The streets looked familiar but alien.
Shops were half-shuttered. Dogs barked nervously from corners. The air smelled of burnt rubber and something sharper — chemicals, maybe. People had wrapped cloth over their faces and were rushing, not walking, eyes wide with panic but no clear direction.
I pulled my hoodie over my head and adjusted the kerchief over my nose. My legs moved fast, instinct guiding me through a shortcut near the temple, down the gully behind the pharmacy, and onto the broken road that led toward Karthik's college.
I passed an auto that had toppled sideways into a gutter. No one was hurt — at least not anymore. A boy, maybe twelve, was sitting on the pavement crying into his shirt. I stopped, heart racing, but he waved me off.
"I'm waiting for my sister. She'll come."
His words held a strange conviction. The kind only hope can offer.
I nodded and kept running.
Fifteen minutes in, I reached the edge of the danger zone — marked by a flimsy police barricade, one constable half-heartedly redirecting people.
"No one's allowed through! Go home!"
"I need to get my brother," I said, breathless. "He studies at Vidya College. He hasn't come back."
"No one's inside. They evacuated two hours ago."
"No, he wouldn't have left. He waits for my mom to pick him up. Always."
The constable looked away, then back at me. "You're just a kid."
I stared at him. I didn't know what emotion was on my face, but something in it made him hesitate.
"Take the lane behind the mosque," he muttered. "Stay low. Don't breathe too deep."
I nodded, mumbled thanks, and slipped past the barricade. The lane was tighter here — lined with closed bakeries and rusted cycle shops. I moved like a shadow, every nerve alive.
And then, up ahead, past the haze and broken fence — I saw him.
Karthik.
Sitting under the yellowing gulmohar tree by the compound wall of his college, his schoolbag beside him, his face pale and sweaty. He was holding his inhaler, but it wasn't helping much.
"Karthik!"
He looked up, dazed. "Anna?"
I ran and knelt beside him.
"What are you doing here?" he whispered, voice raspy. "It's... hard to breathe."
"I came to take you back. Come on. We'll take the long way around."
He tried to get up, staggered, and fell into me.
"Lean on me. Don't talk. Just breathe, okay?"
The walk back was slower. I supported him, step by step, his weight against my shoulder. He wheezed quietly, but his grip tightened when we had to cross a main road. I didn't speak. I was too focused.
Every second felt like a thread pulled tight.
And yet — we made it.
We reached home.
Mom was at the gate, barefoot, face streaked with tears, arms wide open. She pulled us both in, sobbing.
"I told you not to go out," she cried.
"But he did," Karthik murmured, "and he brought me back."
That night, I sat alone on the terrace, staring at the stars behind the lingering haze.
In the old timeline, this day had broken us.
Now, it stitched something back.
Not all wounds show up on skin.
Some just wait — hidden, until healed by presence.
And today, I chose to be present.