The room was soaked in a half-darkness that didn’t want to leave.
A pale shaft of sunlight slipped through a tear in the curtain, carving a line across the floor that split the room into dust and shadow. Everything else was a clutter of colour and noise—too many things, not enough space.
Clothes clung to chairs, dangled off the window rod, and hung from the half-open cupboard like they were ready to leap off and escape. The smell of damp cotton and old perfume sat thick in the air.
In the middle of it all, a young man was spiralling.
He moved in sharp bursts—rummaging, tossing, overturning with the frantic clumsiness of someone running out of time. His shirt clung to his back in patches of sweat, and his hair stuck to his forehead like it too had given up.
A stack of books tumbled from a table edge with a loud thud, a few pages tearing as they fell. A cloth rack tilted dangerously behind him and crashed to the floor, spilling shirts like dropped secrets.
“Ticket… ticket… where the hell is it?” he muttered under his breath, nearly tripping over the fallen clothes as he kicked a backpack aside.
He lifted a mattress corner with one hand, upending a cushion with the other. A metal tumbler flew off the table and clanged onto the floor, rolling somewhere under the bed. He stepped on a tangled charger wire and cursed, trying to shake it loose.
The room now looked like it had been robbed by a very specific thief—someone only interested in paper and panic.
And then—finally—his hand plunged into an old canvas sling bag near the foot of the bed. His fingers brushed something soft, then caught the folded slip of paper.
The ticket.
Bent, smudged, but still intact.
He exhaled through his nose, sinking onto the bed with a hard breath. His chest heaved, the adrenaline still high.
Around his neck, a worn taabij slipped forward from under his shirt—silver glint against skin, held by a thin, dark thread.
He adjusted it instinctively. Hands steady now. Almost reverent.
His phone buzzed once on the side table.
He didn’t look.
Just grabbed the ticket, zipped the bag shut, and stood. Jaw clenched. Heart louder than the room.
He slung the bag across his shoulder, adjusted his collar, and finally made his way to the door. His hand hovered over the latch for a second, as if crossing that threshold meant something bigger than just leaving a room.
With a slow breath, he unlocked it.
The old wooden door creaked open—just a sliver at first, then wider, letting in the full weight of the world outside. The narrow alley was still damp from an early morning sweep, a faint trail of water running along the cracks in the concrete. Sunlight filtered through the grills of balconies, breaking into geometric patterns on the ground.
He stepped out, squinting against the sudden light—and froze.
Five houses down, just beyond the bend where the alley curved slightly toward the main road, a group of men were gathered. Not neighbours. Not milkmen or postmen or even the chai vendor.
These men stood too still. Their clothes too clean. One wore a khadi waistcoat over a pale blue kurta, and another had a phone glued to his ear, muttering between nods. Two others stood back, arms crossed, surveying the area like they owned the air itself.
And then—questions.
They weren’t yelling, but their tone sliced through the still morning.
“Kab se reh raha hai yahan?”“Akele rehta tha ya koi aur bhi tha saath?”“Naam kya bataya tha tum logon ko?”
The door they were questioning belonged to an old woman who peeked from behind a curtain. Her voice was shaky, her eyes darting nervously toward the alley.
The man at the doorway clenched his jaw.
His hand tightened around the strap of his bag.
They weren’t here for the neighbourhood. They were fishing. And the net was wide.
One of the men turned slightly, scanning the lane—and for a brief second, their eyes almost met.
Time paused.
His breath caught, a bead of sweat sliding down the curve of his jaw. The bag suddenly felt heavier.
And then—he ran.
No hesitation. No backward glance.
His feet slapped the concrete with sharp urgency, weaving through puddles and strewn garbage. The alley twisted, narrowed, then widened again near the back side of the block where the old fruit stall stood abandoned. He ducked past it, leapt over a broken scooter frame, and vanished into a side gully no wider than a body.
The men five houses down stirred—one of them pointing, another shouting something muffled by the rising noise of the morning.
But by then, he was already gone.
Faster than questions.Faster than fate.
Only the sunlight remained—glinting off the dust his feet had kicked up, and the taabij swinging wildly against his chest.
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