The rickshaw sped through the night, carrying them closer to the PI office and the answers waiting there. But in the back of all their minds, the same thing pulsed louder with every heartbeat.
The rickshaw clattered into Lajpat Nagar, weaving through the narrow lanes before stopping outside a modest building with a faded sign: Rathod Investigations. The shutters were half-pulled, but a strip of light glowed from the first-floor office window.
Inside, the air smelled faintly of coffee and dusted paper. A corkboard covered in notes dominated one wall, laptops blinked on another, and files sat stacked on every available surface. But the room still had a warmth to it, like a workspace people actually lived in, not just worked at.
The door swung open, and Anchal Rathod looked up from her desk. Her sharp eyes softened the instant she recognized them.
"Naina! Aman! Aanchal!" she exclaimed, standing. The tension of the last hour slipped a notch as the three were pulled into quick hugs and handshakes.
From the couch, Sumit whistled. "Wow, look at this, college squad meets PI squad. Crossovers I didn't know I needed."
Pawan, perched awkwardly on the armrest, gave a small wave, his gaze lingering on Anchal Rathod like he hadn't seen her in years. Suchitra smiled warmly from behind a stack of papers, and Mansi barely looked up from her laptop, muttering, "Wi-Fi's slow again. Perfect timing."
The energy shifted fast, familiarity buzzing like old classmates bumping into each other.
"Pawan," Naina teased, dropping her bag on the table. "Still orbiting around Rathod, huh? Whole city could collapse and you'd still be here simping."
The room cracked up. Even Rathod smirked, shaking her head. "Some things never change."
Sumit leaned forward, grinning. "Forget orbiting, bro's already bagged himself a certified baddie."
Pawan nearly choked on his water. "Sumit, shut up."
"Tell me I'm wrong," Sumit shot back, raising his brows.
The laughter echoed for a moment, breaking the tension that had clung to the three newcomers all evening. But as quickly as it sparked, it faded. Rathod gestured for them to sit. "Alright. Enough nostalgia. You didn't come here for reunion jokes."
The three college friends exchanged looks, and Aman leaned forward. His voice was steady, but his jaw was tight.
"Shivam messaged us," he began. "He and Dikshant are under a restraining order. Can't be involved directly anymore. Which basically means SynerTech's already pulling strings to cut them out."
The room grew still. Mansi finally tore her eyes from the screen. "Restraining order?"
"Yeah," Naina said grimly. "Legal pressure, out of nowhere. If SynerTech's got that much reach, then they're watching all of us. Shivam only risked one line: 'It's SynerTech.'"
Rathod's eyes narrowed, flicking toward the board on her wall where the same name was scrawled in red. "Figures."
For a moment, the only sound was the hum of the fan. Then Rathod cleared her throat and said, "You should know, we've been on a case ourselves. Missing girl. Name's Ritika Sharma. Nineteen. Vanished during an NGO trip near Ridge."
Aman froze mid-motion, his hand curling into a fist on the armrest. "Wait. Ritika? From Hansraj?"
Everyone turned to him.
"I know her," Aman explained quickly. "Not well, but I saw her during that Ridge trip last semester. She was with the NGO team. She was a fresher, kept mostly to herself."
Naina's face paled. "That's… that's the same trip Shivam talked about. When the weird phenomenon hit their group, the light, the disorientation. He told me Ritika was there too."
A thick silence settled. It was one thing when cases circled around SynerTech. But now the threads were knotting together: Shivam, their college, and this girl's disappearance.
Sumit broke the silence with a smirk.
"So let me get this straight, Shivam had Adhivita back in that world, and now in the same college and course as Bhumika… Bro's track record is insane."
The whole room turned to glare at him.
Sumit raised his hands in mock surrender. "Too soon? Yeah, too soon." He coughed, sinking back onto the couch.
The tension didn't lift. If anything, the humor only underlined the seriousness of the connections falling into place.
Rathod leaned forward, steepling her fingers. "Then it's settled. This isn't two separate problems. Ritika's case, Shivam's restraining order, SynerTech's shadow, they're threads of the same knot. And if that's true… we're already in deeper than we thought."
The hum of the fan filled the silence again, heavier now, as if the room itself was waiting for their next move.
The two groups, college friends and investigators, sat ringed around Rathod's desk, the whiteboard of case notes looming like a silent referee over their conversation. Empty chai cups littered the table; evidence of how long the night had stretched.
Naina leaned forward, elbows on her knees. "One thing's clear, if SynerTech's already using restraining orders and sending tails after us, we can't afford to leave traces."
Mansi finally looked up from her laptop, pushing her glasses up her nose. "She's right. WhatsApp, Instagram, even your regular calls, too easy to track, too easy to scrape." She rummaged in her drawer, pulled out a slim black phone, and slid it across the table toward Naina.
"A burner?" Aman asked, half surprised, half impressed.
"Spare one," Mansi said. "No SIM linked to your IDs. Use it only when the three of you are together on campus. Short texts, nothing specific. Just pings. If you need a meet, we'll know where to find you."
Naina picked it up carefully, as if the cheap plastic held more weight than it should. "Feels like we just stepped into a spy movie," she muttered.
Sumit smirked. "Welcome to our lives."
The room's tension broke slightly, but only for a breath. Aanchal, the college student, slid her phone across the table. The screen glowed with the images she'd snapped in the metro. Grainy, but the men's faces were clear enough.
"These are the guys who were tailing us," she said. "Caught them just before Jangpura. You'll recognize them if they show up again."
Rathod studied the photos, her sharp gaze narrowing. "Good work," she said, taking the phone long enough to airdrop the files to Mansi. "We'll start digging, facial matches, employment records, maybe even surveillance footage if we're lucky."
Suchitra finally spoke, her voice soft but steady. "If they're tracking you openly now, then they'll escalate. Be careful. Please."
The words hung heavier than the fan's hum. Everyone knew she was right.
For a moment, silence spread across the room, as if they all felt the same weight settling on their shoulders. Then Aman exhaled sharply. "Alright. Then it's set. No socials, no calls, no dumb slips. They want shadows? We give them shadows."
Heads nodded around the room. The unspoken agreement had finally taken shape, new rules for a new game.
The next morning, the sun broke hazily over the North Campus lawns. Shivam walked into college with a backpack slung over one shoulder, headphones hanging unused around his neck. The night's message still gnawed at him, the weight of SynerTech's pressure heavier with each step.
He almost missed her at first.
Bhumika, usually the picture of composure, hair perfectly in place, notes color-coded, stride confident. Today, though, she was rushing across the courtyard with her hair tied in a loose knot, wisps falling out. Her arms were overloaded with books, thick ones with titles he caught in flashes: Astral Planes and Consciousness,The Psychology of Dreams,Multiverse Theory.
She bumped into a group of girls coming from the opposite direction. The collision was messy, papers scattering across the pavement, books tumbling. One of the girls muttered an apology before hurrying on, but Bhumika dropped to her knees, flustered, grabbing at her fallen things.
Shivam was already moving. He crouched beside her, gathering loose sheets before the wind could snatch them. "You alright?" he asked softly.
Bhumika nodded quickly, brushing a strand of hair back, though her eyes looked tired, overwhelmed. "Yeah, yeah, just clumsy today."
He handed her a stack of notes. Then he froze.
Among the papers was a drawing. Rough, hurried, but unmistakable. Orange crystalline shards, glowing as if someone had tried to capture light itself in graphite. The Noctirum.
Shivam's chest tightened. He looked at the sketch, then at Bhumika. She reached for it quickly, her fingers trembling as she slid it back into the pile.
Their eyes met. For a second, the courtyard's noise blurred away, students laughing, scooters honking, birds cawing overhead. It was just the two of them, the weight of unspoken recognition hanging between them.
Shivam broke the silence first, his voice low, steady. "Bhumika… where did you see that?"
But she didn't answer. She just stood, clutching the books tightly to her chest, and walked away faster than before, leaving Shivam staring after her with the drawing burned into his mind.
The shadows around the Dystopian world had just deepened, and now, they stretched into his own lives again.