---
4:01 PM – Tragedy Strikes. Hard. In the Face.
The silence after the cake impact was disturbing.
Arush stood there, eyes wide, frosting sliding down his cheek like a rom-com tear.
He raised a trembling hand to his temple. "Is this… fondant?"
Then it began.
RIYA'S DAD (on mic, full dramatic baritone):
"WHAT'S THIS?! MY DAUGHTER'S BIRTHDAY CAKE… GOT… MURDERED?!!"
He dropped the mic.
Picked it back up.
Dropped it again for effect.
He stormed onto the stage like a Bollywood villain during intermission.
Cherry whispered to Rohit, "Ten bucks says he used to work in theater."
Veer, meanwhile, was trying to subtly wipe frosting off his shoe without being noticed by the Cake Police.
Riya's Dad (clutching a cake fork like a dagger):
"I promised her a perfect birthday. Diamond in the cake! Smoke machines! Segway kid! EVEN THAT OVERPAID DJ WHO ONLY SAYS 'YO YO MAKE SOME NOISE!'"
DJ (into mic): "Yo yo make some—"
Riya's Dad: "SILENCE, SOUND GREMLIN!"
The fog machine blasted again—this time by accident—but it only added to the chaos as he yelled through the mist:
"WHO DID THIS?! WHO DISRESPECTED THE SEVEN-TIERED SYMBOL OF OUR FAMILY HONOR?!"
A random child cried. Someone fainted near the chocolate fountain.
Veer (whispering): "We should leave."
Rohit: "We're already ghosts."
Meanwhile, Riya's dad dramatically crouched beside the fallen cake, scooping some up with his bare hands like a man discovering his fallen comrade on a battlefield.
"THIS… WAS TIER THREE! THE STRAWBERRY SWIRL. IT WAS HER MOTHER'S FAVORITE FLAVOR. DO YOU PEOPLE HAVE NO SOUL?!"
Arush, still frosted and stunned, dared to mutter, "It hit me first."
Riya's Dad (turning slowly):
"Oh, it hit you? Good. The cake has chosen its enemy."
He then slowly stood. Thunder rumbled. No one knew from where.
"everyone. REMAIN SEATED. I... WILL FIX THIS."
"LOCK THE DAMN GATES," Riya's dad to the security guy.
The gates locked.
A hush fell over the crowd.
Riya's Dad (booming):
"No one leaves this party.
Not until my daughter… gets a BIRTHDAY CAKE… she deserves."
Cherry (casually chewing gum): "Is this a wedding or a regime change?"
Prashant to a nearby waiter (shivering in his blue blazer): "I Was Way Better In My Pool, THAN DROWNING HERE..."
Riya (glowing in pink glitter like a sentient disco ball): "Daddy, you're embarrassing me!"
Riya's Dad (turns to the sky): "EMBARRASSMENT?! This is honor. This is dignity. This is frosting warfare."
The backup cake was… one single, trembling cupcake on a plate.
With a candle.
Rohit: "It looks like it's already given up."
Veer: "Same."
But Riya's dad stood by it like it was a national monument.
"THIS… WILL… DO."
He pulled Riya forward like it was the climax of a telenovela.
She looked at the cupcake, blinked twice, and said:
"That's it?"
Riya's Dad (serious):
"Size doesn't matter.
SYMBOLISM does."
---
Everyone sang half-heartedly.
Arush sneezed frosting.
The fog machine tried to make a comeback and short-circuited.
Cherry clapped one-handed while filming with the other.
Veer leaned toward Rohit and muttered, "This feels like a hostage video with better lighting."
Rohit: "Smile. Or he'll bring out tier eight."
---
Once the single candle was blown, the DJ screamed:
"IT'S PARTY TIME!!!"
Confetti cannons exploded.
One hit Prashant.
He screamed and dramatically fell.
Guards ran on him.
Cherry made a TikTok tutorial on "How to escape cursed parties in style," while live-commenting, "And here we see rich people coping with trauma... badly."
Rohit danced aggressively near the speakers as if trying to summon a higher power or get possessed. People cheered. One girl fainted.
Veer tried to disappear behind a balloon arch but got stuck and had to be rescued by a waiter who kept calling him "sir" like a disappointed cousin.
Riya, now holding the cupcake like a royal scepter, posed in front of the LED screen as her dad narrated her life story like a wildlife documentary.
Suddenly, someone unplugged the speakers.
A hush fell. Again.
Riya's Dad (grabbing the mic one last time):
"You've all witnessed betrayal.
But also resilience.
Let this day go down… as the day cake fell… but dignity rose."
Thunder again. Still unexplained.
---
---
Location: Home Sweet Home..
Shekhar, known to the innocent as "Nanu," to the government as "That One Guy Who Outsmarted a Revenue Officer in 1969," and to himself as "Last Real Genius," stood before an open suitcase like it was a game of 8D Chess ground.
Nanu (muttering):
"Three kurtas for humility, two sunglasses for swag, one thermal flask for holy water, and four vials of pain balm for the joint crisis that is Mr. Verma."
He threw a shawl into the bag like a cape, then turned with the intensity of a spy choosing between cyanide and diplomacy.
"Mahakaleshwar Temple won't know what hit it."
He picked up the phone and dramatically dialed Veer.
---
Meanwhile: At The Party of Cake Trauma and Existential Glitter (5:33 PM)
Veer:
(Still recovering emotionally from being balloon-strangled and spiritually from the cupcake hostage incident)
He looked at his phone:
Nanu Calling...
[Profile pic: A Hawk in sunglasses over Volcano.]
Veer (groans): "What now… did he beat Alexa in chess again?"
He answers.
Nanu (in full baritone):
"Veer. My blood. My DNA. My most disappointing protégé—listen carefully."
Veer (sighing): "Nanu I'm still at this damn party. People are crying over the cake."
Nanu (ignores entirely):
"We leave at dawn. Tour. Mahakaleshwar Temple. Spiritual upgrade. Divine swag. Total trip."
Veer: "Wait what? Who's going?"
Nanu:
"The warriors: Me. Your great-aunt who collects knives. Mr. Damoun—yes, the demon himself. Also…"
(dramatic pause)
"…Mr. Verma."
Veer (deadpan): "You mean that principal? The one who made me apologize to a chair for breaking its self-esteem?!"
Nanu: "Yes. The one with the perfectly oval head. He's in."
---
CUT TO FLASHBACK:
Mr. Verma (school time):
"Veer! Either you think my school is your JUNGLE or I'm a clown over here? This. is. SOCIAL STUDIES—the most serious subject since gravity!"
Veer (in present): "no. I'm NOT spending 7 hours straight with that educational exorcist."
---
Back to Call:
Nanu:
"Son, you don't know what Mahakaleshwar means?"
Veer:
"Big temple. Big queues. Big mosquitoes?"
Nanu (ignores again):
"It means 'One who conquers Time itself.'
And so must we.
We leave in three hours. Pack your brain. And underwear."
---
Doorbell rings.
Nanu opens door dramatically—
Enter Mr. Damoun.
Mr. Damoun (French accent):
"Bonjour, Monsieur Shekhar. I 'ave brought the parle-g and essential oils for my spiritual bathing."
Nanu (fist bumps him):
"My demon. Always prepared."
Mr. Damoun (adjusting shawl like a Parisian wizard):
"Shall we conquer the gods with style, oui?"
---
Back on phone:
Veer: "Nanu. Please leave me."
Nanu (pause):
"Very well. But remember… the temple remembers who skipped it."
Veer:
"The temple better remember the math trauma that Principal gave me."
Nanu:
"Farewell then. You stay. We rise."
He hangs up dramatically.
---
CUT TO Nanu zipping his bag
While humming "Vande Mataram" over a Lofi Hip-Hop beat.
Nanu (to Mr. Damoun):
"The boy has rejected destiny."
Mr. Damoun:
"Ah, ze youth. Full of memes. No spine."
Mr. Verma enters holding a Big Blue Chart.
"I've found my Atlas. I shall quiz everyone on geography every hour."
Nanu (under breath):
"No wonder the boy fled."
---
---
TIME: 3:47 AM
LOCATION: 27.1232° S, 65.4321° W – Western Fringe of the Amazon Rainforest.
WEATHER: Fog-choked. Barometric pressure dropping. Lightning seen but not heard.
Now
A bleeding moon clawed faint light through the suffocating canopy. The ground below steamed like a furnace lid cracking open. Rain had not fallen in hours, yet the forest dripped—as if it were sweating in fear.
A group of six Chinese researchers crouched beneath a curtain of moss and shadow, their faces gaunt and smeared with dried blood and mosquito bites. Their breathing was shallow, not just from fatigue—but fear thick as poison in the air.
Xia, the leader, pressed two trembling fingers against his temple. A gash on his brow had long clotted, but the pain was nothing compared to the weight in his chest.
"We need to move. They've found our trail."
No one argued. Not anymore. The last man who had... was now buried in roots, not earth.
They gathered silently, their equipment reduced to a satchel of hard drives and a single glimmering shard—black as pitch, humming like a tuning fork only the soul could hear.
Their boots cracked twigs like necks as they pushed deeper into the trees.
"Xia," whispered Dr. Lian, her eyes wide. "I hear... whispers."
Xia didn't answer. He heard them too. But they didn't come from any direction. They bloomed inside the skull—like thoughts that weren't yours.
And just as they reached a clearing, the voices stopped.
Then came the crunch of leaves.
Then a low mechanical click.
Then a chorus of boots.
Figures burst from the foliage—obsidian-masked, weapons cold and clinical. No yelling. No shots. Just surgical strikes and steel silence.
---
Two Days Earlier
Location: Encampment Echo-7
Time: 9:14 AM
Atmosphere: Humid. Mosquitoes swarming.
Morale: High. Arrogantly so.
"We're standing on top of it," said Xia, unrolling the parchment with alien glyphs onto the aluminum table. The symbols shimmered faintly, though no tech explained why.
Satellite scans had revealed a shape under the soil—a perfect tetrahedron buried beneath a mountain.
"Whatever lived here… was here before us," said Dr. Lian, tapping the shard they unearthed. "Carbon dating doesn't work on it. It absorbs time."
Xia's laptop screen blinked with a decrypted signal. A pattern. Not random. A message.
"It's not broadcasting," Xia whispered. "It's… listening."
They didn't realize until it was too late.
Three hours later, two helicopters circled overhead. No insignia. They vanished without landing.
That night, the birds stopped singing.
And the forest began watching back.
---
Now Again
The cell stank of mold and fear. One bulb flickered overhead like a dying star. Blood dried beneath their fingernails. Metal cuffs bit into their wrists.
The voice came again—from the corner, not quite human.
"You shouldn't have touched it."
A man stepped into view. No mask. Just glass eyes—implants, maybe. His voice was fluent Mandarin, but with the uncanny smoothness of AI speech.
He gestured toward Xia.
"The shard… where is it?"
Xia said nothing. The light above them pulsed once.
Then again.
Then went dark.
In the blackness, the whispers returned. This time louder. Closer. But no mouth spoke.
And then—
A scream tore through the air—but it didn't come from any of them. It came through the walls—from something being dissected in another cell.
The man turned calmly.
"You'll join it tomorrow."
---