The incident ended without explanation.
The volunteers insisted it was just a "minor sync reaction", nothing serious, nothing worth worrying about. Still, the rest of the day's schedule was quietly scrapped. Students were escorted back to their sleeping quarters in small groups. Nobody protested.
Shivam and Bhumika didn't speak much on the walk back. He walked a few paces behind her, eyes drifting between the volunteers' stiff backs and the dusty path underfoot. She kept her gaze straight ahead, one hand gripping the strap of her bag a little tighter than usual.
Inside the small dorm-like rooms, the air was stale and thick from the midday heat. Someone had drawn the curtains halfway, muting the sun into a dull orange. A ceiling fan clicked on with a tired groan. Shivam lay down on his bed without changing, still in his outdoor shoes.
Bhumika's room was two doors down. She shut the door, leaned against it for a moment, and exhaled slowly. Her legs felt heavier than they should. The dizziness from the grove hadn't completely gone away; it lingered in her temples, in the base of her neck.
She poured herself a glass of water from the jug on the table, drank half, then set it down. The room was too quiet.
She closed her eyes, just for a moment, and sleep took her faster than she expected.
It wasn't a normal dream.
One blink and she was standing in the middle of somewhere else entirely. The air smelled sharp, metallic, mixed with the stench of smoke and something far older, something that didn't belong on Earth.
A wide plain stretched out under a sky the color of bruised steel. On the horizon, fire bled into the clouds. Shapes moved in the haze, columns of armored soldiers, banners snapping in a wind that didn't touch her.
And in the center of it all… him.
Navik Vyer. She didn't know how she knew his name, but it came to her without hesitation, like a memory she'd never made. His armor was deep obsidian streaked with veins of blue light, each movement smooth and deliberate. A jagged crown rested against his brow. His face was unreadable, not rage, not triumph, but something colder.
Behind him, spires of black stone jutted from the ground like claws tearing out of the earth. They pulsed faintly, feeding the air with more of that unnatural light. She saw soldiers dragging civilians toward those spires, their struggling forms vanishing into the glow as if swallowed whole.
Screams echoed across the plain, but they were muffled, distant, like she was hearing them underwater. Still, the shapes of them were unmistakable.
Her feet felt rooted to the spot, yet she could see everything, the way the land itself seemed to shrink under Navik's advance, the way shadows clung too long to every moving thing.
Somewhere in the chaos, a ripple of light cut through her vision. The scene wavered, and a voice slid into the space between heartbeats.
Low, resonant, layered, it spoke in words she couldn't quite place, yet understood entirely:
"Ask the boy. He remembers more than he admits."
She turned sharply, searching for the source, but there was no one there. Only the endless plain, the fire, the marching soldiers, and Navik standing like a fixed point in the storm.
Then the sky broke.
It wasn't lightning, it was a tear. A jagged split of white-hot light ran across the clouds, spilling something bright and endless into the darkness below. The ground shook, dust whipping into the air.
Her knees buckled. The world tilted.
Bhumika woke with a start, the fan's rhythmic click grounding her back into the cramped room. Her throat was dry, her palms damp. She sat up, pressing her hands to her face.
It had felt real, too real. Not like a dream she'd half-forget by breakfast. Every detail clung to her: the smell, the weight of the air, the way Navik's gaze had seemed to cut straight through the battlefield and into her.
She glanced at the small notebook on her bedside table. Her fingers hovered over it, then pulled back. She didn't know what she'd even write.
Through the thin wall, she could hear muffled voices from the other rooms, tired laughter, someone arguing about phone charging cables. Life as usual.
She lay back slowly, eyes on the ceiling.
The voice echoed again in her mind, softer this time but no less sharp.
Ask the boy.
The return trip felt longer than the ride out.
By the time Group 7 was herded back to the buses, the sun had dropped low enough to throw long shadows across the Ridge gate. The volunteers called the incident a "minor heat reaction" and waved it off with practiced smiles, but no one on the bus looked convinced. Students moved slower, voices lowered, like the air-conditioning had drained the will to talk.
Shivam and Bhumika ended up in the same seats as before, second row, window and aisle. This time, there wasn't even a greeting. She slid in with her bag and immediately flipped open the assignment sheet they'd been told to complete before reaching campus. He sat down next to her, setting his pen across the top margin, and started writing without a word.
The hum of the engine filled the silence. Outside, the forest slipped past, replaced by the concrete skeletons of half-built apartments. Occasionally, one of the students in the back whispered something and got a tired laugh in return, but mostly, everyone was bent over their pages.
"Flora diversity index," Bhumika murmured, reading the next heading. "You have anything for that?" "Three species. Neem, babool, and whatever that thorny one was." She raised an eyebrow without looking up. "Acacia."
"Right. Sounds better on paper."
"Because it's correct," she said, still writing.
They fell into a quiet rhythm, swapping data without looking at each other. It wasn't exactly teamwork; more like parallel lines that occasionally crossed when the form required it. He filled in the water quality section. She took the waste management observations. Neither mentioned the clearing, the drone, or why everyone else had dropped like marionettes with cut strings.
Halfway through the ride, the road straightened out and the bus rocked less. A volunteer walked down the aisle, collecting completed sheets. Bhumika handed hers over without comment. Shivam did the same, then leaned back in his seat.
"You believe their story?" he asked suddenly.
She didn't turn her head. "About heat fatigue?"
"Yeah." A pause. "I believe it's the story they'll stick to."
He studied her profile for a second, then let it go. No point pushing here, not now.
They passed a stretch of old shops, shutters rolled down, signs faded to ghosts of themselves. The bus hit a pothole, making a few pens roll off desks and clatter on the floor. Someone in the back cursed softly.
The last twenty minutes were a blur of traffic lights and the low rumble of the AC. By the time the gates of the university came into view, most students had put away their sheets and were already on their phones, scrolling through feeds like the day hadn't happened.
When they stepped off, the air felt heavier, not hotter, just heavier. Shivam adjusted his bag and glanced toward the admin building where a few professors stood waiting to sign them back in. Bhumika gave a short nod in his direction before walking off toward her own block.
He watched her go for a moment, then turned toward the parking lane where his bike was.
Somewhere between the Ridge and here, the unease in his chest had gone from a passing doubt to something more solid. And it wasn't fading.
Shivam stepped through the front door just as the sun dipped low, its heat still clinging to the air. The faint aroma of cumin and onions drifted from the kitchen, the steady clink of utensils marking his mother's evening rhythm. He kicked off his shoes, letting his bag slide off his shoulder and hit the floor with a dull thud.
"Long day?" his mother asked from the kitchen without looking up.
"Something like that," he said, already halfway down the hall.
Dikshant's door was open, his younger brother hunched over his desk, earphones in, tapping a pen against his notebook in quick bursts. He glanced up as Shivam passed.
"Ridge trip over already? Thought you'd be back late."
"Yeah," Shivam said, pausing at the doorway. "Plans changed."
"Plans change or you ditched it?" Dikshant grinned, leaning back.
Shivam didn't bother answering. He just shook his head lightly and moved on to his room.