Fade in.
Rain begins again, soft at first — the kind that doesn't fall so much as hangs in the air.
Aarav rides in the back of a police jeep with Mehta at the wheel. The wipers creak in slow rhythm; the city slides past in reflections of red and blue lights. Vendors pull plastic sheets over their stalls; schoolchildren leap over puddles.
Through the window, the skyline looks half-dissolved.
Mehta lights another cigarette. "You ever been to Dharavi, Sharma?"
Aarav shakes his head.
"Good. Then don't think of it as a slum. Think of it as a city that decided to live inside itself."
Cut to overhead shot: the jeep threading through a maze of tin roofs, smoke, and narrow lanes. The soundscape shifts — children laughing somewhere distant, water dripping from pipes, a radio playing an old Kishore Kumar song warped by static.
They stop before a police cordon. Reporters hover like restless birds. One thrusts a microphone toward Mehta.
"Inspector! Rumors say it's connected to the old 'Patch Man' killings—"
Mehta brushes past. "Rumors pay your rent, not mine."
Aarav follows, notebook in hand. Officers stand aside, murmuring.
The camera never shows what they see; it only tracks Aarav's face — his composure, the subtle tightening of his jaw, the reflection of flashing lights in his eyes.
Somewhere off-screen, a constable mutters a prayer.
Mehta's voice, off-camera: "Mark the coordinates. No statements until forensics clears it."
Dr. Nira Joshi appears, hair damp, voice clipped. "Same pattern, different postcode. You'll get the report when I can prove it's real."
Aarav: "You've seen this before?"
She looks at him for a long second. "I've seen everything before. That's the problem."
Cut to slow dolly: Aarav walks a few steps away from the team, into an alley slick with rainwater. The sounds fade — sirens, chatter, everything recedes until only the patter of rain remains.
He stops. On a nearby wall, half-hidden under grime, is a faded stencil — a crude outline of a human figure stitched together with dotted lines, like an anatomy diagram. Beneath it, in Marathi, faint words: "To rebuild, one must first break."
Aarav traces the air above the text but doesn't touch it. The droplets distort the words until they melt into nothing.
Mehta calls from behind: "Rookie! We don't chase graffiti."
Aarav turns back. For a split second, the camera catches a movement in the corner of the frame — someone stepping out of sight, the shimmer of wet cloth.
He blinks, and the alley is empty.
Cut to wide shot: officers packing up evidence; flashing lights swallowed by the rain.
Mehta claps Aarav's shoulder. "Welcome to Division 13. The noise never stops, you just learn its rhythm."
Aarav forces a smile. "And the silence?"
Mehta exhales smoke. "That's when you worry."
The jeep pulls away, tires slicing through puddles. The alley behind them glows faintly under a streetlight. For a moment the light flickers — and in its pulse, the wall stencil seems whole again, newly painted, rain running down like thin threads of red dust.
Aarav doesn't look back.
Cut to interior, night.
Aarav's small apartment. Fan turning lazily. He sets the old CASE 1003 file on his table, unable to stop reading the phrase on the note: He rebuilds himself.
He writes it in his notebook, as if testing the weight of the words. The ceiling light buzzes. Outside, the city's noise folds into one low heartbeat.
Camera tilt up — the reflection on the window glass shows the room perfectly, except for one detail: in the reflection, Aarav's notebook is already closed.
Fade out.