After the death of AirFlow’s president, the entire country demanded answers. The government began pressuring the CBI for immediate reports. On one side stood the brutal murder of Mr. Pratap Singh Rana. On the other, customer service employees across multiple cities had begun protesting the Pune incident.

  Their demand was simple: why should they be punished for someone else’s mistake?

  The two incidents had shaken the nation. News channels ran nonstop debates. AirFlow’s stock prices fell drastically. Employees began resigning out of fear, believing that at any moment they could become the next target.

  People argued endlessly.

  Was it really about slow internet?

  Or was there something else driving the attacker?

  Three days after the Rana murder, Sunday afternoon settled quietly over the college hostel.

  Inside the room, Anish was doing what he always did, scrolling endlessly through reels. Ritesh sat at the desk, completely absorbed in a first-person shooter game. Gunfire and explosions from his headphones filled the room.

  Aarav lay on his bed, staring at the ceiling.

  He hadn’t spoken much that day.

  Several minutes passed in silence until Anish suddenly sat upright.

  “Guys, look at this shit, man,” he said, turning his phone toward them.

  Ritesh paused the game and leaned closer.

  Aarav lifted his head slightly and watched the screen.

  All three of them stared at the reel carefully.

  The reel was taken from a news broadcast. Footage of the collapsed AirFlow building in Pune filled the screen. Reporters stood in front of the rubble while a banner below read: MYSTERIOUS ATTACK – NATION DEMANDS ANSWERS.

  The clip cut to another segment showing the residence of Pratap Singh Rana surrounded by police barricades.

  “Bro, this is insane,” Anish said, shaking his head. “First the building explosion, now the president gets murdered. Whoever did this is completely psycho.”

  Ritesh nodded. “I don’t get it. What kind of person does something like this over internet speed?”

  “Exactly,” Anish continued. “Imagine killing people because your WiFi was slow.”

  Ritesh laughed uneasily. “Man must have been downloading something important.”

  Anish smirked. “Or maybe the guy just lost a ranked match.”

  They both laughed briefly, but the humor faded quickly. Ritesh replayed the video again, this time paying closer attention.

  “Look at this,” he said, pointing to the screen. “They still don’t know how the building exploded. No bomb, no gas leak, nothing.”

  “Yeah,” Anish replied. “And listen to this expert guy. He says the killer might have predicted Rana’s death before it happened.”

  “That’s creepy,” Ritesh said.

  Aarav watched the video without reacting.

  Anish glanced at him. “What do you think, genius?”

  Aarav tilted his head slightly. “I think people are asking the wrong question,” he said.

  Ritesh frowned. “What do you mean?”

  “They keep asking why someone would do this over slow internet,” Aarav replied calmly. “That assumes the internet was the real problem.”

  Anish crossed his arms. “Then what was the problem?”

  Aarav looked back at the screen where the ruins of the building were shown again.

  “Systems,” he said quietly. “Systems that promise something and never deliver.”

  Ritesh shrugged. “That’s life, bro. Nothing works perfectly.”

  “True,” Aarav said. “But there is a difference between imperfection and dishonesty.”

  Neither of them spoke.

  Aarav continued, his tone steady.

  “When a system fails once, people forgive it. When it fails repeatedly, people complain. But when it keeps promising solutions that never come… eventually someone stops believing the promises.”

  Anish looked skeptical. “You’re not actually defending this guy, are you?”

  “I’m not defending him,” Aarav replied. “I’m explaining him.”

  Ritesh leaned back in his chair. “Explain what? Murder?”

  Aarav met his eyes.

  “Think about it,” he said. “If a system refuses to correct itself, what happens?”

  Ritesh shrugged again. “People complain more.”

  “And if complaining doesn’t work?”

  Anish shook his head. “You move to another provider. You don’t kill people.”

  Aarav gave a faint smile.

  “That would be the reasonable solution,” he said.

  “Because it is the reasonable solution,” Anish replied firmly. “Whatever this guy did, it’s wrong. End of story.”

  Ritesh nodded in agreement. “Yeah. No philosophy changes that.”

  For a moment, Aarav studied both of them. Then he leaned back against the wall.

  “Perhaps,” he said quietly.

  Anish turned the phone off and tossed it onto the bed.

  “Anyway,” he muttered, “whoever that guy is, I hope they catch him soon.”

  Ritesh resumed his game. “They will. No one stays invisible forever.”

  Aarav said nothing.

  The room returned to its usual rhythm—gunfire from the game, the soft hum of the fan, the occasional sound of a reel playing on Anish’s phone.

  Aarav looked once more at the dark screen of the phone lying beside him.

  For a moment, he had tried to explain. But they had not understood. He did not feel angry about it. Most people never did.

  Aarav stood up from the bed and walked toward the door. As he stepped outside the room, Anish stopped him.

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  “Where are you going?” he asked.

  “I have a meeting with Nisha,” Aarav replied.

  “Meeting… or a date?” Anish smirked.

  Aarav smiled slightly. “What’s the difference?”

  Aarav stepped out of the hostel building and walked toward the main pathway. The campus lights had begun to glow, casting a soft yellow hue across the quiet evening.

  Near the gate, Nisha was waiting. She stood under a streetlight, scrolling through her phone. When she noticed Aarav approaching, she slipped the phone into her bag and looked up.

  “You’re late,” she said.

  Aarav checked his watch. “By three minutes.”

  “That still counts,” she replied with a playful glare.

  A faint smile appeared on his face. “I’ll try to improve next time.”

  “So you’re already planning a next time?” she asked, raising an eyebrow.

  “That depends,” Aarav said calmly. “How this meeting goes.”

  Nisha laughed softly. “You say that like this is some kind of evaluation.”

  “Everything is,” he replied.

  She shook her head in amusement. “You’re impossible.”

  They began walking along the pathway that curved through the campus garden. A few students sat on benches nearby, talking quietly while the evening breeze moved through the trees.

  “So,” Nisha said after a moment, “how was your workshop?”

  “Educational,” Aarav replied.

  “For you or the students?”

  “For both.”

  She glanced at him. “I heard the juniors were terrified.”

  “They were confused,” he corrected. “There’s a difference.”

  “That sounds like the polite way of saying they didn’t understand anything.”

  Aarav shrugged slightly. “Learning usually begins with confusion.”

  Nisha looked at him thoughtfully before smiling again.

  “You know,” she said, “most people try to impress someone when they ask them out.”

  “Did I ask you out?” Aarav replied.

  She stopped walking and looked at him. “If this isn’t a date, Aarav, then what exactly is it?”

  He thought for a moment before answering. “A conversation with good company.”

  Nisha studied his face for a second and then laughed. “That might be the most complicated way anyone has ever said ‘date.’”

  They eventually reached the small campus café near the garden. The place was moderately crowded, filled with the low hum of students talking over coffee and snacks. A television mounted on the wall behind the counter was playing the evening news, though most people paid little attention to it.

  Aarav ordered two cold coffees and they took a table near the edge of the seating area. Nisha rested her elbows lightly on the table while Aarav sat across from her, calm as always.

  “You know,” she said, stirring her drink, “I still can’t believe the whole country is talking about something that happened just a few days ago.”

  “News cycles move quickly,” Aarav replied.

  “Not this quickly,” she said. “First that building in Pune, then the AirFlow president gets murdered. It feels like something out of a movie.”

  Before Aarav could answer, the volume of the television suddenly increased.

  The café owner must have raised it because several students looked up.

  A news anchor appeared on the screen. “We now go live to CBI headquarters in New Delhi, where Director Anant Mehra is addressing the media regarding the Pune explosion and the murder of AirFlow president Pratap Singh Rana.”

  The café quieted slightly as the broadcast switched to a press conference. Director Mehra stood behind a podium surrounded by microphones and flashing cameras.

  He spoke with the calm authority of someone accustomed to public scrutiny.

  “At this stage of the investigation,” Mehra said, “there is no evidence to suggest a large-scale national threat. We believe the incidents are isolated and currently under control.”

  Nisha frowned. “Under control?” she murmured.

  Mehra continued. “There is considerable speculation being circulated in the media. I would urge citizens not to panic. The investigation is progressing, and there is no immediate danger to the public.”

  Around the café, people seemed relieved by the statement. Some students nodded and returned to their conversations.

  Nisha took a sip of her coffee. “Well… that’s good, I guess,” she said. “At least the CBI doesn’t think the country is in danger.”

  Across the table, Aarav had gone completely still. His eyes remained fixed on the television. The faint smile that had been on his face earlier slowly disappeared.

  For a few seconds he said nothing. Then he looked away from the screen, his expression darker than before.

  “They still don’t understand,” he said quietly.

  Nisha tilted her head. “Understand what?”

  Aarav leaned back in his chair, his voice calm but colder than it had been all evening.

  “If a warning is ignored,” he said, “it stops being a warning.”

  He looked back at the television where Director Mehra was still speaking.

  “It becomes a demonstration.”

  “What are you saying, Aarav?” Nisha asked, frowning. "What warnings?”

  “Nothing, Nisha,” Aarav replied calmly. “They’re just taking the situation too lightly. That kind of carelessness usually leads people to their own downfall.”

  Nisha shook her head with a faint smile. “Oh, come on, Aarav. Let the police and the CBI handle it. We should worry about our own problems first.”

  “Our problems?” he asked.

  “Yes,” she said, leaning forward slightly. “Our relationship.”

  Aarav looked at her for a moment, his expression unreadable.

  “What relationship?” he asked quietly.

  Nisha stared at him, unsure whether he was being serious or deliberately evasive. “The one where you call me out in the evening, buy me coffee, and then pretend it’s just a casual conversation,” she said. “That one.”

  Aarav looked at his cup for a moment before answering. “I thought we were simply talking.”

  Nisha let out a soft laugh. “You really are impossible.”

  And so he smiled.

  Meanwhile the CBI was planning something else. Their motive was to figure out whether this whole red eye creature is real or just a system glitch.

  Director Anant Mehra stepped away from the press podium and walked back into the operations room. The moment the door closed, the composure he had shown outside disappeared.

  Raghav was already waiting near the central display. “You told the entire country there’s no national threat,” Raghav said.

  Mehra removed his glasses and placed them on the table. “That statement was for the public,” he replied.

  “And the truth?”

  “First of all, we don’t even know what we are dealing with,” Mehra said. “So let’s assume, for the moment, that this creature is real.”

  Everyone in the room listened carefully.

  “If he truly possesses the power to destroy an entire building,” Mehra continued, “then why hasn’t he asserted his dominance yet?”

  “Maybe he wants to stay hidden and work from behind the curtains,” Raghav suggested.

  “Then what was the point of attacking a building in such a supernatural way?” Aditi asked.

  Mehra responded immediately. “Exactly. Supernatural, but executed in such a way that no one could trace his identity. He hacked into the cameras first and disabled every source that could have revealed him.”

  “Point,” Raghav said with a nod.

  “He did the same thing during Rana’s murder,” Aditi added.

  “But one thing still feels odd,” Raghav said after a moment.

  “What is it?” Mehra asked.

  “The email,” Raghav replied. “Rana received an email before his death that predicted the exact time he would die. But we recovered nothing similar from any of the customer service employees who died in the Pune incident.”

  For a moment, the room fell silent.

  It was still uncertain whether the person responsible for the Pune attack had sent any warning at all. The investigation had reached a difficult crossroads. One theory suggested that a single individual was behind both incidents. Another possibility pointed toward two separate attackers.

  And if there were indeed two killers, the threat to the nation was far greater than they had imagined.

  “Maybe he sent the emails to each employee individually,” Aditi said thoughtfully. “But since none of them survived, we have no way to confirm it. We don’t even have access to their personal email accounts yet.”

  Mehra considered this carefully. “Do one thing, Aditi,” he said. “Bring me the details of customers who filed multiple complaints about AirFlow’s internet services. Start with those who complained repeatedly over a long period of time.”

  “Sure, sir,” Aditi replied before leaving the room immediately.

  “And Raghav,” Mehra continued, “talk to the families of the deceased employees. Ask whether they have access to their emails or whether they received any suspicious messages before the incident.”

  “On it, sir,” Raghav said as he headed toward the door.

  Soon the room fell quiet again.

  Mehra sat alone, staring at the frozen silhouette on the screen. “Real or fake,” he murmured softly. “It’s only a matter of time.”

  He leaned back in his chair, his eyes still fixed on the glowing image.

  “The game has begun.”