop screen, security footage showed a boy striding through the corridor with clenched fists and burning eyes.
The manager's brows furrowed. He leaned in. "Something's not right," he muttered under his breath.
A loud slam broke the silence.
The door burst open. Ayaan stood at the threshold, fury practically radiating from his skin. His chest heaved. His eyes, once soft and curious, now blazed with loss.
The manager rose slowly, unsure. Was this the same boy who had nervously entered his office days ago?
"Ayaan... is everything okay?" he asked, his voice steady, but alert.
"NOTHING IS RIGHT!" Ayaan roared.
The words cracked like thunder across the room.
Outside, heads turned. Footsteps gathered. A crowd began to form outside the glass walls of the cabin.
Ayaan's face was red. His fists clenched tight—his whole body shaking like it might explode.
The manager moved carefully around the desk. "Tell me. What happened?"
Tears welled in Ayaan's eyes. His voice broke.
"They're dead…"
A sharp inhale. "My friends…"
Another breath, heavier than before. "My two friends are gone."
The manager's cigarette slipped from his fingers.
"What?!" he gasped. "How?"
"This—" Ayaan snapped. "This is YOUR fault!"
Gasps echoed from the corridor. Some staff whispered; others stood frozen.
"You sent us there… on that mission! You made it sound like just another task. One hair, you said. Just ONE HAIR!"
The manager slammed his palm on the desk. "We didn't know!" he barked. "We thought he was just a man—an anomaly! Not... something else."
He ran a hand through his hair, now clearly panicked. "Wait. That wasn't... he wasn't normal, was he?"
"No," Ayaan growled. "Because of your one mistake... I lost two lives!"
The words cut through the air like glass.
"I'll never forgive you. You have no idea what you've done. I'm done with this place. I'm DONE!"
He reached into his pocket. A ziplock bag. Inside—one white hair. The trigger of everything.
He hurled it toward the desk. It bounced once, landed with a light thud.
"There's your hair," he spat. "I'm quitting. Goodbye."
He turned and walked out. Staff parted like waves as he passed. Some avoided his gaze. Others watched in awe.
The manager picked up the hair slowly, staring at it like it was a curse. Then handed it to a staff member nearby.
"Secure this," he said quietly, his voice like ice.
Then, louder: "Get the field reapers to my cabin. Now."
The staff scattered, heels pounding the floor, leaving behind the weight of Ayaan's storm and a silence no one could shake.
Ayaan took a few unsteady steps, his body trembling with each movement. The pain in his head intensified, like a sharp, relentless force drilling through his skull. His mind was foggy, his vision blurred, but he forced himself to stay upright.
He stopped for a moment, feeling the sharp, stinging sensation again. The dizziness was overwhelming. He reached up, gripping his forehead tightly, trying to steady himself.
"My head... so much blood has spilled," he muttered quietly to himself. His breath was shallow, ragged.
He glanced around, the streetlights casting long shadows, but there was no one in sight. He knew he needed help, but it was so far out of his reach right now. "I need to wrap it... fast," he whispered, desperation creeping into his voice.
His thoughts raced, but the pain in his head made it hard to focus.
Ayaan gently touched his head with his hand. His heart was racing, and his chest was rising and falling quickly. There was a strange glimmer in his eyes, as if he couldn't understand what was happening.
"What... what's going on?" Ayaan said to himself, slowly placing his hand on his head again, trying to feel for any injury. But nothing.
There was no wound. No blood, no injury—everything seemed to have completely vanished. Just a slight exhaustion, a little sweat that seemed to erase even his innocence. Ayaan's heart began to race, and more questions flooded his mind.
"I remember... I remember the pain, the blood... How can this be?" His voice trembled a little, as if some long-forgotten secret was about to make sense.
Ayaan was completely shocked. The past events started spinning in his mind like a flashback. He remembered—blood was falling... it had even dripped into his eyes, he had felt it. So then, how could this be happening now?
His throat began to dry. A strange sense of unease started rising in his chest. "What's happening?"
"I remember... so much blood was flowing. But suddenly, how did this wound heal? And where is the blood?"
A gust of cold wind brushed past Ayaan, followed by a moment of silence. And then... a voice. A faint whisper came into his mind, as if someone had whispered those words into his ear once again.
"The way you took my hair without asking, in the same way, I will take three of your precious things."
The old man's voice... Every word felt like someone was whispering poison directly into his ear.
Ayaan slowly parted his lips. "Three precious things?"
His feet began to move backward, slowly, as if the ground beneath him was slipping away.
Then another thought struck him...
His two friends...
Both of them were gone...
But what is the third thing?
His steps moved forward, slowly at first, but then they picked up pace. His breath became shallow and rapid. His heart suddenly started pounding faster. A piece of his heart dropped.
"No."
"No, no, no!"
He started running without thinking. His feet slammed against the road, the wind had picked up speed. Dust particles flew in the air, but Ayaan felt nothing. His steps seemed to be programmed for just one place—HOME.
"No... no, no, not her!"
"Nothing can happen to her."
"No."
"I won't let anything happen to her."
Ayaan shouted, his voice echoing through the air.
"Anyaaa!" He screamed.