The first thing Vikas noticed was the silence.
Not the silence of emptiness or fear, but the soft quiet of a Saturday morning, when the world seemed to linger between waking and dreaming. The kind of quiet that carried the distant coo of pigeons on rooftops, the faint hum of cicadas hidden in the trees, the occasional bark of a dog farther down the street.
He blinked awake, sunlight pouring through the thin curtains and painting golden stripes across his small bedroom. Dust floated lazily in the beams, turning with the slow grace of drifting stars.
The room was his in every sense — lived-in, unpolished, familiar. A stack of books leaned precariously on the nightstand, their spines a mix of borrowed novels, half-finished school texts, and one dog-eared field guide to birds he had never quite managed to return to the library. On the desk, a notebook lay open, its pages filled with sketches of places around town — the rusted water tower, the crooked oak by the creek, Sam's dog Buddy, captured mid-run.
Above his bed, pinned to the wall, were mementos of childhood: a fading map of the local woods, dotted with hand-drawn red X's marking "secret bases" he and Sam had claimed over the years; a photo of their soccer team, where Vikas, too shy to smile properly, stood just beside Sam's wide, reckless grin; and a scrap of paper on which Sam had once scribbled in crooked letters: "Adventure waits for us, always."
The air smelled faintly of old wood and the earthy tang of last night's rain seeping through the floorboards. A small crack in the ceiling, spiderwebbing from corner to corner, caught the morning light like a scar. It had been there for as long as Vikas could remember.
He sat up slowly, rubbing the sleep from his eyes, and let the routine pull him forward. Wash his face. Dress in yesterday's clothes. Pull on his scuffed sneakers, one lace frayed and threatening to snap. The motions were anchors, tying him to the present.
When he opened the window, the world beyond greeted him with warmth. The street stretched quiet and clean, lined with modest homes whose gardens overflowed with marigolds and hibiscus. The scent of wet soil clung to the air, freshened by the drizzle that had passed in the night. Somewhere down the lane, Mrs. Kulkarni's radio drifted out through her open shutters, crackling with an old Hindi love song.
For a moment, Vikas simply stood there, breathing it in.
Then he stepped outside.
And there was Sam.
He was waiting at the end of the street, exactly where he always did, a small rock in hand that he tossed and caught with absent ease. The morning light caught in his messy hair, turning the dark strands gold at the edges. By his side, Buddy — a scrappy black mutt with a white patch on his chest — wagged his tail hard enough to thump against Sam's leg.
"Morning. You're late," Sam called out, flashing his grin, the one that always looked half like a dare and half like a promise.
"By thirty seconds," Vikas replied automatically, his own smile tugging through his usual reserve.
They fell into step, their stride matched by long habit. The silence between them wasn't empty but full — filled with years of knowing glances, of conversations that needed no words.
They walked the familiar path out of the neighborhood, where manicured gardens gave way to unkempt hedges and houses leaned into disrepair. The air smelled of cut grass, warm asphalt, and the faint tang of rain. A delivery truck rattled past, its exhaust briefly clouding the air before fading into the distance.
By the time they reached the edge of town, the streets had thinned into overgrown fields dotted with wild sunflowers and the occasional scarecrow slumping in a forgotten patch of farmland. Crickets buzzed invisibly in the tall weeds. Broken fences marked the borders of land no one cared to claim anymore.
That was when Sam stopped.
His gaze was fixed ahead, on a massive warehouse squatting just off the road. Its walls were corrugated metal, streaked with rust and moss where rainwater had lingered. Paint peeled in great flakes, exposing dull steel beneath. The second floor had a window cracked into jagged edges, the glass shards catching light like the glint of a watchful, unblinking eye.
Sam's grin widened, his eyes lighting up with a spark Vikas had come to know — the one that meant trouble, or adventure, or both.
"Come on. We'll explore it."
Vikas frowned, unease crawling through him. "It looks… creepy."
"That's the point!" Sam laughed, already slipping through a bent corner in the chain-link fence. "Buddy, go!"
Buddy bounded forward eagerly, disappearing into the shadow of the building with his tail wagging.
Vikas lingered, his gaze fixed on the yawning black doorway. Something about the building felt wrong — as if it were holding its breath, waiting. He could almost imagine unseen eyes peering from the cracks, watching their every move.
But Sam's laughter rang out, bright and fearless, echoing inside. And that sound had always been enough to pull Vikas forward.
The warehouse swallowed him whole.
Inside, the air was thick with the smell of rust and damp concrete. Their footsteps echoed like small thunderclaps against the high ceiling. Shafts of sunlight cut through holes in the roof, illuminating drifting dust and the jagged silhouettes of abandoned machinery. Rusted chains dangled like cobwebs, swaying faintly in the draft.
Sam was everywhere at once — climbing crates, prying lids off rusted drums, calling out to hear the echo of his own voice. "Hey, look at this!" he shouted, peering into the shell of a long-dead generator.
Vikas followed, quieter, the cavernous space pressing uneasily against him. The silence felt heavier here, stretched taut between Sam's bursts of sound.
Buddy padded along the cracked floor, nose low, tail alert. Then suddenly — he froze.
A growl rumbled from deep in his chest, low and unnatural. His hackles rose, fur bristling along his back. The sound echoed unnervingly, magnified by the empty hall.
"Buddy? What's wrong, boy?" Sam turned, frowning.
Vikas's stomach clenched. The growl carried something primal, something that set his nerves alight. He turned to Sam—
And the world cracked.
Sam was on the ground.
One moment upright, grinning, alive. The next, sprawled on the dusty floor, eyes wide and vacant. A small, dark stain spread slowly across his hoodie, seeping into the concrete.
"Sam?" The word tore out of Vikas, thin and broken. He dropped to his knees, clutching at his friend's hoodie, shaking him as though he could rattle life back into him. "Sam! No, no, no—wake up, come on—please—"
His voice shattered in the echo of the warehouse, raw and helpless. Buddy whined, pacing in frantic circles, his nails clicking against the concrete.
The silence closed in again. Too heavy. Too final.
Tears blurred Vikas's vision. His chest heaved, his world narrowing to the weight of his friend's unmoving body. He pressed his palms against Sam's chest, as though his touch alone could undo what had happened.
And then — the air shifted.
The silence wasn't silence anymore. It was charged, buzzing with an invisible current. A wrongness, sharp as static, built behind Vikas's eyes. The warehouse seemed to ripple, its edges bending like heat haze. His breath caught—
—and he was back in his bed.
The sunlight streaming through the curtains. The golden dust in the air.The silence of a Saturday morning.
Exactly as it had been before.