The next morning, the college campus courtyard felt strangely subdued. Students from yesterday's Ridge trip had been called for a "safety briefing" in Seminar Hall B, and no one seemed eager to be there. Conversations in the hallway were muted, the usual laughter replaced by half-finished sentences.
Shivam arrived to find the front rows already filled. The air inside was thick with the low hum of ceiling fans and the faint smell of damp paper from the old noticeboards.
A few students were missing entirely. Their names were read out for attendance, followed by a curt "Home sick" from the faculty member with the clipboard. No one questioned it.
On stage, two university staff members stood stiffly beside a man in a crisp beige kurta holding a thin file. Shivam didn't remember seeing him yesterday, he definitely wasn't one of the NGO volunteers.
The senior staff member adjusted his glasses and began, voice flat, as if reading straight from a sheet.
"First, we thank all of you for your participation in yesterday's eco-cleanup initiative at the Delhi Ridge. We understand there was a… minor incident in which a few students experienced light-headedness due to heat exhaustion and dehydration. This is not unusual in field conditions."
A murmur spread across the hall, quickly dying when he glanced up.
"Those students have been examined by medical staff, are stable, and are resting at home," he continued. "There is no cause for concern."
Shivam's eyes swept the room. The faces of some students, pale, still sluggish, didn't match the casual tone of the briefing.
The man in the kurta stepped forward, offering the faintest smile.
"As per coordination protocol, the NGO representatives from yesterday are currently on another field assignment and could not be present. The university will handle all follow-ups directly."
How convenient, Shivam thought.
Attendance was ticked off. A stack of feedback forms was passed around. The instruction was simple: fill them, submit to the department, get your attendance credit. That was all.
A girl in the front raised her hand. "Sir, my friend from Group 5 fainted yesterday. I haven't been able to,"
"She is fine," the staff member cut in quickly. "Her parents have been informed. Please respect her privacy."
At the far end, Bhumika sat with her notebook open, pen moving steadily. She wasn't looking at the stage, her eyes flicked between her notes and the floor. When Shivam, seated diagonally behind her, leaned slightly to catch a glimpse, she snapped the cover shut and placed it on her lap without looking back.
The briefing wrapped in less than fifteen minutes. Students shuffled out into the corridor, some whispering to each other, others avoiding eye contact altogether.
Shivam caught up with her just outside.
"You really believe that heat exhaustion story?" he asked.
Her voice was quiet but sharp. "Do you?"
"No."
"Then we're done here." She turned and walked off before he could say anything else.
He watched her disappear into the crowd, his mind replaying the stillness of the forest, the drone overhead, and the way she'd clutched her head before the others collapsed.
Whatever happened yesterday wasn't just about the heat, and he was certain she knew it too. Bhumika left the seminar hall without waiting for anyone, letting the tide of students pull her toward the campus courtyard. The late-morning sun hit hard, but it wasn't the heat that unsettled her.
As she passed the library steps, the glass doors reflected the world behind her, except for a fraction of a second, it wasn't the campus she saw.
A fissure of light. Shapes like gates, their edges rippling. Beyond them, a landscape that wasn't Delhi, not this Delhi. The sky was fractured, clouds glowing from within, and the air shimmered as if alive. She knew that place. She had stood there, though only in her dreams.
The vision broke when a pair of underclassmen brushed past her, laughing. She blinked, the library doors showing nothing but her own faint reflection now.
Without thinking, she stepped inside.
The library's quiet felt almost heavy after the noise outside. She drifted between shelves, her fingers brushing spines until she stopped at the science and geography section. Titles about geological anomalies, electromagnetic interference, rare earth minerals in North India. She pulled three down, stacking them against her hip.
It was absurd, yesterday's incident was already being packaged as "heat exhaustion" by the university, but the ache in her temples and the flashes in her sleep said otherwise.
Her dreams had been sharpening in detail. The last one had left her shaken: people in armor that wasn't metal, voices chanting in a language she didn't know but somehow understood, and a figure, Navik Vyer, she thought, standing over a city in flames. She'd read enough history to know this wasn't our history.
She picked a corner table by the tall windows, flipped open the top book, and began scanning sections on mineral deposits in the Delhi Ridge. Diagrams of fault lines and ancient rock strata blurred into the imagined glow of those crystal veins she'd seen in her dreams.