The weeks that followed were a gentle earthquake in the quiet geography of Alok's life. The University of Delhi continued its relentless rhythm, but to him, the light had changed. It was softer, warmer, filtered through the prism of Shree's presence. Books were no longer just repositories of logic; they were excuses to sit beside her, to hear her thoughtful hum as she read, to feel the quiet solidarity of their shared silence. Cafeteria tea tasted sweeter; the dusty garden paths felt like sacred ground. Love had not been declared in grand speeches, but it bloomed ferociously in the quiet spaces—in the way his hand would brush hers when passing a notebook, in the way her laughter seemed to rewrite the very air around them, softening the hardest, most logical corners of his heart.
One late evening, as the sky bled from orange to violet, they sat in their sanctuary beneath the ancient banyan tree. Shree leaned against the rugged trunk, her Political Science notes a sea of precise handwriting on her lap. Alok, beside her, held a textbook open but his eyes were fixed on the way the fading light caught the delicate curve of her ear, the focused line of her brow.
"Tum hamesha yun chupchap kyon dekhte ho?" she asked, her voice quiet but direct, her eyes still on her page. She had felt the weight of his gaze.
Alok stiffened, caught. "Main… bas soch raha tha," he mumbled, a familiar heat rising up his neck.
Shree finally looked up, a knowing, tender smile playing on her lips. "Soch rahe the? Ya sirf dekhte reh gaye the?"
He opened his mouth, a confession of everything he felt poised on his tongue—Because you are the most beautiful equation I cannot solve. Because looking at you feels like coming home. But the words crumbled into ash in his throat. He dropped his gaze, defeated by his own awe.
Shree's soft laugh was a melody in the twilight. "Tum bahut ajeeb ho, Alok Sharma." She paused, and her voice softened further. "Lekin… acchhe ajeeb."
Those words, acchhe ajeeb, settled in his chest not like a compliment, but like a benediction.
---
Their world was not an island. Their friends were the chorus to their private play.
Sandhya would link her arm with Shree's, her voice a teasing singsong. "Dekho use, haath mein kitaab toh hai, par aankhein toh tumpar tikti hain. Jaise tum koi rare theorem ho jo usne akhir kar solve kar liya."
Shree would shake her head, a faint blush giving her away. "Chup kar, Sandhya. Aisa kuch nahi hai."
Nishant, with his easy charm and careless confidence, once draped an arm around Alok's shoulders during a break. "Suna hai teri waali Political Science ki hai. Sharp mind. Agar tu propose karne mein deri karega, toh main aa jaunga beech mein. Waisi ladki roz roz nahi milti."
Alok's jaw had tightened, a possessive fire sparking in his gut for the first time. "Meri baat hai, Nishant," he'd said, his voice low and uncharacteristically sharp. "Tu haath mat daal."
But it was Ankit, ever perceptive, who saw the truth etched in Alok's newly softened expressions. "Bhai," he said one night on the hostel roof, "Tum dono ki kahani bas shuru hui hai. Mujhe lagta hai… yeh shaadi tak jaegi."
The thought had hit Alok like a physical blow—so terrifying and so exhilarating it left him breathless. That night, lying awake, he didn't see numbers behind his eyelids. He saw Shree. Not in a red sari amid firelight, but in the quiet of a morning, her hair loose, her smile just for him. It was a future so tangible he could almost touch it.
---
But while love built its fragile palace within the university walls, the city outside was tearing itself apart. Delhi was a tinderbox, and men like Dhanna Seth and Saurabh Singh were striking matches.
Dhanna Seth, in his air-conditioned office, calculated profits from panic. Riots meant distressed sales—prime properties acquired for a pittance, small businesses destroyed, leaving vacuums for his empire to fill. His weapon was money, silent and ruthless.
Saurabh Singh's weapons were words. At a rally, his voice, amplified by speakers, dripped with venomous implication. "Hamare bachhon ko unki virasat chahiye! Unki jagah cheen kar kisi aur ko nahi denge!" He never named names. He didn't have to. The oil of hatred was slicked, waiting for a spark.
Alok and Shree, wrapped in the cocoon of their budding love, heard the distant thunder but never believed the storm would reach them. They were invincible.
Until the night the world ended.
---
It was a Friday. The air was thick and suffocating, heavy with the threat of rain that wouldn't fall. They walked out of the library, the sky a bruised purple. Their steps were slow, reluctant to part.
"Kal free ho?" Shree asked, her shoulder brushing his.
"Haan. Tum?" Alok replied, his heart lifting at the simple question.
"Chalein India Gate? Tumne kaha tha raat ko lights achche hote hain."
"Theek hai. Kal India Gate. Promise," he said, the word feeling solid and eternal.
But eternity lasted only a few more steps.
As they neared the main gate, the air changed. It was no longer just heavy; it was charged. The distant hum of the city was overwritten by a new soundtrack—the sharp report of shattering glass, the raw, animalistic roar of a crowd, and the acrid, throat-closing smell of smoke.
A pack of students sprinted past them, faces masks of pure terror. "Bhaggo! Danga hua hai!" one screamed, his voice cracking. "Lathiyan le ke aa rahe hain!"
Alok's blood ran cold. His hand snapped out, locking around Shree's. "Chalo, piche! Hostel ki taraf!" he urged, pulling her back.
But the chaos was a flood, and they were already in its path.
The mob erupted from the mouth of the market lane. It wasn't a crowd; it was a single, monstrous organism of rage. Fifty, a hundred men—their faces contorted, eyes gleaming with a mindless fury. They were armed not with arguments, but with lathis, crude iron rods, and kattas. Their slogans were a guttural, hate-filled chant that drowned out all reason.
"Jala do! Tod do!"
A shopfront exploded, glass raining onto the street as a Molotov cocktail turned it into a blistering inferno. The heat hit them in a wave. The smell of burning plastic, wood, and something sickly sweet—petrol—filled their lungs.
"Alok…" Shree's voice was a thin thread of fear. Her fingers were ice-cold in his, her knuckles white.
"Dar mat," he breathed, his own heart hammering against his ribs like a trapped bird. "Main hoon na." He wrapped an arm around her, trying to make his body a shield, and pulled her into a narrow gully, hoping it was an escape.
It was a trap.
Their footsteps echoed off the close walls, frantic and alone for a moment. Then, from the other end, another wave of the mob poured in. They were cornered. The chants echoed, magnified by the alley walls, becoming a deafening death knell. "Maaro! Saala… Maaro!"
Alok spun, shoving Shree behind him, his back to the advancing wall of hate. He met the eyes of a young man, no older than him, his face twisted with a rage that was not his own, a lathi raised high.
And then it came. Not from the front, but from the side.
A rock. A hunk of pavement, jagged and meant to kill. It flew from the shadows of the mob.
It did not whistle; it thudded.
The sound was sickening, a dull, final crack against Shree's temple.
Her hand, which had been clutching his sleeve with a desperate strength, went limp.
Time didn't slow; it shattered.
Alok watched, his mind refusing to process the image. She didn't cry out. She just… staggered. Her beautiful, intelligent eyes widened in pure, uncomprehending shock. Her lips parted, and a single, soft sigh escaped. "Alo…"
Her knees buckled. He caught her as she fell, collapsing under her dead weight onto the filthy, stone-littered ground. Cradling her head, his hand came away warm and slick with blood, a shocking crimson that soaked into the white of her dupatta.
"Nahi… Nahi, Shree, please…" His voice was a broken thing, a sob ripped from a place deeper than his soul. "Koi doctor ko bulao!" he screamed at the faceless mob, but his plea was swallowed by the mindless roar. "BACHHAO USE!"
He looked down at her face. The light was leaving her eyes, the deep, knowing pools fading to dull glass. Her chest hitched in a shallow, ragged breath.
"Main hoon… main hoon yahan," he wept, tears falling onto her cheeks, mingling with her blood. "Please… aankhein mat band karo. Dekho mujhe… bas dekho mujhe."
Her gaze tried to find his. A faint, almost imperceptible tremor touched her lips, the ghost of the smile he loved more than life itself. A final, whispered breath touched his face.
And then, nothing.
The stillness was absolute. The chaos around him muted into a distant, meaningless roar. He held her, rocking gently, his world reduced to the weight of her in his arms and the terrifying, endless silence.
His scream, when it finally came, was not a sound of grief. It was the sound of a soul being torn in two. It was raw, primal, and it was swallowed whole by the fire and the hate.
In that moment, Alok Nishant did not break. He was unmade.
The gentle student who found solace in numbers was incinerated in that alley, leaving only a core of white-hot fury. The love that had built him up was now a poison, a rage that would fuel him. The city's fire had jumped the walls and consumed him utterly.
And the man who rose from the bloody ground, with his love dead in his arms, was someone new. Someone dangerous. Someone who would now speak a language everyone would understand: the language of vengeance.