The first thing Mahira was aware of was the steady, rhythmic beeping of a machine. The second was the soft, sterile smell of antiseptic. She opened her eyes, blinking against the gentle light of a hospital room. She wasn't in the park anymore. She was in a bed, and looking around, she saw Rosy, Gunjan, and Simran in three other beds right next to her.

Their families were all there, a huddled group of worried parents, their faces etched with a mixture of fear and relief. And sitting in a chair, looking utterly exhausted but awake, was Krishna.

"You're awake!" he said, his voice filled with relief. He rushed to her side as the others began to stir.

"Krishna? What happened?" Rosy asked, sitting up. She felt... fine. In fact, she felt stronger than she had in her life. "The park... the thing from the sky..."

"It was a meteoroid, the doctors think," Krishna explained, his expression serious. "It fell, and you all fainted. Someone called an ambulance. You've been unconscious for almost a full day."

The girls looked at each other. They remembered the green light, the icy cold feeling, but nothing after that. The doctors came in and explained that, miraculously, none of them had a scratch. Every test, every scan, every blood report came back perfectly normal. They were, according to all medical science, in perfect health.

As the families celebrated the good news, Krishna pulled up a chair and looked at his four friends, a strange, thoughtful expression on his face.

"Don't worry," he said, his voice low and calm. "This is the part of the story where everything seems confusing, but it's just the beginning. The real adventure is about to start."

The four girls stared at him. "What story, Krishna?" Simran asked, adjusting her glasses. "What are you talking about?"

Krishna blinked, as if snapping out of a daydream. He gave a small, nervous laugh. "Oh, nothing. I just mean... in life. This is the start of a new chapter for all of you. For us." He looked around at them, and for a second, it felt like he was looking past them, at someone else they couldn't see, before his focus returned. "Everything is going to be different now."

While the friends were reunited in the hospital, the cause of their strange condition was sitting miles away in a high-tech government research lab in Mumbai. The dark, jagged meteoroid rested inside a sealed, sterile containment unit.

Dr. Bharat Maske, one of India's most brilliant scientists, stared at the object with a burning obsession. For a full day, the rock had been completely inert. It was just a cold, strange piece of stone. His team had found nothing, no radiation, no unique elements, nothing. They were calling it a dud.

Late that night, long after his team had gone home, Dr. Maske was alone in the lab. He was convinced that a massive energy surge was the key to unlocking the meteoroid's secrets. Bypassing a dozen safety protocols, he rerouted the lab's main power supply into the containment unit's emitters, preparing to hit the rock with a controlled blast of pure energy.

"Let's see what you're really made of," he whispered, his eyes gleaming with a manic intensity.

He pressed the button.

For a moment, nothing happened. Then, the monitors shrieked with an ear-splitting alarm. The meteoroid began to glow with an eerie, sickly green light, the same color as the fluid. The energy readings went off the charts, far beyond what Dr. Maske was putting in. The rock was not just reacting; it was producing its own, impossible power.

"Incredible," he breathed, moving closer to the containment unit, his scientific curiosity overpowering his fear. He leaned in, his face just inches from the reinforced glass.

The meteoroid suddenly liquefied. With the sound of melting plastic, it punched a hole through the containment glass. Before Dr. Maske could even take a step back, the living green meteoroid, now a slithering mass of cosmic energy and matter, lunged.

It hit him in the chest, and it did not stop. It flowed into him, a horrific invasion of alien matter. His body convulsed violently, lifted off the ground by the sheer force of the transformation. An agonizing pain, a fire unlike anything he had ever imagined, tore through his every cell. He felt his skin bubbling and hardening, his bones cracking and reforming into new, creature shapes. His human thoughts of fear and pain were being drowned out by a cold, silent, and incredibly ancient consciousness from the rock. His scream of pure, unending agony was the last human sound he would ever make.

The alarms in the lab blared. He—or the thing he had become—looked at his new hands. They were no longer flesh, but a dark, rocky, metallic substance, with glowing green veins pulsing just beneath the surface. He saw his reflection in a dark monitor screen and saw a monster.

In a fit of pure terror and rage, he slammed his new, stony fists against the lab wall. But instead of just hitting it, a blast of green energy erupted from his hands, blowing a massive, gaping hole in the reinforced concrete.

Panicked and no longer in control, the creature that was once Dr. Bharat Maske smashed its way out of the ruined lab and ran, disappearing into the darkness of the city, a new and terrifying force of nature unleashed upon the world.

The next day at the hospital, the girls were cleared for discharge. The doctors, unable to find anything wrong, concluded they had simply fainted from the shock of the event.

As they gathered their things, happy to be going home, Rosy reached for her bag on a high shelf. It slipped from her fingers. She instinctively shot her hand out to stop it from falling, but she was clumsy, and her hand slammed hard against the steel frame of the hospital bed.

Her friends flinched, expecting her to cry out in pain. But Rosy just stood there, her eyes wide. She hadn't felt a thing.

"Rosy, are you okay?" Gunjan asked, rushing to her side.

Rosy didn't answer. She was staring at the bed. The others followed her gaze. There, in the solid steel frame, was a perfect, deep dent in the shape of her hand.

The four girls and Krishna stared at the indented metal in stunned, absolute silence. Rosy slowly looked at her own hand. It was completely fine, not a single scratch or bruise.

They all looked at each other, the same thought dawning in their eyes. The doctors said they were normal. The tests said they were healthy.

But the bent steel of the bed frame told a very different story. They were not normal. Not anymore.

[To be continued…]

Support me: vanshbosssrahate@oksbi (UPI ID)

Author: Vansh Rahate

Editor: Vansh Rahate

Story by: Vansh Rahate

Under: Alaukika Studios