“Imagination is harmless…. until it answers back.”

Steel flashed through the air.

A katana sliced down, fast enough to tear the wind open.

A boy dropped from the sky like a falling star, coat whipping behind him, black hair plastered to his temple by invisible gusts. The blade in his hands cut a silver arc that wanted to split the world into before and after.

Below him, a man waited.

Face half-hidden behind a black scarf, twin daggers ready in tight, practiced hands. He crouched low, knees bent like a predator coiled. He didn't look afraid. He looked inevitable.

The boy landed.

CRACK.

Stone gave up under his feet—an explosion of grit and dust that painted the air in brief, bright violence. He didn't breathe. He pushed forward. The katana arced, clean and merciless.

Steel met steel.

Sparks bloomed like tiny sunbursts.

In one heartbeat they were airborne again; in the next they were on the ground, sliding past, blades carving space through empty air. They turned, met again, and clashed.

Faster.

Too fast.

The boy's vision funneled down to the man's eyes—black pools that held focus like a trap. There was no sky, no sound but the metallic whisper of two weapons and the ragged rhythm of breath.

A left-hand dagger twitched toward the boy's throat.

The boy's wrist snapped—

The katana rose—

"Sutra Vyas!"

The world tore.

The boy, the katana, the daggers, the fractured stone—everything shredded like a canvas pulled roughly from its frame.

Sutra blinked.

Fluorescent lights buzzed overhead. A ceiling fan turned slowly, its blades moving with a tired, patient rhythm.

Wooden desks, the smell of chalk and a mixed scent of students. 

Forty pairs of eyes turned toward him at once, like a stage curtain opening on a quiet, judging crowd. 

The teacher stood at the front, palms pressed flat against the wood, face tight with irritation.

“Sutra Vyas,” the man said in a sharp, flat voice. “Care to explain what was so interesting outside that you missed every word of this lecture?”

Sutra's mouth went dry.

His hand rested on the desk, fingers curved as if still holding a shape that wasn't there. He lowered it slowly, like lowering a sword that carried its own memory of weight.

"I… I'm sorry, sir," he muttered. Pushing his messy black hair back from his eyes.

A few students snickered. Somewhere behind him a voice—too familiar—said, "He's gone again," and a couple of boys laughed like it was a punchline and not a symptom.

“You’re always somewhere else, Sutra,” the teacher’s eyes narrowed. “Do you enjoy wasting your parents’ money?”

Sutra's gaze fell to his notebook. Blank. Not a single line. He hadn't moved his pen once.

"No, sir," he lied with more honesty than comfort.

"Then be here. This is your second warning this week. One more and I'll see you out. You want to daydream, do it at home. Not in my lecture."

"Yes, sir."

The teacher turned away and the classroom exhaled—pens resumed their futile scrawl, chairs creaked, whispers found new channels. 

But Sutra's heart beat in a rhythm the room couldn't hear; it was still locked on mouthfuls of dust and the edge of a blade.

And a world that made more sense than chemistry formulas.

In the margin of his notebook he'd drawn it again—the boy, the katana, the man with twin daggers— frozen in graphite, a small, tiny escape world trapped in pencil. He snapped the notebook shut.

I messed up again. He thought.

Then the bell rang. The sound echoed in the class.

He knew the story he projected into the teacher's and his classmate’s eyes.

lazy, unfocused, disappointed. They were right in part; his body belonged here. His mind belonged to some other architecture: broken flags of stone, cold metal, an absence of lectures and chemistry that made sense.

"Bro," Varun Mehra's voice was a low whisper at his right. Sutra turned. Varun leaned back like a tree branched with confidence, sports jacket half-unzipped, tennis ball passing between his hands. He looked like a poster for youthful arrogance, the kind that fit perfectly in a Delhi college courtyard.

“You were really deep this time,” Varun said with a small grin. “Sword fight again?”

Sutra gave a tiny nod.

Varun chuckled. “Next time, at least win, yaar. You always stop before the good part.”

From the left, Aditya Verma adjusted his glasses, eyes never taking off his notes. "If he keeps zoning out like this," Aditya said in an even tone, "he's not going to win anything. Except a clean zero in internal marks."

"Harsh," Varun said.

"Honest," Aditya replied.

Both were right. Sutra tried to hold on to the classroom like it was a raft and he was a swimmer with cold, numb hands. He made himself copy a sentence from the board, just to have ink in motion—proof he had been physical, at least.

The bell loosened them from the day's routine. Chairs scraped, bags zipped, students exhaled into the corridor's warm light. Sutra moved slowly, the world around him a little too bright after the grayscale of his daydreams.

"Lunch?" Varun offered.

"In a bit," Sutra said. "You go first."

"Don't disappear, ha. Coach wants to see you later."

"Yeah," Sutra said, and the word collapsed into him.

Aditya paused by the door. "You okay?" he asked without meeting his eyes.

Sutra nodded. That was the most plausible answer and so he used it.

Later, the canteen roared—voices, clinking plates, a TV shouting cricket highlights at too-high volume. Sutra found Varun and Aditya at a corner table; Varun had already repurposed half a plate of samosas as his personal stash, Aditya unpacked a tiffin set and a notebook.

"Ah, he lives," Varun announced, pushing a samosa his way. "Eat. You look like you fought a war in your head again."

“Who eats samosa at this time?” Aditya asked

Sutra ate because food anchored him. Varun leaned in, conspiratorial. "So, today's episode—what happened?"

"Same two people," Sutra said. "Same place. It just continues, like a show picking up the next episode."

Aditya folded his hands over his notes. "Are you going to write this for your storytelling session tomorrow?"

Varun elbowed him. "Yeah, do it sir’s orders."

"No, I mean—most of the stories are born from dreams like this, besides it's a good idea right?."

Sutra forced a laugh. He didn't tell them about the warmth on the sword's hilt, how his palm had actually tingled afterward. 

They wouldn't understand. Or worse, they might make it a problem to be fixed. He liked them; he didn't want to be their project.

"About the Practice," Varun announced suddenly. "Coach said we've a match with 1-A today. We're batting."

Sutra's groan was theatrical. "Do I have to?"

"Yes. We need bodies. Stand there for two overs and don't die.” 

"I can't hit properly," Sutra protested.

"Doesn't matter. Just don't make us lose on a technicality," Varun said.“ Besides, the coach wants you to be there, you are not showing up lately."

Aditya's voice softened. "You should go. Don't stay locked in your head."

Sutra picked at a samosa corner. "Alright. I'll come."

Classes crawled and at odd moments Sutra felt the dream like a weight behind his ribs.

He clung to sentences on the board, to the feel of a pen between his fingers.

When the final bell bled into the corridor, relief came as a physical thing.

He stepped into sunlight that smelled like dust and late-winter heat.

Karamveer Mal College—KMC—looked the same as always: painted walls tired of weather, banners for societies and events that had long ago lost their original excitement, clusters of students turning the campus into a small, bustling ecosystem.

 The cricket pitch was not much of a pitch—chalked lines on hard earth, a couple of battered stumps, students doubling as makeshift umpires and cheerleaders.

The match was about to start. 

The center of the pitch was dominated by a mountain of a man: Coach Baldev Singh.

His massive frame stretched the fabric of a red tracksuit, topped by a sharp black turban that added to his height. He checked his watch, the metal disappearing against his thick, hairy forearm.

“Varun!” Baldev’s voice boomed like a drum. “Where is your opener? Is he waiting for a special invitation from the Prime Minister?”

“He’s coming, Coach! Just a few more minutes!” Varun replied, looking over his shoulder toward the college gates.

Just then, Sutra stepped onto the field, his lanky figure looking like a twig compared to the Coach’s bulk.

“About time, hero! We’re literally starting the toss,” Varun said, pulling him along.

“Am I late?” Sutra asked, rubbing the back of his neck.

“Late? Beta, the sun has moved two inches since we were supposed to start,” Varun joked, though his voice dropped as they got closer to the giant in red.

Coach Baldev stepped closer, casting a shadow over Sutra. He smelled of sandalwood and strong tea. He didn't smile; he just blew a sharp whistle that made Sutra’s ears ring.

“Sutra Vyas,” Baldev growled in a thick Punjabi accent. “If you put as much energy into your batting as you do into being late, you’d be playing for the National team. Put your pads on. You’re opening the innings. Don’t make me regret it.”

“Yes, Coach,” Sutra muttered.

“Chalo, chalo! Move!” Baldev clapped his massive hands—a sound like a gunshot. “We don’t have all day!”

"Okay, Sutra, you're up. Just block, don't swing like you're cutting a demon," Varun yelled, already in his role as the loud encouragement.

Sutra took the bat because the weight of wood grounded him in a way nothing else had that day. It was awkward, foreign in his hands, but honest.

He planted his feet, attempted the stance they'd taught him in some forgotten warm-up, and watched the bowler—an easy grin, casual roll of the wrist.

"You ready?" someone yelled.

He fumbled for confidence and nodded.

The bowler ran in, practiced arm lowering, release—fast, straight. Sutra swung and missed. "Strike one!" someone demanded, cheers like small explosives. He tried to breathe calm.

Now the crucial part: the bowler adjusted—rolled his shoulder, enjoying the facade of pressure he built. Sutra's mind, unreliable and vivid, betrayed him again. 

The bowler released. The ball was a red streak of pure speed.

Sutra’s eyes glazed over. For a split second, the cricket pitch vanished.

In his mind, he saw the bat perfectly still. He saw a thick, neon-pink glob of bubblegum stretch out from the wood, sticky and shimmering. He imagined it catching the ball like a fly in a web. It was a vivid, childish, perfect image.

What a stupid thing to imagine, Sutra thought. A hysterical urge to laugh bubbled up in his chest. 

Then, Reality Snapped Back.

The "red streak" hit the bat. But there was no crack.

Instead, a wet SQUELCH echoed across the quiet field.

Everyone froze. To the fielders, it looked like the ball had hit a wall of mud. It didn't bounce; it didn't spin. It just... stopped. It hung against the face of the bat for a heartbeat, visibly sinking into a patch of shimmering pink goo that shouldn't have been there.

Sutra’s breath hitched. His eyes widened as he saw a string of pink saliva-like gum pull away from the ball before dissolving into thin air.

What the…, his heart skipping a beat. ….What just happened?

Then the ball dropped like a dead bird to the dust.

“Sutra! Run” Varun screamed. But Sutra couldn't move his limbs even an inch.

A throbbing pain in his temple, his eyes felt dizzy and he realised something was coming out of his nose. 

Somehow his left hand quickly reached for it, something not cold, not warm.

Slowly, he pulled his hand away. His vision blurred. On his trembling index finger, a drop of bright, hot crimson smeared against his skin. Blood.

“What’s happening?” in his stupor, sutra tried to move but he slipped and fell down. All he could hear was the voices of his teammates.