"Oxygen isinvisible. But you only notice it when it's gone."
The airplane hummed like a lullaby, gliding through the afternoon sky. Aarav sat by the window, his seatbelt loose, his mind tangled in carbon lattices and molecular geometry. His chemistry textbook lay open on his lap, pages fluttering slightly from the cabin's recycled air. He wasn't reading anymore—just staring at the diagram of a diamond's tetrahedral structure. Four bonds. Perfect symmetry. Unbreakable.
He liked things that made sense.
Outside, the clouds looked like whipped cream smeared across a blue canvas. The sun was gentle, casting soft shadows across the aisle. A flight attendant passed by, offering juice boxes and polite smiles. Aarav declined. He was flying to Delhi for the National Science Quiz finals. His school had never sent anyone before. He was supposed to be proud. Instead, he felt… hollow.
Then, everything changed.
It started with a sound—no, the absence of sound. The low hum of the engines vanished. The air felt thick, like syrup. Aarav's ears popped violently. He gasped, instinctively—but nothing came in. No air. No oxygen.
The cabin lights flickered. A baby cried, but the sound didn't reach his ears. A man stood up, panicked, mouthing something. The flight attendant stumbled, her tray crashing to the floor in eerie silence.
Outside, the sky turned white. Not cloudy—white. Like someone had erased the atmosphere with a single stroke.
Aarav clutched his seat. His chest tightened. His vision blurred. His fingers trembled as he reached for the oxygen mask that hadn't dropped. He wasn't sure if he was dying or dreaming.
Then—
It came back.
The engines coughed. The air returned with a roar. Sound flooded the cabin like a tsunami. Screams. Metal groaning. Babies wailing. The plane lurched violently, dipping toward the earth.
Aarav didn't scream. He couldn't. He was too busy listening—to something inside him.
The plane crash-landed in a field outside Jaipur. Miraculously, most passengers survived. News outlets called it a freak solar flare. Scientists blamed electromagnetic interference. Conspiracy forums lit up with theories: alien sabotage, divine punishment, government experiments.
But Aarav knew better.
Because later that night, in the hospital bed, he noticed something strange. His skin shimmered faintly under the fluorescent lights. Not glowing—just… patterned. A lattice. A structure. Familiar.
He pulled out his textbook, flipping to the diagram he'd stared at on the plane. Diamond. Carbon atoms bonded in perfect symmetry.
The same pattern was forming beneath his skin.
And he wasn't the only one.