Arjun Mehta hated Mondays.
There was something cursed about them. The alarms never rang on time, the tea was always cold, and no matter how hard he tried, he always ended up in trouble. Today had followed the same pattern.
"Detention. Again," he muttered under his breath, dragging his feet through the quiet school hallway as the final bell echoed in the distance. His backpack bounced with each step, and the muffled sound of laughter from students exiting the main gate made him wince. Everyone else was going home. He was going to punishment.
Vice Principal Sharma had delivered his sentence with dramatic flair:
> "If you're going to keep skipping morning assemblies, Arjun, perhaps the old computer lab will teach you something about time."
The way he had emphasized the word time was strange. Overly theatrical. Almost… staged.
Now Arjun stood in front of a metal door marked "COMPUTER LAB – B (DEFUNCT)." Rust lined the edges. The lights in this corner of the school flickered like a horror movie set. He hesitated.
The old computer lab had a reputation. People whispered stories about haunted PCs and systems that booted up without power. One rumor claimed a kid had once disappeared inside and was never found.
Of course, Arjun didn't believe in ghosts. He believed in logic, code, and games with boss levels. But there was something undeniably weird about being forced to clean a lab that had been locked for over five years.
He pushed the door open.
The air was stale, thick with dust and old memories. Rows of forgotten computer desks stood in silence, many still draped with white cloths. The room smelled like rust and dry wood. Broken chairs were stacked in the corner, and old CRT monitors sat like ancient relics from a tech museum.
Arjun stepped in slowly, letting the door creak shut behind him. A sliver of sunlight filtered through the grimy blinds, casting eerie shadows on the walls.
"Great. A tech graveyard," he muttered.
He walked over to the teacher's desk and found a small broom leaning against it. With a dramatic sigh, he began sweeping the floor, kicking up little storms of dust.
As he moved between desks, he couldn't help but feel like the room was watching him. There was no sound—no buzzing machines, no ticking clocks, just the steady thud of his own heart.
Then something blinked.
It was faint. Almost easy to miss. But Arjun saw it: a tiny green light, peeking from underneath a nest of wires near the teacher's chair.
He dropped the broom.
Curiosity overrode caution as he crouched down and pulled the wires aside. His fingers brushed against something cold and metallic. He lifted it up.
A flip phone.
Old-school. Chunky. The kind with physical buttons and a tiny screen. The kind his dad might've used back in 2010. The outer shell was scratched, but the screen was glowing softly.
"Wait… this thing still has battery?"
He flipped it open.
The screen lit up fully, and to his shock, it displayed a message:
Hello, Arjun.
He froze.
There was no SIM signal. No date. Just that one line. It wasn't possible. This was just a phone. A dead model from the past. Yet somehow, it knew his name.
"Okay… someone's messing with me," he whispered.
The phone vibrated in his hand.
New Message: [ME] – 12/05/2009, 3:43 PM
Don't let him sit on the edge. He'll fall.
Arjun stared. That date—December 5th, 2009—that was more than fifteen years ago.
His fingers moved without thinking. He typed back:
"Who is this? Time traveler?"
Sending...
Delivered.
He laughed nervously. It had to be a prank. A school joke. Someone must've programmed this phone to send automated messages as a gimmick. He stood up, looking around the room again. Nothing. No cameras. No speaker buzz.
Then the phone buzzed again.
Reply: [ME] – Sent 12/05/2009, 3:45 PM
You'll believe me when the scar is gone.
Scar?
Arjun's pulse quickened. He knew exactly what the message meant. He had a small, faded scar just above his right knee. He'd had it since he was six—when he fell off a swing and hit a sharp stone at a park. That scar had been with him his whole life.
Almost afraid, he pulled up his jeans and looked.
Nothing.
No scar. No mark. Just smooth skin.
Arjun's breath hitched. He felt like the room had shifted. Like time had tilted slightly. He checked again. Still nothing.
He looked at the phone again. The screen now showed:
Battery: 92%
Signal: Unknown
Device: Locked to Primary Handler
Date: July 20, 2025
TimeSync Enabled
His mind raced. If this was real—if someone had actually sent a message to the past—and changed something, even something small—then...
"Is this thing... texting through time?"
The thought was insane. But so was everything that had just happened.
The scar. The message. The phone. His name on the screen.
Suddenly, a cold breeze swept through the room. But the windows were closed. The lights above flickered briefly, then steadied.
Something in the air felt… wrong. Like the room wasn't entirely anchored in time anymore.
He backed away slowly, still holding the phone. It vibrated again, but this time, there was no message. Just a notification:
NEXT RESET IN: 7 Days, 2 Hours, 18 Minutes
Reset?
What did that mean?
Before he could think further, he heard footsteps. Not loud—but soft. Shuffling.
He turned toward the door. Empty.
But something was watching him. He could feel it.
Suddenly, the phone buzzed one more time. No name. No sender. Just a single line of text:
"Don't trust the girl. She knows more than you."
Arjun stared at the words, his mouth dry.
What girl?
Who's sending these?
Why me?
He looked around the lab once more, now half-lit and whisper-quiet, like a room waiting to be remembered.
He didn't know it yet, but everything in his life had just changed.
And time… had started to glitch.