The fog lingered even after Veer left that night. Sai stayed on the rooftop, arms around his knees, staring at the haze creeping from the canal's direction.
Every sound carried strangely in the damp. A dog barked once, then went quiet. A cart wheel squeaked far off in the bazaar. And beneath it all was a silence that felt too deliberate, as if the town itself held its breath.
He told himself to go inside. To sleep. To forget.
But the words from the phone replayed in his head, stitched together into one long sentence. *The canal hides more than water. One truth is already missing. Another will follow. Choose who to trust.*
He whispered into the air, "Why me?"
The fog had no answer.
…
His dreams, when they came, were sharp and jagged. He saw water swallowing rope, pale fingers slipping from his reach. He saw faces he knew: Rhea, Veer, his mother, blur into one another until they stared at him with hollow eyes.
He woke before dawn, chest heaving. The cracks on the ceiling blurred into each other. His mother's faint humming from the courtyard grounded him again, reminding him that the world still existed outside his head.
Sai splashed his face with cold water before joining her for breakfast.
"You're up early," she said, surprised, setting down two cups of chai.
"Couldn't sleep."
Her eyes softened, but she didn't ask questions. She rarely did. Questions only led to walls he couldn't climb.
He forced down the poha she served, though it felt like chewing sand. She watched him for a moment longer, then returned to her chores.
The silence between them wasn't hostile. It was simply the silence of two people carrying more than they could speak of.
…
By the time Sai reached the college, the courtyard was already filling. Students lounged in groups, laughing about the app's latest predictions. Some mimicked its formal tone in jest; others swapped stories with too much eagerness.
Rhea was waiting near the banyan tree, notebook clutched tightly in her arms. Veer leaned against the trunk, half-listening to a group of juniors nearby.
"You're early," Sai said.
Rhea's eyes narrowed. "You look worse than yesterday."
"Thanks," he muttered.
"Don't snap at me. I'm worried." Her voice had a bite, but it wasn't unkind.
Veer pushed himself upright, brushing off his kurta. "Both of you, enough. We didn't meet to fight."
Rhea opened her notebook and thrust it at Sai. "Then read this."
He hesitated, but Veer gave a small nod. Sai took it and flipped to the first page.
Her handwriting filled the sheets in careful rows, neater than his own class notes had ever been. But what caught him wasn't the neatness. It was the detail.
*28 August – StarCode notification: Beware the fall. 3rd September – hostel boy broke his leg on the stairs.*
*30 August – App warned: Frozen stiff. 6th September – woman's body taken from canal by police. Locals whispered it was cold as ice.*
*2 September – App said: Journey brings disaster. 7th September – family canceled trip to Raipur after fight. Bus they meant to take broke down on highway.*
*4 September – The canal hides more than water. 8th September – rope, stone, pale head sighted by towpath. No official record.*
On the margins she had scribbled questions:
*Coincidence? Warning? Or is the app feeding us stories we then act to fulfill?*
*Why late August? Who else got messages before us?*
Sai's throat tightened as he turned the pages. The dates stretched back further than he expected, mapping a slow creep of events leading to their present. She had circled words, drawn arrows linking predictions to outcomes. It wasn't just a notebook anymore. It was a map of fear.
"You've been tracking this since August?" he asked, voice low.
"Yes," she said. "Someone had to."
"Why didn't you tell us earlier?"
Her eyes flashed. "Because you don't listen. You brush it off, or you get angry. I thought if I showed you proof, maybe you'd believe me."
Sai wanted to argue, to tell her that proof wasn't always comfort. That sometimes ignorance was the only shield. But Veer stepped in before the words left his mouth.
"She's right," he said calmly. "We need to know what we're dealing with."
Sai looked down at the notebook again, the lines swimming in his vision. Every entry pressed on his chest like a stone. He handed it back carefully, as though it might shatter in his hands.
"Let's go," he said. "Not here."
…
The three of them walked together through the bazaar, though each carried their own silence. The market bustled as always, vendors shouting over each other, children darting between stalls. But the usual comfort of the noise felt thin, strained.
When they passed Mrs. Mishra's tea stall, the absence was sharp. The benches were empty, the counter dusty, the kettle missing its whistle. It wasn't just a stall–it was a part of their routine, their childhood, the town itself.
Ramu stood nearby, arms folded, his gaze on the locked shutters.
"Still closed," he muttered when he saw them. "Feels wrong. Place looks dead without her."
Rhea opened her mouth to ask about her, but Ramu cut her off with a shake of his head. "Hospital's hospital. They'll keep her there as long as they like. But who'll keep the town together, eh? She was the only one who listened to everyone."
Sai saw the grief under his irritation. But Ramu wasn't one to spill feelings. He glanced at them once more before turning away, muttering about letters waiting to be sorted.
Sai exhaled slowly. The stall, empty and silent, felt like an omen.
…
At the far end of Patel Bazar, a small crowd had gathered outside the police outpost. Two constables tried to wave them away, but the voices rose louder.
"We saw it!" a man shouted. "You pulled something from the water last night!"
"Nothing was pulled," the constable barked. "Divers went down. They found mud, weeds, nothing else."
"They're lying," another voice cried. "I saw the sheet! I saw the van!"
The second constable slammed his stick against the ground. "Enough! You want a night in lock-up? Go home!"
The crowd grumbled but scattered slowly. The three friends lingered at the edge, close enough to hear.
Inside, Sub Inspector Meena's voice carried through the open door, sharp and tired. "I don't care what they think they saw. If the divers came up empty, that's what I'll write. You want me to file a report on ghosts?"
Sai's pulse quickened. He thought of the rope, the stone, the pale face. He knew what he had seen. But the official record said nothing. The truth had sunk again, buried beneath mud and denial.
Rhea scribbled quickly in her notebook, her jaw set. Veer touched her arm lightly. "Not here," he warned.
She closed the notebook, but Sai saw the fire in her eyes. She wouldn't let it go.
…
Back at Sai's house, they gathered in his room. The bulb flickered faintly above them, shadows stretching across the walls.
Rhea spread the notebook on the cot. "Look," she said, pointing to the dates again. "The app isn't random. It builds on itself. Each prediction ties to something in town, something real. Even if the police deny it."
Sai sank onto the chair, rubbing his temples. "And what do we do with that? Write a thesis? The app doesn't care if we understand. It just… speaks."
"You think ignoring it will make it stop?" she shot back.
"I think staring at it will drive us mad," he said. His voice cracked, softer than he intended. "It already is."
The silence after his words was heavy. Rhea looked at him, her expression softening for the first time all day. But she didn't reply. She just closed the notebook gently, as if afraid it might break.
Veer, as always, steadied the air. "We'll balance it," he said. "We'll keep track, but we won't chase every rumor. If there's a pattern, we'll see it in time."
Sai nodded faintly, grateful for his friend's calm.
…
That evening, they sat on the rooftop again. The fog had already started to creep, faint tendrils curling from the canal.
Veer spoke of lighter things: old cricket matches, their school days, the time Sai had tried to climb the banyan tree and got stuck halfway. Rhea even smiled at the memory, though it didn't reach her eyes.
Sai laughed softly, surprising himself. For a moment, the weight lifted. For a moment, he remembered they were just three friends sharing a rooftop.
Later, when he lay in bed, the weight returned.
The words whispered again, threaded into his thoughts. *One truth is already missing. Another will follow. Choose who to trust.*
He turned toward the window. The fog pressed thick against the glass.
He thought of the pale head sinking into the reeds, of the divers surfacing with nothing. He thought of Rhea's notebook, of Veer's steady voice.
The app wasn't just predicting anymore. It was deciding what was remembered and what was forgotten.
And Sai didn't know how much longer he could trust even his own eyes.