Rahul's eyelids felt like lead. When he forced them open, the room arrived in fragments: a ceiling fan turning slow, patient circles; the smell of Dettol and old wood; sunlight cutting the cotton curtains into hard, accusing lines.
Where am I?
His body answered before his mind. Pain bloomed across his ribs, his shoulder, the side of his face. Every breath scraped like he was swallowing glass. He tried to sit up and a raw groan escaped him.
"Easy now." The voice was calm, unhurried.
Rahul turned his head—slowly, because motion hurt—and saw Antony sitting in a plastic chair by the bed, hands folded like a man who had been waiting politely for hours. His kurta was clean, his face kind in that tired, ordinary way. On the table: a small metal tray with bandages, a bottle of Dettol, cotton swabs.
"Antony… sir?" His voice was a rasp.
"You're in my house." Antony's tone was matter-of-fact. "I brought you here last night. You were in bad shape—still are, honestly. But you'll live."
Rahul tried to stitch the previous night together. The alley. The bats. Niraj's grin. Ananya's voice—flat and merciless: You have nothing, Rahul.
His stomach rolled. He shut his eyes and tried to make the memory slither away, but it clung like oil.
"You should rest." Antony eased the blanket over Rahul's legs. "I've cleaned the wounds. Nothing broken, but you'll be sore for a week. Maybe two."
"Thank you." It felt small, and he knew it.
Antony waved it off. "Don't mention it. The world doesn't need more people walking past someone in trouble."
Rahul wanted to believe that—wanted to believe there were still men like Antony, quiet and steady, who did small mercies without expecting anything. The dark voice inside him, though, had been louder since last night: Trust is a luxury you can't afford.
He forced the thought down.
Before they could say more, the door crashed open.
"Rahul!" Manish Sir's voice cut in, immediate and sharp. He crossed the room in three long strides and stopped at the foot of the bed, eyes taking in Rahul's bruised face like he was cataloguing every mark. "What the hell happened to you?"
Rahul tried to sit up; pain lanced across his torso. "Sir, I—"
"Don't give me excuses. Tell me what happened. Who did this?"
His throat was dry as sandpaper. "It was… Niraj. And his friends."
Manish's jaw went hard. The room dropped into a thin silence, then he exploded. "Niraj?!" His voice snapped. "That haramzaada! I'll find him—I'll—" He switched to Hindi, words spitting anger: "Main uski aise dhulai karunga na, woh apni shakal dekh nahi payega!" (I'll beat him so badly he won't recognize his own face!)
"Manish." Antony's voice stayed steady, the calm you use with a dog that's about to snap. "Calm down."
"Calm down?!" Manish rounded on him. "Look at him, Antony! Look what they did!"
"I see it," Antony said. "And I understand your anger. But you need to think clearly."
Manish's mouth opened. Antony raised a hand—not commanding, just patient.
"Niraj belongs to a powerful family in this city," Antony said quietly. "His father has connections. Money. Influence. If you go after him—especially now—you'll only make things worse. For yourself. For Rahul."
He let that land. "Don't play mad games today, Manish. And you—" he glanced at Rahul, "—don't think about revenge tomorrow either. Not yet."
The warning wore a coat of concern, but Rahul heard the edge: Be careful. The world has teeth.
Manish breathed out through clenched teeth. He looked at Rahul, at Antony, then back at Rahul. "This isn't over," he muttered. "That kamina doesn't get to walk away from this."
"Maybe not," Antony said. "But today isn't the day."
Rahul spoke then, voice low and flat. "Please, sir. Just leave it."
They both turned to him.
"I don't want anything anymore," Rahul said. The admission tasted of iron. "I found out the truth last night. About Ananya. About… everything." A laugh barked out—dry, hollow. "She made it clear what I am to her. What I was."
Manish's anger thawed into something softer, almost pained. "Rahul…"
"I just want to move on." He let the lie fall. Exams were coming. He needed the shelter of routine. It was safer to say that aloud than to admit the list the dark voice was drafting—plans and angles and waiting.
Manish sank into the plastic chair Antony had vacated. "You're a good kid, Rahul. Too good for people like her." He rubbed his face with both hands. "Alright. I'll leave it. For now. But if that chutiya tries anything else—"
"He won't," Rahul said, though the words didn't settle in him.
Antony nodded. "Good. Now—both of you need chai. I'll make some."
He left with quiet efficiency. The silence that followed felt heavier than it should have.
Manish leaned forward, elbows on knees. "You sure you're okay?"
Rahul nodded. "I will be."
"And you'll still write the exams?"
"Of course."
Manish smiled, the faint, proud curl of a mentor. "That's my student."
The days that followed were a blur of ache and small mercies. Rahul stayed in Antony's small, tidy house—books on shelves, a faint medicinal tang in the air. Antony fussed in a fatherly rhythm: change the dressing, eat, rest. "You're stubborn," he said one evening, watching Rahul flip through physics notes. "Just like my son was."
"Was?" Rahul asked.
Antony's smile didn't reach his eyes. "Long story. For another time."
Everyone had ghosts; Rahul let that one rest.
By the fourth day he could walk without a pronounced limp. By the sixth the bruises had drained from angry purple to dull yellow-green. He went back to the library, to the patient machinery of preparation.
Exams arrived like an indifferent clock.
Rahul sat in the hall—fluorescent lights buzzing, rows of desks, the dry scratch of pens. The invigilator paced, bored and watchful.
She was there.
Ananya three rows ahead: hair tied back in a tight ponytail, posture immaculate, a light-blue kurta Rahul had once complimented. She didn't look back. No glance. No flicker of recognition.
A strange emptiness settled over him. No rage. No longing. Just a cold space where something warm had been.
He bent over the paper and wrote.
Across the room Niraj lounged with his friends, leaning back like he owned the place. He caught Rahul's eye and offered that slow, mocking grin. Then, loud enough for Rahul to hear: "Dekh usse. Ab aankhein bhi nahi utha sakta. Yeh kehte hain darr ko." (Look at him. Can't even make eye contact. That's fear.)
Snickers followed.
Rahul did not react. His pen moved steady. The dark voice—calm, patient—murmured: Let them laugh. Laughter is temporary. Memory is permanent.
He finished early and left without looking back.
Two weeks later he was back in his small rented room near campus. A single bed, a desk, a window overlooking a narrow street where stray dogs fought over scraps. He fell into the mechanical routine: wake, study, eat, sleep. Bruises faded. Exams ended. Life, in its indifferent way, continued.
One night he lay on his back, watching the fan slice the ceiling into slow arcs. Outside the city hummed—horns, voices, the distant clack of an autorickshaw. Someone frying pakoras; the smell drifted up warm and tempting through the window.
Sleep came thinly, then suddenly.
A soft rap at the door—so soft he almost mistook it for the building settling.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
Rahul stirred, half-dreaming.
Tap. Tap. Tap—sharper now.
He opened his eyes. The room was dark; a single orange smear from the streetlamp. Clock on the desk read 2:47 a.m.
BANG. BANG. BANG.
Rahul sat up. His heart thudded against his ribs. The knocking was frantic, an animalistic insistence.
"Rahul!" someone barked from the other side. "Rahul, open up! Police!"
His blood turned to ice.
Police?
He stumbled to the door, legs unsteady, mind racing. What do they want? What have I done?
The dark voice in him unfurled, slow and certain: You know what this is. You always knew.
"Open the door! Now!"
His hand hovered over the latch. The knocking grew in fury—an avalanche of sound that filled the small room and pushed the air out of his chest.
He did not know—could not have known—that opening that door would shatter everything.
That the world he thought he understood would collapse into something stranger and more merciless.
That from this moment, nothing would ever be the same.
He unlocked the door.
And his fate walked in.
—Someone at the door had a purpose.