The dissection hall smelled faintly of formalin, quiet ambition, and a thin layer of regret as the students filed in for the post-lunch dissection session. The cadavers lay shrouded on the metal tables, white sheets pulled over them with the same careful neatness as always. During the first week they had carried a strange, almost sacred presence — something silent and profound that made everyone whisper and stand a little straighter. But now, the initial awe had worn off just enough for the students to begin treating them like part of the daily furniture of medical college life. Not normal exactly, but no longer shocking either.
Nikhil sat there, gaze distant and bored.
His copy of *General Anatomy by Vishram Singh* lay open in front of him, the spine cracked somewhere in the middle where the teacher had instructed them to read the topic taught earlier in the lecture. Nikhil could not have cared less. The book might as well have been written in ancient hieroglyphics for all the attention he was giving it.
And judging by the steadily rising level of whispers in the hall, most of the class wasn't reading either.
Technically, this was supposed to be a quiet revision hour before the dissection actually began. Realistically, it had turned into forty minutes of barely contained gossip and restless boredom.
Nikhil leaned back slightly against the stool, drumming his fingers on the table in absent rhythm.
He was the male CR of the class.
It had been decided through voting, and by some twist of fate — one that still mildly irritated him — he had won. The funny part was that he hadn't even been the one to submit his name as a contender. Someone else had apparently nominated him "because he talks to everyone." He had seriously considered refusing the position. After all, who voluntarily signs up for extra responsibility?
But then he had heard something interesting.
CRs worked with professors.
CRs worked with seniors.
Seniors.
That single word had been enough to make him pause. And reconsider.
The female CR situation, however…
That was messy.
Technically, Unnati was the female CR. The decision had also been made through voting — except the voting had been done by the subset of girls who actually cared about the CR election. Which was essentially Unnati's little social circle.
Not exactly democratic.
But no one had really objected at the time because, frankly, most people didn't want the responsibility anyway.
Well.
Most people.
A few days ago, a girl who had been on leave for the first few days of classes finally showed up. That was Manya.
And Manya and Unnati were, in a strange way, exactly the same.
Which was probably why they clashed so badly.
Both extroverted. Both outgoing. Both the type of girl who had spent her entire school life being *that girl*. The house captain. The class monitor. The head girl. The one teachers trusted and students followed.
Up until now, both of them had been frogs happily reigning over their own small ponds.
But this wasn't school anymore.
This was medical college.
The pond had suddenly become an ocean.
And now the two frogs had discovered each other.
Manya had contested the CR decision almost immediately, pointing out that it had basically been a clique-based vote and therefore unfair. Unnati had replied with absolute serenity. The queen did not dirty her mouth arguing.
Instead, she answered with patient benevolence while her loyal followers — ahem, friends — did the arguing for her. Friends who had, quite coincidentally, been subtly briefed beforehand on exactly what to say.
Manya, who didn't yet have a clique of her own, had no such luxury.
She had to argue for herself.
Which, of course, conveniently made her look like the difficult girl in comparison. After all, Unnati kept replying with calm smiles and gracious tones, like a saint tolerating a minor inconvenience.
Normally, Nikhil would have watched this unfolding drama with mild curiosity — like someone watching two dogs fight over a bone in a park. Interesting, mildly entertaining, but not something worth interfering in.
And that had been exactly his role so far.
But today, by a strange twist of fate, he had somehow ended up at the epicenter of the drama.
Unnati and Manya were both assigned to his table.
Unnati's two sidekicks — Priya and Riya — who were technically assigned to the adjacent table, had mysteriously migrated over.
And then it began.
At first it was subtle.
Priya leaned toward Unnati like she was whispering — which she absolutely was not, considering even Nikhil could hear every word clearly despite making a very obvious show of not listening.
"Can you believe she told Roha you only became CR because you introduced yourself to people first? As if being friendly and social is a crime."
Manya, who was staring very intently at her textbook but was clearly hearing every word, did not look up. A faint flush crept across her cheeks.
Unnati sighed gracefully, the picture of patient magnanimity.
"Let it go, Priya," she said in a soft, almost saintly voice. "It doesn't matter. Gossip is so beneath us."
"See, that's the problem!" Priya said immediately, absolutely not letting it go. "You're always being the bigger person, Unnati. But people keep talking anyway."
Her voice rose just enough to ensure the message reached its intended audience.
She continued, words flowing like a carefully guided stream of poison — talking about how whenever someone said something about them behind their backs, it always somehow came back to them.
The "someone" she meant was very obviously Manya, though she never said the name out loud.
Nikhil had been tuning the conversation out in the beginning.
But somewhere in the middle of Priya's dramatic speech, something caught his attention.
He had been half-listening when the last few words suddenly struck him.
"…when you talk about someone, no matter how much you think it won't, it always gets back to them. She thinks she can say things and it won't reach Unnati. But that's the thing about gossip. It always gets back. That's how the network works."
*It always gets back.*
The words lingered in Nikhil's mind.
Then the realization hit him.
Hard.
Like a switch flipping in his brain.
For a second he just sat there, staring at the table, as the idea assembled itself piece by piece in his head.
He had been approaching this wrong all along.
Completely wrong.
He had been trying to physically find that senior. Trying to provoke him face-to-face. But that had never actually been necessary.
The campus gossip network was practically a circulatory system.
No matter where the toxin entered the bloodstream, it eventually reached the intended organ.
And Nikhil had been wasting time trying to find the target first before delivering the message.
He didn't need to find him.
He just needed to release the message.
He didn't know the senior's name. But he didn't need it. The description alone was enough.
If he casually talked about that *short, pissed-off second year with a pretty face and an attitude problem who recently twisted his ankle* within earshot of the right people…
The information would travel.
Friend to friend.
Ear to ear.
Whisper to whisper.
And eventually, inevitably, it would land exactly where it needed to.
A slow, wicked smile spread across Nikhil's face as the plan crystallized.
Across the table, Anuj noticed.
He had been quietly highlighting a paragraph in his book when he looked up and saw Nikhil — who had been sitting silent and lost in thought for several minutes — suddenly smiling like a man who had just invented chaos.
Anuj physically flinched.
Knowing Nikhil, that smile never meant anything good.
"Why are you smiling like that?" he asked cautiously, already afraid of the answer.
"Nothing," Nikhil said easily, leaning back again. "Just thought of something brilliant."
That response did absolutely nothing to calm Anuj's nerves.
But Nikhil was not in the mood to explain.
And Anuj had already learned by now that trying to pry information out of Nikhil before he was ready to reveal it was a losing battle.
So he didn't ask again.
Meanwhile Nikhil kept smiling, eyes glinting with mischief as he listened to the ongoing drama between Unnati, Priya, and Manya like a man drawing inspiration from live theatre.
If gossip was the bloodstream of the campus…
Then he had just figured out how to inject the poison.
The game, he decided with quiet satisfaction, was very much on.