Shivam woke with a dull ache behind his eyes, the kind that wasn't from bad sleep, but from too many thoughts jammed into too little rest.
He swung his legs off the bed, exhaled, and dropped into push-up position. One set. Another. Another. By the time his shoulders burned and his arms started to tremble, he'd crossed somewhere past a hundred. The ache in his head didn't fade, but the rhythm helped.
The house was quiet when he headed downstairs. Morning light spilled through the living room curtains, throwing long shadows across the dining table. He didn't bother sitting. Instead, he went straight to the fridge, pulling the door open and letting the cold air hit his face for a second before fishing out a leftover parantha and cold bottle of water.
From the hall, Dikshant appeared in his half-buttoned school shirt, tie hanging loose, phone in one hand. He was muttering something about a homework file he couldn't find.
"Check your bag's side pocket," Shivam said absently, tearing into the parantha.
"I did. It's not," Dikshant's voice trailed as he spotted it sticking out of his own back pocket. "Oh." He slung the bag over his shoulder, trying to look like he hadn't just made a fool of himself, and headed toward the front door.
Shivam smirked, chewing slowly, already reaching for the water.
The sound of footsteps came from the corridor that led to his father's study. A moment later, Mr. Sharma emerged, phone still in his hand. He had the look of someone who'd just ended a call that left more questions than answers.
"Yeah… I'll check the news," he said into the phone before hanging up. His tone was clipped, almost cautious.
He didn't sit. Instead, he crossed to the sideboard, grabbed the remote, and switched on the TV. The channel was already on a news network, but he tapped forward until he landed on one broadcasting a red banner across the bottom: SPECIAL COVERAGE.
The anchor's voice came sharp and urgent.
"We are getting breaking news from the Delhi Ridge perimeter. Authorities have confirmed the discovery of between forty and sixty bodies in an underground service tunnel earlier this morning."
The screen cut to shaky footage, rescue teams in hazmat suits hauling stretchers through a dimly lit tunnel. Floodlights caught the pale, dust-covered faces of the dead.
The chyron below scrolled: Officials cite toxic gas leak, investigation underway.
Another cut, this time to a row of SynerTech banners set up behind a temporary fence. Beyond them, figures in white coveralls and respirators moved methodically between equipment crates.
Shivam felt his stomach tighten. He didn't need the captions to tell him where this was.
The camera shifted again, now to a man standing behind a podium.Kairav Mehta. Crisp suit, polished words, the face of SynerTech.
"This is a tragedy for our city," Mehta said, his voice steady. "We are committed to assisting the authorities in every way necessary. Our teams are working alongside government agencies to ensure the area is secured and any hazards are neutralized."
Shivam's father exhaled through his nose, shaking his head slightly. "It's going to be a long night at the station," he muttered, almost to himself. His eyes stayed locked on the screen. "Forty… sixty people gone just like that. Still," he paused, adjusting his stance, "it could've been worse if SynerTech hadn't stepped in as fast as they did."
Shivam kept his eyes on the screen, swallowing the rest of his water. In his head, the words came unbidden: Too fast. Too neat.
The footage cycled back to the tunnel, the camera briefly catching the edge of something that didn't belong: a sleek black case with the SynerTech logo, being carried not by rescue workers, but by two men whose movements were too deliberate to be ordinary labor.
The anchor's voice droned on about gas leaks, safety protocols, and grieving families.
Shivam barely heard it. The hum from the Ridge was in his head again, faint but there, like his mind wouldn't let him forget.
The news cycle didn't let go. Even after his father left for the station, the TV kept looping the same visuals, hazmat suits, floodlights cutting through dust, stretchers being wheeled out under white sheets. Shivam stayed at the table long after he'd finished eating, eyes darting between the scrolling ticker and the small details in the background.
The uniform colors were wrong. Too many SynerTech jackets. The logo kept flashing on crates, portable scanners, even the side of a water tanker parked near the tunnel entrance. It looked less like an accident scene and more like a SynerTech project site that happened to have the press invited.
Dikshant's voice broke the silence, half-distracted as he zipped up his school bag. "Bhai, you're staring at the TV like it's gonna talk back."
Shivam didn't answer, still focused on the screen. One clip showed workers carefully loading a sealed container into a black van. No police escort. No government markings. Just SynerTech.
The next cut was an old shot, archival footage of the tunnel's construction. He caught the location name in the corner of the frame, and a cold prick ran up his spine. He'd been there. That trail. The stop during the Ridge trip when the drone had scanned them.
He leaned back slowly. This wasn't random.
On impulse, he pulled out his phone and opened a local news forum. Several posts were trending, eyewitness accounts from residents near the Ridge. One wrote about hearing machinery running deep underground two nights ago. Another claimed the tunnel had been sealed for "maintenance" weeks before the so-called gas leak. Comments were flooding in, connecting dots, speculating.
And then, as he refreshed the page, the top posts vanished. Not flagged. Not archived. Just gone.
The uneasy quiet at home was replaced by campus noise a few hours later. Shivam had a late morning class, but as soon as he stepped through the main gate, he could feel the tension. Students were clustered in groups, phones out, voices low but urgent.
Near the admin block, a professor stood awkwardly with a couple, the mother's eyes red, her husband's arm around her shoulders. Shivam recognized her. Dr. Mehta. The same one from the science block corridor a few days ago.
"I understand," she was saying, her voice pitched low but still audible over the courtyard buzz. "The university is in touch with the authorities. As soon as we know more, you'll be informed,"
The mother shook her head, her words tumbling out, cracked with panic. "You said she fainted from the heat. You said she was fine. Now you're telling me she might have been there? In that place?"
Dr. Mehta didn't answer right away. She glanced around, noticed a few students watching, and shifted her tone. "Please, this is not the place. We'll talk in my office."
The couple followed her inside, the mother's sobs carrying faintly even after the door shut.
Shivam's classmate Raghav came up beside him, shaking his head. "That was Anisha's mom. You know… Group 5? She hasn't been in since the trip."
Shivam kept his voice even. "And now they think she's one of the forty?"
Raghav shrugged, the gesture sharp. "Everyone's thinking it. No one's saying it."
They started toward the department building, passing knots of students whispering into phones. The college WhatsApp groups were already flooded with shaky screenshots from the news, tagged with Could be them. Some posts carried lists of names, unconfirmed, but enough to keep the tension thick.
Shivam didn't join the speculation. His head was still replaying the footage, matching every frame to what he'd seen at the Ridge. The sealed van. The exact clearing. The way SynerTech had moved before the police even arrived.
By the time he sat down for his lecture, he wasn't hearing a word of what the professor was saying. His notebook stayed open to a blank page. He was sketching instead, rough outlines of the tunnel layout, the forest trail, and that half-buried stone marker from the trip.