Aaryan Khanna

“Our whole gang might be exposed, motherfucker! What if he spills out the truth?!”

“He won’t, motherfucker.”

“Why don’t ya understand, motherfucker! He-He might spill all of this shit which we’re doing, and the school can definitely go to the police!”

“Man, this shit won’t happen. We’re doing nothing illegal, fucker. Ya get the vapes legally and we sell it legally.”

“We… We still might be in trouble, Vikram. We… We can’t let the adults find out about this shit, right?”

“Hmm.”

“To be honest, Vikram, I’m scared.”

“Don’t worry, Rohit. Ya need not worry. Aaryan is loyal.”

“Still, we gotta confront him. Whaddya say?”

“Man, don’t worry. Imma handle this shit myself.”

“Y-Yeah, okay, motherfucker.”

Beep. Beep.

***

Kritvik Bhatt

“I didn’t know why that seminar about vapes was conducted in our school, but, for some reason, it stuck in my mind. And, man, everything was about to come together. Every single thing.”

***

My arms were stretched up, my eyes closed, as I leaned backward on my chair. “Man, this much math is enough for today!”

I stood up, turned to my back, walked beside the edge of my bed, turned right, and then opened the door of my balcony and stepped out. I closed it behind my back as I walked out.

I held the black painted railing in front of me as I turned my head downward at the street. The roundish moon was shining so brightly against the dark sky, man. The street, for some reason, was peaceful as always. Just an elderly woman was there, walking with a stoop on her back, a wooden stick in her right hand, and a polythene bag filled with vegetables on her left hand. She had white hair and white clothes from head to toe. I glared at her as I stood there silently, my belly some centimeters away from the railing.

For some reason, the image of Sana, old and standing with a stoop, appeared in my mind. She had her head tilted down, half of her face still covered with her black mask.

“She’s a widow, maybe,” I thought. “That’s why she’s wearing white.”

I then turned leftward and looked at the intersection, just some steps ahead of the turned on streetlights.

“Maybe I should take a walk.”

“Even I don’t know why I decided to take a walk that day, but… I just decided to, for some reason. Maybe it was my fate that was controlling me that night.”