Aarya woke to the sound of her alarm vibrating on the wooden nightstand, rattling against the half-empty water glass.
She groaned, slapped it silent, and rolled onto her back. The ceiling fan spun lazily above her, each creak reminding her that it was another day she couldn't skip.
Last night's images Mohan turning in the mist, eyes locking on hers, voice low but carrying replayed in her mind like an echo she couldn't find the source of. It was less about what he'd said, and more about how he'd said it. A calm that wasn't kind.
She sat up slowly, dragging her fingers through her hair, and tried to shove the memory into some mental drawer marked "Later."
Today was school. School meant normal.
The morning walk felt shorter than usual, her feet carrying her automatically past the small paan shop, the chai stall with its glass tumblers steaming, and the cluster of school kids in different uniforms heading the same direction.
Her classroom smelled faintly of disinfectant and chalk. The sunlight through the high windows fell in neat strips across the wooden desks, catching the dust motes in lazy swirls. She set her bag down at her desk and glanced at the seat beside her.
Empty.
Priya's bag wasn't there. Priya herself wasn't there either no chattering about the previous night's episode of her serial no dramatic reenactment of her fight with her younger brother over the TV remote. Just empty wood and silence.
Aarya sat down slowly. She told herself she didn't care; Priya could be overwhelming, her voice cutting through the classroom like it had some personal vendetta against peace. But there was something strange about the absence.
By the time roll call started, she was leaning over to the boy in front.
"Where's Priya today?"
He shrugged without looking up from his notebook, where he was shading in a lopsided cube. "No idea. She didn't say anything yesterday. Maybe sick?"
Aarya nodded, but a small knot formed in her stomach.
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The hours crawled by. In Maths, she caught herself staring at the empty seat more than at the board. In Hindi, she wrote half a page of class notes and realized her pen had just been looping the same word twice without noticing.
During lunch, the usual buzz of conversation felt louder without Priya's voice to anchor it near her desk. Aarya ate quietly, the Pasta her mum had packed tasting more like cardboard.
By the last period, even the teacher seemed tired, leaning against the desk instead of standing. When the final bell rang, Aarya packed her things slowly, as if leaving faster might make her notice something she'd missed.
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The walk home was uneventful. Her father wasn't back yet, and her mum's shift at the hospital wouldn't end until late. The flat was quiet, save for the distant hum of a pressure cooker from somewhere down the hall.
After a quick snack, she sat cross-legged on her bed, scrolling through her phone. Eventually she opened WhatsApp and tapped Priya's name.
Aarya: Hey. You okay?
The reply came in seconds.
Priya: Yeah just not feeling great.
Aarya: What happened?
Priya: Nothing lol. Just tired.
The typing bubble appeared. Vanished. Appeared again. Then—
Priya: Anyway, gtg. Talk later.
Aarya stared at the screen. Priya never "gtg"-ed. If anything, she stretched conversations until Aarya had to make an excuse to get off.
A few seconds later, another message popped up.
Priya: Don't worry, I'm not secretly eloping with the chaiwala.
Aarya blinked at the absurdity, a laugh slipping out despite herself.
Aarya: You'd never survive. He'd make you drink sugarless chai.
Priya: True. I'd die in 3 sips.
It was the kind of silly back-and-forth they usually had, but the timing felt… off. Forced, almost. Like Priya had noticed she'd been too curt and tossed in a joke to smooth it over.
Aarya typed back a smiling emoji, but the knot in her stomach didn't loosen.
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She tried to distract herself with homework. It didn't work. The English passage on colonial trade blurred after the third paragraph, her mind tugging at threads she didn't want to pull Mohan's satchel, the grey door, Priya's clipped replies.
By seven, she gave up and stepped out to the balcony for air. The late evening had that washed-out orange glow, the sky somewhere between night and day.
Below, on the stairs leading to the courtyard, Momo sat with a dented tin of biscuits.
"You'll ruin your dinner," Aarya called down.
Momo grinned, a biscuit already halfway to her mouth. "It's not dinner time yet."
Aarya descended a few steps, leaning on the railing. "Your mum know you're out here?"
"She's talking to aunty next door. So yes. And also no." Momo shrugged in a way that made it clear she thought grown-up rules were bendable.
"What's in the tin?"
"Marie biscuits. Want one?" She held it up.
Aarya waved her off. "No thanks. What are you doing out here?"
"Thinking."
"About what?"
"Stuff." She broke a biscuit in half, handing the bigger piece to the cat that had slinked up beside her. "Mama says thinking too much makes your hair grey. She says that about herself too, so I think it's true."
Aarya laughed softly. "You think too much, Momo?"
"Sometimes. But you think more." Momo's dark eyes fixed on her with that odd, almost-too-knowing look kids sometimes had. "I see you from my window. You walk back and forth sometimes, looking at the ground. Your face is all " She scrunched her brows together in imitation.
Aarya blinked. "Do I really look like that?"
"Like you're trying to solve a puzzle but you lost the picture on the box." Momo bit into her biscuit, chewing slowly. "It's okay to think. But not so much you miss the nice things. You'll walk right past them without seeing."
"Sometimes the bad things are real, though," Aarya said before she could stop herself.
"Sometimes," Momo agreed. "But sometimes they're only here." She tapped her forehead with her crumb-dusted finger.
The cat meowed like it agreed, and Aarya couldn't help smiling. But the smile didn't reach her eyes.
She stood after a while, ruffling Momo's hair. "Don't stay out too long. And don't feed that cat all your biscuits."
"I won't," Momo promised, though she immediately gave the cat another half.
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Back inside, the flat felt heavier. She opened her notebook, but instead of homework, she wrote down a sentence she couldn't quite explain:
It's only the first move when you notice it. The rest have already been played.
She tapped her pen against the page, staring at the words until the ink blurred. Priya's absence, Mohan's satchel, the locked grey door — all of it pressed against her in the quiet.
Somewhere beyond the balcony, the streetlights hummed to life.
And Aarya, no matter how much she told herself to stop, kept thinking.
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Notes -
Chaiwala – Hindi term for a tea seller.
GTG – Internet slang meaning "Got to go."