We scrambled, half-crawling, half-running along the shattered edge of the bridge, desperate to put distance between us and the knights.
The city skyline was wrong - broken, distorted, like someone had shaken the world and carelessly rearranged the pieces. Flyovers twisted into the sky like dying snakes, their concrete bones jutting into the smog-choked heavens. Some buildings floated eerily a few feet above their foundations, anchored by nothing but thin air, as if defying gravity out of sheer stubbornness.
Shadows moved where none should have been - flickering along walls, slipping under the cracks of abandoned cars, stretching long fingers toward us whenever we dared to slow down. The air pulsed around us, thick with an electric charge that made the hair on my arms stand on end. Every breath tasted metallic, sour with smoke and something deeper, older - like the rot of a dying world.
Time itself seemed broken. Seconds dragged like hours, and in some moments, the world seemed to blur at the edges, like we were falling between cracks in reality.
Five minutes - or what felt like five eternities - of stumbling, slipping, ducking behind tilted pillars, praying the mechanical knights wouldn't notice us, and then, suddenly... silence.
The ground under our feet stopped trembling. The rumbling in the air evaporated, leaving behind an oppressive, unnatural stillness.
We risked a glance back.
The robotic knights were gone. Vanished - as if they had never been there. Only the twisted wreckage and scorched asphalt remained as proof that the nightmare had been real.
We ducked into the shadows of a collapsed flyover, hearts pounding, breaths ragged.
Around us, the "others" gathered - scared kids with haunted eyes, some barely clinging to themselves. A few whimpered. Some simply stared, hollow and lost.
We didn't have food. We didn't have water. Only each other.
And about a dozen terrified strangers.
Aman checked his phone, tilting it this way and that, praying for a miracle. Against all odds, there was still a faint, flickering signal.
We moved quickly, dividing the survivors into smaller groups. Some knew side streets, old routes their families used - memory became our greatest weapon. It made sense to let them move separately, hoping they'd find shelter or safety in places they recognized.
Four groups were formed.
The "others" melted into the shadows, disappearing into the broken guts of the city with barely a whisper of goodbye.
And the five of us - me (Shivam), Aman, Aanchal, Naina, and my brother Dikshant - stayed together.
We didn't speak much. Words felt too small for the enormity of what had happened.
Above us, where once skyscrapers had stretched for the sky like proud sentinels, grotesque, misshapen towers now loomed - windows shattered, frames twisted. Dark, floating platforms, clearly built for the wealthy, hovered high overhead, untouched by the destruction below. Their sleek surfaces gleamed under the broken sky, casting enormous, unnatural shadows that crawled across the ruins like living things.
The city around us breathed - not with life, but with something heavier, slower, like the rasp of a dying animal.
Ash rained down like dirty snow, coating everything in a fine, gray shroud. In the far distance, a skyscraper groaned, leaned, and collapsed in slow, tragic motion. The sound rolled across the city like a dying roar, shaking the very ground beneath us.
We moved into the darkness, into streets where the flicker of broken streetlights painted long, trembling shadows. Every step felt heavier than the last.
Behind us, Delhi whimpered in pain.
Ahead of us, only the unknown waited - vast, silent, and terrifying.