Megan had already been awake for nearly four hours when she finally decided that sleep was not going to come easily that night.

She looked at the clock again. It was already 1:34 am, and she had to be up early. She had a meeting the next morning, an important one, and she knew she would regret it if she turned up half asleep. She had already spent enough time trying to make herself sleep - like lying still, changing her posture, flipping her pillow over a dozen times, pulling over the blanket, and even counting sheep in her head. But nothing had worked. The longer she laid there awake, the more obvious it became to her that sleep simply wasn’t going to happen, and the more pointless it felt to keep trying.

So she stopped trying. She switched on the bedside lamp and looked around the room. There was a table beside the lamp, with its cover facing upwards. She reached for it, turned it over in her hands for a moment, and glanced at the cover page.

It showed the silhouette of a lone man trying to climb down from a tall building. The title was printed above in large letters: MAKE IT TO MORNING

She opened the book. The pages were filled pale yellow highlight marks, underlines and even small notes in the margins. Some of them were beneath a single sentence and sometimes extending across entire paragraphs.

She leaned out to take her reading glasses, adjusted them and began to read the book.

Chapter One: Thomas

Thomas had two finished novels and had no money.

That was the simplest way he could describe his situation whenever somebody asked. Both of his novels had been sent to publishers months earlier, and both were still under review. He had spent months checking his email and waiting for replies that never came. And worse - neither of them had earned him a single penny, as publishers refused advance payments for someone like him, who had no books published yet.

At least the first two books had existed in some form. But the third book was a bigger problem - Thomas was on a writer’s block. He would wake up everyday, would make himself something that resembled diluted coffee, open his laptop and would stare at the cursor blinking on the blank page. He was totally out of ideas. He had spent so much time trying to come up with something new that his mind always felt empty. No matter how hard he tried, nothing seemed to spark.

In the meantime, his savings had disappeared slowly. He had started counting the money in his wallet before buying food. Eventually the counting became pointless - he knew exactly how much was there. He could afford something cheap to eat and a drink each day, with perhaps a little left over if he skipped a meal.

In short, all that Thomas had was an empty stomach, and an empty mind. Each time someone asked him what he was upto, he said he was experiencing a writer’s block. Nobody around understood what he meant, and when they looked at him in confusion, he’d reply that writer’s block is simply being stuck without ideas.

But there was one person who was least bothered about this explanation - his landlord.

He had waited four months already for Thomas’ rent, and today was the due date. The landlord knocked onto Thomas’s door. Thomas was out of excuses, as he had already apologised thrice.

“I’ll pay you”, he said with a frown.

The landlord looked at him.

And that look on his face was enough for Thomas to know how weak the sentence sounded.

“You said that last month.”

Thomas looked down. Because there wasn’t much more to say.

He had given Thomas time until evening - and Thomas had no other option, but to abide.

So Thomas began packing his bag. There was not much to pack though. He had only enough clothes that fit into one backpack. With the residual space being occupied by his laptop, a few books, a charger, a toothbrush, two pens and a framed photo of his parents. He stood in the middle of the empty room for a while after that, looking at the mattress he could no longer afford to sleep on.

Then he locked the door and left the key where he had been told to leave it, and walked away slowly, not knowing where he is headed toward.

He went to the railway station, and tried to sleep on the benches where passengers would wait. That night he slept badly and woke before sunrise with a stiff neck and the unpleasant knowledge that he had nowhere to go.

His half sleepy eyes wandered around the station, until they fell on the bulletin board. That’s when one advertisement stood out - Silverline Technologies was hiring for a part-time position at the Sterling Technology Centre, the largest office building in the city. The pay was decent enough, and it was regular and he would be paid on a weekly basis.

He immediately dialled the number mentioned in the advert, and asked for the job description. The manager told that he would be an office boy and cleaner. He had to clean desks, empty bins, carry supplies, prepare meeting rooms and had to handle whatever small job nobody else wanted to do. In simple words, he would spend most of his day doing things nobody noticed unless they were done badly.

Thomas readily accepted this. He did not tell the office manager that he no longer had a house, because he desperately needed this job, and anything that could serve as a potential black mark against him was rather left undisclosed.

He simply smiled, and asked when he could start. The answer was the next morning. But he had to visit the office that day to get a sense of his workspace and his responsibilities.

Thomas immediately rushed to the Sterling Technology Centre, and looked up at the building. It was twenty four floors tall. And his office was right there - on the topmost floor.

Honestly, he didn’t care. At that point, he would have worked on the roof if someone had offered him a chair.

Thomas was taken around the office on his first day, and was given a set of basic instructions that mentioned which areas needed cleaning. He listened carefully, like always did, and made a mental note of the layout of his office to be.

Thomas left that evening, and booked himself a lodge, with the little cash he was given as an advance payment. He changed his clothes, and went to bed, mentally preparing himself for his first day of work.

But he did not know back then that he had already taken his first step into the lion's den.

Chapter Two: The Hidden Passage

Thomas arrived at the his office early the next morning.

He did not have the best sleep at the lodge, but it was decent enough, considering that he slept on the railway platform the previous night. But still, the mattress was harder than it looked, and he found himself waking up once every few hours. The thought of having to find another place to sleep had crossed his mind several times, but each time he pushed it away. He had a job now, he had a regular pay, and that was all that mattered to him now.

The building looked different in the morning. There was a constant bustle throughout, with employees constantly moving around, security guards checking the bags of visitors and suppliers, and the lobby was filled with the sounds of footsteps, conversations and the ringing of phones. Thomas kept to the side and followed the instructions he had been given the previous evening.

His first few days were tiring, because people called him from different directions simultaneously and he didn’t know which ones to prioritise. He had to do random things - from the conventional ones like cleaning desks, collecting trash and discarding them, wiping the glass panes of the meeting rooms, carrying files, arranging chairs for events, preparing rooms before meetings, to the unconventional ones like bringing tea and coffee, moving boxes, wiping away tea that employees had spilt, and even decorating the room with balloons for a success party once.

But Thomas didn’t mind the work. He had money coming in now, and that was what mattered. He had spent months staring at a blank screen waiting for a story to appear. Compared with that, cleaning someone else’s desk was at least comforting.

Within the first few days of his new job, Thomas familiarised himself with the surroundings. He had always been observant and paid attention to details, which perhaps could be attributed to him being a novellist, although he never thought of it as a particular skill. By the end of that week, he could tell which employees arrived early and which ones stayed late, which meeting rooms were frequently used, which cupboards were always left unlocked, which doors automatically closed behind people, where the records were kept, and which bins filled up fastest.

He also noticed the arrangement of cameras - there were cameras near important entrances and a few main corridors, but the office itself had plenty of areas they couldn’t see properly. Walls, partitions and the arrangement of rooms created a lot of gaps and blind spots.

On his 7th day at the office, he was handed another odd task - he had to replace a faulty light bulb in one of the quieter sections of the office. Thomas climbed onto a chair and reached up towards the fitting.

While replacing it, he accidentally hit one of the ceiling panels upwards with his head. The panel moved upon impact. Thomas pushed it back into place, and began replacing the light.

Once replaced the bulb, he pushed the panel once again out of curiousity, stood on his tiptoes, and looked inside. It was a false ceiling!!

The false ceiling hid a narrow space filled with cables, pipes and metal supports. It was dusty and cramped. But still, there was enough room for a person to crawl through if they were careful enough. The false ceiling also hid a ventilation shaft and an airduct, which was also wide enough for someone to crawl.

Thomas closed the panel, and went back to do his next task - to clean the washroom. But while doing so, he could not keep himself from thinking about that gap.

The thought only became stronger that evening when he returned to the lodge and counted his remaining money. He had already spent 7 nights there. The room wasn’t expensive, but he couldn’t keep paying for it and still hope to clear his debts.

And that’s when an idea stuck him - if he could somehow stay inside the office after everyone left, he could save that money and use it to clear his rent debt. It sounded ridiculous, but it also sounded practical in a weird way. And the ventilation shaft over the false ceiling gave him a way to do so.

There were two obvious problems though - he could get into the office through the false ceiling, but how was he supposed to get over the false ceiling from outside? And, more importantly, how was he supposed to get back out in the morning? The ceiling was high enough that he couldn't simply jump up and pull himself through. Bringing a ladder into the office every night was out of the question. So was leaving one there permanently - as someone might find this out, and his cover would be blown.

He sat on the edge of the lodge bed and looked at the ceiling for a while wondering. And that’s when it struck him - he noticed the floor plan of the office in a records room while cleaning it. To make things simpler, he had been given access to several areas of the building because of his job. He had never really thought about how useful that was until now.

So, he decided to look at the layout the next day, to see where the ventilation shafts over the false ceiling led to.

And everything went as per his plans - he grabbed a copy of the floor plan, looked at it for a while, and realised that the false ceiling continued through the entire floor. And one of the passages above it connected with the ventilation area of the pantry beside the elevator of that floor. Thomas knew the pantry well because he was often sent there to collect drinks and food for meetings.

Thomas stared at the layout for a few seconds, looked back at the ceiling, and the route suddenly made sense.

If the ventilation space above the office connected to the area above the pantry, he could enter the pantry normally, close and lock the door, climb through the ceiling from there and crawl across to the office. To his luck, the pantry could be locked from both sides, and you wouldn’t know the difference. So, if he entered the pantry after everyone had left and locked the door behind him, nobody would have a reason to come inside.

However, the issue persisted - he could not reach the ventilation shaft of the pantry without a ladder. And without doing so, he wouldn’t be able to crawl through into the office.

But Thomas’ mind came up with a plan - the pantry was mostly empty, and it was only used by himself along with two other helpers. And the pantry had several stacks of cartons and boxes. He could move the juice cartons piled in corner, stack them one over the other, and use them as a staircase or a platform. These boxes would give him enough height to reach the ceiling.

He spent the rest of the day thinking about it. The plan still had problems, but they were manageable ones. Half of the problems had already been resolved - he didn’t need to bring a ladder, he didn’t need to tamper with the office, he didn’t need to force any doors open.

So, Thomas decided to put his idea to the test.

The next day, he signed out of his lodge, brought his laptop, supplies and his clothes to his office, brought them to a storage unit that was rarely used, and placed them inside, hidden behind the ordinary supplies, and returned back to work.

That evening, Thomas cleaned the last section of the office, made sure everything looked exactly as it should, and checked himself out, just for the record, and made sure that his exit was recorded on camera.

Now, his task was to get into the pantry via the blind spots created by the walls. He waited until the security staff were away, and once he made sure there weren’t any, he made his entry into the pantry.

And as expected, nobody was there. So, Thomas quickly closed the door behind him, and locked it.

The only sound he could hear inside was the faint hum of the building.

Thomas looked at the stacked boxes, and began climbing over them, until he could push the panels of the ceiling aside.

He climbed into the ceiling area through one of the panels, and sealed it close so that nobody would notice it. There was pitch darkness waiting for him inside the ceiling area. He could already feel the dust covering his trousers. But this was not the time to keep himself neat and tidy.

He switched on his phone’s flashlight, looked around, and began crawling.

The space was hotter than he expected. The pipes and cables forced him to move around them. And he had to be careful where he placed his weight, because some sections of the false ceiling were panels without any support, and would break if he stepped on him.

As he crawled, he made an estimate of the distance he had covered. Once he approximated that distance to be equal to the distance of his office from the pantry, he lifted one of the panels.

The sight underneath was familiar to him - it was the same place he had been cleaning that morning!!

Thomas jumped onto the floor carefully through this opening. He stood there for a moment, listening. There was nothing - as the office was empty. He looked around the dark office and smiled. Because he had found a way in. He brought a chair, climbed onto it, put back the panel in place, and moved the chair back to its place.

There was no trace of him entering the office, and that was exactly what he wanted.

Now, getting out was the harder part. But Thomas’ quick thinking resolved that too. He could hide in one of the washroom cubicles before the employees arrive, wash himself, change to his uniform, and once people start using the washroom, he could join them and leave with them, as though he had just entered to take a washroom break. Or he could even exit with a mop and begin working. Nobody would suspect a thing! At least, that was what Thomas believed. Because why would they? He was the cleaner.

And for the first time in days, Thomas wasn’t thinking about rent, the lodge or about how much money he had left. He had a place, he could call home! It wasn’t exactly a home, but it was somewhere he could sleep without paying for a room.

His routine gradually became more comfortable over the next few days. Thomas started sleeping properly, he even began writing again. Not much, but a page or two on a good day, few paragraphs on most days, and sometimes just few sentences.

The writer’s block hadn’t disappeared, but the blank screen no longer felt quite as threatening when he knew he had somewhere to sleep that night.

His financial situation improved slowly too. The fact that he stopped spending money on the lodge alone made a difference.

He began saving whatever he could and calculated how long it would take before he could finally repay the four months of rent he owed.

The plan was simple - keep working, keep saving, keep hiding. Nothing had to change. And for several weeks, nothing did. Thomas became so comfortable with the routine that he stopped thinking about the risk.

But the world rarely announces the night it intends to change the rules. It simply waits until you stop checking them.

Chapter Three: The New Normal

For the first few nights, Thomas treated the office as a place he was hiding in. After that, it slowly became a place he lived in.

During his first few nights, every sound made him sit up, every shadow in the corridor made him hold his breath, and every unexpected movement outside the office made him wonder whether someone had discovered him. But by the second week, he could sleep through most of it.

His routine became almost mechanical - he would finish his work in the evening and make sure he was genuinely the last person to leave. Then he would sign out as usual, and wait elsewhere for a while. This was because security staff would occasionally come upstairs to check something, an employee might return for a forgotten phone or a folder, or someone from another floor might suddenly appear. So, waiting seemed like a better choice than to enter when there was someone inside.

When he was certain enough, he would slip into the pantry, lock the door and climb over the cartons. He had become much better at doing it without disturbing anything. The first time he had nearly knocked over the stack of boxes. Now he could climb up, lift the ceiling panel, pull himself inside and lower the panel back into place without leaving anything visibly out of order.

The space above the false ceiling was uncomfortable, but Thomas knew how to move through it now. He had memorised the route by counting supports and estimating distances. He knew where the pipes crossed his path, where he had to crawl, and where he could briefly kneel. He also knew which ceiling panels could carry his weight and which ones were nothing more than thin sheets resting on the frame, which could send him crashing below. Once he reached the office, he would lower himself through the ceiling.

The office was strangely comfortable after midnight though. During the day, it was full of voices, ringing phones, footsteps and people calling his name from different directions. At night, all of that disappeared. The computers were silent, the meeting rooms were empty and the lights were reduced to a dim illumination. Thomas began to enjoy those hours.

He could walk around without anyone asking him to fetch something. He could sit wherever he wanted. He could even grab stuff from the pantry for himself.

He still knew the danger, but somehow he simply stopped feeling it.

And his morning became a routine too - Thomas would wake before the office became busy, fold his shirt and put away the things he had brought out during the night, walk towards the washroom, wash his face, choose one of the cubicles, and wait until people arrive, and leave with them.

By the twentieth night, he had stopped feeling like an intruder.

Thomas had also become more careful about his work. He cleaned the office thoroughly because good cleaning gave him another layer of protection. If something was dirty, somebody might remember when it had been cleaned, and he would be caught. If his work became careless, people would start paying attention to him. He also kept his belongings limited. Because the less he had to move every morning, the less chance there was of leaving something behind. And he had anther important reason for the same - he could be fired if he wasn’t good at his job, and he would no longer have this place which he could call home.

So he made sure there everything was clean, and that there was nothing to pay attention to.

At the end of the 35th day, he knew the office so well that he could walk through it in darkness without touching a desk. That confidence was probably the most dangerous thing he had acquired.

That evening, he received his payment for the 5th week, and Thomas was thinking of clearing the debts he had to pay his landlord with them.

The next day was his 36th day at the office.

Nothing about the morning gave him any idea that the evening would be different.

He did his usual odd tasks - cleaning the meeting rooms, carrying supplies and dealing with the usual stream of small requests. By late afternoon, it began to rain. It started as a thin drizzle against the windows and gradually started tapping harder against the windows, and blurring the buildings across the street.

Thomas noticed it while cleaning one of the windows. He watched the rain for a few seconds before returning to work.

The office emptied slowly that evening, and quicker than usual, probably due to the rains. Thomas followed his usual routine - he saw employees leave one after another until there was nobody left, waited, and walked towards the pantry.

The rain was getting louder now.

But that didn’t seem to affect Thomas, as he had unlocked the pantry and slipped inside as always. He climbed them, crawled towards his usual exit, pulled one of the panels upwards, and jumped down onto his office.

He started walking towards the usual spot where he slept every night. But suddenly, his shoe struck something, and Thomas tripped over it.

His shoulder slammed into the edge of a table, and a metal tray on the table fell onto the floor, creating a loud noise.

Thomas froze - for a moment he couldn’t understand what he had stepped on. Then turned on the flashlight on his phone, and pointed it downwards.

There was a shoe, a pant, a shirt, and a face. A man was lying on the floor!!

Thomas stared at him, called him out, and even kicked him slowly. But there was no movement from him.

He shone the flashlight on his face, and his expression changed as the realisation reached him - the man was dead. Thomas was stunned and his hand remained frozen in position.

Before he could realise what was going on, he heard footsteps. The footsteps were coming closer - it was from the security guards coming up the stairs to see where the noise came from.

Thomas looked at the body again.

He knew exactly what anyone walking through that door would see - a dead person. If they managed to call the police, the first suspicion would fall on him automatically since he is the last to leave the office. Any further investigation might possibly blow his cover. Because he had no alibi or evidence that he was elsewhere, since he has been in the same building for the entire duration of the crime, no matter when it had occurred. So, leaving it behind, unattended and pretending as if he didn’t know was not an option.

He could not dial the police himself either - because he would be the first one to be arrested - on the charges of trespassing, illegally staying, and what not.

The third option was carrying the corpse elsewhere. But there were two issues - he couldn’t leave via the main entrance, as the security staff are approaching from there, and there would be cameras as well. He couldn’t climb through the ceiling either as it is too high for him. And even if he did, but he could not carry the corpse with him to the ceiling.

Dragging the corpse somewhere else in the office and leaving it there was risky too - as anyone could find it. If this happenned, the police would figure it out from the fingerprints and other forensic evidence he would leave all over the corpse, and he’d again be caught.

Thomas knew he had no room to escape, and that he had been surrounded on all sides.

Chapter Four: The Prison in the Clouds

Thomas remained crouched beside the body, staring towards the entrance as the footsteps came closer. The sound was unmistakable now - Thomas could hear two security guards approaching the office, discussing what could have caused the noise.

He had perhaps a minute or so before they opened the door.

His eyes moved around the room, and then fell on the balcony.

It was only a few metres away from them, and that seemed to be the only place where the body could disappear from sight without him having to take it through the entrance.

He grabbed the man’s wrists, and dragged him with all his might.

The body barely moved at first. But slowly, as Thomas pulled harder, the body began to move.

As he was pulling the corpse, Thomas could hear the footsteps getting closer, and even a faint metallic sound, perhaps the security guard’s keys rubbing against the railing of the staircase or against each other.

Thomas tugged with tiny pauses between pulls - and the body moved some inches with each pull.

His shoulder had began to swell with pain from the impact it had taken when he fell. But Thomas had no time to worry about that. He just ignored it and changed his grip, grabbing the man’s clothing near the shoulders and began pulling him. The dead weight was far heavier than Thomas had expected. Every few inches required another pull, and every pull seemed to take too long with pauses in between.

As he approached the balcony, he could hear the security latch trying to unlock the door. Thomas’s expression tightened in fear. He tried to stop himself from looking at the his face of the corpse and kept his eyes on the balcony.

He could notice the door being unlocked. So, Thomas pulled with everything he had - because his entire life depended on it.

The body finally slid onto the balcony!

A gush of wind blew the rain inside immediately, and cold water struck his face. But Thomas didn’t care. He had just one thing to do now - hide himself and the corpse from the security, or at least temporarily.

He dragged the corpse towards the side, and hid it behind the large decorative plants there, and ran to hide himself beneath the AC outlet.

All of these happenned just in time for the security guards to step into the office. Thomas could hear them speaking. But the rain muffled their voices. One of them moved towards the area where Thomas had landed. The other stayed near the entrance.

Thomas pressed himself against the wall. His chest was rising and falling rapidly. He looked at the body lying only a few feet away from him. There was nowhere to hide it properly, and this spot was a gamble, as anyone who could take a close look at the plants would almost immediately spot the corpse - and if they did, his fingerprints would be all over the corpse.

Needless to say, Thomas was scared out of his wits. His body began to shiver - and he could not say if it was the cold rain or the anxiety.

A flashlight moved across the office. Thomas lowered his head. The light came towards the balcony. His fingers tightened around the walls of the AC outlet.

The flashlight stopped suddenly on the wall opposite to him. For a moment, Thomas thought the guard had seen him. He remained frozen, without letting out a breath. He returned back to his senses only after the beam moved away.

The guards stayed inside for another few seconds. They looked around the room, checked the table and the fallen tray, and spoke to each other. Thomas couldn’t hear what they were saying.

Then one of them started walking towards the balcony. Thomas’s eyes widened in fear, and he pressed himself against the wall even more, as though it would make him smaller.

Once the guard entered the balcony, rain began to blow in on him. Thomas kept hoping that he’d retreat because of it. But it was too late - as the guard already stepped outside and began looking around. Thomas barely breathed. The guard looked towards the plants, took another step and decided to have a look at them. Thomas closed his eyes for a second, realising that he was caught. But all of a sudden, the other security guard called him inside, and he walked back inside. Both of them deduced that the tray had been knocked down by a gush of wind, and left the floor.

Thomas watched it in disbelief - he was safe!! Or so he thought

It took him a while to realise something - the guard had closed and locked the door of the balcony before joining the other security guard!

Thomas tried pushing the door open. He couldn’t.

His s face changed - because he understood what had happened.

He has been locked on the balcony from inside with a corpse. The balcony was high above the ground - to be precise, on the 24th floor. He looked back at the balcony door, then at the body, and then at the town from the balcony.

He was alone now, but that somehow made the situation worse. There was nobody coming to help him, nowhere to go, and no way back inside without breaking open the door.

The balcony was his cage, his prison, his grave, and his destiny.

Chapter Five - The Cost of Survival

Thomas remained near the AC outlet for a few minutes - and his eyes were oscillating between the corpse and the balcony door. The office was only a few metres behind him, yet it might as well have been in another building.

At this point, his clothes were already soaked, his hands were trembling, and his shoulder was beginning to hurt badly from dragging the corpse. He looked down at the city lights, trying to find an option that did not involve doing something insane. But there wasn’t one.

He took a few steps towards the balcony railing and looked over again.

He immediately regretted it.

The ground was so far away that the individual cars below looked like moving dots. The headlights appeared and disappeared through the rain, moving along the roads like tiny sparks. Somewhere down there were people going about their ordinary lives, completely unaware that a man was standing 24 floors above them, trapped in a prison of his own choices.

Thomas hung his neck and accepted his fate.

But when he hung his neck, he noticed something - the balcony directly below belonged to the 23rd floor.

He stared at it for a while.

And then an absurdly insane thought grew in his mind, almost unwillingly.

If he could get onto the balcony below, he could reach the one below that. Then the next one. And the next.

It was not a way out, but it was a way down.

Thomas had spent enough time working in the building to know that most of the office floors had similar balconies, and the floors were arranged close enough vertically that, with a bit of effort, a person could potentially lower himself from one to another.

But there was something else he remembered - the fifteenth floor.

Unlike the floors above it or below it, the fifteenth floor was not occupied by ordinary offices. It was the building’s observation area - almost like a watch tower or a view point built into the middle of the structure. The balcony there was considerably wider than the others too.

Although Thomas had never been there himself, he knew that it connected back to the main building - and he could access the the elevator, the staircase and the internal corridors once he gets there.

The only issue was that, he did not know the internal layout of that floor well enough to predict exactly where he would come out. But considering the alternative of staying on the 24th floor, getting in through the fifteenth floor’s balcony seemed to be a better idea.

In his head, the plan was simple - he had to get to the fifteenth floor. And once he gets there, he had to somehow find the staircase or the elevator, climb up to the 24th floor, eventually make his way back towards his office through the ceiling, unlock the balcony from the inside and then decide what to do with the corpse.

As this idea was brewing in his head, he looked again at the balconies below.

The fifteenth floor was nine floors away.

Nine!!

Thomas swallowed and let out a deep breath. Because that distance suddenly looked much farther than it had in his head.

However, he was at least happy that he did not need to reach the ground floor, and could stop with just nine floors. It improved matters, though only in the loosest sense of the word. It was just the smallest crack in what had seemed an impenetrable wall.

To make matters worse, the rain had made the concrete slippery, and one wrong move could cost him his life.

He looked at his hands - they were already trembling.

And for the first time since discovering the corpse, Thomas allowed himself to consider another possibility - he could stay there.

Perhaps someone would notice him in the morning, and he could explain things. But he knew that nobody would believe what he was going to say. Starting from the fact that he had been sleeping inside the building for weeks, he had entered the office after hours, he had discovered a dead man, he had dragged the corpse onto the balcony - there was no explanation that made him look innocent.

He would have to explain why he was there, he would have to explain why he had not called the police, he would have to explain why his fingerprints were on the body, and most importantly, he would have to explain why he had been hiding in the building in the first place.

Thomas closed his eyes.

“No”, he said to himself - he could not pay any more fines or find another spot to stay in for a low rent.

He had to escape!

He looked towards the balcony of the 23rd floor again. He shook away the option of staying there from his mind. He had a destination now - the fifteenth floor. Thomas decided to take a leap of faith - he decided to descend down the balconies one by one until he reached it.

He had never stood so close to death, nor had he imagined ever standing closer.

He had been in moments when survival demanded courage. This wasn’t one of them - this demanded insanity. But it was also the only one he had.

So, he removed his shoes, as he felt that bare feet would give him a better grip than the wet soles of his shoes. He placed them against the wall, took a deep breath and climbed onto the railing over the balcony wall and held it as though his life depended on it - because it did.

He accidentally looked down out of impulse. And immediately his stomach tightened in fear. He somehow forced himself to look back at the building instead.

“Do not look down. Do not look down” - he repeated the words to himself, gripping the words as tightly as he gripped the railing.

Slowly, he descended onto the concrete floor beneath the railing, and let his legs go off. He was literally hanging on a wet concrete surface with two hands - and that too from the 24th floor.

Rainwater ran down his face and into his eyes. His fingers tightened around the edge of the concrete. His legs were hanging in the air, and he began swinging them back and forth, in search of some metal structure beneath.

There was nothing.

He stretched both his arms and his legs, and again swinging them. But there was still nothing.

His arms began to ache. But Thomas decided to make one last attempt - he pushed himself away further, and held onto the wet concrete floor with only the tips of his fingers with all his might. He knew that they could slip away at any moment. But this was the only option he had.

But then his toes touched something - a narrow metal rod. He moved his foot carefully to confirm if it was what he thought it was. And so it was - it was the railing of the balcony on the 23rd floor.

Thomas breathed out in relief, as he shifted his weight slowly from his hands to his legs. Then he let go. His feet struck the railing of the 23rd floor, and he hard landed on the balcony with a thud.

For a few seconds, he did nothing. He simply lay there in the rain, breathing back and forth. His shoulder was hurting badly, and so were his arms and knees.

Thomas slowly rolled himself upright and looked at the balcony above him. The 24th floor seemed impossibly high already, and he was quite proud of himself. Although he knew that the job was far from done. He can’t quit anytime now, because he has begun the descent, and he can’t even choose to climb back to the 24th if he had a change of plans.

Finally, he gathered the courage to stand up and looked at the balcony below - the one belonging to the 22nd floor.

Then came the second descent. This seemed worse - because his body now knew what the first one had felt like.

He hung from the concrete slab once again, looked for another foothold and lowered himself yet again. This time, the landing was better.

Thomas then took a pause for a few seconds before continuing to the 21st floor.

Then the 20th.

But the next time, a strong gush of wind was against him - it blew right when he placed his foot on the railing of the 19th floor. His legs slipped due to the wind. But somehow, he was able to scrape his fingers, and was able to find enough grip to hold himself there, and somehow managed to pull himself back up and land safely.

His hands were beginning to bleed, and his knees were raw. So, he stayed there for a while, before continuing the descent onto the 18th.

While climbing over the railing of the 18th floor, there was another problem - his pants were caught onto the ball post cap on the railing. He tugged his pant to free himself.

Nothing happenned.

He tried again.

Again nothing.

The metal ball post cap had held his pant firmly.

Thomas looked down.

He was standing on a narrow section of the balcony. He could not remain there. He felt panic rising through his chest.

He tugged again with all his might. The fabric stretched, but it still did not come free.

His breathing became faster.

Finally, he understood that the fabric was not going to come loose.

Thomas took a breath, and pulled with everything he had.

“Rrrrrip” - the sound disappeared almost immediately into the rain.

Thomas looked at his pant - a large tear ran along its side. But that didn’t matter - he was free.

He did not waste another second, and lowered himself over the railing onto the next floor.

He had to decend for the next few floors, keeping count of which floor he was in. His body was beginning to tire, and every movement required more effort than the one before it. He had to stop multiple times to regain his grip, and sometimes just to rest and gather all his might.

After a hard fought journey, he finally made it - he was on the 15th floor.

For several seconds, he remained collapsed on the ground - breathing and panting. He could hear nothing except the rain. He slowly turned his head - and he smiled at the fact that this balcony was different from the others. Unlike other floors, there was no door separating the balcony from the rest of the room. There were only few archways.

It was a reassurance that he had reached where he wanted to. His plan had worked, or at least the first part of it had.

Thomas crawled towards one of the entryways, eager to get inside.

But he stopped halfway through. He suddenly remembered something - he had never been here. So he had no idea who might be inside, where the corridors led, how many security guards were on this floor, or where the cameras were, if any. Getting inside meant surrendering to whatever lay beyond.

But Thomas had no other way out. He looked back at the balconies he had just crossed. There was no way he was going back up. He looked at the entryway again, took a breath and stepped in with his best foot forward.

He was inside, in a place where he had no business being, trying to find the way forward before anyone noticed.

Because, somewhere above him, behind a locked balcony door, a dead man was still waiting for his arrival.

Chapter Six - Back to the Lion’s Den

Thomas took his first step into the fifteenth floor. And he could immediately realise that he had entered a part of the building that was totally different from the 24th floor, about which he had known everything about.

This floor was not an office building. It was an observation area meant for the public to have a view the town and take pictures. Few occasionally came there to spot birds or for stargazing too.

Thomas had never actually spent any time here though. He had only heard employees mention the floor occasionally, usually when somebody talked going there after work. He had never had any reason to come here himself, because there was nothing on the floor that was connected to his regular duties.

Thomas looked behind, and the first thing he noticed was the view. The rain had turned the entire view into a blur of lights and shadows. Headlights moved along the roads far below, while the windows of distant buildings appeared and disappeared behind the sheet of rain. Under different circumstances, it would have been an impressive sight, but Thomas was too exhausted to appreciate it properly now.

He shook his head, turned back, and took a few steps inside.

The floor was quiet, and for the first few seconds, he felt almost relieved. He had expected this part to be difficult because he did not know the layout. But now that he was inside, it did not look particularly complicated. There were several pathways branching from a main pathway, each leading to a different view point. And he could see signs indicating the lifts and staircases - which made his job much easier.

So, Thomas straightened himself and began walking. His clothes were still wet, his shoulder was hurting badly and his palms were raw, but he had finally escaped the balcony. The hardest part was supposed to be behind him.

He kept walking. But suddenly, he heard footsteps. The sound came from somewhere ahead, and Thomas stopped immediately. Another sound followed. This time, it was a man’s muffled voice over a walkie talkie.

Thomas was stunned. There was nowhere obvious to hide. So he stepped to the side, and pressed himself against the nearest wall.

A few seconds later, a security guard appeared around the corner. Thomas’s eyes widened because he had not expected anyone to be there. The guard was walking casually, holding a flashlight in one hand and speaking into the walkie talkie, completely unaware that Thomas was there.

Thomas remained pressed tightly against the wall until the guard walked past. He waited until the footsteps disappeared and never let out a breath until he was gone.

Thomas looked down the pathway once again, and realised that this was something he had not planned for. He had assumed that once he reached the fifteenth floor, the main challenge would simply be finding his way through an unfamiliar area. He had not considered that the observation floor might still have active security patrols at this hour.

That meant he would have to move carefully.

With every step he took further, he was cautious of not making any noise, and he stopped for a second or two after each step, listening carefully for any footsteps.

While walking, another random thought hit his head just in time - there could be cameras! Thomas looked around for any, and noticed one being mounted high above him, aimed towards the corridor. He stopped immediately, and watched it rotate slowly. He waited until it turned away from him before crossing it. He did not run, but he simply moved quickly enough to clear the exposed section before the camera turned back.

He looked around for any other cameras, and spotted two others. But both of them were static, and they were facing the ticket counters for the observation point on both sides. So, there was plenty of blind spot in the centre where he could walk.

Eventually, Thomas evaded security and cameras to reach the elevator. And for a moment, he considered using them. The thought was almost irresistible. He could step inside and select the 24th floor. And within minutes, he could be back in his office.

But then he thought about how obvious the movement might be. The floor indicator would change, or a guard might hear the lift operating or notice its movement on the monitoring system. So even if Thomas managed to reach the 24th floor without meeting anyone, the lift itself could alert the security staff that someone was moving through the building.

So, the only other option was the staircase, which was still a few metres away. But that was a safer option.

Hence, Thomas turned away from the elevator, and began walking towards the staircase. Again, he kept himself close to the walls. However, the large open space made him uncomfortable because there were too many places from which someone could suddenly appear, and there was very little to hide behind.

Despite all of that, he managed to go near the staircase. It was just few feet away from him. But then, he heard another sound from the staircase. Thomas moved quickly towards a pillar and hid behind it. A second security guard was walking past the staircase. He probably stopped there to smoke a cigarette, as the smell had indicated. Thomas waited and watched him disappear before moving a muscle.

He took a few steps forward and took his first step on the staircase. When he found that it was empty, he finally began climbing to the 16th floor, and continued towards the 17th. At first, the staircase felt safer than the observation floor - as there were no cameras immediately visible, and the enclosed space meant he could hear footsteps long before someone reached him.

Then he heard a door opening above. Thomas stopped and looked upwards. Footsteps began coming down. There was no time to think, so he immediately turned around and ran back towards the previous floor. He hid behind another pillar on the 17th floor, and remained perfectly still. He could hear the man’s shoes against the stairs, and even the sound of his own heartbeat in his chest. The guard reached the floor, and for a moment, simply stood there.

Thomas thought he had been discovered.

But the guard merely grabbed his walkie talkie, adjusted it and continued downwards. Thomas remained hidden until the footsteps faded before finally moving again.

Now, Thomas became more cautious. He continued upwards, passing the floors one by one, stopping briefly at each of them, listening before continuing. When it was the 22nd floor, he was slowly beginning to recognise the building again, and he knew that he was close to his floor.

He reached the 23rd floor, and stopped to feel the relief. His office was only one floor above.

He ran over the final staircase impatiently. Confirming that the corridor there was empty, he stepped out. For the first time in hours, the familiarity was comforting.

And now, on his own floor, the layout, the cameras and the corridors were all things he had spent weeks subconsciously learning without realising how useful that knowledge might become.

He knew where he could move without being seen. He knew which corners were hidden, and he knew which camera angles did not cover certain sections. Thomas moved through the corridor calculatively.

He reached the pantry, opened the door and slipped inside before locking it. The cartons were still stacked in the corner. Thomas climbed over them and reached the ceiling panel, despite his muscles, shoulder and knees hurting from the descent and the climbing of stairs.

He pushed the panel aside and jumped down as he always did. He had made it back into his office.

He turned towards the balcony. The door was still closed, and beyond it, hidden behind the plants, was the body.

He opened the door, and stepped outside.

And the corpse was still lying exactly where he had left it - hidden behind the plants.

He had spent half the night trying to get away from the corpse. Now he was going back to it.

Thomas had escaped the height, the rain and the security, only to discover that the most dangerous place in the building was still the place he had started.

Chapter Seven - Another Mess to Clean

Thomas had spent hours trying to escape the balcony, climbing down nine floors, crossing an unfamiliar section of the building, avoiding guards and cameras, climbing back up the stairs and finally returning through the false ceiling. But the moment he saw the corpse again, all of that seemed to disappear - he was back on square one, he was back where he had started, and the problem was still waiting for him.

He crouched beside the body and looked at the man’s face, and tried to think what he could do with the corpse.

The same things that he thought of earlier had come back to him.

His first thought was to inform the police - it would have been the obvious thing to do. To call the authorities, tell them what had happened and let somebody else deal with the body. But Thomas knew that the moment he did that, he would have to explain everything. He would have to explain why he was inside the office after hours, why he had not left the building with everyone else, why he had been sleeping there for weeks and why he had entered through the false ceiling instead of the main entrance.

And even if he told the truth about discovering the body, the truth itself would sound suspicious.

Leaving it right there was not an option either - Thomas as a novellist had spent enough time reading crime novels, forensic articles and police investigations during his research. He knew that the time of death could often be estimated through body temperature, physical changes in the body and other forensic evidence, all of which could help investigators establish a window in which the person had died. And that might turn the tide against him, as he was the last to leave the office.

To make things worse, Thomas had no alibi, no witnesses, and no legitimate reason to be there.

He looked down at his hands. They were already scraped and bleeding from the descent.

He looked at the corpse again.

The man’s clothing was wet from the rain. Thomas imagined the questions that would follow if security found him like this in the morning. And the more he thought about it, the worse it became.

He could not allow the body to be found - neither in the balcony, nor anywhere else.

Thomas finally stood up, and looked towards the office. There was still time before morning - not much, but enough.

He grabbed the body again and began dragging it back through the balcony door. But this time, the task felt even harder. His shoulder was already swollen from the fall, and the climb through the building had exhausted whatever strength remained in him. The body dragged across the wet floor and left a faint trail behind it. The trail was slightly red, which could have been blood from the corpse, or even Thomas’ own.

Thomas noticed it immediately. He knew he could not leave that behind.

Thomas went to the cleaning cupboard, took out the mop, bucket and the cleaning supplies he normally used during his shifts.

Then he began cleaning the entire area - he wiped the floor around the balcony door, cleaned the area where the body had been dragged and removed the marks left by his shoes and the wet clothing.

Then he slowed down - he knew that cleaning something was not the same as making it look normal. Because a clean patch could sometimes be more suspicious than a dirty one. If one section of the floor looked cleaner than everything around it, someone might notice. So, he cleaned the entire office once again.

He then straightened the table, wiped the surface where the metal tray had fallen, picked up the tray and returned it to exactly where it had been before he had knocked it down.

Once he restored the items, he cleaned the room once again - a second layer of security. And after cleaning, he looked at the room from different angles to see if something seemed off - like if there was a smudge mark, or a broken piece of an object. If he happenned to find any, he cleaned them once again.

He repeated this multiple times, and kept checking from everywhere - from the doorway, from the meeting room, from beside the windows, from the centre of the office, and every other spot he could.

He also sprayed deodourants to remove any foul smell that could have been there, but just enough to neutralise it, without making the fragrance too strong.

Eventually, the room began to feel like itself again. That was what he wanted - for the room to be ordinary.

The only thing that did not belong yet was the corpse.

Thomas looked around to see if he could do anything about it. That’s when he noticed the large garbage bags kept near the cleaning supplies.

An idea popped up in his mind. He took one of the bags, opened it and looked inside, and then at the body.

His idea was to get the body inside the bag, and dispose it before anyone notices. Because, he knew that the bins were emptied every Wednesday at 8:30 am. And that was just 4.5 hours away. Now, Thomas only had one more thing to add to the pile of garbage that were going to be taken there.

He had never imagined over the last few weeks that, one day, he would be waiting for the truck to take something far more troublesome than trash.

Thomas dragged the garbage bag across the floor and began pushing the body into it. It was awkward and exhausting, because he had to do it all by himself. To make things worse, his injured shoulder and knees made every movement painful. He did this very slowly, because his strength failed him multiple times.

Eventually, he managed to get the body inside. He pulled the opening together and tied it securely.

Thomas stared at the bag.

For a few seconds, he could not believe what he had just done.

He had never imagined himself doing anything remotely like this.

He was a novelist, someone who was supposed to be sitting at a desk, staring at a blank page and brainstorming ideas. His greatest problems were meant to be unfinished chapters, uncooperative characters and sentences that refused to sound right. He was supposed to spend his nights thinking about fictional crimes, not standing beside a real corpse and wondering how to make it disappear.

Thomas dragged the bag towards the large trashcan near one of the washrooms.

There was a reason for choosing that him - because that was where employees threw paper cups, food containers, tissues and other waste there every day. It filled out quite quickly, and cleaners emptied iy regularly, without paying much attention to what was inside them.

So, Thomas lifted the bag into the trashcan with the last bit of energy he had, and tossed it inside. It disappeared beneath the ordinary rubbish.

Thomas looked at the bin for a few seconds, then slowly the room. The room was clean, the body was hidden, and morning was only three hours away.

For the first time that night, Thomas allowed himself to believe that he might actually get away with it.

Chapter 8 - Four Hours to Freedom

Thomas cleaned the room once again - for the third time, just out of precaution. He looked at his watch - there were still four hours before the employees would begin arriving. But he did not sleep. He knew he should have tried to rest, because his entire body was exhausted after everything that had happened during the night.

But every time he closed his eyes, his mind returned to the same things - he could still see the dead man lying on the floor, still feel the rain striking his face as he climbed down the balconies, and still remember the sound of the security guards walking around the office. Sleep was impossible now. His mind had become too alert to every sound around him.

Thomas remained inside the washroom, sitting against the wall with his knees drawn slightly towards himself. His shoulder was still swollen and painful, his palms were scraped from the climb, and his knees were covered with small cuts and bruises. Every part of his body seemed to hurt in a different way.

But still, the physical pain was easier to deal with than the thought that morning was approaching. He had managed to survive the night, but he still had to survive the morning, and that was when other people would return to the building.

He checked the time again and again for the next one hour. For now, the bag was still outside the washroom, hidden among the other rubbish. And that was the only thing that gave Thomas any comfort. If someone happened to look inside, however, the entire plan would collapse immediately.

Eventually, Thomas decided to distract himself by doing something, which he had to do anyways - control how he looked. He slowly stood up and walked towards the washbasin. His clothes were still damp from the rain, his shirt was dirty and stained with blood from bruises, and his trousers were torn. He could not possibly walk around the office like that once everyone arrived.

He took out the spare clothes he had kept with his belongings and changed carefully. His shoulder hurt whenever he lifted his arm, so he had to move slowly. He folded the torn trousers and hid them in the storage area. He then washed his face and hands thoroughly, removing the dust and dirt that had gathered on them during the night. The cuts on his palms stung badly when the water touched them, but he ignored the pain and continued washing.

When he finally looked into the mirror, he barely recognised himself. His eyes were red from exhaustion, his face looked pale, and there were dark circles beneath his eyes. He looked like someone who had spent the entire night awake, which was exactly what he had done. Still, at least he now looked like the cleaner again, and that mattered more than anything else.

Thomas returned to his place near the wall and waited, before slowly settling into a short nap from the exhaustion.

Luckily, Thomas woke up right in time, at 7:45. The building slowly began to wake up to life. At first, there were only occasional sounds from the corridor, but gradually the footsteps became more frequent. Doors opened and closed, voices began travelling through the corridors, and somewhere nearby an elevator stopped at the floor. The ordinary sounds of the morning were returning, and Thomas realised that he was about to become part of that ordinary routine again.

At 8:12, the first couple of employees entered the office.

Thomas heard their footsteps approaching from the corridor and immediately became alert. He knew that he could not simply walk out of the washroom carrying the rubbish bag. He needed a reason for moving it, and more importantly, he needed to make his actions look so ordinary that nobody would have any reason to remember them.

He took a few tissues, stuffed them in his pocket and waited near the urinal. When he heard the first person approaching the washroom, he waited for a few more seconds and then deliberately made himself look as though he had just finished using it. He wiped his hands with the tissues and dropped them into the same trashcan that contained the bag with the corpse.

Then he reached down and took hold of the trashcan.

The timing was extremely close - the employee entered the washroom almost immediately after Thomas began moving it. But Thomas did not react - he kept his face calm and continued pushing the trashcan towards the doorway as though this were nothing more than another part of his morning cleaning duties.

The employee walked past him without paying much attention.

Thomas continued down the corridor. His heart was beating rapidly, but he forced himself not to hurry. Hurrying would only make him look suspicious. So Thomas behaved exactly as he normally would, as though he had simply decided to move the rubbish out of the washroom.

He also brought two other trashcans along with him - both of which contained ordinary rubbish, and placed them beside the first one to make the entire thing look even more like a cleaning routine. There was nothing strange about a cleaner collecting three bins in the morning afterall. In fact, it was exactly the sort of thing nobody would remember five minutes later.

Thomas placed the three trashcans on a cart, and pushed it towards the elevator.

This was the first time he could use the elevator. Because the situation was completely different from the one he had faced during the night. Unlike the night, the building was filling with employees, servicemen were moving between floors, supplies were being delivered. Nobody would find it unusual for him to use the lift while carrying rubbish.

He pressed the button and waited.

The doors opened.

Thomas pushed the trashcans inside and stepped in behind them. Once the doors closed, he stood quietly and watched the numbers on the display change as the lift descended through the building.

23, 22, 21... The numbers continued falling.

The lift reached the ground floor, and the doors had opened.

The garbage vehicle was already waiting outside. Thomas pushed the trashcans towards it and joined the other workers who were preparing to unload the rubbish onto it. Nobody seemed particularly interested in him - because he was simply another cleaner doing what he was supposed to do, and that was exactly what Thomas needed.

He offered to help the workers to unload his trash. It was not out of concern though, it was just to ensure that nobody else touches the one with the corpse. He began by dumping the trash from one of the other two cans onto the vehicle. He then reached out to the bag containing the body, and carefully unloaded it on the vehicle, making sure it doesn’t tilt itself. He kept his movements as normal as possible, even though he could feel his heart beating faster with every step. He then emptied the contents of the third trashcan quite quickly.

He then stood on the side and watched few other cleaners dump their trash. They continued loading the vehicle, completely unaware of what had just been placed inside it. In less than 10 minutes, the garbage van was full.

For a moment, Thomas kept staring at the black plastic bag from a distance, knowing that the man who had been haunting him since the previous evening was finally about to leave the building.

The engine started, but Thomas didn’t leave yet. He stood there and watched the garbage van begin moving, and slowly disappear from the building.

For few more seconds, Thomas remained where he was.

He had spent the entire night trying to find a way to get rid of the corpse, and now it was finally gone. There was no body on the balcony, no garbage bag outside the washroom and no immediate evidence that connected him to what had happened.

He turned around and walked back inside.

He returned to the 24th floor, picked up his cleaning supplies and got back to work. The office was already becoming busy. Employees were sitting at their desks, phones were ringing, people were talking in the corridors and meeting rooms were beginning to fill.

He began doing his odd chores again - cleaning the desks, wiping the windows, arranging the chairs in the meeting rooms, going whenever someone called him to carry supplies, and all of that. He did everything the same way he had done on the first day he had started working there.

Nobody looked at him twice, and nobody suspected anything.

An hour later, while cleaning one of the windows, Thomas happened to look outside. Far below, he could see the garbage vehicle moving along the road, becoming smaller as it travelled towards the outskirts of the city.

He then looked even further. In the distance, beyond the buildings, he could see the landfill where the city’s rubbish was dumped. He knew that sooner or later the garbage would be emptied there, buried beneath everything else, and the bag would become nothing more than another piece of waste among thousands of others.

He again looked at the garbage van, slowly watching it fade, and disappear from his sight.

A small, exhausted smile appeared on his face.

Then he turned away from the window and went back to cleaning, as though nothing had happened, as though the previous night had been nothing more than another night at work, and as though the dead man who had almost destroyed his life had never existed at all.

The last page ended with the words - “A novel by Megan Harrison”.

Megan closed the book and placed it on the bedside table. Yes, she was a novelist. This was going to be her eighth novel, and her first in months. She had already published seven novels, including the critically acclaimed The Kissmark Killer, and her bestseller Four Tales Told in Transit.

She looked at the time. It was 6:30 am already, and she hadn’t slept. But she couldn't afford to sleep now, as she had to meet her publisher today, and sign the copyright documents.

She hurried to the office, where her publisher greeted her with a warm smile, and told her “I think this is going to do very well”.

“The screenplay is so racy, and it just kept me invested. And the fact that you keep putting Thomas in increasingly difficult situations - like every time it seems like he has found a solution, there is another problem waiting for him, it just added to the thrill. And Thomas himself - you’ve given him a very strong reason to make these choices. Although he is at fault, I as a reader could only root for him” he added.

Megan smiled and replied “I am glad you think so”.

As she said so, the publisher gathered some pages together and handed it to her. “All other formalities are done. I just need you to sign the copyright documents after reading the terms and conditions”, he said.

Megan picked up the pen and began writing her name. While she was doing so, the sleeve of her jacket slid down, exposing her wrist. There was a thin scar across her skin.

She stopped writing, looked at it for a moment, and then she remembered where it had come from.

It had been years earlier, before her first book was published, and before her name had become familiar on bookshop shelves. She had been living inside an office building - just like Thomas.

This happenned for weeks, until a female employee named Jennifer had almost noticed Megan’s secret hideout. That evening, Megan poisoned Jennifer’s cup of tea, waited for her to drink it. And after that, the rest of it followed - whatever happenned to Thomas.

Thomas had never existed, but Megan had. She had taken what happened to her and turned herself into somebody else - she changed the gender, the name, the city, the building, the company, the victim and the circumstances. She rearranged the sequence of events, invented conversations and changed every detail that could have connected the story to her own life.

At the time, she had been struggling to write. She had spent weeks staring at blank pages, unable to think of anything worth turning into a novel. Now, she realised that she already had a story. She only needed to change it enough.

So she wrote about a man who had nowhere to live, found a place to hide inside an office building and discovered a dead body one rainy night. She gave Thomas her choices, her fear, her movements and her escape. She turned her own actions into his actions and buried the truth beneath enough fiction that nobody would recognise it.

She rewrote it several times, changed multiple details, gave it a title and eventually sent it to the publisher today after four years of writing it.

Why four years? Because, she had been waiting. She waited while questions about the missing woman gradually became less frequent, she waited until people stopped looking for answers, she waited until the attention surrounding Jennifer’s disappearance faded and the building returned to its ordinary routine.

Years after the events had happened, the story was finally ready to be published. Megan adjusted her jacket to cover the scar, and looked down at the document on the desk. Her signature was still unfinished.

With one final stroke, she completed her name - Megan Harrison, and handed the document back to the publisher.

He checked the signature, nodded and placed the papers inside the folder. “That’s everything”, and shook his hands with her.

Megan remained standing for a moment after the publisher returned to his desk. The first copy of her book was in her hands now - its pages filled with a story that had taken four years to write and a lifetime of courage to hide.

She had read it for the one last time that night, and confirmed that there was nothing left for her to change - the names were different, the places were different, the people were different, and every path that could have led back to her had been carefully erased.

She looked down at the cover once more. It said - Make It to Morning. The title seemed almost strangely innocent now.

Only she knew - what had once been a secret she had carried alone had become a novel sitting in a publisher’s office, waiting to be printed, bound and placed on shelves.

Years ago, Megan had needed somewhere to hide a crime. Now she had found something better - she had hidden it in plain sight.

The woman who had died had disappeared from the world, and the woman who had killed her had disappeared into a character.

Soon, people would read about Thomas and wonder whether he would make it to morning. They would never wonder whether Megan would have. They would never know that every fear he felt had once belonged to someone for whom they bought the book for. They would never know that every desperate decision had once been hers, or that the murder at the heart of the story had happened long before she ever wrote the first chapter.

In short, no one would ever know that Make It to Morning was not a story she had imagined, but a story she had survived.

And somewhere, between the first page and the last, Megan Harrison had managed to bury a murder so completely that she could now publish it under her own name.

I am obliged to say this: Totally not inspired by real life events!! The author has never lived inside an office building, disposed of a body, or been trapped on a 24th floor balcony 🫣😂

It was a Friday morning, the 9th of November, 2012.

The day was in full swing in the town of Havenbrook, UK. A few shops along the street had opened their shutters, commuters hurried towards the railway station with cups of coffee in their hands, and school buses rolled through the quiet residential neighbourhoods as children waited outside their homes.

On Hetherley Street, inside a modest two storey flat, a mobile phone began vibrating on a bedside table.

The sound came once.

Stopped.

Then started again.

This time, she was woken up by it. Still wrapped in the haze of sleep, she searched for her phone beneath her blanket, and for a few seconds she simply stared at the unfamiliar number flashing across the screen. She silenced the call and tossed the phone on her bed, as she buried her face back into the pillow, expecting whoever it was to try again later.

Within seconds, her phone rang again - the same number.

She let out a sleepy sigh and forced herself upright, and answered with a tired voice “Hello?”

“Am I speaking to Miss Selene Derekson?”

The voice was calm and formal.

“Yes”.

“I am Detective Inspector Thomas Harrington from Scotland Yard. We’d like you to come to Havenbrook Police Station immediately!”

Selene with furrowed eyebrows jumped to her senses, and inadvertently replied “Is... something wrong?”

“It would be better if we discussed it in person.”

His tone remained polite, but firm. He added “If you could make your way here at your earliest convenience, we’d appreciate it.”

The call ended before she could ask another question.

For nearly a minute she remained seated on the edge of the bed, phone still in her hand, staring at the screen and trying to convince herself there had been some mistake.

Her first thought was her father - his health had been unpredictable for years, and despite staying in the hospital, every unexpected phone call brought her the same fear. She quickly searched for his number and pressed call.

After a few rings, he answered “Morning, sweetheart”.

The familiar voice immediately eased the knot in her stomach as she let out a quiet breath she had not realised she had been holding.

“Dad, are you alright?” she asked to reconfirm.

“I’m perfectly fine,” he replied, sounding more amused than concerned. “Should I not be?” he asked.

She hesitated before forcing a smile that he could not see, and muttered “No, I just wanted to check!”

He said “Why do you sound so worried suddenly?”

“I just got a call from the Havenbrook police asking me to come to the station.”

There was a brief silence on the phone.

Her dad broke it and asked with bewilderment “The police?”

She nodded and replied “I don’t know why though. They said it would be better if it is explained in person”

Her father hesitated before replying, “Well, if they didn’t explain it over the phone, there’s no point imagining the worst. Go and see what they want. And call me afterwards” he said.

She ended the call saying “I will”, and called in for a taxi. In the meantime, she brushed her teeth hurriedly, grabbed a bottle of water, took a quick shower and dressed up haphazardly. As the taxi stopped at her home, she hopped in and asked the driver to get to the Havenbrook Police Station, which was a fifteen minute drive from home.

She could hear her heart beat through the drive, which felt longer than usual.

Soon, she found herself at the entrance of Havenbrook Police Station. She could pay the taxi fare and rushed into the reception, where the reception officer recognised her name before she had even began introducing herself. “Miss Derekson?” he asked, and she nodded.

“Inspector Harrington had been waiting for you for a while” he said, as he escorted her through walls filled with faded photographs of retired officers, and noticeboards crowded with bullterins of missing people and wanted people. The further they walked, the quieter the building became. The officer stopped outside a room and gently pushed open the door, as both of them entered the room.

Four people were already inside. A tall policeman in his early fifties was seated in the centre with two of his police apprentices seated on either side with one of them, and the third one standing right behind.

His eyes met Selene’s with neither suspicion nor sympathy. “Miss Selene Derekson,” he said, extending his hand. “I’m Detective Inspector Thomas Harrington from the Scotland Yard”. She shook it politely.

He gestured towards the chair opposite him saying “Please, have a seat”. She sat in discomposure, and her eyes fell on the three younger apprentices who had their notebooks already open like students on their first day of college. Harrington noticed it, and introduced them simply as members of his investigative team.

But that didn’t matter for her. She was still gasping in panic, uncertain of the news she was about to hear. She folded her hands together in her lap and asked Harrington “Why did you call me?”.

Harrington slid a sealed evidence envelope across the table, and slowly told Selene “I’m afraid we have some very difficult news”.

Selene laid her eyes on envelope without touching it, as she inadvertently said “Wh-What?”

Harrington’s voice continued to stay steady, as he was carefully choosing the words in his head.

“Your fiancé, Lawrence Hippolytus was found dead late last night.”

Selene stared at him blankly, as though she heard him speak a language she didn’t know. She repeated “Larry?”

Harrington gave a slow nod. He added “Mr. Lawrence was brutally murdered in the kids playground of the Starlight Park shortly after midnight”. Selene instinctively opened the envelope on the table and burst into tears.

“No!!” she exclaimed. She repeated it over and over, and shook her head repeatedly, her breath growing uneven. In no time, tears started to come from her eyes. She buried her face in both hands, her shoulders shaking uncontrollably. Every attempt she made to speak was buried within broken breaths, and she struggled even to remain seated stable.

One of the younger apprentices instinctively reached for a box of tissues and quietly placed it beside her. Harrington nodded, appreciating him, and also raised a hand signalling others not to interrupt.

It took several minutes for Selene before she managed to regain enough composure to lower her hands. Her eyes were red, her cheeks wet with tears. Harrington allowed her to settle down. Years of experience at the Scotland Yard had taught him one thing - the job of a policeman is not only to find the truth, it is to know when someone is ready to tell it.

When Selene finally looked up, her voice was barely audible. She spoke to herself “What happened to him?”

The inspector exchanged a brief glance with the apprentices before answering - “He had suffered a fatal blow to the head”.

He paused, and switched to his policeman mode - “Our forensic team believes he was struck with a decorative concrete statue that used to be in the park beside the benches. Now, the statue was found submerged in the fountain. Whoever killed him must have thrown it into the water in an attempt to destroy all of the fingerprints.”

She swallowed hard, still unable to take her eyes off the photograph.

“As the killer had expected, there were no fingerprints on the statue when we got to it now”, he said. “Very little physical evidence at all”.

And immediately he added “Except for one rather unusual detail.”

Selene slowly looked back towards him.

“There was a faint lip mark neat the bottom of the metal slide in the kids playground”

She raised her brows to listen.

“It had been partially blurred by the night’s dew, but that was all that we could find” he said. Neither Harrington nor his apprentices missed the flicker of confusion that crossed her face.

Selene slowly shook her head. “A lip mark? But why? I don’t understand”, she stuttered.

Harrington replied “Neither do we”. He leaned forward slightly, and told her “That’s why we’d like you to tell us everything you know about Mr. Lawrence Hippolytus and about what happened yesterday. You can take your time though.”

Selene took a deep breath, wiped her red eyes with one of the tissues, and nodded weakly. She again stuttered “I will tell you whatever I know”.

Harrington gave a slight nod in return.

Before she could start, one of the apprentices told her - “Let’s start from yesterday morning. Don’t worry about whether a detail seems important or not. Because even the smallest thing may help us”.

Harrington patted the apprentice, like a proud teacher would, and turned his eyes towards Selene. She took a while to gather her thoughts before speaking.

She started “Yesterday, Larry and I decided to meet around 12:15 noon. We had planned to spend the day together because both of us had taken the afternoon off from work”

One of the apprentices noted the time.

“And as per our plans, both of us met at the Clock Tower at 12:10. From there we went to a small Italian restaurant near the town square to have lunch. Afterwards we walked around the Corn fields for a while mostly just talking and joking”. A faint smile appeared on her face, only to disappear as quickly as it had come.

“He was cheerful yesterday” she said with tears on her eyes.

She paused for a moment to wipe off her tears, and continued “We later drove to the Greywater Beach and stayed there until evening before going out for dinner at the Bamboo Kitchen restaurant”

“What time did dinner end?” an apprentice asked.

“Somewhere around half past nine, or maybe closer to ten” she said.

“And after that?”

“He drove me home”

“Did he come inside?”

“No. He waited outside until I unlocked the front door. I waved him goodbye, he waved back, and then he drove away”

“Do you remember approximately what time that was?”

“A little after ten”

She broke into tears again, “But I didn’t know back then that it was going to be the last time I was going to speak with him” she blubbered.

Meanwhile Harrington glanced briefly at the notes being written by his apprentices before looking back at her, this time more seriously.

He asked her “Did he have any other phone numbers apart from the one you use?”

“Not that I noticed”

“Did he receive any calls or messages yesterday or anytime in the last week?”

“I wasn’t paying attention yesterday, but I don’t think he did” she replied.

Harrington leaned forward and told her “Well, we went through Mr. Hippolytus’s phone records. And the last call received on his phone came from your number.”

She nodded almost instinctively and replied “Yes”.

“What time did you call him?”

She frowned, trying to remember.

“I am not sure exactly. Around half past ten, I suppose”

“Why did you call him?”

“I always do”

The answer came so naturally that she hardly seemed to think about it.

Harrington raised an eyebrow.

“You always do?”

She nodded.

“It became a habit after we got engaged. Every night, before going to bed, I’d call him just to wish him good night”

“And did he answer?”

“Yes, he did. We wished each other good night, and that was all”

Harrington asked his apprentice to note this down.

After that, Harrington told Selene something: “We had a conversation with Lawrence’s parents, and according to them, Lawrence had just reached home, and immediately left home after informing them that he was going to meet you.”

Selene was confused. She replied “I was the only person he had plans with yesterday. And we just spent the entire day out. Why would he want to meet me again? And that too in less than an hour after being dropped?”

Harrington looked at his apprentices before nodding his head. He also studied her expression for a moment. Every answer had come naturally without a tinge of hesitation, but didn’t seem rehearsed either.

So, he turned a page in his notebook. And abruptly told her “Miss Derekson, I’d like to ask you something a little more personal.”

She looked up.

“Were you actually looking forward to the marriage with Lawrence?”

The question caught her completely off guard.

She stared at him for several seconds before quietly answering “No”.

One of the apprentices instinctively stopped writing and looked up at her. Selene noticed the reaction and quickly continued before anyone could misunderstand.

“I wasn’t happy about the marriage itself. But not because of Larry. In fact, I never wanted to marry anyone” she said with her fists clenched tight.

The room remained silent.

She took a breath, and explained “My mother passed away when I was very young. After that it was just dad and me. Dad used to consume a lot of alcohol following mom’s demise, and one fine day after years of consuming alcohol, he was diagnosed with liver failure. Since then he has been hospitalised, and I have been working overtime to pay for his expenses. When his illness became worse, he told me there was only one thing he wanted before he died - he wanted to see me married.”

She added “And Lawrence? I agreed because of dad. In fact, I barely knew him when we got engaged.”

Another brief silence followed.

“I wasn’t against him” she continued. “He was kind, respectful and patient. He never forced me to do anything. I was simply never interested in love to begin with.”

She looked down at Lawrence’s photograph once more saying “I thought maybe after marriage I would learn to love him. But I never got the chance to”, as a tear rolled down her cheek again.

The room returned to silence. None of the officers attempted to interrupt her. Harrington allowed her a few moments to compose herself before he gently steered the conversation away from her personal feelings.

He broke the silence after a couple of minutes. He said “I understand this is difficult. However, for our investigation, we need to understand Lawrence as a person. Sometimes the victim tells us more about the murderer than the crime scene itself. So, tell us about him. What kind of man was he?”

Selene held back her tears and inhaled slowly before answering “He worked as a logistics coordinator for the Havenbrook Freight Corporation. He had been there for almost four years, I think. It was an ordinary office job. He wasn’t particularly passionate about it, but he never complained either. He always said it paid well enough and gave him a stable life.”

The apprentices wrote down the company’s name and the duration of his employment.

“He usually left home around 8:30 in the morning, reach there by 9:00, work till 6:00 and was back before 6:30 in the evening. Sometimes he stayed back if there was extra work, but that wasn’t very frequent. He preferred coming home on time. In fact his parents often joked that the moment the clock struck six, Lawrence would already be halfway out of the office.”

One of the apprentices asked her “What about him outside office?”

“Well, he enjoyed simple things - he loved cooking, although he wasn’t particularly good at it. Whenever we met at his house, he insisted on making dinner himself. Most of the time, one of us ended up ordering takeaway because something would go wrong in the kitchen. He also loved football. Every Sunday morning he played with the same group of friends at a local turf. I never joined them, but he never missed a match unless he was ill.”

She paused briefly before continuing.

“He had recently developed an interest in photography as well. Every time we went somewhere, he’d stop to take pictures. Mostly sunsets, trees, random buildings, or birds. He used to say that if he kept taking enough photographs, eventually one of them would turn out beautiful by accident. I think that was all”

The third apprentice asked “What about his family? Apart from his parents, was there anyone particularly close to him?”

Selene shook her head.

“He was an only child. His parents meant everything to him. He visited them every day even before we got engaged because he still lived with them. They were a very close family.”

Harrington nodded before moving on to the question that interested him the most in every case - “Did Lawrence ever mention having problems with anyone? Arguments at work, disputes with neighbours, financial troubles, or someone who simply didn’t like him?”

Selene frowned and searched her memory carefully. She did not answer immediately, as though she was afraid of overlooking something important.

“No” she finally said. “Nothing like that. He never spoke badly about anyone.”

“Did he ever seem frightened? Did he ever tell you that someone was following him, threatening him, or trying to contact him repeatedly?”

“No”

“Did he owe anybody money?”

“Not that I’m aware of”

“Did anyone owe him money?”

“I honestly don’t know. We never discussed finances beyond planning for the wedding.”

The inspector observed her carefully. She was not answering hastily anymore. Every question was followed by a pause, and every answer appeared to come only after she had genuinely searched her memory.

He made another note before asking, “Did Lawrence have many friends?”

“He knew a lot of people, but I wouldn’t call most of them close friends. There was the football group, a few colleagues from work, and some neighbours he had known for years. Apart from that, he mostly spent his free time with me after we got engaged.”

She looked down at the photograph lying on the table once more.

“I wish I had asked him more about his life before we met. We were engaged for only a couple of weeks. I kept thinking there would be plenty of time after the wedding to know everything about him.”

Her fingers tightened around the tissue she had been holding ever since the interview began.

Harrington on the other hand though exchanged a brief glance with his apprentices. Nothing that they gathered through this conversation with Selene had suggested that Lawrence was the sort of man who would end up murdered in a deserted playground at night. On paper, he sounded like an ordinary office worker with an ordinary routine, an ordinary family, and an ordinary life.

But Harrington knew, that was exactly what made a murder so difficult to solve.

After nearly another half an hour of questioning, Harrington finally closed the notebook before him and so did his apprentices. The interview had given them detailed account of Lawrence and his final day, yet nothing that pointed towards a motive. Every answer Selene had given was internally consistent, and none of it contradicted the evidence collected so far.

The inspector rose from his chair before the others did.

“Miss Derekson,” he said in a measured tone, “we appreciate your cooperation. We understand that this has been an extremely difficult morning for you. At the moment, there is nothing more we need from you. However, please remain in Havenbrook for the next few weeks. If we need to clarify anything, we may ask you to return.”

Selene nodded silently, which was the most she could do as she had exhausted herself both emotionally and physically.

She carefully placed the photograph of Lawrence back into the evidence envelope and slid it across the table. As she stood up, she hesitated for a moment before looking at Harrington.

“I know you probably hear this every day, but please find whoever did this” she said. Harrington gave a reassuring nod and replied “We’ll do everything we can”.

The reception officer escorted her back through the corridor. Unlike when she had entered, she barely noticed the walls or the officers passing by. The station had become a blur around her. She stepped outside into the cold afternoon, called for another taxi and returned home without speaking a single word during the journey.

For the rest of the day, she remained inside her apartment. She ignored the repeated calls from friends and colleagues who had already begun hearing rumours of Lawrence’s death. The only person she spoke to was her father, who listened quietly while she struggled to explain what had happened. He tried to comfort her as much he could, although he himself was too shocked to find the right words.

Back at the station, the investigation by the Scotland Yard gathered pace.

Harrington had divided the work among his three apprentices - one would revisit the crime scene in search of anything that had been overlooked during the initial forensic examination, the second would begin tracing Lawrence’s movements over the previous month through CCTV footage, toll booth records and financial transactions, and the third was instructed to build a complete profile of Lawrence’s personal and professional life.

The first few days produced little of significance. The forensic reports remained disappointing. The concrete statue had yielded no identifiable fingerprints, the fountain water had destroyed any biological traces that might once have existed on its surface, and the smudged lip mark recovered from the children’s slide could give no meaningful information.

And even profiling Lawrence proved to be of no use. His financial records were examined, his workplace was visited, his colleagues were questioned and his electronic devices were seized. But nothing seemed even remotely suspicious - his employment history was genuine, his salary was modest, his taxes had been paid, and he maintained the appearance of a perfectly respectable citizen.

However, the investigation took an unexpected turn on the fifth day.

The second apprentice ran hurriedly into Harrington’s office carrying a thick folder obtained from the National Crime Agency. One of the bank transactions from a few months ago had come from a warehouse that was already under surveillance as part of an unrelated narcotics investigation.

He had interviewed several individuals associated with the warehouse, and got to know something shocking - Lawrence had not merely worked as a logistics coordinator. Over the previous eight months, he had secretly assisted a drug smuggling network by manipulating shipment records and diverting cargo containers through Havenbrook’s freight terminals. He was not the leader of the operation, nor was he directly involved in the street level distribution of narcotics. He only acted as an intermediary who ensured that certain consignments escaped routine inspection.

That discovery completely changed the direction of the investigation.

Within days, Lawrence’s ordinary life began to unravel under scrutiny - hidden bank accounts surfaced, several unusually large cash deposits were traced to him, each arriving a few days after suspicious cargo shipments had entered the country. An alternate phone was found active at his home, and its phone records revealed frequent communication with known criminals.

They investigated the case with this newfound information, and soon, four names had repeatedly appeared across intelligence reports - Regan Paul, Bill Freddy, Hannibal Cole, and Don Patrick. The four men were suspected members of a drug smuggling network that had been operating across southern England for the last few years. The syndicate specialised in transporting prohibited synthetic narcotics through legitimate freight shipments, making the drugs almost impossible to detect during routine inspections.

It also explained why his financial records had appeared so ordinary. There were no unexplained deposits, no luxury purchases and no lavish lifestyle. According to the intelligence reports, members like Lawrence were paid in cash and rarely accumulated wealth that could attract unwanted attention.

Now the theory seemed straightforward - Lawrence had betrayed the organisation, or perhaps he had attempted to leave it, or he had withheld money or sensitive information. In the criminal underworld, any one of those reasons was sufficient to justify murder.

Harrington and his apprentices spent the next two weeks pursuing that possibility relentlessly. Search warrants were executed at warehouses, garages and abandoned storage facilities connected to the group. Financial investigators followed complex trails of money moving through dummy companies and false invoices. And surveillance teams had tracked the daily movements of Regan Paul, Bill Freddy, Hannibal Cole and Don Patrick.

But to Harrington’s misfortune, none of the first three people were involved in the murder and the fourth had been absconding for months. Regan Paul insisted he had not spoken to Lawrence in over 6 months. And an alibi had placed him nearly 250 miles away on the night of the murder, and CCTV footage on a petrol bunk had confirmed it too. Bill Freddy admitted he despised Lawrence but produced warehouse security logs, delivery manifests and half a dozen witnesses that accounted for his entire evening. Hannibal Cole refused to answer most questions without a solicitor present, but CCTV footages placed him in Spain at the time of the murder. Don Patrick was the missing link - nobody knew where he was.

So, Harrington narrowed it down to the last man standing to be the murderer. A search party was arranged to find him.

Meanwhile, one of the apprentices raised a valid question - why could Lawrence not have been taken down by a police officer who had discovered his role within the smuggling operation?

Harrington dismissed the theory and said “If a police officer had uncovered Lawrence’s involvement, he would have arrested him, not murdered him. Lawrence was connected to one of the largest smuggling operations we’ve seen in recent years. So, bringing the network down would earn him a commendation, a promotion and the recognition of the entire department. Killing him only destroys the opportunity”.

That logic was difficult to argue against.

As the second week drew to a close, the investigation found itself in an uncomfortable position. Scotland Yard now knew far more about Lawrence’s criminal activities than they had on the day his body was discovered. They had uncovered motives, enemies and an entire smuggling network. Yet somehow, despite possessing far more information than before, they were no closer to identifying the person who had murdered him than they had been on the morning when his body was discovered.

Harrington believed that the case was going to be on a standstill until Don Patrick was to be found anywhere.

Days passed, until it was Wednesday, the 28th of November.

That morning, Thomas Harrington had been seated at his desk for over an hour, surrounded by stacks of reports that had steadily grown taller over the previous fortnight, since he took over Lawrence Hippolytus’s case. Details of that case occupied almost the entire corner of his office - photographs from the playground, maps of Havenbrook, financial records, intelligence reports from the National Crime Agency, and surveillance summaries concerning the drug smuggling network had all been pinned onto a large investigation board.

But despite the mountain of paperwork, the board looked no closer to completion. Harrington had just begun reviewing the latest report from the search teams looking for Don Patrick when his desk telephone rang.

He glanced briefly at the caller identification before lifting the receiver, saying “Detective Inspector Thomas Harrington speaking”.

The voice on the other end was trembling so violently that he recognised it before she introduced herself - “Inspector, it is Selene!!”

He immediately straightened in his chair and confirmed “Miss Derekson?”

She stuttered “I need the police!” in an uneven panting tone.

“Slow down!” Harrington said calmly. “Tell me where you are.”

“I’m at the Havenbrook Corporate Centre. My office.”

“What has happened?”

For several seconds, all he could hear was her struggling to breathe.

Then she forced the words out - “Someone has been killed.”

Harrington reached for a pen almost instinctively as he asked “Who?”

“My colleague”

Another pause followed before she managed to continue.

“I came in this morning and found him lying down one of the conference rooms seated on his chair. I tried to wake him up. But he is not moving!!”

“Have you checked for a pulse?”

“I can’t” she screamed.

“There is blood on the table!! I can’t go anywhere near him!!”

“Listen to me carefully, Miss Derekson”

His voice remained composed, the same measured tone he used with every frightened caller.

“Are you still inside the building?”

“Yes”

“Is anyone else with you?”

“Not yet. I was the first one to arrive”

“Good. I need you to leave the conference room immediately if you haven’t already. Don’t touch anything inside. Don’t allow anyone else to enter the room either. Uniformed officers and forensic teams will be on their way. We’ll be there within minutes.”

She nodded and ended the call.

Harrington immediately pushed his chair backwards, and stood up. His apprentices looked up from their desks, immediately recognising the change in his expression. “What is it, sir?” one of them asked. Harrington shut Lawrence’s case file and reached for his coat while answering to them “We’ve got another case on our pockets!!”

“Related?”

“I don’t know yet. But the caller is a familiar name - Selene Derekson.”

None of them spoke. All three of them remembered her interview from two weeks earlier.

In no time, the four of them were making their way towards the underground parking area of the Police Station. Harrington climbed into the driver’s seat while the others occupied the remaining seats without exchanging another word. Harrington asked the apprentices to dial other nearby police officials and the forensic team and let them know. He grabbed his phone and quickly did the same.

Before he could keep his phone back in his pocket, they found themselves at the Havenbrook Corporate Centre. While they reached there, two patrol cars had already sealed off the entrance, and curious employees had begun gathering outside the building in small groups. Some spoke in hushed voices while others stared anxiously towards the upper floors, trying to understand why their workplace had suddenly become a crime scene.

Harrington ducked beneath the police tape and approached the uniformed constable guarding the entrance. “What have we got?” he asked

“The victim is still inside, sir. Forensics have only just arrived.”

“Did anyone enter the room after the body was found?”

“Only the attending paramedics”

“They confirmed death at the scene?”

The constable nodded “Yes”.

Harrington acknowledged him before stepping into the building. The office floor was eerily silent. Desks stood exactly as employees had left them the previous evening, a couple of coffee mugs were still resting beside computer monitors, the calendars were open to the current week. The entire office was silent, with the only noise coming from forensic officers working around the conference room near the far end of the corridor.

Just outside the room stood Selene.

She looked considerably paler than she had during their previous meeting. Her arms were folded tightly across her chest, and although she had clearly tried to compose herself, her hands continued to tremble. The moment she noticed Harrington approaching, relief briefly appeared across her face.

“I didn’t touch anything” she said before he had the chance to speak. “I remembered what you told me”.

Harrington gave a reassuring nod and smiled, saying “You did the right thing”.

He looked past her towards the conference room.

The victim lay slumped across the table. One side of his face rested against the shattered surface, where a spiderweb of cracks radiated outward from a dark stain of drying blood. Fragments of broken safety glass covered both the tabletop and the carpet beneath, suggesting that the impact had been violent enough.

A forensic photographer adjusted his camera while another officer carefully marked several blood droplets with numbered evidence markers.

Harrington watched the scene for several moments without speaking.

Finally, he turned back towards Selene and asked “Miss Derekson, may I know who he is?”

She swallowed before answering “His name was Edwy Henderson. He worked in the accounts department.”

Harrington said “Okay. Let me have a quick look at Mr. Henderson” as he walked towards the conference room. One of the forensic officers looked up from the body, greeted him and immediately moved aside to give him space. “The victim has been identified to be a 31 years old. There was no pulse when paramedics arrived. Time of death is estimated to be sometime between six and seven last evening. We’ll know more after the post mortem” he said.

Harrington crouched beside the body. Edwy was lying in an awkward pose across the conference table, one arm hanging lifelessly towards the floor. His forehead and the right side of his face were stained with blood, much of which had seeped into the cracks running across the shattered glass surface. Several larger fragments of glass still clung to the metal frame, while hundreds of smaller pieces glittered beneath the overhead lights.

His apprentices saw it too, and they said in unison - “There are multiple impact fractures on the table. It appears his head was forcibly slammed against the glass several times”. Harrington nodded as he began to look around the room to see if there were any weapons. But nothing appeared out of place.

He looked back at the forensic team and ask one of them “What about fingerprints?”

“The room is full of them” the officer replied. “It is a conference room used by dozens of employees every week. We’re lifting everything we can, but separating useful prints from ordinary office traffic won’t be easy”.

Harrington nodded in agreement as it was exactly the sort of answer he had expected.

He continued to walk around the room, observing every detail. Chairs remained tucked beneath the table except for two of them, a projector still hung from the ceiling above them. Someone had forgotten to switch off one of the monitors before leaving the previous evening, leaving the company’s logo glowing against a black background.

Nothing immediately stood out to him.

At this point, out of nowhere, one of the apprentices called out from the other side of the room. “Sir, come here” he screamed, in a loud voice that even those standing outside could hear it.

Harrington walked over. The officer pointed towards the lower corner of the monitor, and said “There!”

At first Harrington saw nothing unusual. Then, as he leaned closer, he saw a faint outline - a lip mark!!

Harrington stared at and immediately instructed “Photograph it before anyone goes near it”.

“We already have” said the apprentice.

“Good”, he patted him and stepped back without taking his eyes off the monitor.

His mind was now racing with thoughts - two crime scenes, two murders, two inexplicable lip marks, and the only intersection here was Selene, which could very well be a coincidence.

A few minutes later, the forensic team carefully removed Edwy’s body, and the conference room gradually emptied. Harrington returned to the corridor, where Selene remained waiting exactly where he left her.

She looked at him and asked “Inspector, was it really murder?”

“I’m afraid so” he replied.

She lowered her head, visibly struggling to process the answer. “I still can’t believe it” she said in a broken tone.

Harrington asked her to call in all employees inside the room for an enquiry.

Selene nodded, and asked her colleagues to get inside one by one.

Harrington and his apprentices spoke to each of them one after the other - from those who had worked closely with Edwy Henderson, to janitors and office boys. Most of them had described him in remarkably similar terms. Edwy had been working in the accounts department for over 6 years. He was silent, punctual, organised and well liked throughout the office. He rarely argued with anyone and was known for volunteering whenever deadlines became overwhelming. Several colleagues described him as someone who found it difficult to say no to people.

“He wasn’t the sort of person who made enemies” one employee remarked. Another recalled that Edwy had stayed an hour or so late the previous evening because he wanted to finish preparing financial reports for a client presentation scheduled for Wednesday morning.

His immediate supervisor confirmed that nothing unusual had happened during the day. There had been no disagreements with clients, no disciplinary issues, and no irregularities that might have given anyone a reason to target him.

One by one, the statements painted the picture of another ordinary worker living another ordinary life. His family was contacted shortly afterwards and was informed of this. They confirmed that Edwy lived alone in a small flat less than three miles from the office. He had never married, had no children, and spent most weekends visiting his elderly mother. None of them knew of anyone who wished him harm either.

When all other employees had finished giving a statement, Harrington asked his apprentices if they could figure out anything. They all said “So far, there isn’t a single obvious motive”.

Harrington nodded.

He then called for Selene, the last employee, and asked her the same set of questions, and her replies were in line with what other employees said.

Harrington then asked her “You were the first to find him right. So, I’d like you to walk me through this morning from the moment you left home and stepped into your office”.

She nodded and recounted everything in chronological order - she had left her flat shortly before half past seven, reached the office a little after eight, placed her bag at her desk, turned on her computer and gone to prepare the conference room before the clients and other employees arrived. She turned on the lights, saw someone slumped across the table, and realised moments later that it was Edwy.

“You were alone when you entered?”

“Yes. The moment I saw the blood, I stepped backwards and called you.”

“You didn’t touch the body?”

“No”

“You didn’t move anything inside the room?”

She shook her head.

“I don’t think I even crossed the doorway.”

“How did you manage to open the office door?” one of the apprentices asked

She swiftly replied “I have a keycard because I usually arrive earlier than everyone else.”

Harrington watched her carefully, as every answer came without hesitation and every detail matched what the uniformed officers had already reported.

He closed his notebook expecting no other useful information.

“There is one more thing” Selene said suddenly.

“What is it?”

She seemed reluctant to continue and said “I don’t know whether it’s important”.

“Tell me anyway”

She hesitated before answering, and finally said “Yesterday evening, just before everyone left work, Edwy asked me whether I’d join him on a date that night”

The apprentices immediately looked up from their notebooks.

Before anyone interrupted, Selene said “I refused”

“What exactly did he say?” Harrington asked.

“He asked if we could go somewhere after work - just the two of us. He even suggested a movie and a dinner”

“And your response?”

“I told him I wasn’t interested.”

She looked down at the floor.

“He kept insisting that it didn’t have to mean anything serious. Just the movies and dinner”

“What happened then?”

“I didn’t want to embarrass him in front of everyone else, so I told him not today, citing the presentation as a reason. I told him that I would think about it over the weekend, and I only said it so that he’d stop asking.”

“And after that?”

“I left the office”

“Did you speak to him again?”

“No”

“When you arrived this morning, that was the first time you had seen him since yesterday evening.”

“Yes”

Harrington noted this one too. And for the second time in less than three weeks, the last known person to communicate with someone who ended up being murdered was sitting directly in front of him.

It could still be coincidence, but it was becoming a coincidence that was increasingly difficult to ignore.

As he kept thinking through this, he glanced once around the conference room. The room had little more to offer for the time being, and questioning the employees any further would only result in the same answers being repeated.

He therefore turned towards Selene, who looked exhausted from the chaos and questioning, and told her “There is one more matter I’d like to discuss with you. Over the past two weeks, our investigation into Lawrence’s murder has uncovered information about his past that neither you nor, apparently, his own family were aware of. I don’t think this is the appropriate place to discuss it, especially while this office remains an active crime scene. At the same time, there are a few additional questions I’d like to ask you regarding Mr Henderson once you’ve had some time to recover from today’s events. If you’re able to, could you come to the police station this evening?”

This was potentially killing two birds with the same zone, except that the two birds here were already killed.

The mention of Lawrence immediately drew her attention away from Edwy. She looked at him with quiet anticipation before asking whether they had finally discovered the person responsible for Lawrence’s murder. Harrington regretted that he could not give her the answer she wanted.

He explained that the murderer remained unidentified, but the investigation had uncovered aspects of Lawrence’s life that completely contradicted everything they had initially believed about him. Whether those discoveries had any connection to his death was still uncertain, but they were significant enough that she deserved to hear them directly rather than through rumours or newspaper reports.

Selene rolled her eyes, as Lawrence had been dead for two and a half weeks by then, and she believed it was such a long time to find someone who had merely attacked him in the playground. The possibility that there had been an entirely different side to his life had never even crossed her mind.

Eventually she nodded and agreed to get to the police station that evening.

Following this, Harrington and his apprentices made their way back towards their vehicle. None of them spoke until they had reached the station, each occupied with their own thoughts about the peculiar coincidence surrounding Selene Derekson.

They reached their office that noon, but they still could not take their minds away from the fact that they had encountered her at the intersection of two entirely separate murder investigations within the span of less than three weeks. Yet despite that uncomfortable fact, nothing they had learnt about her behaviour suggested that she was lying - because she answered every question put before her without attempting to evade any of them, and had even volunteered information about Edwy asking her to dinner, a detail she could easily have concealed had she wished to distance herself from the victim.

Harrington knew what the apprentices were thinking. But he told them to stop thinking over that because there was a bigger question before them that deserved attention until Selene arrived that evening - What happened to Mr Edwy Henderson?

Over the next few hours, Harrington and his apprentices reviewed the forensic summaries from the conference room. They added very little to what they already knew. The shattered table contained countless overlapping fingerprints belonging to employees who had used the room over the last few weeks, making it virtually impossible to isolate those left by the killer. The lip mark recovered from the corner of the monitor had been photographed, although laboratory analysis was expected to take several days. There were no foreign fibre strands, footprints or biological traces either.

Edwy Henderson’s death had reached almost exactly the same position that Lawrence’s case had occupied on its first day - a confirmed murder, almost no usable evidence, and a single unexplained lip mark that seemed entirely out of place.

One of the apprentices even suggested that the lip mark was a signature left behind by the killer to taunt the police, much like what psychopaths of the past did. Although that seemed like an interesting theory, it was still yet another theory.

Another apprentice suggested if they could investigate if Henderson was associated with any of the drug smuggling groups like Lawrence was. This seemed like a good idea, but that proved to be of no use as Henderson had no link to them.

As Harrington and his apprentices kept discussing more plausible opinions, there was a knock from the outside. It was one of the reception officers, who informed Harrington that Selene Derekson had arrived. Harrington asked him to send her in immediately.

Minutes later Selene entered the room, looking noticeably more composed than she had that morning, although the tiredness remained visible beneath her eyes. The emotional strain of losing her fiancé and her colleague less than three weeks later had clearly taken its toll on her. But even so, she greeted everyone politely before taking the same seat she had occupied during her previous visit.

Harrington waited until the door had been closed before speaking. He began by informing her that the investigation into Lawrence’s background had uncovered information that neither she nor his parents had mentioned during their earlier interviews - because neither of them were aware of it. He explained that Lawrence had secretly assisted a narcotics smuggling syndicate by manipulating shipment records and diverting cargo containers through Havenbrook’s freight terminals. His second phone, financial records, surveillance reports and witness statements all pointed towards the same conclusion, leaving very little room for doubt that Lawrence had been living a double life.

The words seemed to drain the colour from Selene’s face. She did not interrupt him or accuse the police of making a mistake. Instead, she simply stared at the documents Harrington placed before her, particularly the surveillance photographs showing Lawrence entering a warehouse alongside individuals who were already wanted criminals. Her eyes moved slowly from one photograph to the next before she finally lowered them towards the table.

When she eventually spoke, her voice carried more disappointment than disbelief. She admitted that she had known Lawrence for only a short time before their engagement and had accepted the marriage solely because it had meant so much to her father. And beyond the ordinary details of his daily routine, she had known almost nothing about the man she had agreed to marry. The revelation that he had concealed such a dangerous part of his life from her left her feeling less betrayed than strangely guilty, as though she should somehow have noticed the deception herself.

Harrington allowed the silence to settle naturally before closing Lawrence’s file. There would be time later to discuss his criminal associates and the direction that investigation had taken. For the moment, however, another matter had begun to concern him far more.

“Miss Selene Derekson,” he said, “before we continue discussing Lawrence, I’d like to clarify something you mentioned this morning regarding Mr Henderson”. She looked up and nodded, indicating that she was listening.

Harrington reminded her that Edwy had asked her out shortly before leaving the office, and that she had declined his invitation despite admitting that he had been polite and respectful throughout their acquaintance. He then asked, as gently as he could, why she seemed so detached from the concept of love - to the extent that she declined a date from Edwy, and even claimed that was not interested in marrying anyone, let alone Lawrence.

Selene did not answer immediately. Instead, she lowered her gaze towards her folded hands and remained silent for so long that one of the apprentices briefly wondered whether she had heard the question at all.

Harrington made no attempt to hurry her. He understood from her expression that the answer was not difficult to remember, but difficult to admit.

Selene finally lifted her head, and mentioned that she was profoundly unlucky when it came to love. At first she had dismissed it as coincidence, then as cruel chance, but after it had happened again and again she had stopped trying to convince herself otherwise. Every man who had genuinely tried to build a future with her had died before that future could begin. It was for that reason alone that she had never wanted to marry Lawrence or anyone for that matter, and it was the same reason why she had rejected Edwy Henderson’s invitation despite recognising that he had meant no harm. She had reached a point where refusing affection felt kinder than accepting it.

The apprentices didn’t speak a word. Harrington asked in disbelief “Wait, Lawrence was not the first?”

Selene replied that, including Edwy Henderson, she had watched five different men lose their lives after trying to be with her.

Harrington remained seated exactly as he was, his fingers still resting upon the open case file before him, while the three apprentices looked at one another in open disbelief.

One of the apprentices exclaimed “I am sorry, did you say the five?”

Selene gave a nod. There was no uncertainty in her expression, nor any indication that she regretted what she had just admitted.

“Lawrence was the fourth” she replied quietly.

“And Edwy was the fifth”

The room fell silent once again.

Harrington however, broke the silence. He folded his hands together and told “Miss Selene, I know that revisiting these memories will not be easy. But, if what you’ve told us is true, each of those deaths may become relevant to our investigation. I’d therefore like you to tell us about each incident exactly as you remember it. Please don’t worry about deciding what is important and what isn’t. Tell us everything, even if it seems insignificant. Sometimes the smallest detail becomes the one that changes an entire case.”

Selene lowered her eyes once again, and remained motionless, as though she were deciding whether she truly wished to reopen memories that she had spent years trying to bury. Eventually she drew a slow breath, and somehow convinced herself that there was no longer any point keeping those stories to herself.

“I’ll start from the beginning” she said softly.

“I was seventeen when it happened for the first time. I was in my final year at Ashbourne High School. His name was Daniel Edward. Everyone in school knew him. He was one of those boys who seemed to fit in everywhere. He played basketball, participated in debates, volunteered during school events, and somehow still managed to remain among the top students in our year. Teachers admired him because he was hardworking. Students admired him because he never behaved as though he was better than anyone else. We weren’t particularly close, but we spoke often enough because we attended the same classes and sometimes studied together in the library before examinations. Looking back, I don’t think I ever saw him in a bad mood.”

“One afternoon, after our library period had ended, everyone was leaving for the next class when Daniel stopped me in the corridor. He asked whether I could spare a few minutes because there was something he wanted to tell me. I thought he wanted help with revision or perhaps wanted to borrow my notes. Instead, he told me that he had liked me for nearly a year. Since school was about to end in a few weeks, he didn’t want to leave without knowing whether I felt the same way. Then he asked whether I would consider going out with him once our final examinations were over.”

A faint smile appeared on her face, though it disappeared almost immediately.

“I remember being completely speechless. Nobody had ever confessed their feelings to me before. I didn’t know what I was supposed to say. I told him that I needed some time to think about it because I didn’t want to answer without being certain. He smiled and told me that he had already waited a year, so waiting a few more days wouldn’t hurt. Then he walked away exactly as he always did, smiling at everyone he passed. That was the last time I ever saw him alive.”

Her voice became quieter.

“Two days later, my father woke me before school and told me there had been an incident at school. The school had declared a holiday for all of us. When I turned on the local news, it showed police cars everywhere outside my school. Eventually I received the news that Daniel had been found dead near one of the staircase before anyone else had arrived. Everyone believed someone had struck him on the head with the fire extinguisher mounted beside the staircase, as it had been removed from the wall was left next to his body with a small dent on it. They questioned students and teachers in the school and searched the classrooms, lockers and corridors. But nobody had seen anything, there were no suspects, no clear motive and almost no evidence. After several months the investigation simply stopped. They called it an unsolved murder.”

“Everyone eventually returned to their normal lives. I couldn’t.”

She lowered her eyes for a moment before continuing.

“I completed my examinations, but afterwards I couldn’t bear staying in the same place anymore. I took a year away from everything before enrolling at Ashbourne University.”

One of the apprentices asked her “Did the investigation ever identify anyone who might have wanted to harm Daniel?”

Selene shook her head and replied “They never found anybody. As far as I know, the case is still unsolved.”

Harrington gave a small nod, signalling for her to continue whenever she was ready. She drew another slow breath and resumed.

“University was different. After the Daniel incident, I had avoided getting close to people, as I couldn’t bear the partition of another person. So, during my first two years I just went there, attended my lectures, completed assignments, and returned home. I barely spoke to anyone unless I absolutely had to.”

“During my third year, the astronomy club held its annual stargazing night. It was one of the biggest events of the year, and almost everyone at college stayed until late in the evening. As the night approached, people began leaving one by one, until eventually I was left along with one of my classmates named Keenan Richardson. We stood looking up at the sky for several minutes without saying very much. Then came to me, pointed upwards and said that people always promised each other the moon, but the moon changed every night. He said he’d rather promise the sky because no matter where two people were, they could always look up and know they were beneath the same stars.”

She smiled despite herself.

“Then he reached into his pocket and took out a tiny silver ring. He admitted that he’d bought it from a street market because it was all he could afford, and then he asked whether, after graduation, we could spend every night looking at the same sky together. I laughed because I was embarrassed, not because I found him funny. I hugged him and told him that I wanted to give him a proper answer somewhere private. We agreed to meet the following afternoon in the music room because hardly anybody used it during lunch break.”

“I spent the entire night thinking about what I wanted to say. By morning I had already made up my mind. I was going to accept, because he seemed like quite a funny guy with that proposal. In fact, I never fell for him, I fell for his proposal”

“I rushed to the music room the next afternoon after classes. That’s when I noticed a huge commotion outside, which was not the usual scene. Keenan had been found dead inside the music room before I arrived. Someone had struck him repeatedly on the head with one of the guitars which was was lying beside him when he was found. Once again there were no witnesses, no suspects, no motive, and almost no evidence that led anywhere. The investigation continued for months before becoming another cold case.”

She closed her eyes briefly before opening them again.

“That was the moment I stopped believing the first incident had been an accident of fate. Twice could no longer feel like coincidence.”

The silence returned once more in the room before Harrington quietly asked, “And the third?”

Selene nodded almost imperceptibly before continuing.

“After graduating, I left Ashbourne altogether. Every street reminded me of someone I had lost, and I convinced myself that the only way to move forward was to start somewhere nobody knew me. I found a job in another town, rented a small flat, and tried to build an ordinary life for myself.”

“The first few months were difficult, but slowly things began to settle. I had work to keep me occupied, new colleagues who knew nothing about my past, and neighbours who saw me as just another young woman trying to make a living. For the first time in years, I began believing that perhaps the worst was finally behind me.”

“My life was slowly back on track, and I began switching my entire attention onto my work. Since my office was only a ten minute walk from my apartment, I didn’t mind working overtime. Occasionally I would slip by the café on the way to my office. And everytime I went there, I kept noticing one man there - his name was Dion Matthews. We never spoke initially, and we only recognised each other because we kept arriving at almost the same time everyday.”

“One day it started raining unexpectedly while I was walking to work. I hadn’t carried an umbrella, so by the time I reached the café I was completely soaked. Dion laughed to himself when he saw me standing there dripping water onto the floor and pulled out the empty chair beside his table. We ended up sharing the table while I waited for my coffee, and we spent those few minutes ranting about the weather. It was an ordinary conversation.”

“The next morning he asked whether I’d remembered to bring an umbrella. We spoke again, and then the morning after that. Before long, it became a routine. We met over coffee before work, talk for twenty or thirty minutes, and then leave together because our offices were in the same direction for part of the walk. After work we’d occasionally grab ourselves some snacks, or simply walk around town before heading home. It just became part of everyday life.”

“Several months passed like that. Neither of us ever asked the other out. We never had one particular moment where we decided we were together. We simply kept spending time with each other until one day I realised I was happier on the days I saw him than on the days I didn’t.”

“One day, on September 10^th, right before his Birthday, I decided to confess. After he’d walked me back to my apartment, I told him that I loved him. He admitted he’d been hoping I’d say it because he hadn’t known how to bring it up himself. After that, we started seeing each other properly.”

“Looking back now, I think that was the first time I’d allowed myself to imagine a future with someone in years. By then, enough time had passed that I’d stopped connecting Daniel’s and Keenan’s deaths to my own life. I finally believed everyone else had been right. They had been horrible coincidences, nothing more.”

“So, the next day, on his birthday, I suggested that we spend a day at the words at Waverly Grove. Because I had seen photographs of the autumn colours on the trees there and thought it would make a nice day out. He agreed immediately.”

“We left early the next day. The weather was perfect. The trees had turned shades of gold, and the entire forest looked straight out of a painting. We had spent hours walking along the trails, taking photographs of each other and skipping stones across the lake. On our way back home, we started singing old songs inside the car.”

“I just had the best day of my life” I told him, as I leaned forward to kiss him on his cheeks.

“That is the last thing I remember.”

“When I opened my eyes again, I was lying in a hospital bed. A nurse was standing beside me. She explained that hikers had discovered our car several hours later, where I had been found unconscious in the passenger seat”

“Dion was still sitting in the driver’s seat. The seat belt had been wrapped tightly around his neck. By the time anyone found him, he was already dead”

She buried her face with her hands as tears started to flow through them.

She continued after a hiatus - “The police investigated every possibility as to who could have strangled him. They searched the car from front to back. Apart from our fingerprints, they found nothing. There were no signs that anyone else had entered the vehicle, no evidence of forced entry, no witness who had seen another person in the woods, and no explanation for how it could have happened. After months of investigation, it remains another cold case.”

She looked back at Harrington, the grief in her eyes now stripped of tears and replaced only by acceptance.

“That was the day I stopped believing I deserved to be loved.”

“I had chosen Dion, I had asked him to come with me, I was the one who kissed him. By every measure, it should have been the happiest day of my life. Instead, I watched it become another unsolved murder. After that, I promised myself I would never allow another man to build a future around me, for every man who tried to build a future with me somehow lost the chance to have one.”

“I stopped wondering whether I deserved happiness. I started wondering whether anyone who loved me deserved to stay alive. I wasn’t trying to avoid love. I was trying to prevent another murder, or rather another cold case” she ended.

Harrington did not ask Selene another question. Because he knew that everything she had described would already exist somewhere in police archives, buried beneath years of reports, photographs and witness statements from investigations that had long since gone cold.

And if there truly was a connection between the five murders, he doubted if asking her to relive those memories yet again would unravel them.

With that, Thomas thanked Selene for her cooperation and explained that the Scotland Yard would probably need to speak to her again after reviewing the older investigations. Selene acknowledged him with a tired nod before quietly leaving the room.

She visibly looked discombobulated and out of balance. Because she had spent the last couple of hours recounting some of the worst moments of her life, and each story had forced her to return to a place she had spent years trying to leave behind.

Inside Harrington’s room though, was a totally different story - it felt very different once Selene left. Harrington remained seated, slowly looking at whatever his apprentices had noted down on their notebooks and began writing them down on the investigation board.

Five names had been listed one beneath another - Daniel Edward, Keenan Richardson, Dion Matthews, Lawrence Hippolytus and Edwy Henderson. They had lived in different places, belonged to different professions and had died years apart. And if the names had been shown without any context, nobody would have thought they belonged in the same investigation. So, the only link connecting all of them was Selene - in particular, they all entered Selene’s personal life just shortly before being murdered. The odds were beyond comprehension.

One of the apprentices looked away from the notebook in front of him and asked whether they were now expected to treat Selene as their primary suspect. Harrington did not answer immediately. Instead, he reread the last few pages of his notes, before firmly saying “I don’t think she’s lying”.

“Every answer she gave was consistent with the information we already possess. Even in Edwy’s case, she volunteered details that would have been far safer to conceal. She had no reason to tell us that Edwy Henderson had asked her out yesterday evening, especially when she knew that it would immediately make her a suspect.”

One of the other apprentices nodded in agreement. He said, during both interviews, Selene had answered questions directly, rarely hesitating except when she was genuinely trying to remember something. Her behaviour was nowhere close to someone who was carefully constructing a false narrative. And even her emotional reactions had appeared spontaneous rather than rehearsed. So, if she was hiding something, she must be doing so without showing any of the ordinary signs Harrington had spent the last few decades learning to recognise.

He stood up and walked towards the investigation board before continuing “Forget Selene for a moment. Look only at the murders themselves”.

His apprentices turned towards the board as he pointed at each victim in chronological order.

“Daniel Edward was killed with the fire extinguisher mounted beside the staircase. Keenan Richardson died after being struck with one of the guitars already inside the music room. Dion Matthews was strangled using the seat belt inside his own car. Lawrence Hippolytus was murdered with the decorative concrete statue from the playground, and Edwy Henderson’s head was repeatedly smashed against a conference table.”

He paused long enough for everyone to follow the pattern - “Not one of those weapons was brought to the scene. Every single one was already part of the environment.”

Harrington explained to his apprentices “Whoever committed these crimes consistently relied upon whatever object happened to be available at the location itself. That tells us something about the murders. They don’t appear to have been planned. Maybe the decision to kill might have existed beforehand, but the method seems to have been chosen only after the opportunity presented itself”.

He then told them “But before we jump into conclusions, I want the complete investigation files of Daniel Edward, Keenan Richardson and Dion Matthews - every crime scene photograph, every forensic report, every witness statement and every supplementary note. If some detail appears in all five cases, then there’s something else connecting all the cases that we are overlooking”.

The requests were sent that night, and by the following afternoon, the certified copies of the original investigation files had begun arriving from the police departments that had handled the three unsolved murders.

Several cardboard archive boxes soon occupied the large conference table inside Harrington’s office. Some contained neatly organised reports, while others were filled with loose witness statements, crime scene photographs, forensic summaries and handwritten notes made by investigators years earlier.

Harrington said his apprentices “We’re not treating these as separate investigations” as he spread the files across the table. “From this moment onwards, we assume they are connected until the evidence proves otherwise. Compare every report against the others. And if there are any patterns or discrepancies, let me know” he ordered.

His apprentices nodded, immediately dividing the material between themselves while cross referencing everything they found. The next few hours passed in a jiffy with all four of them looking at the five case files in search of the hidden pattern.

And just as Harrington expected, the forensic evidence of all three cases showed nothing significant.

The fire extinguisher recovered beside Daniel’s body had been wiped clean, and no identifiable fingerprints had survived on its metal surface. There were numerous overlapping fingerprints on the staircase though, as students and teachers used it regularly. But none of them could be isolated. The investigators at the time had even searched the classrooms and nearby corridors, yet nothing had distinguished the murderer from ordinary school activity.

Keenan Richardson’s case was even worse. The guitar lying beside the body had been covered with fingerprints, but so had the piano, the music stands, the door handles and almost every other surface inside the room. Because the music department had been used by dozens of students each day, leaving layers upon layers of overlapping prints.

Dion Matthews’ murder had produced the opposite problem - the car had been astonishingly clean. Every usable fingerprint recovered from the steering wheel, dashboard, windows, gear lever and door handles belonged either to Dion or to Selene. And no other unidentified fingerprints had been found anywhere inside the vehicle.

By itself, each report merely reinforced why the murders had become cold cases.

These observations agreed with Lawrence’s and Edwy’s murders as well. Harrington suggested that throwing the concrete statue into the fountain had been an afterthought. Likewise, smashing Edwy’s head against a conference table required no advance planning whatsoever. So, the same principle extended backwards through every earlier case.

That’s when one of the apprentices brought back something that Lawrence’s and Edwy’s murders had in common - “We forgot about the lip marks” he shouted.

Harrington said humbly “I had it at the back of my head. I was just going to ask you to search if the other three cases had any lip marks”, he coughed.

The apprentices gathered together, and began laying every available crime scene image across the conference table. Each photograph was examined with magnifying lenses, compared against neighbouring images and then returned to its place before the next was picked up.

After long minutes of searching, one of the apprentices pointed out something. There was an image of the staircase where Daniel’s body had been discovered. Most of the photograph focused on him and the fire extinguisher. But in the background, sunlight reflected faintly from one of the corridor windows.

“There” he shouted, pointing towards the lower corner of the windowpane. Against the reflected light, was the outline of a lip mark.

The apprentice quickly pulled Daniel’s remaining crime scene photographs from the pile to see the windowpane better. And they did find it - the mark appeared again. It was ignored back then, which was fair enough, as nobody knew of its existence or how it would relate to other cases in the future.

With this newfound enthusiasm, they searched the photographs from Keenan’s case and Dion’s case. In case of Dion’s case, it was quite simple. The rear view mirror of the car had a lip mark, and it was so obvious now that they began searching for it.

Right when one of the apprentices was showing them to Harrington, the last piece of the puzzle - the lip mark in Keenan’s case was also found. The other two apprentices noticed a faint one on the lid of the piano in the music room.

Now, there were three things in common to all five cases - Selene, a lip mark, and the fact that all of the weapons belonged to the surroundings itself.

“It can’t be coincidence,” one of the apprentices said. Others nodded, because until then, every similarity they had uncovered could still be dismissed as coincidence. The murder weapons being objects already present at each location might simply reflect opportunistic killings, and Selene’s connection to every victim could still be explained away. But five separate murder investigations, handled by different police departments over several years, all containing an overlooked lip mark - that pushed their coincidence beyond credibility.

They all agreed that all of these murders were done by one man. One of the apprentices brought his theory back. The ‘Kiss mark killer’ had deliberately left the lip marks behind as a signature.

That suggestion remained on the table for several minutes before Harrington pointed out its biggest flaw - anyone wishing to leave behind a signature wanted it to be recognised, and the public to get into a frenzy and in a state of panic. Afterall, attention is all that they need. Yet these marks had escaped notice for years. Some had only become visible after enlarging photographs that nobody had looked at since the original investigations.

“So, if they were intentional, they were unusually well hidden”, he said.

Several other theories were put forth by each apprentice, each of them being dismissed by some sort of evidence or a deadlock. Even the possibility that another member of Lawrence’s drug network had crossed paths with one of the earlier victims was explored before eventually being discarded. And just like that, every promising lead dissolved within minutes of closer examination.

Over the next two days, witness statements were compared, information told by teachers, students, office employees, neighbours, paramedics, relatives and first responders were all placed side by side, financial records were revisited, telephone logs were examined. But none of them seemed to provide a breakthrough.

In the heads of the apprentices, the enthusiasm was slowly fading out and frustration began to take over.

Harrington however remained calm. He had scarcely spoken while his apprentices debated possibilities across the conference table. He simply wandered between the investigation board and the piles of paperwork, rereading reports he had already studied several times that week.

Eventually, almost absent mindedly, Harrington picked up Daniel Edward’s post mortem report to have another glance. He had not been looking for anything in particular, so he just skimmed through it. His eyes suddenly fell upon something.

Immediately, he reopened the forensic summaries of Keenan and Dion. The apprentices were eager to know what Harrington was thinking. But Harrington still remained silent. All that they could see was Harrington reading the last page of the post mortem reports, where investigators gave a closing note after summarising everything they knew about that case.

Minutes after reading this, Harrington handed over the files to his apprentices to see if anyone could connect the dots. Because a theory was slowly forming in his head, as he began to assemble the pieces of the puzzle together.

The apprentices though could notice nothing. They found the closing notes kind of vague. The only thing they could find in common was that, the investigating officers had all mentioned that the victims had no significant defensive wounds and did not attempt to ward off the attack.

Harrington remained standing in front of them for a while, and asked them if any of them was thinking the same thing as him. The apprentices nodded no - for they never knew what Harrington was thinking in the first place.

Harrington replied “Let me help you. Daniel was a healthy school athlete. Keenan was a young university student. Dion had been sitting barely an arm’s length away from whoever killed him. Yet not one of them had fought back. So, what does this have to say?”

The apprentices still could not understand. And it was typical of Thomas - to explain things that only made sense only after the bigger picture was revealed. Without saying another word to his apprentices, he reached for the telephone on his desk and dialled the reception officer outside.

“I want Miss Derekson back here tomorrow morning. Make sure she is informed of this” he told him over the phone.

The apprentices looked at each other surprise.

“Another interview, sir?” they asked together.

Harrington kept his eyes fixed on the investigation board, and said nodding “No” with a smirk on his face.

“I want a polygraph test!!”

Nobody knew why, but they just shrugged and nodded.

The next morning, the polygraph examination room was setup. Soon after Selene entered, she was handed a glass of water, and was taken to the polygraph chamber. She was sitting there alone, on a padded chair had been positioned at the centre of the room beneath the ceiling light, while a camera mounted high in one corner transmitted a live feed to the adjoining observation room.

Thin wires ran from the examination equipment to sensors attached carefully around her fingers, chest and upper arm. The polygraph examiner entered the room, and sat opposite her behind a small desk. His role though was limited to conducting the procedure exactly as instructed. He had a microphone and a receiver to receive whatever Harrington says, and ask the same questions to Selene.

Behind a one-way mirror outside the polygraph room stood Harrington, eager to ask his questions, along with his three apprentices, eager to see the questions Harrington was going to ask.

The examiner adjusted the microphone accordingly and gave a green signal to Harrington that all sensors were calibrated perfectly.

Harrington folded his hands and asked the examiner to inform Selene not to be afraid and that this was just another interview, to which Selene reluctantly replied “Yes”.

The examiner began relaying the questions asked by Harrington. He started with “We shall begin with a few simple questions first. These are only to establish your normal physiological responses”

Selene acknowledged him with a nod.

The questioning began.

“Is your name Selene Derekson?”

“Yes”

The examiner marked the response and signalled “True” to Harrington.

“Are you 27 years old?”

“Yes”

Also true!

Several more straightforward questions followed regarding her address, occupation and date of birth, and some false statements as well just to see how her body reacts in case of a lie. And each of them produced the same expected results.

Satisfied that the machine had established a reliable baseline, Harrington instructed the examiner to stop them, and begin the serious questions.

He asked the examiner to start with “Miss Selene, do you remember Lawrence dropping you home that evening?”

“Yes”

True!

“Do you remember going to bed that night?”

“Yes”

True!

“Do you remember calling Lawrence before going to bed?”

“Yes”

True!

“Why did you call him?”

“Because I always called him every night before going to sleep.”

True!

The examiner asked the next question exactly as Harrington had instructed - “During that call, did the two of you simply wish each other good night?”

“Yes”

True!

“And was that all the conversation consisted of?”

“Yes.”

True!

“Do you remember waking up the next day on your bed?”

“Yes”

True!

“Did you get out of bed anytime after going to bed and before waking up?”

“No”

True!

Harrington watched the monitor for a while before instructing the examiner to pause the examination. Selene remained seated while the examiner informed her that they were taking a short break before continuing with the remaining questions. She accepted the interruption without objection, believing the pause to be part of the ordinary procedure.

Meanwhile, inside the observation room, none of the apprentices understood why Harrington had devoted four consecutive questions to a conversation that had appeared completely insignificant throughout the investigation.

Lawrence’s phone records had already confirmed that the call had taken place, and Selene had merely repeated what she had said during her earlier interview.

One of them eventually asked why Harrington had spent so much time questioning her about a routine good night call.

Harrington opened Lawrence’s phone records and placed them on the table between them and said - “The call lasted for 2 minutes and 48 seconds”.

He continued “If two people merely wished each other good night, the conversation would have been over in less than 20 seconds.”

One of the apprentices immediately understood the implication. If Selene insisted that all they had done was exchange good night wishes, yet the telephone company had recorded a conversation lasting nearly three minutes, then one of those two facts had to be false.

“So she lied!!” he screamed.

But before anyone else could agree, another apprentice objected - “If she lied, the polygraph should have detected it”. And nobody argued with that observation.

Harrington slowly shook his head and said “The polygraph is true - She wasn’t lying”.

The apprentices were confused. They said “But the call duration proves she wasn’t telling us what actually happened”.

Harrington simple said “Correct”.

“Then how can both things be true?”

Harrington folded his arms before answering “Because she was truthful to herself”.

The apprentices looked even more puzzled.

Harrington explained that memory was not a perfect recording of past events. Whenever a person could not remember something accurately, the brain reconstructed the missing portions using familiar experiences and established routines - something called False Episodic Memory. He added that this is one of the reasons why the testimony of eyewitness could sometimes be surprisingly unreliable despite being completely honest - and the apprentices had to remember this for future cases.

He reminded them that Selene had already admitted she telephoned Lawrence every single night before sleeping. The habit had become so deeply embedded into her daily life that it no longer required conscious thought. Every night followed exactly the same pattern - she called him, they wished each other good night, and then they ended the conversation.

“If she genuinely cannot remember what happened on the final night” Harrington said, “her mind naturally fills the gap using what happened on every other night. She isn’t inventing a lie. She’s reconstructing a memory”.

The explanation gradually began to make sense. They said in unison, “So that’s why the polygraph isn’t detecting deception?”

Harrington nodded and said “You got that. Because there isn’t any deception involved. She believes every word she said, and her body doesn’t show any signs of lying either.”

He then removed another document from Lawrence’s case file - “I requested something else from the cybercrime unit yesterday apart from Selene’s call records”. The apprentices gathered around as he unfolded the report across the table. It contained mobile network location data recovered from Selene’s telephone.

The signal history showed that shortly after Lawrence had dropped Selene home, her mobile telephone had travelled away from Hetherley Street, remained briefly near Starlight Park, and then returned home again.

Harrington said, “A call was made from Selene’s phone, and the phone had travelled near the park”. He paused briefly before adding the next sentence - “But she didn’t make it”.

The apprentices were still confused.

Harrington slowly looked towards Selene through the one way mirror and said “We’ve spent months searching for a killer”.

“But I don’t think there is one.”

The apprentices turned towards him, as he said “There is only a protector!”.

The apprentices stared at him in complete confusion. One of them was the first to recover enough to ask the obvious question - if there was a protector, then who could possibly have been protecting Selene all these years?

Another immediately suggested her father. He was the only person known to have remained a constant presence throughout every stage of her life through the five murders.

Harrington smiled faintly before shaking his head - “No”.

But the apprentice repeated that apart from Selene herself and her father, nobody had remained involved in her life through all five murders - Daniel had belonged to school, Keenan to university, Dion to another town altogether, Lawrence had entered her life years later, and Edwy had only recently become her colleague. None of them had known one another. There was simply no third person who connected every incident. And even if there were one, Lawrence would have recognised the third person in the call.

Harrington nodded “Exactly”.

The apprentice frowned and asked - “If it wasn’t her father, then who else could possibly have been there every single time?”

Harrington did not answer immediately and instead, allowed each of them to arrive at the same conclusion - there wasn’t anyone else except Selene.

But one of the apprentices interrupted. He asked “If it were Selene herself, wouldn’t she have been caught in the polygraph test?”

Harrington replied “She wasn’t caught because she wasn’t lying - she was saying her truth, but not the truth”

The apprentices broke their head over what Harrington was saying - they understood nothing and thought that Harrington was going mad.

They asked him to explain things properly.

Harrington slowly said “Selene Derekson has Multiple Personality Disorder”.

“Her alternate identity is male. He is deeply, irrationally in love with her. He believes that Selene belongs to him.”

The apprentices stared at Harrington, as he explained that every victim had a romantic relationship or encounter with her - Daniel confessed his feelings, Keenan proposed, Dion became her boyfriend, Lawrence became her fiancé, Edwy invited her for a date.

To the alternate personality inside her, they were intruders attempting to steal the only person who mattered to him.

“He was a protector - but he was not protecting Selene from the world. He was protecting what he believed was his. He is protecting something he thinks that the world had no right to take from him.”

“He would remain silent for weeks, months, sometimes years, hidden beneath the surface of her consciousness, unseen even by the woman whose body he inhabited. But the moment another man dared to take her away, he would rise from the depths of that darkness, look for an opportunity to trap them alone, use whatever object happened to be available at the scene, kill the perceived rival. And once the devil next to her had ceased to exist, so had the need for the devil inside of her. He retreated back into the darkness of the mind from which he had come, leaving Selene with no recollection of what had occurred during this period of blackout. This is also the reason she wakes up exhausted - because someone else had used her body to kill someone in the most ruthless ways possible!”

“To him, every promise of a shared future became a declaration of war. And each of these five men you see, were just obstacles to his eyes - obstacles that had to be eliminated!”

And suddenly every inconsistency had one single explanation - the polygraph, the movement of her mobile, the opportunistic murder weapons, and even the absence of defensive injuries. Nobody had attacked the killer. Because to anyone outside, he was Selene. And none of these five people dared to injure the woman they loved.

Following that, Harrington pointed to the images of lip marks and said “We thought that the killer was deliberately leaving behind a calling card to taunt the police. But they were never intended for us. We had misunderstood its purpose completely”.

He asked his apprentices where each mark had been discovered, and they said one by one - a window, a polished piano lid, a rear view mirror, a metal playground slide, a monitor.

Harrington said “Yes, and each one of them was reflective”

“He believed he was kissing the woman he loved. He believed was kissing Selene”

“Because he loves someone he can never actually meet - He cannot stand beside her, he cannot hold her hand, he cannot kiss her.”

“So he kisses the only version of her he can ever reach - the reflection”

“It was the only place where he could see her.”

“And whenever he catches sight of a reflection, he doesn’t perceive it as his own, he sees Selene there”

“They were not signatures or trophies to count every person he murdered. They were simply the physical traces left behind after a man unknowingly kissed his own reflection, convinced with absolute certainty that he had just kissed the woman he loved.”

The apprentices took a while to process this. And suddenly one of them asked the obvious question - “Is there any way of proving it?”

Harrington nodded “I believe we can.”

“The personality only emerges under one specific circumstance - when another man attempts to form a romantic attachment with Selene”

The apprentices opposed immediately, because they knew what Harrington was upto - he was walking into the lion’s den and was deliberately going to provoke the personality they suspected had already murdered five men.

Harrington did not want to listen - he explained that if the theory was wrong, nothing at all would happen. If, however, the theory was correct, he would deal with the consequences than allowing the truth to remain hidden indefinitely. He made it clear that none of his apprentices would accompany him into the examination room. If anyone was to take that risk, it would be him alone.

Without another word, he removed his coat and placed it over the back of a chair before making his way towards the examination room. He asked the examiner to leave, and as the door closed softly behind him, the apprentices observed everything through the one way mirror.

Selene looked up as Harrington entered. She appeared mildly surprised, believing the polygraph examination had already concluded. Harrington took the chair opposite her and remained silent for a few moments, and told her that he wished to ask one final favour before she left.

Selene acknowledged him politely, though she did not understand where the conversation was heading. Harrington then looked directly into her eyes and quietly admitted that he knew she did not love him. Even so, he asked whether she would simply tell him that she did.

The request caught her completely off guard.

She looked at him with genuine confusion before apologetically refusing. She explained that she could not say something she did not believe, particularly after agreeing to answer every question honestly during the examination. Harrington accepted the refusal without reacting and, after waiting a short while, repeated the request once more. His tone remained gentle, almost pleading this time, but Selene’s answer did not change. She again declined, insisting that she would rather remain silent than lie about something so personal.

Finally, Harrington drew a slow breath and quietly told her that if she could not say the words, then he would.

Out of nowhere, he said - “I love you”

Every apprentice watched the monitor intently, expecting some visible change in Selene’s behaviour. They looked for any hesitation in her breathing, any alteration in her posture, any shift in her expression that might indicate another personality was beginning to emerge.

Nothing happened.

Selene simply stared at Harrington with visible bewilderment. She neither appeared frightened nor confused, she just sat there awkwardly. Her heartbeat remained steady upon the polygraph monitor, her breathing remained unchanged, and after several long moments she merely apologised for not knowing how to respond.

Harrington remained seated for another minute before quietly informing her that the conversation had merely formed part of an investigative experiment. He apologised for placing her in such an uncomfortable position and thanked her once again for her patience and cooperation throughout the investigation. Although she clearly failed to understand what had just occurred, she accepted the explanation without protest. After wishing everyone a good evening, she left the police station.

Once the main entrance closed behind her, the apprentices immediately turned towards Harrington. None of them needed to say very much. The experiment had plainly failed. There had been no personality shift, no loss of awareness, no unexplained aggression and no indication whatsoever that another identity existed beneath the surface.

One apprentice cautiously remarked that perhaps they had simply followed an incorrect line of reasoning, while another suggested that the similarities between the murders, remarkable though they were, had ultimately led them towards the wrong conclusion.

Harrington offered no argument.

He quietly collected his coat, organised the files scattered across his desk and informed the others that they had all earned an early evening. The officers gradually left the building one after another until Harrington was the last to depart.

He climbed to the driver’s seat in his car and began driving home visibly upset, his thoughts returning repeatedly to the unanswered questions that still surrounded all five murders - because for the first time since Lawrence Hippolytus’s murder, he found himself wondering whether he had allowed an elegant theory to overshadow the possibility of a far simpler explanation.

He still could not leave hold of his theory though - every piece had appeared to fit together perfectly until the final experiment had produced nothing at all.

Perhaps, he reluctantly admitted to himself, it had all been coincidence.

He was only a few streets away from his home when he slowed to a stop at a traffic signal. As he waited for the light to change, his eyes wandered absent mindedly across the dashboard before settling upon the rear view mirror.

And there he saw it - lip print!

Harrington remained completely motionless. The traffic lights turned green, and the cars behind him began sounding their horns.

Still, he did not move. His eyes remained fixed upon the mirror, as he replayed Selene leaving the police station right by the parking.

He smiled, and clenched his fists.

Because he knew who the next victim was!

Inspired by real incidents

The probability that you - you specifically, with your precise genome, your exact history, born to your parents, descended from your unbroken ancestral chain, on a planet that formed in exactly the right place, in a universe calibrated to permit matter and biochemistry to exist at all is approximately 1 in 10^2685428 (read this post to see how we arrived at this number. Warning: Science stuff)

This is a 1 preceded by a decimal point and approximately two million six hundred and eighty five thousand zeros. The number of atoms in the observable universe is 10⁸⁰. If every atom in the universe were itself a universe full of atoms, you’d have 10¹⁶⁰ atoms total. This number still doesn’t approach our denominator.

There is no physical analogy. There is no scale on which this number becomes intuitive. By every conventional measure, the probability of your existence is zero.

And yet here you are, reading this sentence. The odds may be unimaginable, but so is the fact that you get to be part of this moment at all. Which means we need to fundamentally renegotiate our relationship with the word ordinary. And if existence is this rare, how can there ever be a truly ordinary life?

Now, at the moment you are reading this, in rooms you will never enter, lives are happening at full volume. Someone is studying for their exams, someone is baking a cake for the first time, someone is learning to walk, someone is falling in love for the first time, someone is sitting with a parent who no longer remembers their name, someone is laughing so hard at something stupid that they cannot breathe, someone is listening to bedtime stories, someone is watching the news with the sound low so he does not wake his wife, someone is writing something in a notebook they will never show anyone, someone is standing in front of an open refrigerator, forgetting what they came for, someone is deleting a message they typed three times before finally sending “okay”, someone is rehearsing a speech in the shower, someone is looking at old photos instead of sleeping.

Not just that, someone is ironing a school uniform for tomorrow while someone else is deciding they will never go back to school again. Someone is counting coins on a kitchen counter to see if dinner can stretch one more night while someone else is complaining that their food arrived cold. Someone is refreshing their email every few minutes hoping for a job offer while someone else is drafting a resignation letter they have fantasized about for years. Someone is praying desperately for a child while someone else is hiding a positive pregnancy test in the bottom of a trash can. Someone is buying flowers for a first date while someone is buying flowers for a funeral. Someone is hearing “I love you” for the first time while someone is hearing it for the last. Someone is taking hundreds of photos to remember the moment, while someone else is deleting every photo trying desperately to move on. Someone is hearing birds outside after years in prison while someone else is staring out an office window feeling trapped anyway. Someone is tying their shoes before the biggest race of their life, while someone else is realising that they already are in a race they never chose to run. Someone is dreaming of all the places they will go, while someone else is crossing borders with no idea where they will sleep. Someone is planting a tree whose shade they will never sit beneath while someone else is cutting one down just to survive the winter. All of it is happening right now, simultaneously, on the same small world, under the same sky.

None of these people had any business being here. Neither did the sun, nor the water, nor their feeling. These are not small lives happening in a big universe. These are the universe’s most extraordinary achievement, happening all at once, in every direction, in a billion quiet rooms - unwitnessed, uncelebrated, and completely, staggeringly improbable.

And perhaps the rarest thing any of those extraordinary lives will ever do is find one another, and become woven into one another.

Out of all the people who have ever lived, and all the people who ever will, somehow our lives overlap. We find people who begin as strangers and, almost without noticing when it happened, they become the voices we look for in crowded rooms, the names we instinctively reach for when something wonderful happens, the people whose absence can change the shape of an entire day. It is such a familiar part of being human that we almost forget how astonishing it really is.

Every friendship, every love, every mentor, every rival who pushed you to become better, every neighbour who always waved from across the street, every grandparent whose stories still echo in your memory, every sibling who knows versions of you no one else ever will, every teacher who believed in you before you believed in yourself, every child who taught a parent something about wonder, every person who ever made you laugh until you couldn’t breathe or sat beside you when words would have been too small, arrived through the very same impossible chain that brought you here. Before they were your favourite person, they were simply another impossibility drifting through the universe. Before you became part of one another’s stories, there existed billions of ways in which your paths could have remained forever separate.

But it is remarkable how quietly these miracles happen. There is no trumpet or bugle announcing the day you meet someone who will matter to you for the rest of your life.

It might begin with the simplest things - like borrowing a pen, sitting beside the only empty seat, a message you randomly sent, a joke that should not have been funny but somehow was, a conversation that was meant to last five minutes and wandered into five hours. Looking back, we search for the moment everything changed, but there usually isn’t one. Lives are not transformed in grand ceremonies. More often, they change in ordinary moments that only reveal their importance years later.

And then, almost without realising it, another person begins carrying pieces of your world that nobody else can. They remember who you were before life rearranged you. They know why a certain song makes you smile, why a particular place feels like home, why an ordinary date on the calendar still means something to you. They become witnesses to your existence, preserving little fragments of your life that even your own memory would eventually have misplaced. In return, you carry pieces of theirs. Between the two of you exists something that has never existed anywhere else: a history assembled from shared afternoons, unfinished conversations, familiar silences, inside jokes that long ago stopped making sense to anyone else, mistakes forgiven, celebrations remembered, griefs endured together, and countless ordinary days that became extraordinary simply because neither of you experienced them alone.

Perhaps that is what makes human connection so extraordinary. It is not that we spend our lives collecting people. It is that every person changes the landscape of who we are. We leave traces of ourselves in one another so gently that we rarely notice it while it is happening. A phrase someone once said becomes the way you comfort another years later. A habit borrowed from a friend becomes part of your own personality. A kindness offered without expecting anything back continues travelling through generations of people who will never know where it began. Long after faces fade and voices become difficult to remember, something of them continues to live inside you.

Maybe that is why the universe seems so much smaller than its unimaginable size. Not because the stars are close, but because somehow, against every conceivable odd, we keep finding one another. We keep building tiny worlds inside this larger one, worlds made not of planets or galaxies, but of trust, affection, shared memories and understanding. Entire universes that exist only between people, invisible to everyone else, yet as real as anything the cosmos has ever produced.

For all the astonishing things this universe has created, from galaxies that stretch across millions of light-years to stars that burn for billions of years, there is something profoundly beautiful about the fact that it also created the possibility that one impossible person could look at another impossible person and say, “I’m glad you’re here”. Out of all the things that could have happened, somehow that happened too.

And perhaps that has always been one of the universe’s finest achievements - not simply that life exists, but that life has learned how to share itself with other life, until no one who has ever been truly loved leaves this world entirely alone.

PS: This was just an alternate ending to “The Odds We Should Not Have Survived”, which I scrapped off in the original version, as I felt it derailed the point of that blog entirely. So, thought of posting separately. You can check out the original one out here

The United States had deployed B-52 Stratofortress bombers, gigantic aircraft with wingspans wider than a Boeing 737, capable of flying more than 14000 kilometres and carrying nuclear weapons. Not just that, there were F-4 Phantom II fighter jets, aircrafts that could fly at more than twice the speed of sound, AH-1 Cobra attack helicopters armed with 20 mm cannons circled overhead. Underneath, there were soldiers carrying rifles, machine guns, grenade launchers. Anti-tank weapons were deployed, military engineers arrived with chainsaws, artillery units stood ready waiting for a signal, special force teams waited nearby for backup, aircraft carriers and warships moved into position around the Korean Peninsula. More than 800 troops were involved in the operation.

Now, a quick question. What do you think all of the things I mentioned in the list was for?

A) The opening hours of a cold war against the Soviet Union.

B) A military confrontation with China.

C) A major invasion to milk oil from one of the Gulf countries.

D) Cutting down a tree.

If you picked option D, congratulations - you’re either cheating, or you are insane, or you’re one of the six people on Earth who already know this story.

Because looking at that list, “cutting down a tree” certainly sounds like the joke answer. But it wasn’t.

The United States really did assemble all of that firepower to cut down a single tree. Yes, one single tree. An actual tree, not even soldiers in disguise or a secret spy camera hidden within it. It was just a tree growing and photosynthesising, just existing like any other plant would.

And if you’re wondering what kind of tree requires bombers, fighter jets, attack helicopters, warships, artillery units, special forces, and 800 soldiers, that’s exactly why this story is worth telling.

To understand why this happened and why this wasn't nearly as crazy as it sounds, we need to flip the pages of the history book a bit.

The story really begins in 1950. After World War II, the Empire of Korea, which had previously been under Japanese rule, was divided into two separate states, separated by a straight line called the 38th Parallel.

The Soviet Union supported the communist government in the North, while the United States supported the anti-communist government in the South. Both governments claimed to be the legitimate ruler of all Korea, and tensions between them steadily grew.

One fine day, the 25th of June 1950, the North Korean forces crossed the 38th Parallel, and launched a full scale invasion of South Korea. And within days, the North Korean troops captured Seoul and pushed South Korean forces into a small corner of the peninsula. The United States entered the war almost immediately after the invasion, joining a United Nations military coalition authorised to defend South Korea. Needless to say, the war quickly turned into an international conflict.

The American troops began arriving to South Korea in July 1950, with the first major US ground unit, Task Force Smith, entering combat on the 5th of July 1950 (which was coincidentally a day after the American freedom day). Upon reaching South Korea, the Americans and the other UN forces pushed North Korean troops back and advanced deep into North Korea. But the problem arose as they approached the Chinese border with North Korea. China did not want American forces stationed right next to them. So, they sent hundreds of thousands of soldiers in support of North Korea, forcing UN troops to retreat.

The fighting eventually settled into a bloody stalemate near the original border, the 38th Parallel. After three years of intense combat that killed millions of soldiers and civilians, an armistice (mutual agreement that there would be no more fighting) was signed in July 1953. However, the Korean War technically never ended. Because an armistice is not the same thing as a peace treaty. Think of it as two injured boxers agreeing to leave the ring before the match is finished. The punches stop, but nobody officially wins and the dispute remains unresolved.

And the situation became even more complicated because South Korea’s president, Syngman Rhee, actually opposed the armistice. He wanted the war to continue until Korea was reunited under Seoul’s government. As a result, South Korea never signed the armistice agreement. The document was signed by North Korea, China, and the United Nations Command led by the United States.

Upon signing the armistice, a new border zone was established roughly along the final battle lines. This became known as the Korean Demilitarised Zone, or DMZ.

But despite its name, the DMZ is anything but demilitarised. Stretching about 250 kilometres across the Korean Peninsula and roughly 4 kilometres wide, it acts as a buffer between North and South Korea. Soldiers, artillery, tanks, and military bases remain stationed just outside its boundaries on both sides. In fact, it became one of the most heavily guarded borders on Earth since then.

And once the DMZ was destablished, China backed off since the USA had no business anymore and wouldn’t be a threat to China. However, USA still suspected the North Koreans to launch another invasion by breaking the clause. So, to prevent another invasion, American troops remained in South Korea, for the next few decades.

This place - the DMZ is where the rest of our story is gonna happen. Specifically in one part of the DMZ in the town of Panmunjom, called the Joint Security Area, where soldiers from both sides stand surprisingly close to one another. And the United nations kept multiple checkpoints in the Joint Security Area to monitor the activities of North Korea from afar.

Here is where our famous (or rather, infamous) tree comes into the picture. It was a giant poplar tree about 12 metres tall (as tall as a four storey building for Americans). The only issue was that, it stood right near a United Nations checkpoint and had grown large enough to block visibility between observation posts. And on one of the most tense borders on Earth, being unable to see what is happening nearby is a serious security issue.

So on 18 August 1976, a small team of American and South Korean personnel was sent to trim the branches. It was nothing much, and was just another routine maintenance. And the plan was not to remove the tree completely. The team had simply been sent to trim some branches and improve visibility.

Or at least that was the plan. This had nothing to do with the war, except the location being a DMZ. It was just another ordinary maintenance task that would be completed within a few hours.

So, a group of American and South Korean soldiers with some civilians arrived at the site along with ladders, axes and cutting tools and began trimming branches while armed security personnel stood nearby supervising them. Among these people were Captain Arthur Bonifas and First Lieutenant Mark Barrett of the US Army.

But shortly after the work began, a couple of North Korean soldiers approached the site. Their commander reportedly ordered that the trimming should stop immediately, claiming that North Korean leader Kim Il Sung had personally planted and cared for the tree. The Americans and South Koreans did not believe they needed permission to trim a tree that was obstructing visibility inside the Joint Security Area, so they continued working.

But things escalated quickly as more North Korean soldiers entered the scene. What had started as a disagreement over tree maintenance was turning into a confrontation. Suddenly, the North Korean troops attacked using the tools that were brought to trim the tree.

The Americans and South Koreans were caught completely off guard because they had arrived expecting a maintenance operation, not a battle.

In no time, chaos erupted, the workers were scattered, some soldiers tried to defend themselves while others attempted to escape. During the attack, Captain Bonifas was beaten and killed near the tree. Lieutenant Barrett became separated from the rest of the group and was later found dead in a nearby area. Several other personnel were injured before the surviving members of the work party managed to retreat. This became to be called the Panmunjom Axe Murder incident

In Tamil we call this “Avan porula eduthu avanaiye podaradhu” (“Using their own weapons to kill them”)

Back to serious stuff, The United States now faced a difficult decision, a political Catch 22. Two of their Army officers had been killed in broad daylight inside the Joint Security Area, a location where both sides were supposed to maintain a degree of order. If it did nothing, it would look weak after two of its officers had been murdered. But if it reacted too aggressively, it could trigger another Korean War.

So, the American military planners came up with an unusual solution - they would go back and finish cutting the tree.

But this time they would make absolutely sure nobody interfered.

The result was Operation Paul Bunyan, named after a legendary American lumberjack. On 21 August 1976, three days after the killings, a convoy moved toward the same tree.

Their task was straightforward: cut down the tree completely, not just trim it.

At the centre of the operation were military engineers carrying chainsaws to cut down the tree. And surrounding them, was an astonishing amount of military power. They were surrounded by hundreds of armed troops, attack helicopters watched from above, fighter jets stood ready, B-52 bombers flew nearby as a very visible reminder of American military power, warships and additional forces waited offshore in case the situation escalated.

The message was unmistakable: the tree was coming down, and this time nobody was going to stop it.

The engineers began cutting. And the North Korean soldiers gathered and watched from a distance unlike before. They did nothing, or rather could do nothing. Because everyone present understood how dangerous the moment was. A single miscalculation could trigger gunfire, and could escalate into a much larger conflict between two heavily armed nations.

Since the stakes were high, the best option seemed to be staying silent.

The chainsaws continued to roar, branches crashed to the ground one after the other, the workers cut through the trunk and reduced the tree to a stump.

The entire operation took less than an hour. 42 minutes - that was it. The operation was successful - the objective to cut down the tree was complete.

And that is what makes Operation Paul Bunyan one of the coldest responses in military history. It was never about slashing down a tree. It was about sending a message.

It was America’s way of saying “Try that again, and you’ll know what we are capable of!”

And perhaps that is the most savage part of the entire story. The United States did not fire a single shot, it did not launch a missile, it did not bomb a target, it simply demonstrated what it was capable of doing if pushed any further.

Without opening their mouths, America announced to the world - “You mistook my kindness for weakness, now I will show you strength and you will mistake it for brutality”

They made sure that everyone watching understood the gap between what America could do and what it had chosen not to do.

All in all, this is all that Operation Paul Bunyon was about - “I don't need courage to defeat you, I just need patience to prevent myself from doing so”.

Just hundreds of soldiers, bombers overhead, helicopters circling, warships waiting offshore, and a silent message hanging over the entire scene:

“We came here to cut down a tree. Be grateful that’s all we came to do”

The 2026 FIFA World Cup was no different - hosted across the USA, Mexico and Canada, has already delivered its share of unforgettable moments. Giants have stumbled, underdogs have risen to the moment, entire nations have held their breath, several matches have gone down to the wire, with millions of fans out there looking at 20 strangers kicking the ball between two goalposts. The season has been filled with stories and spectacles.

One such story belongs to the Democratic Republic of Congo, which made its long-awaited return to football’s biggest stage after five decades. So needless to say, millions of people from the Democratic Republic of Congo would have travelled miles across the Atlantic to watch their team play.

Amidst all those fans, there was one man, who kept standing on a pedestal, perfectly still like a statue, with a stern face, raising his right arm for the entirety of the match. He remained motionless, amidst the thousands of screaming supporters and waving flags - and that too for over 100 minutes on the go.

To most viewers, he would have just appeared to be an unusually dedicated supporter. But to millions of Congolese people, however, he represented something far deeper - the dark pages of history unbeknownst to the rest of the world. He stood there as a symbol of dignity, hope and resistance.

So, it is time that we flip the black pages of history, streaked in red blood.

But before we get there, we first need to know the name of that fan. His official name is Michel Kuka Mboladinga, but people know him by another name - “Lumumba Vea”, which translates to “Lumumba Lives”.

His nickname Lumumba Vea was named after the man he imitates - Patrice Émery Lumumba, who happens to be Congo’s first prime minister. Not just that, he also happens to be one of Africa’s most iconic independence leaders - to an extent that even more than 60 years after his death, he remains one of the most revered figures in the country.

But who is he? And why would a football supporter dedicate himself to keeping Lumumba’s memory alive?

To answer these questions, it is necessary to go back to a period long before football stadiums, long before World Cups and long before the Democratic Republic of Congo even existed as an independent nation.

And before we get into the story of Patrice Lumumba, let’s first get into the story of Africa itself.

For centuries, Africa has often been portrayed as a continent of poverty, conflict and instability. That image is so widespread today that many people assume it has always been this way. But no, Africa is one of the richest regions on Earth - its soil contains vast deposits of gold, diamonds, copper, cobalt, platinum, uranium, oil and countless other resources. The continent possesses enormous agricultural potential, some of the world’s most important river systems and enough natural wealth to transform entire nations.

But the tragedy arrived in the form of a familiar face - the European powers - the British, French, Germans, Portuguese, Italians, Belgians, and several others, who were all increasingly obsessed with the resources from Africa. Since industrialisation was transforming Europe at an unprecedented pace, Africa, with its immense wealth and vast territories, quickly became the centre of attention for these European powers to assert their dominance.

What followed was an era that would redefine the meaning of devastation. European leaders sat around conference tables thousands of kilometres away from the continent and began drawing lines across maps. Entire regions were divided up as though they were pieces of a board game. Communities that had existed for centuries suddenly found themselves separated by arbitrary borders. and that too without consultation as the people living there had virtually no say in the matter. In the 1800s, almost the entire continent had fallen into the hands of the Europeans.

Britain, France, Germany, Portugal, Spain, Italy and Belgium all claimed enormous territories. Though their flags were different, the wounds they left behind were much the same - the lives of millions of Africans were exploited through slavery, and Africa’s wealth flowed outward.

Among all these colonies, the territory that would later become the Democratic Republic of Congo was not much different, except for one change. It was not administered by the government of any country. Instead, it became the personal possession of King Leopold II of Belgium. And I repeat here - it was not a colony of the kingdom of Belgium itself, but it all belonged to just one man, who looked at the Congo and saw it as nothing but a mere business opportunity.

The region was a thriving home to illegal ivory trade which earned them enormous profits. And it didn’t end there. There was also a rising demand for rubber with the advent of the bicycle and automobiles industry, which required rubber both for tyres and for industrial machinery. This surge in demand transformed Congo’s vast rubber plantations into another strategically valuable territory.

So, Leopold II had every reason to take complete control over this piece of land. But the methods he used to achieve this were unimaginably brutal. Entire villages were forced to meet rubber quotas imposed by colonial authorities. Men would disappear into forests for days or weeks collecting rubber under harsh conditions. Failure was not treated as a simple shortfall in production, it was treated as disobedience. Families were taken hostage to force men to work harder. Villages were burned as punishment. Public whippings were carried out with a weapon known as the chicotte, a brutal whip made from animal hide that could tear flesh apart. Many victims did not survive the punishment and succumbed to wounds. Not just that, the hands of the plantation workers were severed for the worst possible reason. Soldiers were expected to account for every bullet they fired. To prove that ammunition had been used on people rather than wasted, they only was to cut off the hands of victims and present them as evidence to King Leopold II.

The photographs that survived from this period remain difficult to look at even today - parents standing beside children whose hands had been removed, villagers staring blankly into the camera after enduring unimaginable violence, entire communities devastated by a system that viewed human beings as little more than tools for extracting wealth.

The numbers involved are staggering - millions of Congolese people died during this period through murder, forced labour, disease, starvation and the collapse of entire communities.

Yet despite all this suffering, the wealth generated by the Congo transformed lives elsewhere. Magnificent buildings appeared in Belgium, businesses flourished, fortunes were accumulated in the hands of the royalty. In contrast, the people who produced that wealth remained trapped in poverty and violence. Eventually, after decades of oppression, there was immense outrage by the locals of Congo. Under growing pressure, Leopold was forced to surrender control, and the Belgian state formally took over administration.

Just when people thought that the worst was over, their relief was short-lived, as the next phase proved just as relentless. Although the worst excesses of Leopold’s rule ended, the basic structure remained unchanged. The Congo continued to exist primarily as a source of wealth for Belgium, this time under the control of the Belgian state itself.

The mines continued to operate, resources continued to leave the country, copper, diamonds, uranium and countless other valuable minerals were extracted in enormous quantities. What changed was the packaging.

The brutality became less visible than it had been under Leopold, but the system remained deeply unequal. The Congolese people were expected to work within a structure they had little control over, as political power remained concentrated in Belgian hands. Important decisions affecting millions of lives were still being made by people who did not live there.

Perhaps the clearest indication of this imbalance could be seen in education.

Belgium had ruled the Congo for decades, yet by the time of Congo’s independence, the number of Congolese university graduates could be counted on one’s fingers. An entire nation of millions had been deliberately excluded from meaningful participation in government and administration. The colonial system needed workers, not leaders.

Yet history has a way of creating leaders when circumstances demand them.

During the 1940s and 1950s, winds of change were sweeping across the world. The Second World War had weakened European empires. Across Asia and Africa, independence movements were gathering momentum. The waves from the independence movements of countries like India and neighbouring countries like Egypt, Ghana, Libya, Morocco and Tunisia had reached Congo as well, as new voices emerged across the continent, questioning why foreign powers should continue to dictate the future of African nations.

One of those voices belonged to Patrice Émery Lumumba.

Born in 1925 in the Kasai region of the Congo, Lumumba did not come from a wealthy or politically influential family. He was, in many ways, an ordinary Congolese citizen living under an opressed system. But he possessed something - he had a gift for communication, and the ability to connect with people from different backgrounds. Not just that - he was also intelligent as he read extensively and educated himself through books. While many people accepted the world as it was, Lumumba constantly questioned why things had to remain that way.

And his intelligence was rewarded by the Belgian government, who offered him a job - a position in the postal service, which itself was something remarkable at that time, considering how his fellow citizens were treated. But little did they know that this decision of handing Lumumba this job in the postal service was a huge miscalculation that they wouldn’t have expected. Lumumba began to understand the frustrations that ordinary Congolese people carried with them every day.

And the more Lumumba travelled and interacted with people from different regions of the Congo, the more convinced he became that the country fell into colonial rule through the divide and conquer policy - the same method that was used in most other parts of the world.

Lumumba believed that, Congo, being a large country with hundreds of ethnic groups, numerous languages and vast geographical distances, had to do one thing to break themselves free - to stand united. Rather than viewing people primarily through ethnic or regional identities, he wanted them to think of themselves as Congolese. It was a radical idea at a time when other political movements around Congo were organised around narrower interests. For the next few years, he began propagating the idea across Congo, and by the mid 1950s, his reputation was growing rapidly.

One reason to this was his ability to make complex ideas understandable to ordinary people. He made crowds listen when he spoke, and made people think on their own accord. Soon, newspapers paid attention to him, and political organisations began recognising his influence.

As his idea became more than just an idea, he established the Mouvement National Congolais, or MNC in 1958. Its central message was simple but powerful: the Congo belonged to its people, and its future should be determined by them.

And as promised, the idea behind MNC was that it was not built around a single region, tribe or ethnic community, and to remain as a movement that could speak for the entire country.

Since its inception, Lumumba kept the message clear through the MNC - that if Congo was ever going to free itself from colonial influence, it could not do so as hundreds of competing groups pulling in different directions. It needed a shared vision, it needed people to see themselves not merely as members of a tribe, region or language group, but as citizens of a single nation.

That message began to resonate.

By the late 1950s, political awareness was spreading rapidly across the Congo, with political speeches drawing larger crowds, local newspapers carrying increasingly bold discussions, workers and civil servants beginning to openly question a system that had excluded them from meaningful political participation for generations. And when the many stood together, even giants began to tremble.

In January 1959, the independence movement shifted from paper to the streets, as a large scale unrest erupted in Léopoldville, the capital of Congo by then. The pressure on Belgium was becoming impossible to ignore. The Belgian administration realised that the old system was becoming increasingly difficult to sustain. Alarmed by the growing unrest, Belgium organised a round table conference in Brussels in early 1960. Congolese political leaders from different parties and regions were invited to discuss the country’s future.

Among them was Patrice Lumumba. By this point, he had already become one of the most recognisable faces of the independence movement. Yet his presence at the conference itself was remarkable. Only months earlier, Belgian authorities had imprisoned him for allegedly inciting unrest. Public pressure eventually forced his release, and he travelled to Brussels as one of the leading voices of the Congolese delegation. It was in this meeting that Belgium decided that they would grant independence to the Congo on June 30th, 1960. The speed of the decision surprised almost everyone. For decades, colonial officials had spoken as though independence remained a distant possibility. Suddenly, it was only months away.

Yet beneath the celebrations, a serious problem was beginning to emerge. Belgium was preparing to hand over political power, but it had done very little to prepare Congolese people to actually run the state. The administration of the country remained dominated by Belgians so far. Even the senior positions in government departments, the military, the judiciary and the civil service were overwhelmingly occupied by them. Even as independence approached, there was considerable resistance to rapidly transferring authority into Congolese hands, as that might cause instability. So, the Belgians decided to grant independence to the Congolese, but they’d still stay in their respective administrative roles.

Lumumba was deeply frustrated by this reality. He knew that independence would mean very little if the same colonial structures remained intact. It seemed as though Belgium was willing to lower its flag but not surrender its influence. A new flag alone could not transform a nation, the people themselves needed to be involved in governing their own country. In that meeting, he repeatedly pushed for greater Congolese participation within the administration and demanded that key positions gradually be transferred to local officials.

But the response from the Belgian authorities was still dismissive, as they genuinely doubted whether Congolese citizens were capable of managing complex institutions. Or maybe that was just a coverup to the fact that they simply did not want to surrender influence over such a resource rich territory.

So, this decision was put on hold, with the assurance that it would be brought back into discussion post the elections of the newly independent Congo.

Then came the elections. And these results reflected the complexity of the Congo itself - no single party emerged with an outright majority. The country was politically fragmented, with different regions supporting different parties and leaders. Despite this fragmented landscape, Lumumba’s MNC emerged as one of the strongest political forces in the country. His popularity extended across regional boundaries in a way few other politicians could match. But still, he couldn’t secure a 50% majority, and so, it was time to build a coalition. After extensive negotiations, a compromise arrangement was reached - Joseph Kasa Vubu became President, and Patrice Lumumba became Prime Minister.

On paper, it appeared to be a workable balance, but in reality, it brought together individuals with very different visions for the country’s future. Nevertheless, for many Congolese people, these concerns seemed secondary. After decades of foreign rule, actual self rule was finally within reach. The mood across the country was electric, crowds gathered in anticipation, flags appeared in homes and marketplaces, and people celebrated what many believed would mark the beginning of a new era.

June 30, 1960, finally arrived.

The ceremony in Léopoldville was attended by dignitaries, officials and foreign guests. Belgium’s King Baudouin delivered a speech that portrayed colonial rule as a civilising mission. Listening to him, one might have concluded that Belgium had generously guided the Congo towards progress and prosperity. There was little mention of forced labour, little mention of exploitation, little mention of the immense suffering that had defined so much of the colonial experience.

Lumumba listened carefully.

Although he was not originally expected to speak, he rose up unable to bear the speech, and delivered an impromptu response that would become one of the most famous speeches in modern African history.

Unlike the carefully scripted diplomatic language that many expected, Lumumba spoke directly - he spoke about humiliation, discrimination, the violence and injustices that Congolese people had endured. He reminded the audience that independence had not been presented as a gift from Belgium, it had been won through struggle, sacrifice and persistence.

The speech immediately transformed him into a symbol across Africa. For millions of people living under colonial rule, Lumumba stood as the face a new generation of leaders who were unwilling to soften uncomfortable truths for the sake of diplomacy.

But again, the relief was short lived. Within days of independence, the young nation found itself facing a crisis that threatened to destroy it before it had even begun. Only a few days after June 30, unrest erupted within the Force Publique, the Congolese army that had been inherited from the colonial administration. Although the country was now officially independent, most of the senior military positions were still occupied by Belgians. For many Congolese soldiers, this felt like a cruel joke. The flag had changed, but the old hierarchy remained intact.

Belgium responded by sending troops into the Congo, claiming it was necessary to protect Belgian citizens. To Lumumba, however, this looked less like protection and more like an attempt to retain influence in a country that had supposedly become sovereign only days earlier.

Then came an even bigger blow - Katanga, the country’s richest province, announced that it was breaking away from the Congo. This was no ordinary province. Copper, cobalt and other valuable resources flowed from its mines. The region generated enormous revenues, and whoever controlled Katanga controlled a significant portion of the country’s economic future.

For a newly independent Congo, losing Katanga was unthinkable. For foreign interests that had long benefited from the region’s resources, a separate Katanga was a very attractive proposition. Lumumba immediately understood the danger - the Congo was not simply facing a regional rebellion, the country itself was in danger of being dismantled.

He appealed to the United Nations for help. Since Congo was a newly independent nation facing foreign intervention and a secessionist crisis, he expected the international community to help restore the country’s territorial integrity.

The UN did send peacekeeping forces. But all that the peacekeeping forces did was simply watch the country fragmenting piece by piece. Desperate to preserve the unity of the country, Lumumba started looking elsewhere for assistance. Because his country was falling apart in front of his eyes - a resource rich province had broken away, foreign troops remained on Congolese soil, and the government of a nation that was barely a few weeks old was struggling to assert its authority.

At the same time when Congo gained independence, the global politics of the Cold War also entered the picture.

The world stayed divided into two rival camps - on one side stood the United States and its allies, on the other stood the Soviet Union and its bloc of communist states. Both sides viewed the world as a giant chessboard, and every newly independent nation was seen as a potential piece that could strengthen one camp or the other.

When it was Congo’s turn to decide between the two, Lumumba stayed firm that his priority was not the ideology, but saving the Congo. So, if one door was closed, he was prepared to knock on another. Since the United Nations, majorly stated on USA’s side, and that they were providing limited support, Lumumba sought assistance from the Soviet Union. That single decision flipped things over.

Almost overnight, Lumumba stopped being viewed as an African nationalist trying to preserve his country’s unity, and instead, many Western governments began viewing him through the lens of the Cold War. Western media began to identify him as a communist, and a person who betrayed his nation to join forces with the Soviet Union which might gain influence over one of the most strategically important and resource rich countries in Africa. Hence, the pressure around Lumumba intensified dramatically. Political rivals saw an opportunity.

And within his own government, divisions grew deeper by the day. The fragile partnership between President Joseph Kasa-Vubu and Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba soon began to unravel. Both men disagreed on how the crisis should be handled. What started as political disagreements gradually escalated into a power struggle. Each claimed legitimacy, each accused the other of endangering the nation. And the government descended into paralysis.

At the very moment the country needed strong leadership, its highest offices were locked in open conflict. While the two leaders battled each other, another figure quietly positioned himself in the background. His name was Joseph-Désiré Mobutu. Mobutu was not an outsider to Lumumba’s movement, in fact, quite the opposite. He had worked closely with Lumumba and had risen through the political ranks with his support. Lumumba trusted him. He believed Mobutu was committed to the future of the Congo.

But that trust would prove costly. In September 1960, Mobutu stepped in, presenting himself as a neutral figure who could restore order and prevent the political crisis from spiralling further out of control. In reality, he was carrying out a coup. Backed by powerful interests who had grown increasingly uncomfortable with Lumumba, Mobutu effectively removed him from power.

For Lumumba, the betrayal was devastating. The man he had helped elevate had now turned against him. The leader who had stood before enormous crowds during the independence movement suddenly found himself politically isolated.

Yet there remained one problem for his opponents.

Despite losing power, Lumumba had not lost his popularity.

Across large parts of the country, ordinary Congolese people still saw him as the legitimate leader of the nation. They viewed him as the man who had spoken truth to colonial power, the man who had fought for genuine independence rather than symbolic independence.

As long as he remained free, he remained a threat. And as long as he remained a threat, powerful people wanted him removed.

Lumumba attempted to leave the capital and reach supporters elsewhere in the country. He hoped to regroup and continue the struggle.

But he never got the chance, as he was captured by forces loyal to Mobutu. The images that emerged shocked many people across Africa. The man who had stood proudly at the independence ceremony was now being paraded as a prisoner. He was beaten, humiliated and treated as though he were a criminal.

Yet the spectacle had an unintended effect - rather than destroying his reputation, it strengthened it. The more people saw his humiliation, the more they began to view him as a martyr.

In January 1961, the situation reached its tragic conclusion. Lumumba was transferred to Katanga, the very province whose secession he had spent months trying to prevent. There, alongside two of his closest allies, he was tortured and executed at 35.

The story might have ended there. But those responsible for his death understood that killing him was not enough, they also had to kill whatever he represented. They feared the possibility that future generations might rally around his memory. So they attempted something extraordinary - his body was destroyed. Those involved in the killing dismembered his remains and dissolved them in acid, hoping to erase all physical evidence of his existence. No grave, no memorial, no place where people could gather and remember.

It was an attempt not just to kill a man, but to erase him from history itself.

But they failed miserably again. Lumumba became larger than he had ever been in life.

Across Africa, his name spread far beyond the borders of the Congo. He came to symbolise the broader struggle against colonial domination and foreign interference. His story became the holy grail encompassing the frustrations of countless newly independent nations that discovered political freedom did not automatically bring true control over their own affairs.

Many countries had lowered colonial flags, but far fewer had escaped colonial influence. For millions of Africans, Lumumba represented the unfinished business of independence. He represented the belief that a nation’s resources should benefit its own people, he represented the idea that sovereignty should mean more than a ceremony. And perhaps most importantly, he represented the refusal to remain silent in the face of injustice.

More than six decades later, his speeches are still studied. His image still appears in public spaces. His name continues to inspire political movements, activists and ordinary citizens across the continent.

Which brings us back to that football stadium. Back to the sea of flags, the chants, the drums and the celebrations of the 2026 FIFA World Cup. Amid thousands of supporters cheering for the Democratic Republic of Congo stood one man who refused to sing, dance or wave a banner - Michel Kuka Mboladinga stood perfectly still, his right arm raised, recreating the posture of Patrice Lumumba. His presence now takes on an entirely different meaning. He was reminding people that behind every flag at a World Cup lies a history, and that some histories are written not only in triumphs but also in sacrifices.

I am not someone who watches a film because of its actor, listens to a song because of its singer, or reads a story because of its writer. To me, stories have always mattered to me more than the names attached to them. But there is one exception. If a film is written by PS Mithran, I’m already in. I know what I am signing up for, but I don’t know what exactly I am signing up for, and that’s exactly what makes him my favourite filmmaker

And the interesting part about him is that, despite directing only three mainstream films so far, he has silently built one of the most distinctive filmographies in contemporary Tamil cinema - one is an action thriller, another is a superhero drama, and the third is a spy espionage film. None of them seem to resemble one another on the surface. Yet every time the credits roll, I leave the theatre with the same feeling - I haven’t merely been entertained, I’ve unknowingly attended a masterclass on a subject I probably would never have explored on my own.

And now, if you haven’t watched his films, let me first bring you onto the same page before I explain why I think filmmakers like him are so important (without much spoilers).

His directorial debut, Irumbu Thirai (2018), follows Kathiravan (Vishal), an Army Major trying to arrange funds for his sister’s wedding after years of serving the Army and being emotionally distant from his family for that duration. And this seemingly ordinary financial problem of asking for loans from banks spirals into a confrontation with username White Devil, a sophisticated cybercriminal who happens to be a hero to the rest of the world. What begins as the story of a brother trying to help his sister slowly transforms into a story of digital privacy, data exploitation, digital surveillance, cyber warfare, and how easily ordinary people surrender their personal information without understanding its value.

His second film, Hero (2019), starts with Sakthi (Sivakarthikeyan), a boy who once dreamed of becoming a superhero after watching Shakthimaan, before life pushed him towards forging educational certificates for a living. But his life changes when he decides to help his neighbour, a gifted student whose revolutionary invention is stolen through manipulated patent laws. And now, what follows is framed as a superhero origin story of Sakthi wearing the same mask and the cape he once wanted to, but to save the system. Underneath the masks and gadgets, lies a fierce criticism of an education system that rewards conformity over creativity and allows ideas to become a commodity owned by the powerful rather than the deserving.

Then came Sardar (2022), perhaps his most ambitious film. On paper, it is a spy thriller about a police officer named Vijay Prakash (Karthi) trying to solve random cases as a policeman and publicise them just so that he could erase the stigma that surrounds him, as being the son of a national traitor. But as the story unfolds, he realises that he and his dad fought the same enemy from opposite sides of the law, and from there on, it expands into a story about water adulteration, monopolisation of natural resources, geopolitical strategy and corporate greed. It asks an disturbing question: what if the greatest battles of the future are not fought over borders, but over something as fundamental as clean drinking water?

These are three films, three genres, three entirely different protagonists. Yet somehow they all feel like chapters from the same conversation. And that was when I realised something - He never intended to make an action film, a superhero film or a spy thriller. He wanted to make stories about invisible problems, cleverly disguised as commercial entertainers.

That, to me, is the defining quality of his cinema.

“The moment your audience forgets they’re learning, you’ve already taught them.”

I cannot think of a filmmaker who embodies that philosophy better.

And the brilliance lies in how effortlessly he does it.

Like every film begins somewhere deeply personal, something that audience can relate to - a family trying to organise a wedding, a child who dreams of becoming a superhero after watching Shakthimaan, a police team investigating the death of a social activist. Nothing about those tells you that, over the next three hours, you’ll find yourself thinking about cybersecurity, intellectual property law or geopolitical resource control. The transition is so gradual that you never notice when the lesson begins. And by the time you realise what the film is actually about, you’re already emotionally invested in the people living through it. That is storytelling at its finest.

“The greatest teachers never announce that they are teaching. And the greatest education never feels like education. Good stories teach, and great stories never admit it”. That’s exactly where PS Mithran makes his mark.

Every one of his films follows what is called the Trojan Horse principle - the real subject of the film is carefully hidden inside a genre audiences already love. Irumbu Thirai is sold as an action thriller. Hero is sold as a superhero film. Sardar is sold as a spy espionage drama. If these films had instead been marketed as “a film about digital privacy”, “a film about patent manipulation”, or “a film about water monopolisation”, most people would probably scroll past them - as they hear enough of these in news and other media, and that alone is enough to create an aversion towards them. But for PS Mithran, the genre, is camouflage - he can make the audience willingly walk into the theatre believing they are there for action, suspense or spectacle. And the education quietly seeps in alongside the entertainment.

Now, the first criticism people say is that “But why make a movie instead of a documentary? A movie is supposed to be for entertainment, not education”. But I don’t think documentaries could have achieved what his films did. People who choose to watch documentaries on cybercrime probably already have some interest in cybersecurity. But commercial cinema reaches an entirely different audience. It reaches people who had absolutely no intention of learning about these subjects. That is what makes it such a powerful educational medium - that it is designed for “mass audience”, not “class audience”.

Moreover, one of the cleverest decisions PS Mithran makes is choosing ordinary protagonists, who are not experts in the main theme of the film. The hero doesn’t walks into the room already knowing everything. For instance, Kathiravan is an Army officer, not a cybersecurity specialist. Sakthi is an educational broker/conman, not an inventor or legal expert. Vijay Prakash is a police officer, not a geopolitical analyst. None of them begin as specialists - because neither are we. So, his protagonists become stand ins for the audience, like our representatives inside the story. They discover the problem exactly as we do, they ask the questions we would ask, they misunderstand the things we would misunderstand. As they slowly assemble the bigger picture, so do we.

Now imagine if Irumbu Thirai had followed a tech guy instead of an Army Major. The audience would simply be watching someone smarter than them solve problems they barely understand using random jargon. But that didn’t happen with him being an Army major, as the issues were discussed from the ground up - and that is one of the things he has succeeded in doing.

One other aspect of his writing that deserves far more appreciation is how he treats his female characters. In many commercial films, women are often reduced to love interests, emotional support, or characters who simply exist to be rescued. But he avoids that trap. Kathiravan’s sister in Irumbu Thirai is far more than the reason he enters the conflict - her impending marriage becomes the emotional anchor that transforms an abstract cybercrime into a deeply personal crisis. In Hero, Mathi (Ivana) isn’t written as someone waiting for the hero to save her - she is the brightest mind in the room, the inventor whose stolen innovation drives the entire story forward. Without her, there is no film. In Sardar, Sameera (Laila) is not a bystander to the conspiracy but the person courageous enough to uncover it in the first place and expose it. And even after her death, every major revelation stems from the investigation she had already begun. In his films, the male protagonists don’t create these stories, they inherit them from a female. In a film industry where female characters are often remembered for songs or screen presence, PS Mithran ensures they are remembered, because the story itself cannot exist without them. Now, if you wanna argue that the secondary female characters are well written, but the primary female leads come out as just another typical character from commercial movies, please read the second point of the postscript (PS) at the bottom.

Another pattern one can is that every protagonist begins with a personal flaw - Kathiravan struggles with anger and resentment, Sakthi lacks direction and wastes his potential, Vijay Prakash carries the stigma of being the son of a traitor. Interestingly, these emotional flaws aren’t separate from the larger conflict. They prepare the protagonists for it. Kathiravan must learn trust before exposing a system built on deception. Sakthi must learn responsibility before protecting innovation. Vijay must discover the truth before uncovering an even greater conspiracy. Their emotional journeys and the societal issues they confront move in parallel, never independently.

This becomes even more interesting when you notice the father-son relationships across all three films. In Irumbu Thirai, Kathiravan spends years despising his father for being financially irresponsible, only to discover that those debts existed because his father sacrificed everything trying to save his wife. In Hero, Sakthi believes his had father abandoned him after selling his marksheet in exchange for money to save his ill father, while his father believes Sakthi wasted the future he had earned from his hardwork. Only later do both understand each other’s choices. In Sardar, Vijay grows up believing his father destroyed their family by betraying the nation, only to learn that his father sacrificed his reputation, his family and his entire life for the country. The father or the son is never truly the villain. Just that one half doesn’t possess the complete story, which he makes it clearer in the pre credits text in Sardar that says “Every father is an unsung hero, just like a spy”.

Now, getting back to the main theme of PS Mithran’s films: The villains themselves are never the villains. The real antagonist is something much larger. Every one of his films asks the same question, although in different forms. Not, “What happens if this villain wins?” Instead, he asks “What happens when society places its trust in the wrong system?”. The villains merely expose weaknesses that already existed. They don’t create the cracks, they exploit them. And that difference is important. Because his films never ask us to admire the hero or to despise the villain. They just ask us to question the world.

For instance, the takeaway from Irumbu Thirai isn’t that Kathiravan is an extraordinary superhuman, it is just that perhaps we should think more carefully about our own digital footprint. The takeaway from Hero isn’t that Sakthi became a superhero, it is that children deserve the freedom to think differently, and to think for themselves. And the takeaway from Sardar isn’t simply that Vijay uncovers a conspiracy, it is that the things we take for granted today may become tomorrow’s greatest vulnerabilities. In simple words, the protagonists are temporary, but the questions remain.

I also admire how much trust PS Mithran places in us, the audience - he doesn’t constantly pause the narrative to explain every concept in exhaustive detail. Instead, he gives viewers enough pieces to assemble the larger picture themselves. That creates a unique kind of satisfaction. We enjoy stories more when they allow us to participate rather than merely observe. And we feel intelligent because we arrived at the conclusion ourselves.

And in fact, there’s one thing he does that a lot of other filmmakers don’t - he treats the audience as a real, functioning part of the filmmaking process, not as a distant endpoint. But more specifically, when he says “audience”, he doesn’t include himself or people like him, who get a high through thinking, through introspection, or by hearing a piece of information. He refers to the “general audience” - the ones who come in purely for entertainment, without any obligation to decode the subtext, read between the lines or appreciate the craft.

And the way he does this is interesting too - during an early edit of Irumbu Thirai, there was an auto rickshaw driver, who had come to the studio to deliver something, and he had to wait there for a couple of hours before he could leave. Rather than letting him sit idle, Mithran invited him to watch the rough cut of the film, to which the driver agreed. So, the driver watched it and enjoyed it. But PS Mithran didn’t just leave it at that - he asked the driver what didn’t make sense, what felt unclear, where the narrative slipped or confused him. And based on those responses, certain portions of the film were reworked. And the same approach was repeated with technicians, office staff, and other random, unfiltered viewers, like people who weren’t conditioned to “read” films in a formal sense. Overtime, this evolved into a more structured process during Sardar, where instead of casual feedback, he began distributing simple questionnaires designed specifically to avoid ambiguity. The questions were kept deliberately straightforward, so that audience can answer it without any cinematic literacy and their answers could be interpreted as well.

And to eliminate subconscious biases, the screenings themselves were anonymised, with the people watching the clips not being told whose film they were seeing, and in some cases were led to believe they were given an opportunity to watch the first copy of the film, as attempt to preserve honesty in response. When he was asked about this approach, especially in an industry where secrecy the key and even the faintest details of a film is well guarded from outsiders as they’d spoil the film, his reasoning was so mature. He says that, all of the hype and the surprise ends with the first show, and it just ends with that, and that too in an age of social media, the “shocks”, “twists” or “cameos” are not something that survive long. So instead of obsessing over preserving secrecy, he places his focus elsewhere - on whether the film actually works for the people it is ultimately meant for. Because, a film doesn’t succeed when it is merely protected from spoilers. It succeeds when it survives contact with people who owe it nothing.

There is one other thing that he understands better than most filmmakes out there - that we humans don’t remember facts particularly well, we remember emotions. Years from now, many viewers may forget the names of the characters, or the details in the movie. But they’ll remember “the hacking film”, “the movie about students whose inventions were stolen”, or “the film about water bottles”. These stories become emotional storage devices for ideas. The emotion just anchors the memory, and this memory carries the lesson long after the facts begin to fade.

Personally, I feel this is exactly where he differs from other filmmakers - he doesn’t create awareness, he creates relevance. Awareness alone rarely changes behaviour. Like most people already know cybercrime exists, people know water pollution and issues around water exist, people know corruption exists and that education is a booming business. Yet those issues remain distant because they don’t feel personal. So, what he does is, he never begins by explaining why an issue is important. He begins by making us care about someone affected by it.

And perhaps the biggest reason this approach works is because we don’t fear problems we can’t imagine. Most of the issues he explores are almost invisible by nature - cyber attacks happen inside servers, water contamination happens inside pipelines, patent theft happens inside legal documents and corporate boardrooms. And none of these are visually dramatic enough to naturally capture public attention. So, he interviews dozens of experts, gathers immense knowledge of the subject, and uses the liberty of cinema, to gives these invisible problems a face, a family, a victim and a story. A cybercrime is personified from being lines of code on a screen to a brother desperately trying to save his sister’s wedding. Patent theft is personified from paperwork to a student watching her future disappear before her eyes. Water contamination is personified from a policy debate to a threat to ordinary lives. Once audiences can imagine these problems, they can finally empathise with them. And once you begin caring, that learning happens almost automatically.

He doesn’t educate by explaining. He educates by making us feel vulnerable.

His films also answer questions people never knew they had. Educational content usually begins with a question. “What is infrastructure intrusion?” “What is a patent?” “How does water privatisation work?”. But nobody searches for questions they don’t know exist. And again, he takes the same liberty of cinema to first create the question, and then, after the credits roll, audiences begin searching. Is cybercrime really this sophisticated? Can patents genuinely be manipulated? Has something like this happened before?

The film becomes the first chapter of someone’s education on the topic. And Google becomes the second. That, to me, is one of the greatest measures of a film’s success. Some films leave audiences discussing the climax or praising the protagonist. Others leave audiences searching for answers.

This is the reason filmmakers like PS Mithran matter today - the theatre remains one of the last truly shared classrooms we have left. For three hours, people from different professions, educational backgrounds, age groups and economic classes sit together and experience the same story. A film doesn’t need every single person to agree with its message. It simply needs everyone to encounter the same idea. Shared exposure itself has value - some may forget it, but others will discuss it over dinner, some others will spend the next week reading about it, someone might even change the way they use resources because of it, and even better - some may use their expertise to solve those problems, some may be inspired to take up a profession that solves these problems. That possibility alone makes cinema incredibly powerful.

Entertainment and education are not opposites. Spectacle and substance are not enemies. When handled with the kind of precision and restraint that PS Mithran consistently demonstrates, they strengthen each other.

There is this saying - “A fighter fights for today, a revolutionary fights for tomorrow”, and that perfectly describes PS Mithran’s approach to storytelling. While many films respond to the concerns of the present, his films anticipate the concerns of the future. Years before digital privacy became part of everyday conversation, he was talking about cybercrime. Before discussions about innovation theft could reach mainstream audiences, he built an entire film around it. Before water security could become a topic regularly discussed in public discourse, he imagined a future where water itself becomes the greatest weapon. He captures the problems of tomorrow inside the films of today, and prepares them for the world they are about to inherit. And he mentions another thing - he doesn’t have a collection of problems and build the stories around them hoping to change the society through them. All that he wants to do is to give audience the same experience and the mental shock that he personally gets from discovering an unexpected piece of information. The fundamental point is to give people something to think about and carry home while walking away from the theatre - nothing more, nothing less.

Perhaps that is what great cinema was always meant to do - not merely to help us escape reality for few hours, but to prepare us for the reality waiting outside the theatre. And if a story can do that, then it has accomplished something far greater than entertainment.

Because that is the kind of cinema that stays with you. It doesn’t end when the credits roll. It begins there.

PS:

1. Those who haven’t seen these films, please do. You’d never regret it. You can watch all of them with your family as well - no obscene scenes or anything of that sort.

2. Now, few of you might argue that there were some unnecessary romantic scenes - like the love scenes of Kathiravan and Rathi Devi (Samantha), the love scenes of Sakthi and Meera (Kalyani Priyadarshan), the scenes of Vijay Prakash with Shalini (Raashi Khanna). Yes, I admit, they didn’t work for me either. But this was just PS Mithran’s way of letting the dominoes fall.

   1. In Irumbu Thirai, Rathi Devi is the one who identifies that Kathiravan’s real problem is unresolved resentment, and makes him to go home after years of staying away from it. And that single suggestion starts the entire plot, without which, he never learns about his sister’s wedding, never applies for the loan and never enters this network at all. And also instead of simply comforting him during a loss, she helps him process guilt rationally, and encourages him to stop thinking like a victim and start investigating, to stop asking “Why me?” and start asking “Who did this?”. She even acts as the sacrificial pawn later on.

   2. In Hero, while Sakthi starts off as a conman, he’s not exactly evil, just cynical, with a philosophy of “The system is corrupt anyway”. But Meera challenges that philosophy, and instead of condemning him completely, she understands his side of things, and tells him “If you’re really a good person, prove it by helping Mathi”, which is the first genuinely selfless thing Sakthi does. And by doing so, she connects Sakthi to the larger conflict. Without Meera, Sakthi never meets Mathi properly, he never tries to get her into college, Mathi’s invention never reaches Mahadev, Sakthi never discovers the innovation racket. And even after Mathi dies, Sakthi becomes obsessed with revenge. But Meera keeps reminding him that the goal isn’t merely revenge, it is changing the system.

   3. And in Sardar, Shalini is already fighting Rathore legally before Vijay becomes interested in it, and even when Vijay initially thinks Sameera is a criminal, Shalini believes her, and prevents Vijay Prakash’s tunnel vision from framing an innocent. Also, since Vijay Prakash views everything through the lens of “How can I catch the criminal and prove that I am nothing like my father”, but Shalini made him ask “What if the supposed criminal is innocent?” and repeatedly reminds him that justice matters more than reputation. She also gathers evidence, and throughout the investigation she analyses documents, follows Sameera’s trail, questions witnesses, connects pieces of evidence and helps decode Sardar’s past.

   

3. I was kinda scared of his next movie Sardar 2, and was slightly concerned if he would move away from his style of filmmaking, milk on the success of the previous part, focus more on larger than life elements and lose his individuality. But because of one of his interviews where he said “The first and the foremost thing is to write a story that everyone understand. And second, that story which is understandable must also be entertaining and engaging. And the third thing, my personal choice, is to make them think about the film. I want to do a film that people connect with, people understand, people are entertained and people have something to think about. There are a lot of checkboxes. In this ambition, sometimes you lose, sometimes you win. But this ambition is going to stay”, I am hopeful that it wouldn’t be the case, although, he might have the pressure of box office from his producers, which might derail him.

   

4. Few other films you might like if you like his films (spoiler free plotlines):

   1. Kanithan by T. N. Santosh - Gowtham Ramalingam, a TV journalist, is falsely accused in a massive fake degree certificate scam that destroys his career. As he struggles to prove his innocence, he uncovers a deeper network manipulating academic identity across institutions and banks. What begins as a personal fight turns into an investigative mission against a hidden system of fraud. With the help of his close allies, he uses journalism itself as a weapon to expose the truth.

   2. FIR by Manu Anand - The life of a chemical engineering graduate named Irfan Ahmed spirals into chaos after he is wrongly implicated in a terror bombing case, when a series of unrelated incidents and his religious background are stitched together to form a narrative against him. Now, being branded as a dangerous extremist, Irfan is subjected to custody, and media trials who begin connecting fragments of his past that appear suspicious only when isolated from context. As media narratives grow louder, Irfan is denied the space to defend himself properly, in a system that has already labeled him guilty. His frantic efforts to identify the actual terrorist and get himself out of the case forms the rest of the story.

   3. Ippadai Vellum - A jobless software engineer and a dubbing artist find their lives turned upside down after a chance encounter with India’s most wanted terrorist. Mistaken as his accomplices, they are hunted by the police and forced to go on the run to prove their innocence. Racing against time, with both the police and the real perpetrators closing in, they embark on a desperate mission to uncover the truth and clear their names, with their unlikely partnership becoming the key to exposing a dangerous network before innocent lives are lost.

   4. Velaikkaran (ideologically similar to Hero) - A young professional uncovers a network of unethical practices hidden behind the polished image of the food industry. It pulls back the curtain on the FMCG industry, revealing the pressures, compromises, and hidden decisions that shape the products reaching millions of households. At its center is a young man who refuses to accept that unethical business practices are simply part of the system, who is faced with powerful corporations that treat quality as a business decision rather than a responsibility.

   5. Maattrraan - Conjoined twins Akhilan and Vimalan grow up with completely different ways of seeing the world - one being studious and disciplined, the other carefree and impulsive. And their father, a brilliant geneticist, has built a powerful biotech company that promises to change modern nutrition, and for a while, life seems stable within that success. But as they step into adulthood they realise that there’s more behind the company and their own origins than they were ever told.

   6. Thani oruvan - Probably the most known from this list. It is the story of an intelligent IPS officer who while investigating isolated murders, kidnappings, and corporate crimes begins to see patterns no one else can. And in this pursuit leads him to a hidden network where politicians, industrialists, scientists, and criminals function as interconnected nodes of a single person - a brilliant scientist who always seems one step ahead of him, all while remaining legally insulated. The movie has no fight scenes, although the movie is about the conflict of good vs evil, as all the fights are fought on their minds. Essentially based on the concept of “Tell me who you your enemy is, I will tell you who you are”

   

   Also, credits to and for making me think of this

Chapter 1: The Girl Who Asked Why

It was May 28, 2030. 12:16 in the afternoon. Evermont High School

The atmosphere in Room 408 was unusually cheerful. Their biology teacher had called in sick that morning. From the eyes of the students, that was forty minutes of freedom, time to do anything except biology. The room was dissolved in noise and chaos, already convinced that little learning would take place.

Eva Carter, just another girl in the class, sat by the window and watched the clouds pass through the pale blue sky, and underneath it, kids were cheerfully playing football in the playground. Her eyes suddenly fell on two birds building a nest over one of the trees.

As she was simpering looking at the birds, she noticed the noise of the classroom fading away.

A substitute had walked in.

Most substitute teachers would arrive carrying worksheets or test papers. But this man carried neither. He looked younger than most of the staff. He gently removed his coat, clung it on the hanger, and introduced himself to the class.

“Good afternoon children! I am Dr Ethan Graham, and I teach biology to seniors”. As he was saying this, he glanced at the lesson plan waiting on the desk, and let out a smirk on his face.

“Your teacher wants you to spend the next hour reviewing cellular respiration” he announced.

A collective groan of “Not again!” rolled across the room.

“That was my reaction too”, Dr Ethan chuckled.

The class burst into laughter, as Dr Ethan folded the lesson plan in half and placed it back on the desk.

He informed the students “Okay, let’s talk about something more interesting”.

And that caught their attention.

He drew a marker from his pocket, uncapped it and turned to the whiteboard. He simply stood there for a while, thinking. Then he wrote five words:

WHERE DID LIFE COME FROM?

Dr Ethan leaned against the front of the desk and looked around the room.

“Anybody?”

A hand shot up immediately.

“Evolution!!” he shouted

Dr Ethan smiled, nodded his head and said “Common answer. For the wrong question”.

The student frowned.

“Evolution explains how life changes once it exists. It doesn’t explain how life begins.” he explained.

A few students exchanged glances like they understood it all.

Another hand rose.

“It emerged from the ocean?”

“Closer.”

“We are living in a simulation!! Someone programmed us!!” someone else exclaimed.

“Also possible.”

“What about God?” a voice from the back offered.

Dr Ethan smiled.

“Biology classroom. Nice try!”

Laughter broke out.

Eva found herself smiling too.

As time passed by, the students realised that there was something unusual about the way he taught. Most teachers delivered information as though carrying a package from one side of the room to the other. But Dr Ethan seemed more interested in wandering.

For him, every question became a doorway for imagination, and everytime a question was answered, he made sure another one quietly followed. He treated every “Why?” as if it were the most important experiment in the world.

Soon the discussion had drifted toward how the early Earth looked. He described a planet almost unrecognisable compared to the one outside the classroom windows. There were no forests, no birds, no cities, no people. It was a hostile place - it cracked open constantly, bleeding molten rock into skies that had no mercy and no blue. The skies were wrathful - churning with heavy clouds of ash and corrosive vapour, thick enough to hide the Sun and yet bright with constant violence. And the oceans - vast and endless, they boiled at the edges of volcanic vents. They were not gentle waters but chemical storms that could strip flesh from bone. It was from one of these waters that the first life on Earth had formed he said.

Then he told them about the Miller-Urey experiment - about two scientists in the 1950s trying to recreate the conditions of the young Earth inside a laboratory apparatus and see if life could form there.

“Water was heated to create vapour, gases circulated through glass chambers to simulate the atmosphere, the electrical sparks simulated lightning flashing.”

“And after a few days…” he said, drawing the apparatus on the board, “they found amino acids!!”

Several students stared at him. They didn’t know what an amino acid was!! They collectively in a puzzled tone ask - “So?”

Dr Ethan writes the word on the whiteboard, and says “Amino acids are some of the building blocks used by life. They are the life’s alphabet, DNA are the words made from them. And you are a beautiful chapter made from those words!!”

He followed it up with “In other words, Miller and Urey managed show how life’s alphabet could be written with the ink of nonliving matter”. The room grew noticeably quieter, and Eva sat up with amusement!!

“Life’s alphabet” - she wrote the phrase in her notebook. She knew it was not going to appear on an exam, but she liked the way it sounded.

The discussion continued. Students interrupted constantly, and Dr Ethan seemed delighted every time they did. Questions bounced around the room.

• How accurate was the experiment?

• Did scientists know what Earth’s atmosphere had really been like?

• Could life begin near underwater volcanic vents instead?

• Does this experiment prove that life began this way?

• Why do we need electricity for this?

• Did other scientists conduct experiments like this ever again?

Dr Ethan answered all those questions!! And mentioned a couple more experiments that followed up as well, like the Joan Oró’s Adenine Synthesis which showed that a nitrogenous bases like adenine, a component of DNA and RNA, could form from concentrated hydrogen cyanide solutions, Bar-Nun & Hartman UV photolysis and the Ponnamperuma Experiments which used ultraviolet light to drive chemical reactions in mixtures thought to mimic early Earth conditions, Sutherland's Prebiotic Nucleotide Synthesis and all of that. With these, time had passed away in a jiffy!

And just 10 minutes before the class could end, a student near the front raised her hand - “Okay, but if life is just the product of such chemical reactions, couldn’t it happen somewhere else too?”

Dr Ethan’s smile widened.

“Now you’re asking dangerous questions.”

More laughter.

He began talking about Mars, then Europa, then Enceladus, then exoplanets orbiting distant stars - the ones with oceans beneath ice, the ones with methane skies, the ones that circle red suns hundreds of light-years away.

And now, the classroom grew even even wild. A student in the second row asked, “What if life didn’t actually start on Earth?”

The room fell silent.

Dr Ethan set down the marker, and smiled again!!

“There’s an idea called panspermia” he said. “It proposes that life, or the ingredients for life, might have travelled between worlds. Microorganisms hidden within meteorites, or organic compounds carried by comets - they might have been the reason as to how life formed on Earth!!”

“Aliens?” the students screamed in excitement.

“Technically.” Dr Ethan admitted, “yes”

The room went silent again, and this time even the students who usually spent lessons half-asleep were listening actively.

Then Dr Ethan hesitated.

“There is another possibility. It is highly debatable, and most scientists don’t accept it because there is little evidence supporting it. But it’s an interesting thought experiment.”

“Imagine an ancient alien civilisation - older than humanity by millions of years. And they happen to discover a young, lifeless planet orbiting an ordinary star, they might have called something else, but we call that Earth. They realise that this planet would potentially be habitable. And they pay a visit to it - not as invaders, but to destroy themselves on it, so that the genetic material they leave behind would one day evolve into other life forms that we know today!!”

The classroom erupted in a wild conversation again!!

Dr Ethan added, “What if the greatest achievement available to any intelligent species isn’t building empires or technologies? What if it’s becoming a gardener to another species entirely?”

Eva felt something stir inside her. It was not exactly excitement, but something deeper, she couldn’t explain.

Dr Ethan continued, “The hypothesis is called Paleocontact. The idea that before Earth’s first living cell emerged, another intelligence intervened deliberately, simply to begin a story.”

And for reasons she couldn’t explain, Eva loved this theory!! She imagined ancient travellers crossing impossible distances, to reach a lifeless Earth waiting in darkness, to gift it with something really really rare!

Her hand rose before she realised she was raising it.

Dr Ethan pointed towards her.

“Yes?”

Eva swallowed.

“If life on Earth came from somewhere else...then where did life on that world come from?”

The noise faded away again. Dr Ethan looked at her for several seconds - not surprised, not amused, but proud, like a climber reaching a summit and discovering that someone else had already arrived.

Finally, he smiled. But this time, it was not the polite smile of a teacher humoring a student, but the real one, the one that meant the question had landed somewhere it mattered.

“That,” he said, “is the question worth spending a life on!”

The bell rang moments later. The spell broke, the students stood, thanking him. The chairs scraped, the conversations returned as students broke out for lunch. But Eva remained seated. The whiteboard still stood at the front of the room, the words were still there: WHERE DID LIFE COME FROM?

For the first time in her fifteen years, she understood that there were questions so large a single lifetime might not be enough to answer them. It was at this moment she decides, she was going to become an Astrobiologist!! Just to answer that one question - Where did life come from?

And today, on 15th May 2053, 23 years later, Eva has the opportunity to answer that one question that started it all!

Chapter 2: The Map Hidden in Stone

Eva was preparing to leave the planet in search of its answer. The hatch of ASCENDANT stood open before her. Yeah, it was called “Operation ASCENDANT”. It stood for “Ancestral Search for the Civilisation behind Earth's Natal DNA and Ancient Nexus Trails”.

And just like the acronym, the story behind ASCENDANT was pretty interesting too!!

Because humanity had not gone looking for the architects of life. It had stumbled upon them by accident. It had started, as so many things do, with someone paying attention to something so random.

It all began a dozen years ago, on the 1st of September 2041, when a hydrogeologist Dr Luca Serrano and a stratigrapher Dr Nasia Hayes were conducting a geological survey in Greenland’s Isua Greenstone Belt, which is one of the oldest surviving pieces of Earth’s crust. They had spent almost a year and a half documenting rock formations, collecting samples, and cataloguing anything unusual they encountered. Most days followed the same routine. This part of the Earth was ancient, but rarely surprising.

And just like that, they decide to examine a cave system which was recently exposed by a glacial retreat. Just few metres into the cave, Nasia turns on her headlamp, and immediately notices something strange on the cave wall. She could find some dots carved on the caves in a random manner, almost like they were scattered.

They were not dramatic enough to demand attention. In fact, Luca almost walked past them. But soon after Nasia’s eyes fell on them, she calls Luca and shows him the same. Neither of them know what they could be. Both of them deduce that they could have been nothing more than just the result of some obscure geological process.

They walk for a few metres again, into another cave and find the same pattern. And this happens two more times. Neither of them are exactly sure what they are, but Luca photographs them anyway, partly out of habit and partly because unusual things were worth documenting, even when they made no sense.

Few months later, the photographs were uploaded to a shared research archive among thousands of others, with a short note under them describing them as an anomalous formation of unknown origin.

Their survey was completed, the reports were written, both scientists returned to their lab work, and both of them had forgotten about the markings.

For several months, the photographs remained untouched.

All until one random night, when an astrophysicist named Dr Sylvan Puck came across them randomly while scrolling through his laptop. Even Sylvan had almost scrolled past them, but he again scrolled back, because the arrangement of the dots caught his attention. He didn’t know why, but the pattern simply felt familiar.

He enlarged the image and stared at it for several minutes before opening a star catalogue. But he could find no match there. He then started comparing the markings to every single stellar database he could access. But again, there was no luck.

And suddenly it struck - why was he looking at only the current position of stars? He immediately began analysing their positions, their movement over time, and built a model that could simulate the gradual drift of stars across immense stretches of time. He now, he began scouring for this pattern. After few hours of tedious simulations, Sylvan understood what it was.

He immediately contacted Luca, emailing him something that sounded like his version of Eureka, and asked him “Where did you find a star map like that? Was it somewhere near the North pole?”

Luca immediately responds with “Yeah. But why do you seem so excited by it?”

Sylvan reveals his findings - They are the coordinates pointing towards a star system over 20 light years away from Earth. And more interestingly, they would not map to the current positions of the star. Because, the star map was based off the positions of the star system roughly 4.2 billion years ago, as though someone had stood at the location that would one day be called the North Pole, and recorded the positions of the stars overhead.

But that was the problem - 4.2 billion years ago, Earth was just 340 million years old, it was still young. The first oceans were only beginning to form, and the first life form on Earth had not yet appeared. And whoever created the map had done so before life existed on Earth. The mathematics didn’t add up.

Both Sylvan and Luca found this interesting, yet bizarre. After weeks of breaking their heads over this, they together publish their findings as a research paper. As expected, the scientific community responded with scepticism. But then few other researchers visited the Isua Greenstone Belt out of curiosity, and independent teams began recreating the simulations, with astrophysicists, geologists, mathematicians, archaeologists, and computer scientists from across the world putting in their efforts to verify this.

For the next couple of months, this became the talk of the scientific community. But soon, the talks reached beyond the scientific community. By then, several scientists verified Sylvan’s claim to be true. Hence, it was revealed to the public

The next week, the headlines of every newspaper, and the trending news of every social media was the same - that the coordinates mapped to the position of a star system named the Arecibo Theta, and that too where it was 4.2 billion years ago!! Scientists named the pattern the Lascaux Coordinates. The public could not contain the frolic, and conspiracy theories began to pour in from different parts of the world.

And one of the theories that resurfaced back, was the Paleocontact theory - the same thing that Dr Ethan was skeptical of few decades ago. The idea that aliens visited Earth from one of the planets from that star system and had themselves killed on Earth, so that life could originate here. And before they left their lives, they had also etched the positions of their home planet onto the caves, which somehow ended up being the Lascaux Coordinates as we call them today. This theory, which probably would have been brushed off as a conspiracy few years ago, is now the leading light, since a lot of evidences point to it, and a lot of people believe in it.

In no time, governments became involved, space agencies redirected funding, and international alliances formed around a single objective - if the coordinates represented humanity’s point of origin, then somebody had to go there - to see our creators, to see how much their civilisation has grown ever since, to see if they even survived the 4 billion years in between, to see if they were waiting for one of their descendants to pay them a visit, and to see if they were the only species created by those aliens.

No one knew whether those intelligent life, or in other words, ‘Aliens’, still existed there, and no telescope could answer that question. But what scientists did know was that someone, at some point in the distant past, had wanted humanity to find that location if we succeed at becoming a spacefaring civilisation.

And a project which emerged from those discussions was called Operation ECHO - Expedition to Contact Humanity’s Origins.

The first mission as part of that project was Operation ASCENDANT.

And its objective? It was simple - they had to travel to the planet KL-0619B, which was the only habitable planet in the star system Arecibo Theta, a planet located approximately 22 light years from Earth, as indicated by the Lascaux coordinates, in search of their ancestors.

And thus, Operation ASCENDANT was born!!

Chapter 3: The Day Humanity Looked Up

Today is May 15th 2053, but it is not another random Thursday morning.

ASCENDANT was ready for liftoff!! It stood at 127 metres wide, and had six crew members who trained together for over eighteen months for this one mission!!

The crew comprised of Eva Carter, the astrobiologist, her assistant Athanasia Vance, Luca Serrano and Nasia Hayes, the two geologists who had found the Lascaux coordinates, the astrophysicist Sylvan Puck, who decoded them, and Irvin Knightsbridge, the mission’s pilot and systems technician.

The launch was about to happen in an hour, on the 6th terminal of the Meridian Launch Grounds. And beyond its security barriers, hundreds of thousands of people had gathered along the designated observation zones. Millions more tuned into live broadcasts projected onto giant screens in cities around the world.

For days, every news channel on Earth had spoken little of anything else. Because this was not merely the departure of another spacecraft - it was humanity’s first expedition to contact their creators!

Flags from every nation fluttered together in the morning breeze. Children sat on their parents’ shoulders. Elderly men and women who had witnessed the first Moon missions as toddlers watched through tears. Scientists who had spent decades studying the mystery stood shoulder to shoulder with ordinary people who simply wanted to know the answer.

And above them all stood ASCENDANT! Its silver hull reflected the sunlight like a second dawn. The vehicle seemed less like a machine and more like a monument - as though there was a monument dedicated towards curiosity!

The crew was about to get in. They stood at the base of the boarding gantry and looked across the crowd one final time. The cheering reached them even through the reinforced glass of their helmets. Eva smiled, because, she knew, this mission was the answer to why she started in the first place. For a brief moment she imagined Dr Ethan standing somewhere among the crowd. Older now, grey haired perhaps.

The six crew members exchanged glances before entering the elevator that would carry them into the spacecraft. As the elevator climbed, the world seemed to shrink beneath them - the crowd became a mosaic of colours, the launch complex became lines and shapes, the ocean beyond became a sheet of blue stretching toward the horizon.

Inside the command deck, each crew member settled into their respective positions. Systems came alive around them, displays illuminated, diagnostic reports scrolled across screens, onboard flight computers displayed green signal after green signal.

Outside, the crowd counted down alongside the launch controllers. Millions of voices became one:

T-minus Ten.

Nine.

Eight.

Seven.

Six.

Five.

Four.

Three.

Two.

One.

The engines began to fire. For a fraction of a second, nothing happened from the outside. But then, the Earth itself seemed to awaken. A blinding white light flashed beneath ASCENDANT. The ground trembled. And vast pillars of flame expanded beneath the vehicle, throwing waves of heat and debris across the coastline.

Finally, ASCENDANT began to rise!! The crowd roared in amusement. And humanity had finally decided to follow the map that some alien species had left behind 4 Billion years ago!

Inside the spacecraft, the story was different - the acceleration pressed every crew member firmly into their seats as ASCENDANT climbed through the lower atmosphere. The vibrations they felt were unlike anything they had experienced in training. Well, simulators could reproduce the forces, but they could never fully recreate the exact sensation of a vehicle the size of a skyscraper forcing its way through Earth’s atmosphere. The instrument panels trembled subtly, and the cabin was filled with the continuous roar of engines operating at full power.

From the windows, they could see the launch complex already disappear beneath a blanket of cloud and exhaust. The coastline rapidly shrank into a thin line separating blue ocean from green land. Within minutes, buildings were impossible to distinguish.

“Altitude 20 kilometres” Irvin reported calmly, as the seats no longer felt like they were holding the crew down against force, as ASCENDANT slowly began to decelerate.

The sky ahead had begun to change. The bright blue that had surrounded the spacecraft at launch was gradually darkening into a deeper shade. Above them, the atmosphere thinned into a colour that seemed neither blue nor black, but something between the two.

As ASCENDANT continued upward, the horizon began to curve. The view grew smaller and stranger with every passing minute, as Earth began to transform into a blue ball painted with streaks of white and green. The mountain ranges that had once dominated landscapes became faint textures against continents. And more importantly, Earth stopped looking like a collection of places and started looking like a single world.

There were no borders visible from this height - no nations, no cities, no signs of the disagreements, ambitions, triumphs and tragedies that had occupied human history. Everything that humanity had ever built, every language ever spoken, every war ever fought, every song ever sung, existed somewhere upon that vast sphere turning silently beneath them.

And above them, laid something entirely different - an ocean of darkness stretching in every direction, silent and ancient beyond comprehension. Somewhere within that darkness was their destination, KL-0619B!

Chapter 4: The Sea Between the Stars

Just minutes later, Earth had shrunk down to a small blue point hanging in the black, like a distant lamp someone forgot to turn off.

Inside ASCENDANT, the tension and the hype from launch had all waned down. And their minds began adjusting to the fact they were now far enough from everything they knew.

The spacecraft was completely silent. It wasn’t some form of awkward silence, it was just a shared recognition that nothing immediate needed to be fixed anymore. As the crew looked through their window, all they could see was distance and darkness, stretching in every direction without variation.

And in that darkness, Earth dimmed further until it became just another faint point among many, and continued to fade, until it became almost indistinguishable from the other scattered lights, and eventually disappearing into the void.

The crew knew that this image of the Earth vanishing from their sight, was going to be the last significant thing in their memories for the next few months.

And it was.

The journey ahead was long and repetitive. For the next eight months, the view outside would barely change at all, just the same scattered stars, the same silent black, the same slow drift forward into an emptiness that did not offer new scenery, but only a silent reminder that they were already in it.

But little did they know, that things were about to change at this point - 8 months into the voyage. The crew did not anticipate that they were in for a wild ride.

On the 14th of January 2054, it was on that fateful day, when the mission, which was functioning properly all these days, began to fracture all at once, without any kind of warning.

Every navigation channel broke alignment at once, its star trackers locked onto positions that no longer matched each other, gyros spun corrections that made no sense, the onboard computer tried to stabilise the course, but no, it couldn’t.

The alarms hit!! Not just one, but every single one on the spacecraft, they cascaded one after the other. Every deck, every system, every diagnostic channel lit up at once. Audio alerts layered on top of each other, drowning the ship in noise of flashes, pulses and sirens. Warning messages stacked on top of warning messages, until they lost individual meaning. No one on board had time to interpret anything before the next wave of alerts arrived.

The crew didn’t know how to react either. All they could fell was that they were being pulled into something enormous and unstable, like a current that had no visible source but absolute control over everything inside it. They felt like they were caught in a hurricane that somehow formed without any air. The ship’s automated systems could not stabilise either, because nothing stayed consistent long enough.

And somewhere in this confusion, Irvin attempted taking over the control manually, but the inputs lagged, like as if the ship itself was no longer responding in real time. Every attempt by Irvin to stabilise it by firing thrusters to counterattack were in vain too, each time he was met with a stronger, immediate shift that made the correction meaningless.

For the next 72 seconds, the spacecraft remained in that state - caught in this violent turbulence, completely overwhelmed by the relentless chaos it had caused!

Then, just as abruptly as it began, everything went still again. The alarms stopped, the turbulence vanished, the systems, one by one, returned to coherence as if nothing had been happening moments before.

The crew began to breathe slower. And Irvin, being the man he is, he checks the controls and runs a diagnosis of their spacecraft almost instantly. To their fortunes, the spacecraft had no visible damage! The crew was completely safe.

But one man noticed a discrepancy - it was not inside, it was outside!

Sylvan looks out of the window, and immediately realises something!

He pulls out a photograph containing the Lascaux coordinates, holds it against the window, slightly tilts it! He held it there long enough that everyone in the room had time to understand what they were looking at. Then he lowered the photograph and turned around. The crew unanimously are hit by the realisation - The Lascaux coordinates are right outside!! The same arrangement that had launched one of the largest scientific expeditions in human history was now hanging directly above them!!

Sylvan screams “WE HAVE TRAVELLED BACK IN TIME!! WE ARE 4.2 BILLION YEARS INTO THE PAST!!”

Turns out that their spacecraft was caught in a cosmic string, or in other words, something like a wormhole, or a portal, which connected two distinct regions in space, and time.

No one said anything for a long moment.

Athanasia, whispers, very quietly, “Wait, it was us. It has been us all along!”

Chapter 5: Stepping on an Alien World

Everyone understands what Athanasia is saying. They needed nobody to explain it.

There were no mysterious ancestors waiting at KL-0619B. There was no ancient civilisation preparing to welcome them home, nobody anticipating their return.

The map had not been left by somebody else, the map had been left by them.

Humanity had spent twelve years searching for the species that created life on Earth, only to discover that the search party and the answer were the same thing. They were the Aliens!

And the bigger realisation: Their mission had never been travelling towards an origin, it was about travelling towards a responsibility.

Life emerged on Earth because humanity travelled into the past. It was a chain with no first link, a story with no first page.

Humanity was an answer that created its own question. There was no inventor, no creator - Humanity simply existed because it always had. It was a perfect bootstrap, something passed from future to past, and from past to future, forever.

They understood now why the coordinates had been carved. The markings were not an invitation, they were instructions. They were a breadcrumb trail left by travellers who already that future civilisations would eventually discover them, and use them as a map.

Earlier, they thought that the map was the destination. Now they know, the destination was the map.

And from this moment, KL-0619B, the Arecibo Theta, the Lascaux coordinates, none of it mattered - for, they were just decoys, and their only purpose was to deliberately derail ACDENDANT into the cosmic string, so that they could end up 4.2 billion years in the past!

The first chapter of Earth’s biological history had been written by these six people, aboard the ASCENDANT. The crew of ASCENDANT would be the descendants of themselves!!

But this realisation had a daunting side to it - the loop was a fragile one. And everything that life on Earth had, and humanity ever will, now is dependent upon six people making the same choices they already have made, but never know what their choices were.

They knew, somewhere ahead of them lay a young Earth waiting for life, waiting for its history to begin again. If they failed, the loop would break. If the loop broke, humanity would never exist. And if humanity never existed, there would be nobody to travel back and create life in the first place.

They needed to get it right this time!!

Irvin redirected ASCENDANT towards Earth, a journey that was 1.42 light years away!

This journey though, was much quicker than the earlier one. Because, none of them were busy now. They had a mission, and they talked only about that mission for the next few weeks.

The equation was simple: They had to travel to early Earth, martyr themselves, and leave behind a trail that their future selves would identify and decipher.

In no time, their tables disappeared beneath projections of the early Earth. Half of the walls became covered with timelines stretching across billions of years. The other half were covered with equations and calculations. Every available screen displayed simulations, probability models, orbital calculations, atmospheric reconstructions, and increasingly desperate attempts to understand exactly what history required from them.

The only thing the crew kept repeating to themselves was that, the mission is not a future event they are going to execute. The mission had already happened. They were now trying to reverse-engineer their own role within it.

Entire weeks vanished into debates over details that would have seemed absurd under any other circumstances - they argued over locations, timings, materials, symbols, and methods. Because, the decisions were not just decisions, the would be the fate of the next four billion years.

So, needless to say, the stakes were high - a misplaced action on young Earth could potentially alter everything that followed, from the first microbes to the first cities, to the first telescope to ASCENDANT itself.

Days passed, enroute a lifeless world waiting for a future that had already happened.

And in each of these days, as ancient stars drifted silently beyond the hull, the crew worked with an intensity bordering on obsession, preparing to become the master of their own destiny!!

Finally, after all these weeks - it was in front of them!! Earth!!

But nobody could even recognise it. The world they had left behind less than a year earlier had been alive with colour. It had swirling white clouds, deep blue oceans, emerald continents and the faint golden shimmer of civilisation along its nightside. But this planet looked nothing like that.

It was streaked by enormous scars of volcanic activity. Towering plumes of ash climbed into the atmosphere from countless eruptions. There were no forests, no green, no ecosystems weaving themselves together. Oceans did exist though, but they were not blue, they were comprised of dark reddish-yellow lava. It looked less like a cradle, and more like a battlefield!

Not just the Earth, even the sun looked unrecognisable. The only reason to believe that this scary looking planet was Earth, were their trust in Sylvan’s calculations, and in Irvin’s navigation.

ASCENDANT gradually approached Earth, and descended into a lower orbit. The six crew members knew that they would spend their final days preparing for a task unlike any mission in human history. There would be no return journey, no rescue, no transmission, nobody to tell them that their mission was successful.

They knew what had to be done - they had to die. And not just one volunteer or one chosen one, but all six of them. The reason was simple - nobody knew whose genetic material would ultimately survive. Nobody knew which molecule, which fragment, or which microscopic remnant would persist through the chemical chaos of the young Earth long enough to participate in whatever chain of events eventually led to the first life form. In fact it might belong to one of them, or it might even belong to all of them. There was no way to know. The only certainty was that none of them could choose to stay away from the cycle.

The crew members didn’t need any dramatic speeches. They knew the consequences, the odds and the stakes. They were all prepared for the ultimate sacrifice. With each hour passing, their fate became less frightening than its scale.

They were not preparing to die for a nation, an ideology or a scientific discovery. They were preparing to die for every forest that would ever grow, every animal that would ever walk, every civilisation that would ever rise, and every child who would ever look up at the stars and wonder where life began.

Irvin began to descend ASCENDANT onto the surface of Earth. But something suddenly struck Luca. He shouted “STOP!!”

Irvin paused the descent, and turned back to Luca. The crew did the same as well, looking at Luca, asking him ‘Why’ without really asking it.

Luca replies. When he and Nasia had first surveyed the Isua formation in 2041, there had been no trace of a spacecraft. There were no fragments of advanced alloys embedded within the rock, no unusual metallic deposits, no technological debris preserved within the ancient crust, nothing.

The implication was obvious to the rest of the crew - ASCENDANT could not remain on Earth.

So, the crew explored possible solutions. The most straightforward option was complete destruction. The spacecraft could be dismantled or detonated. On paper it seemed elegant. But dismantling it was physically impossible, and disposing them safely was an issue too, as these parts might interfere with the chemical composition of the early waters where life would form, which might entirely alter the way life had formed or evolved. So, detonating it seemed to be the only option.

But Athanasia objected to that as well. She reasoned that early Earth had endured billions of years of impacts and collisions. Entire chapters of planetary history depended upon events that, from a human perspective, appeared random or ‘lucky’. For instance, asteroids had altered climates, meteor impacts reshaped continents, some even delivered materials that became part of Earth’s evolving chemistry. So, introducing thousands of tonnes of artificial debris into that environment might carry consequences that nobody could predict.

The crew now think for a while and eventually settle upon a different answer. The spacecraft would leave, towards somewhere so far away, that even under any malfunction, collision or explosion, the spacecraft would never impact Earth in any way.

Irvin spent the next few hours rewriting automated guidance protocols and navigation routines. Every system onboard was stripped down to its most essential functions. Once activated, ASCENDANT would operate entirely on its own. Its destination would be Beta Delphini, a distant stellar system roughly 100 light years away. And once the final sequence was initiated, the spacecraft would accelerate away from the Solar System and disappear into interstellar darkness.

Once the programs were rewritten, Irvin guided ASCENDANT carefully through the turbulent atmosphere of the young Earth for the crew to land, while the rest of the crew watched through the observation windows. Vast volcanic plains drifted beneath them, curtains of steam rolled across the landscape, oceans of magma shimmered with fiery reflections, the sky glowed amber beneath a blanket of cloud, casting strange colours across the land.

Eventually, the spacecraft stabilised above a rugged stretch of terrain, a region that would one day become the Isua Greenstone Belt. The landscape below looked nothing like the place Luca and Nasia had once explored. Yet somehow, one day, it would.

The crew gathered near the deployment hatch carrying only the equipment they would need. Behind them was the spacecraft that had carried them across light years, through time itself, and into the deepest mystery humanity had ever pursued. And ahead of them lay a world that had never known life.

One by one, they descended the rope ladder, disappearing into the haze below.

Their boots touched unfamiliar ground. Safety lines were detached. Equipment was unloaded. And then, for the first time since launch, all six stood together beneath an open sky. But there were no crowds to greet them, there was no trace of civilisation around them, except the one suspended overhead.

When everything was ready, Irvin activated the departure sequence.

The engines of ASCENDANT brightened.

The spacecraft began to rise.

Nobody waved, they simply watched.

It climbed steadily through layers of steam and cloud, becoming smaller and smaller against the dark sky. Sunlight reflected briefly from its silver hull for the one last time, before it was reduced into a point of light, which faded away in no time.

ASCENDANT was gone.

The six stood in silence for a long time afterwards. Not because they felt abandoned, but because they had just witnessed the last piece of human technology disappear from Earth. The spacecraft that had carried them across impossible distances, which had been their home, their laboratory, their shelter and their last connection to anything and everything familiar, soon would become none of those things.

It would continue alone, crossing an endless sea of darkness, and destined never to be seen again by human eyes.

With that final farewell to the spacecraft, the crew lowered their gaze, and looked at the planet they were standing on.

They knew, they had a task ahead.

It was time for them to create history. This time, quite literally.

Chapter 6: The World They Left Behind

The crew began their work almost immediately.

“The coordinates first!” Sylvan shouted.

And everyone nodded and agreed. Because, if there was one thing they knew with absolute certainty, it was that the Lascaux Coordinates had to exist. Without the coordinates, none of this would happen - humanity would never discover the map, the mission would never launch, and the loop would break before it even began.

At this point, the crew split into two groups. Luca and Nasia took the lead in searching for the cave system where they had originally discovered the markings in 2041. Since they had studied the geology of the Isua Greenstone belt, they could look for similarities, and identify the cave exactly, or rather the region that would become the cave. Eva and Irvin followed behind, helping them navigate the rugged terrain whenever necessary.

Athanasia chose to stay behind with Sylvan. She didn’t know what she was doing there. She was just there for moral support. The only reason she stayed behind was that, she was just too lazy to travel across the region with others.

But little did she know that she should have travelled with others instead. Because Sylvan had climbed a rocky ridge and made her climb it as well. Upon reaching a flat region there, he sat there, and waited for the sunlight to wane away, until stars began to surface one after the other.

It was dusk, and above them, stretched a sky no human being had ever seen before. The stars over them occupied different positions than the ones from his textbooks. Some of them didn’t exist yet, and some of them would never exist. But to Sylvan, it didn’t matter - they were still stars.

He began plotting them carefully, measuring every position, angle, and checking them multiple times. He worked methodically, constructing the pattern exactly as it appeared overhead. There was nothing artistic about the task, it was mathematics disguised as drawing.

Hours passed there, with Athanasia still not sure what he was doing. All she could see was a hybrid of hieroglyphics, morse code and probably something out of a “Connect the dots” book she used as a kid.

Far below, Luca and Nasia continued their search with the other two. Finding the correct cave was considerably more difficult than either of them had expected. Several times they convinced themselves they had found the right location. But every time, they had some reason to realise that they were mistaken.

Yet both continued searching all through the day. Eventually they stop somewhere - ahead of them stood a rocky formation partially hidden beneath drifting curtains of steam. And a narrow opening disappeared into darkness.

Luca could feel a strange sensation growing in the pit of his stomach. Because, when they got out through that opening, both immediately knew what this was.

The colours were slightly different, maybe because they were not oxidised enough. And the walls were completely bare, like there were no coordinates or markings. But still, they knew, they were standing inside the very cave where they would one day discover the Lascaux Coordinates.

Luca laughed softly.

Nasia looked at him. “What?”

Luca said “So this is where everything started, huh?” with a smile spread across his face. Eva and Irvin smiled too.

Now that they found the cave, they followed their trail back, where they find Sylvan and Athanasia just descending from the ridge. They bring them to the cave as well.

Once inside the cave, Sylvan hands over his markings without a word. And everyone recognised the pattern immediately - it was the same arrangement of points that had launched one of the largest scientific expeditions in human history.

Then Luca picked up a carving tool. “Let’s get started” he says.

The work consumed the next half hour. The process was slow, tedious and deeply frustrating. Every point had to be measured correctly, every distance had to match and every angle had to match as well.

Because the coordinates were not a mere artwork, with room for inaccuracies. They were information. And information only remained useful if it remained accurate.

The crew took turns measuring, marking and carving.

Gradually the pattern emerged from the stone - The Lascaux Coordinates.

This time, not discovered, but created, crafted, carved, or whatever you call it.

The six step back and stare at them. The markings looked exactly as they remembered!

Soon after this, Luca suggests “We should make copies!!”

And everyone agreed to him. Because, the original cave had survived for billions of years, but its survival was not guaranteed. Any collapse, impact, calamity or unpredictable geological events could erase the coordinates before humanity ever found them.

So, redundancy seemed like a wise option.

So they spent the next several hours searching the surrounding region for additional cave systems.

Whenever they found one that appeared geologically stable, they repeated the process. By the time they finished, identical star maps existed across multiple caves throughout the region.

The chances of every copy being destroyed now seemed much lower.

Later in the afternoon, while carving yet another set of coordinates, Irvin suddenly chuckled.

“You know what?” he said, “we should sign them.”

Several heads turned.

“Sign them?” Eva asked.

“Why not? Imagine the look on Luca’s and Nadia’s faces if they see their names here.” he chuckled.

Everyone laughed as well.

And for a brief moment the idea seemed genuinely appealing. After all, they had travelled so long, crossed so many years and sacrificed everything to be here. Surely they had earned the right to leave their names somewhere.

But that didn’t last so long. The crew exchanged glances, and everyone understood without needing an explanation. They all realised that this would be a dangerous move. The discovery of six unmistakably human names alongside the coordinates would answer questions long before humanity was ready to ask them. It would reveal too much, too early.

The consequences were impossible to predict. Perhaps nothing would change. Or maybe everything would. Perhaps their future selves, this time armed with knowledge of their own fate from the very beginning, would make different choices. Perhaps the expedition would never launch at all, because the expedition was one fuelled by curiousity.

So, the mystery would disappear, the mission itself might never happen, governments might refuse to fund it, public support for the mission might disappear, scientists might dismiss it. And the chain of events that brought them here could easily unravel.

So, yeah, it just had to be a pattern of dots. No dates, no signatures, no names, and more importantly, no language known to humanity - just patterns and images.

With this realisation, the crew had returned to their work.

Athanasia noticed something then: Eva had barely laughed during the entire discussion.

Not that she was withdrawn. She was still present, she helped with the measurements, she checked the carvings, she participated whenever someone asked her a question. But there was a difference between being present and being occupied. Eva seemed very occupied, but not present.

She knew every researcher had a particular expression they wore when a some problem had been circling deep inside their thoughts. Eva had that expression now.

Athanasia watched her for another few minutes before finally giving in.

“So” she said jokingly, “what calculation are you running in the background?”

Eva looked up.

“What?”

“The one you’ve been running for the last ninety minutes.”

A few others glanced over.

Athanasia pointed toward her. “Why that serious face?” she asked jokingly.

“What face?”, Eva reluctantly replied.

Athanasia, still playfully answered, “The one that we scientists get when we discover something unpleasant and spend the next hour hoping they’re wrong”, and chuckled along with others.

Eva didn’t.

And that alone was enough to erase most of the amusement from Athanasia’s expression.

Eva lowered her eyes toward the instrument in her hands - a spectroradiometer, which she had been carrying around since they landed.

Athanasia immediately straightened.

“What’s wrong with that?” she asked.

Eva quietly said, “The atmosphere here makes zero sense!”

The words immediately pulled everyone’s attention away from whatever they had been doing. Luca stopped carving, Sylvan looked up from his notes, Irvin and Nadia turned around too.

Eva glanced back at the display.

“I’ve repeated the measurements three times.”

“And?” Sylvan asked.

“And the oxygen concentration is far too high.”

Athanasia frowned.

“High compared to what?”

“Compared to what every reconstruction of prebiotic Earth says it should be.”

Now everyone was paying attention. Eva shows her the numbers, and says “Oxygen levels are significantly higher than expected. And where oxygen exists, ozone follows.”

And the mention of ozone made Athanasia’s understand what was about to come in an instant, even before Eva said it to others.

Eva looked toward the darkening sky, and reluctantly said “The ozone layer is absorbing too much ultraviolet radiation.”

Eva could connect the dots, to the last time she heard of something like this - in a classroom, with a biology teacher who treated questions like adventures. On the whiteboard it was written, “Bar-Nun and Hartman Ultraviolet photolysis”.

She explains everyone “Life doesn’t just emerge because molecules randomly decide to organise themselves. We also need something to push the reactions forward. UV radiation, geothermal gradients, cosmic rays, atmospheric discharge, radioactivity, or whatever. Something has to provide the energy. And UV radiation seems like the easiest option”

She stared at the readings again and says “But according to these measurements, this atmosphere is blocking far too much of the UV light”

Eva had spent 23 years studying how life might begin. And if she was worried, there should be a reason. The crew knew this as well, and an uncomfortable possibility was beginning to emerge within their heads.

But Luca interrupts, “I mean, think about it. We already know life existed. We know humanity existed. We know this loop works somehow.”

He gestured toward the coordinates carved into the cave wall, and says “We are literally standing inside a proof”

And for the first time since Eva raised the concern, a little optimism appeared in the room. Luca was right. Something had clearly worked last time for them to be here.

And the question was not whether life emerged. It did. But the question was how? They were missing something, and they did not know what. And that distinction changed everything about the way that Eva was thinking. She immediately seized upon the idea.

For the first time, there seemed to be hope in her words, as she shouted “Exactly!!”

She stood and began pacing. “If UV radiation isn’t coming from the Sun, then it must be coming from somewhere else” she gasped.

“Something has to drive the photochemical reactions”.

“Another UV source?” Sylvan asked.

“Exactly!!” Eva exclaimed.

They began listing possibilities: Natural radioactive deposits, cosmic radiation, solar flares penetrating temporary gaps in the atmosphere, plasma discharge, meteor impacts producing short-lived ultraviolet bursts, some sort of exotic atmospheric chemistry etc.

Some of them were too abnormal, and some of them wouldn’t last long enough to drive reactions.

But Eva stood firm in her decision - “There has to be a source” she said, as she continued listing and repeating some stuff over: Radioactive decay, cosmic rays, plasma, volcanic discharge, hydrothermal gradients.

“Nothing natural could have produced so much UV!!” she shouted.

And mid sentence, she stopped for a split second.

“If nothing natural could drive it, it had to be Artificial—”

She squinted her eyes as she repeated the word “Artificial”. But she shook her head and dismissed it, calling herself an idiot. Because artificial made no sense. There was no technology here. No civilisation. Nothing except six stranded humans on a dead world.

She moved on from there.

But Irvin interrupted.

“Hold on.”

“What?” Eva asked.

Irvin didn’t answer immediately.

Instead he slowly looked toward the sky.

“Did you just say plasma?” he asked.

Eva nodded - yeah, that could emit UV rays as well.

Irvin’s expression changed. The colour drained from his face

“Oh no!!”

The words sent a chill through the group.

“Irvin?” Nasia asked.

“The reactor core!! ASCENDANT functioned on nuclear cores, but had plasma thrusters for backup!!”

And that was the exact source they have been searching for.

A terrible silence followed, as everyone knew one thing for sure. ASCENDANT had already departed, it was now accelerating toward Beta Delphini. Gone, unreachable, and carrying the very thing they needed.

Everyone sat down heavily in despair!

And the answer had been with them, until that morning. They had launched it away themselves.

Chapter 7: Alpha and Omega

With ASCENDANT, had vanished the only explanation any of them had managed to find.

The cave felt smaller now, and the world, a much larger and scarier place.

The carved coordinates stared back at them from the stone wall like a cruel joke.

Eva sank against the rock and buried her face in her hands.

“We had it,” she whispered.

With everyone still in the dumps, Nasia somehow summons the courage to ask something: “What if life still forms?”

Everyone looked up at her.

“What?” they ask, with a cynical look.

“If at all life still forms...” she said carefully, “maybe by some stroke of luck…” she continued. “Suppose we’re wrong. Suppose there was another source. Or one we never understood right in the first place”

It was very much possible. But not guaranteed.

“Wait, if that happens... couldn’t we leave another clue?” she frowned.

“What kind of clue?” Luca asked

“I don’t know. If the next crew, perhaps even us, arrive here again, and realise what we realised… we can tell them. Something that tells the next expedition not to make our mistake.”

“Bring a UV source!” Athanasia suggested.

Nasia snapped her fingers.

“Exactly.”

But Sylvan shook his head immediately, and muttered “We can’t write words.”

“Numbers?”

“No.”

“Chemical formulae?”

“No.”

Sylvan’s reason was valid too. “Anything too obvious answers the mystery. And once the mystery disappears, the mission disappears.”

The cave fell silent again. The answer had to be something that meant nothing to everyone else, but everything to the people who would stand here again.

The crew kept thinking, and so did Sylvan. All of a sudden, something changed in Sylvan’s face.

His eyes remained fixed on nothing, while somewhere behind them, some memories were rearranging themselves in his head.

Everybody noticed it.

“Sylvan?”

He wasn’t listening.

His eyes had become distant.

Slowly, he whispered, “Wait…”, as he closed his eyes and began recollecting Luca’s photographs, the thousands of images taken in the cave, one of which turned out to be the Lascaux coordinates.

And bam, his eyes opened.

“Oh my God” he screamed!!

“Sylvan? Are you okay?” others ask

“The photographs!” he mumbed

“What photographs?”

Sylvan breaks it - “The coordinates weren’t alone! There was another set of carvings right beside it! A second one at the corner. There were two dots!!” he screamed.

Everyone exchanged confused looks.

“Two dots?” Eva asked.

Sylvan nodded.

“Yes!”

“They were separated from the Lascaux coordinates! Far enough away that we ignored them! We thought they were imperfections in the rock!”

“The reason they were kept far off from the Lascaux coordinates is that, they shouldn’t be confused for the stars, and mislead us elsewhere” he understood

He looked towards everyone and reveals what the two dots meant. “Hydrogen!!”

He could connect the dots - the Lyman series, the fundamental transition state happenning in a Hydrogen atom, would emit Ultraviolet light. And that is what the two dots meant.

It was invisible to everyone, but obvious to the people asking the right question. The clue had been there all along. And they had missed it!!

Athanasia sat down heavily and whimpered, “We spent twelve years chasing aliens…”

“And apparently we can’t even understand our own handwriting!”

It was funny, but nobody could smile now.

For now, all that they had, was only a blind hope: Perhaps another source existed to replace the plasma thruster’s UV, perhaps there had always been another source, perhaps they had forgotten something, perhaps some miracle would happen. Or perhaps not. They didn’t know.

There was no experiment left to perform. No second attempt, no rescue team, no future. They carved the two dots, exactly where Sylvan had remembered them. And when they were finished, nobody touched the wall again. Two tiny marks in a cave that had not yet earned a name. Nothing more.

Just after those two dots were carved, the crew were ready to martyr themselves. Because thinking of other ideas was going to do little - nothing could be done anymore. The best they could do, was to hope for a miracle.

Irvin sat against the cave wall and laughed to himself. He asked “So this is it?”

Nobody answered.

“Seriously,” he said, smiling once again. “No dramatic ending? No glowing aliens? No universal truths?”

“Apparently not,” Athanasia replied. “Just six idiots who spent twelve years searching for themselves.”

That earned a few tired smiles.

There was nothing left after that - no new theories, no miraculous ideas, no hidden laboratory beneath the rocks, no spacecraft that would descend from the sky. For the first time since arriving, that there truly was nothing left to solve.

For months, they had lived as scientists. Every uncertainty had been attacked with equations, every mystery had been broken apart into measurements, models and probabilities. They had spent their lives believing that every answer could eventually be reached by asking enough questions.

But the questions had finally run out.

There would be no more papers to write, no more thesis to defend, no more debates to involve in, no more experiments to conduct, no more instruments to clean. For the first time since leaving Earth, they had to stop being scientists.

There was only one thing left to be done.

They knew, it was time to live their final moments.

They spent their final minutes together beneath the alien sky, watching the endless volcanic clouds crawl across the heavens. Strange winds carried the smell of sulphur and ash across the barren landscape. Rivers of molten rock glowed in the distance like veins beneath the skin. Far beyond the horizon, the young oceans stretched beneath the haze. They were violent waters, acidic and steaming, endlessly stirred by volcanic heat. And it was somewhere within that chaos, somehow, where life had apparently formed.

Or perhaps not.

Nobody knew anymore.

“What if we’re wrong?” Nasia asked once again.

“What if life never begins?” Luca whispered back.

Sylvan smiled and replied “Then nobody will be around to know.”

The simplicity of that answer seemed to comfort everyone.

Athanasia folded her arms. “I spent twenty years studying evolution,” she muttered. “Turns out my biggest contribution to biology is becoming soup.”

She and Irvin burst out laughing. And sure, they could. Because at this point, they were no longer trying to do anything, they were just gambling themselves. Because if they were wrong, life would end before it had even begun. And if they were right, a miniscule possibility, they’d live forever, in every plant that grows, in ever bird that chirps, every fish that swims, in every human that cries.

Eventually, they made their way towards the shore - thick mists drifted over its surface, the water reflected the crimson skies above, turning the entire horizon into something that resembled liquid fire, volcanic vents far away sent pillars of steam into the atmosphere, while distant eruptions illuminated the clouds from beneath.

The six stood together at the edge of the world. They didn’t have the necessity to deliver a speech, to make a promise or declaration. In fact no one tried to comfort anyone else. There was nothing that anyone could promise. Only the same understanding that had carried them all this while.

Behind them stood the caves. And ahead of them was either Alpha, or Omega.

Athanasia stepped forward first. The others followed. Luca, Irvin, Eva, Nasia, and Sylvan!! And together, without hesitation, the six were prepared to take this leap of faith, quite literally. This lack of hesitation was not bravery, for bravery implies confidence. They had none. This was faith, blind faith, false hope, whatever you call it.

They stood at the edge, looking at the hostile and acidic oceans. And from there, they countdown to one, the same way did while ASCENDANT took off. Except that, this time, there was no crowd cheering for them.

Ten.

Nine.

Eight.

Seven.

Six.

Five.

Four.

Three.

Two!

One!!

They all jump together, all at once, unsure if it was a spark taking hold, or the last ember fading.

The blistering and acidic waters begin dissolving the bodies of each of them. As the crew realise this, they begin playing the best moments of their lives in their head.

For Eva, it was Room 408 - A pale blue sky outside the window, children playing football, two birds building a nest. A substitute teacher, standing beside a whiteboard, on the whiteboard there was a sketch of strange glass chambers, “The Miller-Urey experiment...” he was saying, “...they used electricity to simulate lightning, which provided energy for the creation of life.”

And just as the words left his lips, somewhere beyond the horizon, the clouds erupted. A blinding spear of light tore across the heavens. For few seconds, the entire ocean became white. A thunder followed.

Then came another flash. And another!!

Eva, who could no longer hear them, continued thinking about that classroom, as last breath dissolved into the water.

The last thing she could remember was a 15 year old Eva Carter raising her hands to ask “If life on Earth came from somewhere else... then where did life on that world come from?”

And Ethan, smiling with quiet pride, would answer:

“That is the only question worth spending a life on”

And perhaps, without ever knowing it, she had.

Two actresses, Abhirami and Preity Mukhundhan, are in a taxi, headed for one of the promotions of their upcoming Tamil film Blast. The driver, who’s been set up by the movie’s team to prank them, pretends to recognise them, and casually brings up that he wants to be a social media influencer. He asks if they’d film a reel with him - just one reel, as that would help his account grow.

They politely decline, with valid reasons - that it might attract unnecessary attention from the public and cause a scene. They even promise him they’ll do it some other time.

But the driver keeps pushing.

This time, they say no again - and a little firmer though.

And here is where things take an ugly turn - the driver takes a diversion. He tells them there won’t be crowds here. Just this road, and just them.

The actresses look at each other - and almost out of reflex, they reach for their phones. But they are met with an even more shocking revelation - that the driver has a signal jammer, and they can’t contact anybody. Now, his tone changes - the gentleness drops out of his voice and is replaced by a harder, harsher tone, that of a man who doesn’t have to be polite anymore.

The women start calling out from the windows!!

Then he breaks - it’s a prank!! The movie team set it all up!! And he is no longer a threat, he’s a prop. The tension snaps, everyone laughs, and everything ends the way these things are supposed to end - as another promotion, and few laughs!!

Now, here’s where it gets interesting.

A man watching this video would almost certainly laugh. And honestly, fair enough - because from where he’s standing, this is a well-executed prank. The setup was clever, the payoff landed, the actresses were good sports. He just watched two people get scared over nothing, and that’s the whole joke. And he probably sent it to a friend with a laughing emoji and moved on with his day.

But a woman watching the exact same video had a completely different experience. Even knowing it’s a prank, even watching it with that knowledge sitting right there in her head, her subconscious brain starts to process a hundred possibilities the moment the driver takes that diversion, her heartbeat begins to race, her chest begins to tighten, her breath becomes deeper. And this happens because she’s not just watching anymore, she is already living!! Her brain has already asked the question she can’t stop it from asking - What if that were me?

Like she’s not watching a prank video, she’s running a simulation, although her eyes glued onto the phone, her brain is half absent there, and is thinking about what she would have done - whether she’d have been calm enough to think clearly, whether screaming would have worked, whether anyone outside would have heard etc.

Now, even after the video ends, and the actresses laugh, she’s still in that car, playing it out.

That’s not a trauma response or an anxiety disorder. That’s just what it means to be a woman who has lived in this world long enough to know that this scenario isn’t a premise for a prank, it is another random Tuesday evening.

And now here’s the part that really got me - these are two actresses who were on their way to promote an action film. Think about that for a second - a genre that is literally built on being capable, fearless, in control of the situation and calm even at the adverse circumstances. And these women who, on screen, probably punched people without even flinching. They know how to control their emotions. But the moment that driver’s voice changed and that car went somewhere it wasn’t supposed to, none of that mattered. Because there’s no version of real fear that your professional persona or experiences protects you from.

But more than that, they are public figures - they are women with teams behind them, with visibility, with the kind of recognisability that should, in theory, offer some protection. They are also women who have spent years navigating media, public appearances, unpredictable crowds and situations. They are more equipped than most to handle uncomfortable moments with composure. And they were still afraid and still reached for their phones and called out from the windows.

So I want you to think about what that means for a woman who is not an Abhirami or a Preity and has none of that? To just another woman - alone in a cab at night, no one watching, no promotional team who set the whole thing up and can call it off whenever they want.

What is an ordinary woman feeling every time a driver goes slightly off route and she doesn’t know why?

Here is where we men must realise something - women everyday think of possibilities everyday that most of us will never even think of in our wildest imaginations. This program keeps running silently in the background - in every taxi ride, every walk back to the car after dark, every time a man doesn’t take the first no, every time when she changes her route home because one street feels too empty, every time when she shares her live location with a friend “just in case”, every time when she pretends to be on a call so she won’t be approached, every time when she scans faces, every time when she keeps her headphones in but the volume low so she can still hear footsteps behind her, every time when she mentally maps exits before entering a room she’s never been in. It’s a constant, low-level calculation of “Is this fine?”, “Is this still fine?”, “What are my options if this stops being fine?”

We don’t run this program in our system, more than that, we’ve never had to install it. We get into cabs and think about where we’re going or which song to play. We don’t clock which way the car is turning, or wonder if the central lock just clicked, or calculate how long it would take someone to respond if we called out. We just sit there and look at the world outside. Existing in a world that has, for the most part, extended us the basic courtesy of being safe by default.

And that, I think, is the uncomfortable truth that most of us, myself included, have been slow to consider. And that is not because we are bad people, not because we don’t care about the women in our lives. But because safety, when it has always been your default, it becomes invisible. Like you don’t think about air until the room runs out of it, and men have never had to think about air.

And here is where I want to bring another side of the story - there’s a man somewhere who politely smiled at a woman in an elevator and watched her shift her weight toward the door, there’s a man who asked a girl for directions and noticed her hand move toward her phone and belongings before she answered, there’s a man who sat down in a bus and saw the woman beside him move fee inches away, there’s a man who said “you dropped something” and watched her flinch before she turned around, there’s a man who offered to help and felt the suspicion in the way that offer was received, there’s a man who offered his umbrella in the rain and stood there holding it awkwardly while she decided whether accepting it was safe, there’s a man who noticed a woman struggling with heavy bags at the top of a staircase and offered to help and had to watch her say “I’m fine” her face clearly showed that she was not. And he went home feeling wronged, maybe even a little humiliated, because he knows he’s not a threat, he knows what he meant. And it feels deeply unfair to be treated like something he isn’t. And he’s not wrong to feel that.

But here’s the thing - the woman wasn’t wrong either. Because that background program we talked about? It doesn’t have the luxury of individual assessments in real time. It can’t pause, look at a specific man, read his intentions, verify his character, cross-check his history, and then decide how much space to give him. It doesn’t work that way. It was never built to work that way. It was built for speed, not accuracy. Because in these situations where it matters most, there is no time to be accurate.

So what she’s responding to isn’t him. It is the pattern he fits, through no fault of his own. He just has the misfortune of arriving in a context that was shaped by people who aren’t him, carrying a face that her nervous system cannot immediately distinguish from the faces of people who have done her harm before. He receives a distrust he didn’t earn. She extends a caution she can’t always explain. And both of them walk away from that interaction feeling like something was slightly off, slightly unfair, slightly lonely.

They’re both right. And neither of them created this.

And to my fellow men here, if this has ever happenned to you, that it probably isn’t about you. You just happened to show up in a world of hers where decisions are shaped by a huge history of memories, and she’s navigating that world as carefully as she knows how. And the most disarming thing a man can do isn’t to take it personally, and it isn’t to perform some exaggerated display of harmlessness either. It’s just to understand the math - that her caution is not a verdict on your character, it is just a rational response to a world that hasn’t always given her the option of assuming the best.

And to the women reading this - that program you run? It is not a sign of weakness, it is not paranoia. It is something you built, silently in your head over years, out of necessity, refined through experience, through things that happened to you, through things that happened to women you know, through warnings you received before you were old enough to fully understand why you needed them.

The world that made it necessary - that’s the thing that needs to change. Not you!

Before Earth carried oceans, before stars burned their first light into the void, before even atoms existed to remember anything at all, there was no matter, no space, no ticking clock to measure a beginning. Roughly 13.8 billion years ago, the observable universe erupted into existence in the event we now call the Big Bang. From an unimaginably hot and dense state, space itself began to expand, carrying with it all matter, energy, and time.

But the true mystery was never simply that the universe began, but that it began with laws precise enough to let anything survive long enough to matter. The laws of physics appear balanced on a tightrope. There are roughly 26 fundamental physical constants - numbers like the gravitational constant G, the fine-structure constant α, the mass of the electron, the cosmological constant Λ and several others. All these constants sit in extraordinarily narrow ranges, known as the Anthropic Coincidences framework.

For instance:

• If the strong nuclear force were 2% stronger, protons would bind to each other and hydrogen would never form. No hydrogen means no water, no stars burning stably for billions of years, no life.

• If the cosmological constant (the energy density of empty space) were any larger, even by 1/10¹²⁰ (that is ±0.000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000001), the universe would have expanded so rapidly after the Big Bang that matter could never have clumped together into galaxies or stars.

• If the electromagnetic force were slightly stronger or weaker relative to gravity, stars would either burn too hot and fast or not ignite at all.

• The ratio of the mass of the proton to the electron is 1836.15:1. If this were significantly different, the chemistry that allows stable molecules (including DNA) to form would be impossible.

Actually physicist Roger Penrose had calculated that the odds of the universe’s initial low entropy state, necessary for the arrow of time, thermodynamics, and ultimately for life, arising by chance is approximately 1 in 10^(10¹²³). But we will use the more conservative estimate of 1 in 10¹²³ for the fine tuning of constants alone, derived from the cosmological constant problem.

Running Probability: ~1/10¹²³

Chapter 2: The Right Kind of Galaxy had to Form

Not all galaxies are created equal. The universe contains an estimated 2 trillion galaxies, but the galactic habitable zone hypothesis argues that only a narrow annular region within spiral galaxies like our Milky Way is hospitable to life. Too close to the galactic center, and radiation from the supermassive black hole and frequent nearby supernovae would disintegrate planets altogether into dust. Too far out, and insufficient metals including Carbon would never have existed for any form of life.

Our solar system sits in the Orion Arm of the Milky Way at about 26000 light years from the center, squarely within the habitable band that is estimated to cover roughly 5% of all stars in the Milky Way, which itself is among a minority of galaxies with the right structure and composition.

Lineweaver, the one who proposed the galactic habitable zone hypothesis had also found a timing constraint: the galactic habitable zone only became chemically enriched enough for complex life around 4-8 billion years ago. And if we somehow factor the galaxy type, position, epoch of formation, the fraction of star forming events across cosmic history that occur in a habitable galactic environment, we get a conservative 1/10000, or 1 in 10⁴.

Running Probability: ~1/10¹²⁷

Chapter 3: The Right Kind of Star had to Form

Our Sun is, statistically speaking, a somewhat unusual star. About 75% of all stars in the Milky Way are red dwarfs - far smaller, cooler, and prone to violent flares that would strip atmospheres from close-orbiting planets. Gas giants and very massive hot stars dominate another significant fraction. Stars like the Sun, G-type main-sequence stars, stable, long lived, luminous enough to warm a planet at a safe distance, make up only about 7–8% of all stars.

But stability matters enormously. The Sun has been burning at a relatively consistent luminosity for 4.6 billion years. This is essential, as life needs billions of years to evolve and get complex. A star that flares, dims, or dies too quickly doesn’t give it time. Additionally, the Sun needed to form in a region with enough prior stellar generations to be enriched with heavy elements - Carbon, Oxygen, Iron, Phosphorus and Nitrogen, which are the raw materials of biochemistry. First generation stars were almost purely Hydrogen and Helium and they couldn’t have built a rocky planet or a DNA molecule.

Combining spectral type suitability, stellar lifetime, metallicity, and variability constraints gives an approximate probability of a suitable star of 1/1200.

Running Probability: ~1/10¹³⁰

Chapter 4: The Right Elements Had to Be Forged and Scattered

The Big Bang produced almost nothing but Hydrogen (about 75%) and Helium (about 25%) with trace amounts of Lithium. Every other element in the periodic table from Carbon, Ntrogen, Oxygen, Phosphorus, Sulfur, Iron, Calcium and any other organic element, they all had to be manufactured inside stars and scattered by their deaths.

This process, called stellar nucleosynthesis, is going to be an even rarer event than the ones we’ve seen before. Carbon, Oxygen, and Nitrogen have to be forged in medium sized stars through helium fusion, while elements up to Iron are fused in the cores of massive stars over millions of years. Elements heavier than iron, including the Phosphorus in our DNA and the Iodine in our thyroid, are only produced in the violent r-process of neutron star collisions or supernova explosions.

Life requires Carbon, Hydrogen, Oxygen, Nitrogen, Phosphorus, and Sulfur, the so called CHONPS elements. And the probability of the right mix of stellar generations enriching a solar neighborhood with all necessary elements in usable ratios, and the fact that all of that material must be gravitationally captured into a protoplanetary disk, it has been estimated in astrophysical models at roughly 1/10⁴⁸

And yes, your iron was forged in a stellar core, your calcium came from a supernova. You are, in the most literal chemical sense, recycled stardust, and that recycling required billions of years of stellar birth and death to accumulate in just the right quantities before our Sun even switched on.

Running Probability: ~1/10¹⁷⁸

Chapter 5: A Habitable Planet Had to Form in Exactly the Right Place

About 4.568 billion years ago, a cloud of gas and dust, already enriched with the heavy elements from prior stellar generations had collapsed under gravity and formed the Sun, with the remaining disk of material accreting over the next tens of millions of years into the planets.

Earth’s formation required a stunning number of precise coincidences as per the Rare Earth Hypothesis:

• Orbital position: Earth sits in the circumstellar habitable zone (the Goldilocks Zone), at a distance where liquid water can persist on the surface. Venus, 30% closer, experiences a runaway greenhouse effect at 465°C. Mars, 50% farther, lost its atmosphere and liquid water. The habitable zone around a Sun-like star is narrow, roughly 0.95 to 1.37 AU, and Earth sits comfortably within it. The probability of a rocky planet forming within this zone is estimated at roughly 1/40.

• Planetary mass: Earth’s mass is critical. Too small, like Mars, and the planet cannot hold a thick atmosphere or sustain a magnetic field driven by a liquid iron core. Too large, and it becomes a gas giant. The habitable mass range for a rocky planet is estimated to span about 1 order of magnitude, corresponding to a probability of roughly 1/12.

• The Moon-forming impact: Around 4.5 billion years ago, a Mars-sized body called Theia collided with the proto-Earth in what is called the Giant Impact Hypothesis. This impact was catastrophic but generative: it melted and partially vapourised both bodies, creating our unusually large Moon from the debris. The Moon stabilizes Earth’s axial tilt to within about 2.4 degrees over geological time. Without this stabilization, Earth’s axial tilt could vary chaotically between 0° and 85°, causing climate swings so extreme that complex life would likely be impossible. The probability of such an impact being just right, large enough to form a stabilising moon, but not so large as to destroy the planet, is roughly 1/50.

• Plate tectonics: Earth is geologically active, with moving crustal plates that recycle carbon, build mountains, regulate the long term carbon cycle, and renew nutrients at the surface. This is not guaranteed on rocky planets. It requires the right internal heat budget, mantle viscosity, and water content (water lubricates plate boundaries). The probability of a planet developing sustained plate tectonics is estimated by geophysicists at roughly 1/10.

• Jupiter as a shield: The giant planet Jupiter, sitting at 5.2 AU, acts as a gravitational shield for Earth, deflecting or capturing many comets and asteroids from the outer solar system that would otherwise bombard the inner planets far more frequently. Simulations suggest that without Jupiter, Earth’s impact rate would be 1000 to 10000 times higher and even 250000 times higher during a certain portion in history. The probability of a Jupiter mass giant forming in the right location to provide this shielding is roughly 1/40.

• Magnetic field: Earth’s liquid iron outer core, churned by convection and the planet’s rotation, generates a global magnetic field that deflects solar wind, which are high energy charged particles that would otherwise gradually strip away the atmosphere and bombard the surface with ionizing radiation. Mars lost its magnetic field early, and with it, most of its atmosphere. Earth’s field has persisted for at least 3.5 billion years. Probability of a planet maintaining a sustained protective magnetic field is also roughly 1/10.

Multiplying these constraints together: 1/40 × 1/12 × 1/50 × 1/10 × 1/40 × 1/10 ≈ 1/8×10⁷ or roughly 1/10⁸. Accounting for additional factors modeled in more comprehensive analyses, including water delivery by C-type asteroids and atmospheric composition, brings this closer to 1 in 10¹⁴.

Running Probability: ~1/10¹⁹²

Chapter 6: Life had to Spontaneously Emerge from Chemistry

Here is where the story gets genuinely strange. Where every previous step felt like improbable cosmic luck, this one feels closer to outright magic, except it isn’t. It’s chemistry

About 4.4 billion years ago, the Earth and the oceans have just formed, the sky is a toxic orange haze of methane and ammonia, there is no oxygen to breathe, no ozone to block radiation, no soil, no shore in any sense we would recognise. It is this violent, steaming, hostile rock being pummeled by asteroids and lashed by lightning storms of a scale we have never witnessed. And somewhere in that chaos, in a warm shallow pool, or a deep ocean hydrothermal vent belching superheated minerals into the dark, or perhaps in the pores of seafloor rock, something begins.

Simple molecules start bumping into each other. Carbon, Hydrogen, Oxygen, Nitrogen, or rather the alphabet of biology, they begin forming primitive combinations. Amino acids appear, the raw building blocks of proteins. Nothing is directing this, it is purely the blind chances playing out across billions of tide pools and ocean currents and volcanic vents simultaneously, running trillions of molecular experiments every second.

Here is what something called Abiogenesis happenned, the spontaneous emergence of life from non-living chemical reactions! And somewhere, some collection of molecules with no mind, no intention, and no instruction manual, stumbled into a configuration that could copy itself. That single capability - the ability to replicate is essentially the dividing line between chemistry and life. Everything alive on Earth today, from the bacteria in your gut to the blue whale, traces its existence back to that one moment when a molecule crossed that line.

Now here is why the number attached to this step is so catastrophically large. Proteins, the workhorses of biology, are chains of amino acids strung together in very specific sequences. Even a relatively short, simple protein might be 150 amino acids long. Each position in that chain can be occupied by any of 20 different amino acids. The number of possible sequences for a 150 amino acid protein is therefore 20¹⁵⁰, which is a number with roughly 195 zeros after it.

The numbers are going to get crazier, as out of all those possible sequences, only an extraordinarily tiny fraction will fold into a shape that actually does something useful. The rest become molecular gibberish. And for it to produce several coordinated proteins that together form a self-replicating system, the probability cascades into a number that is roughly 1/10⁴⁰⁰⁰⁰. That’s a 1 with forty thousand zeros after it!!

And yet, it happened, from ancient carbon signatures locked in minerals to life, in just 200 million years!!

Running Probability: ~1/10⁴⁰²⁰⁰

Chapter 7: The First Great Leap - The Eukaryotic Cell

From that point, since the emergence of the first ‘life’ 200 million years after the formation of Earth, for roughly 2 billion years, all living things were prokaryotes, simple cells without a nucleus, like bacteria. But by the end of this 2 billion year period, something happened that many biologists consider the single most improbable event in the history of life after its origin - a prokaryote swallowed another prokaryote and, instead of digesting it, formed a permanent symbiotic partnership.

This is the Endosymbiotic Theory. The engulfed bacterium became what we now call the mitochondrion - the powerhouse of the cell, the energy generating organelle present in every animal, plant, and fungal cell on the planet. Without mitochondria, complex multicellular life with high energy demands is essentially impossible. A similar endosymbiotic event gave plant cells their chloroplasts.

This leap - from simple prokaryotic life to a nucleated eukaryotic cell with membrane-bound organelles took 2 billion years to occur. And it has happened exactly once in the entire history of life on Earth. All eukaryotes - every animal, plant, fungus, and protists descend from that single event.

This event was so improbable, because it required not just the physical merger but the massive transfer of genes from the mitochondrial genome to the host cell’s nucleus in a very precise way, the probability of which is roughly 1/10¹⁰⁰, consistent with the fact that it appears to have happened only once in 4 billion years of life.

Running Probability: ~1/10⁴⁰³⁰⁰

Chapter 8: Life Had to Survive Multiple Apocalypses

Even after life emerged and eukaryotes evolved, the path forward was far from clear. Earth periodically tried to kill everything on it, and very nearly succeeded several times.

1. The Great Oxidation Event (~2.4 billion years ago): Cyanobacteria evolved oxygenic photosynthesis, the ability to split water molecules and release oxygen as a waste product. Oxygen, to the anaerobic organisms that dominated Earth at the time, was a lethal poison. This event, sometimes called the Oxygen Catastrophe, likely killed off the vast majority of life on Earth. The survivors were organisms that either escaped to anaerobic pockets or evolved tolerance for this new atmospheric poison.

2. Snowball Earth Hypothesis (~720–635 million years ago): The Earth experienced at least two episodes in which ice sheets extended to or near the equator, which was virtually a complete planetary glaciation. Global average temperatures may have dropped to -50°C. Life retreated to hydrothermal vents, geothermal hotspots, and pockets of liquid water. Survival was not guaranteed, but Earth escaped that as well!!

3. The Late Devonian Extinction (~375 million years ago): Approximately 75% of all species were lost over a period of roughly 25 million years, likely due to a combination of oceanic anoxia, climate change, and possibly asteroid impacts.

4. The Permian-Triassic Extinction (~252 million years ago): The most catastrophic extinction event in Earth’s history. Approximately 96% of all marine species and 70% of terrestrial vertebrate species were wiped out, likely triggered by massive volcanic eruptions in what is now Siberia, releasing CO₂ and sulfur dioxide in quantities that caused both severe ocean acidification and a greenhouse heating event. The recovery took roughly 10 million years.

5. The Cretaceous-Paleogene Extinction (~66 million years ago): A 10-kilometer asteroid struck what is now the Yucatán Peninsula with an energy equivalent to roughly 10 billion atomic bombs, triggering fires, a years long impact winter, and the extinction of three-quarters of all species on Earth, including all non avian dinosaurs. The mammals that survived and eventually gave rise to primates and humans were, at this point, small, nocturnal, insectivorous creatures barely clinging to existence.

The probability that the specific lineage leading to humans survived each of these catastrophes, not just that some life survived, but that the particular branches of the tree of life ancestral to us made it through each bottleneck, is estimated at roughly 1/10⁵⁰.

Running Probability: ~1/10⁴⁰³⁵⁰

Chapter 9: The Cambrian Explosion Had to Happen

For most of Earth’s history, complex multicellular life simply did not exist. Then, something extraordinary happened beginning around 541 million years ago: the Cambrian Explosion.

Within a geologically brief window of roughly 20 million years, an eyeblink in the scale of Earth’s 4.5 billion year history, the fossil record suddenly burst with representatives of nearly all major animal body plans we recognize today. Eyes, legs, shells, nervous systems, bilateral symmetry, they all appeared in a geological instant. This is estimated to be around 1/10²⁰

Running probability: ~1/10⁴⁰³⁷⁰

Chapter 10: Vertebrates, Jaws, Limbs, and the Move to Land

The Cambrian gave us the ancestors of vertebrates - creatures with a notochord, which eventually became spines. But from there, dozens of improbable transitions had to occur in the right sequence - from the evolution of the jaw, through modification of gill arches expanded feeding possibilities, the evolution of paired fins, which later evolved into arms and legs, and several others.

And around 375 million years ago, during the late Devonian, a group of lobe finned fish evolved weight bearing limbs and made the transition to land. This transition to land opened up an entirely new ecological domain with essentially no competition. Without it, there are no terrestrial vertebrates, no mammals, no us.

Each of these transitions - jaws, limbs, air-breathing, amniotic eggs (which freed reproduction from water entirely) was an evolutionary innovation that required specific genetic changes, ecological pressures, and survival of the intermediates. Collectively, the probability of this precise chain of transitions producing a terrestrial vertebrate lineage is estimated to be roughly 1/10¹⁵.

Running Probability: ~1/10⁴⁰³⁸⁵

STEP 11: Mammals Had to Survive the Age of Dinosaurs

Mammals first appeared around 225 million years ago, but for the next 160 million years, they were almost entirely small, nocturnal, insectivorous creatures living in the ecological shadow of the dinosaurs. The early mammals were marginalised, often rat-sized, and survived by being inconspicuous.

66 million years ago, during the Cretaceous, when the Chicxulub asteroid struck Earth, and wiped off the dominant megafauna, the dinosaurs. Only few mammals managed to survive, and the ones that did were tiny enough to survive the hostile climates. They ate insects and seeds that remained available, and were geographically distributed enough to avoid local annihilation. This combination, small enough to survive, adaptable enough to diversify, in the right place at the right time had enabled the Paleocene mammalian radiation, in which mammals rapidly evolved to fill ecological niches vacated by the dinosaurs.

The probability of one such specific mammalian lineage ancestral to primates surviving and being positioned for further evolution was roughly 1/10^10

Running Probability: ~1/10⁴⁰³⁹⁵

Chapter 12: The Development of the Primate Lineage

From the surviving early mammals, primates diverged roughly 55-65 million years ago. The key adaptations, such as forward facing eyes for stereoscopic depth perception, grasping hands with opposable thumbs, large brains relative to body size, extended parental care, they all evolved in a specific sequence in response to arboreal life in tropical forests.

Around 7 million years ago, the hominin lineage split from our last common ancestor with chimpanzees. What followed was a series of species - Australopithecus, Homo habilis, Homo erectus, and others, each of which was an evolutionary experiment, and most of which went extinct.

This was again followed by a series of experiments, such as bipedalism which freed the hands, in turn driving tool use, and further drove brain development in a feedback loop. One such species that resulted from this series of experiments was the Homo sapiens, which emerged approximately 300,000 years ago in Africa.

Following a range of interspecial wars, territorial invasions and adapted defense mechanisms, Homo Sapiens became the only surviving hominin species, with all our evolutionary cousins, including Homo neanderthalensis and Homo floresiensis turning extinct. The probability of this particular path through hominin evolution leading to Homo sapiens specifically is close to 1/10^15.

Running Probability: ~1/10⁴⁰⁴¹⁰

Chapter 13: Your Entire Ancestral Chain Had to Hold Every Single Link

For roughly 300,000 years, about 10000 to 12000 human generations, your specific ancestral line had to hold without a single break. Every one of those ancestors had to survive childhood in an era when, approximately half of all children never reached adulthood. They had to outlast ice ages, famines, plagues, predators, tribal warfare, and the grinding randomness of pre-modern life, and then, having survived all of that, had to find a specific partner among all available humans at that time and conceive at a moment that continued your particular line rather than producing no children at all, or children who themselves failed to survive. Statistically, at even the most conservative per-generation survival-and-reproduction probability of 1/2, that chain of 10000 generations yields a probability of (1/2)¹⁰⁰⁰⁰. which is approximately 1/10³⁰⁰⁰.

Running Probability: ~1/10^43500

Chapter 14: Your Parents Had to Meet

Out of every person alive on Earth when your parents were of reproductive age, billions of humans living in different cities, countries, and circumstances, your parents had to encounter one another specifically, form a lasting relationship, and decide to have children together.

From sociological research, the probability of any two specific individuals meeting, forming a relationship, and remaining together long enough to reproduce at roughly 1/20000, and that’s after they’re already in the same broad social environment. Factoring in global population distributions and geographic barriers, the true number is likely far smaller. We’ll still use 1 in 20000 as the conservative figure, which is approximately 1/1.3×10⁴

Running Probability: ~1/10⁴³⁵⁰⁴

Chapter 15: A Specific Sperm Met a Specific Egg

During a single reproductive event, a human male releases approximately 250 million sperm. Each one carries a unique genetic payload, produced through meiosis, the cell division process in which chromosomes are shuffled and divided into sex cells, each containing 23 chromosomes. The number of genetically distinct sperm a man can theoretically produce is approximately 8.4 million (2²³, the number of possible chromosome combinations), and further shuffled by crossing over, the physical exchange of genetic segments between paired chromosomes during meiosis, which multiplies distinct possibilities by orders of magnitude.

Your mother’s egg is similarly unique. The number of genetically distinct eggs a woman can produce is also approximately 8.4 million, further diversified by crossing over.

When you multiply the possible genetic variants from the sperm by the possible genetic variants from the egg, one specific sperm meeting one specific egg, you get approximately 70 trillion possible genetic individuals your parents could have produced. You are one specific outcome from that pool, and the one that actually happened. The probability is ~1/70,000,000,000,000, which is 1/7×10¹³

Running Probability: ~1/10⁴³⁵¹⁶

Correcting the Loophole in our Assumptions:

Every probability calculated this far rests on one heroic assumption: that we only need to trace your ancestry back to the emergence of Homo sapiens 300,000 years ago. But your lineage does not begin there. It begins with the first fish that crawled onto land 375 million years ago, with the first mammal that survived the shadow of the dinosaurs, with the first primate that developed a grasping hand, with every single intermediate species across the last 3.8 billion years of unbroken biological succession, and every one of those organisms also had to survive, find a mate of the right species at the right moment, and produce offspring that continued your line rather than the billions of parallel lineages that went extinct.

If we extend the generational chain not 10000 generations back but all the way to the origin of life, accounting for the roughly 100 billion billion generations of reproducing organisms across all ancestral species since the first self-replicating molecule, each with their own survival odds, predation pressures, reproductive windows, and ecological crises, and apply even the most generous per-generation probability of survival and successful reproduction, the cumulative figure cascades toward 1/10^2685428

Final Probability: ~1/10^2685428

The Final Number

The probability that you - you specifically, with your precise genome, your exact history, born to your parents, descended from your unbroken ancestral chain, on a planet that formed in exactly the right place, in a universe calibrated to permit matter and biochemistry to exist at all is approximately 1 in 10^2685428

This is a 1 preceded by a decimal point and approximately two million six hundred and eighty five thousand zeros. The number of atoms in the observable universe is 10⁸⁰. If every atom in the universe were itself a universe full of atoms, you’d have 10¹⁶⁰ atoms total. This number still doesn’t approach our denominator.

There is no physical analogy. There is no scale on which this number becomes intuitive. By every conventional measure, the probability of your existence is zero.

And yet here you are, reading this sentence. The odds may be unimaginable, but so is the fact that you get to be part of this moment at all. Which means we need to fundamentally renegotiate our relationship with the word ordinary. Like if existence is this rare, how can there ever be a truly ordinary life?

Now, at the moment you are reading this, in rooms you will never enter, lives are happening at full volume. Someone is studying for their exams, someone is baking a cake for the first time, someone is learning to walk, someone is falling in love for the first time, someone is sitting with a parent who no longer remembers their name, someone is laughing so hard at something stupid that they cannot breathe, someone is listening to bedtime stories, someone is watching the news with the sound low so he does not wake his wife, someone is writing something in a notebook they will never show anyone, someone is standing in front of an open refrigerator, forgetting what they came for, someone is deleting a message they typed three times before finally sending “okay”, someone is rehearsing a speech in the shower, someone is looking at old photos instead of sleeping. Not just that, someone is ironing a school uniform for tomorrow while someone else is deciding they will never go back to school again. Someone is counting coins on a kitchen counter to see if dinner can stretch one more night while someone else is complaining that their food arrived cold. Someone is refreshing their email every few minutes hoping for a job offer while someone else is drafting a resignation letter they have fantasized about for years. Someone is praying desperately for a child while someone else is hiding a positive pregnancy test in the bottom of a trash can. Someone is buying flowers for a first date while someone is buying flowers for a funeral. Someone is hearing “I love you” for the first time while someone is hearing it for the last. Someone is taking hundreds of photos to remember the moment, while someone else is deleting every photo trying desperately to move on. Someone is hearing birds outside after years in prison while someone else is staring out an office window feeling trapped anyway. Someone is tying their shoes before the biggest race of their life, while someone else is realising that they already are in a race they never chose to run. Someone is dreaming of all the places they will go, while someone else is crossing borders with no idea where they will sleep. Someone is planting a tree whose shade they will never sit beneath while someone else is cutting one down just to survive the winter. All of it is happening right now, simultaneously, on the same small world, under the same sky. None of these people had any business being here. Neither did the sun, nor the water, nor their feeling. These are not small lives happening in a big universe. These are the universe’s most extraordinary achievement, happening all at once, in every direction, in a billion quiet rooms - unwitnessed, uncelebrated, and completely, staggeringly improbable.

We spend so much of our time sorted into categories - by what we believe, what we earn, what we look like, which corner of this small world we were born in. We build such careful cases for why some lives matter more than others, but the mathematics does not. It gives every single one of them the same number: 1 in 10^2685428. From the refugee to the ruler, from the orphan to the emperor, from the prisoner to the president, from the unknown to the unforgettable, from the beggar to the billionaire, from the runaway to the revolutionary, from the mocked to the memorialised, from the laborer to the leader, from the defeated to the decorated, from the hypocrite to the hero, from the ones history celebrates to the ones it erases, from the names carved in stone to the names lost in silence, from the voices that changed the world to the voices never heard, from the people who write history to the people history writes over, from the crowned to the condemned, from the saint to the sinner, from the privileged to the persecuted, from the poet to the propagandist, from the ragpicker to the rebel, from the feared to the forgotten, every human being who ever drew breath on this planet - every hunter crouching in a forest ten thousand years ago, every child who lived and died before anyone invented a way to write their name down, every person alive right now, they all arrived here through the same impossible chain, on the same impossible world, made of the same impossible stardust.

And you are what happens when the improbable refuses to stay impossible. And if impossibility can become life once, then perhaps the other impossible things you’re quietly hoping for are far closer than they seem!!

And few of you might be familiar with the typing monkey hypothesis - the idea that if an infinite number of monkeys are made to sit with a typewriter each, and each of them smashes random keys on the keyboard, it is likely that almost immediately will some monkey type out a poem by Shakespeare accidentally, without even knowing who Shakespeare was!! Similarly, what if we are the universe’s longest running accident?

Producer Veerendra Prasad had booked a cab early that morning. One of his films was in being shot on the outskirts of the city, and he preferred visiting the set in person rather than relying only on updates. It wasn’t something urgent, it was just something he liked doing - seeing how things were shaping up, talking to the crew, and making some decisions that didn’t always come through over calls.

When the cab arrived, he got in with a relaxed nod, settling into the backseat without any rush. He gave the location, placed his phone beside him, and looked out as the cab pulled into the road. The city was just beginning to move, and the traffic hadn’t built up yet.

A few minutes into the drive, the driver glanced at him through the rearview mirror, hesitating slightly before speaking.

“Sir… you’re Veerendra Prasad, right?”

Veerendra looked up, a little surprised but not unfamiliar with being recognised in public. He gave a small smile. “Yes” he said.

The driver nodded, almost relieved to have been right. He says “I’ve seen you at your office once… a few years back”.

Veerendra’s expression shifted slightly, attentive now.

“You had come there?”

“Yes, sir” the driver said. “A few years back. I used to be an aspiring director. I had written a few stories and came there hoping to narrate them.”

He paused for a moment, choosing his words carefully.

“But I never got the chance. There were a lot of people waiting, and things were busy. The same thing happenned with few other production houses. So, after some time… I had to let it go. Family responsibilities came in, so I took up this job.”

He said it simply, without any complaint or expectation, just as something that had stayed incomplete. There was no resentment in his voice, just a quiet acceptance of how things had turned out.

Veerendra listened without interrupting. He nodded slowly, understanding the situation more than he showed.

“I’m sorry about that” he said. “Those days can get overwhelming. It’s not always possible to meet everyone, even if we want to”.

The driver with a rueful smile, replied “I understand, sir”, and left out a deep breath.

There was a brief silence after that. Veerendra looked ahead at the road, then back at the driver. He asked “You said you had written stories right? Do you still remember them?”

The driver smiled faintly, as if he was waiting for this moment for years.

“Yes, sir. I do.”

Veerendra leaned back into his seat, settling in more comfortably.

“Then let’s do this” he said. “We’ve got a long drive ahead. You can narrate them now. Let’s hear what I missed!!”

The driver nodded, his grip on the steering wheel steady. After a brief pause, he began.

Story 1:

We open on a black screen. The sounds of low wind and distant waves. We shift to a wide aerial shot - the western edge of Thamyrion, a coastal kingdom in ancient Greece.

On the bottom left, we specify in subtle text: Year 265 CE.

A few quick cuts follow - waves striking the rock violently, gulls circling the fishes beneath, the first light of the sun breaking over the horizon, ships leaving the harbour in the city, shards of obsidian glint unexpectedly between grains of sand.

Then we pause and settle. We zoom onto one location - up on the ridge, overlooking everything, stands the Temple of Pyrrhos, the god of fire, light, and permanence.

In Thamyrion, fire is not just worshipped, as outsiders might assume, for worship implied distance - an altar and a worshipper separated by reverence. Instead, they believe “We are fire wearing skin”

Fire is the only thing they trust, and the first thing they learned to sit beside. They believe it is alive in a way nothing else is, not with breath or thought, but with a kind of wanting. It grows when given, rests when left alone, and answers every touch with warmth.

To them, fire is not a mystery to solve, but a presence to keep, something that stays close in the dark and makes the world feel shaped, held, and near. And what is touched by fire is made pure and enduring.

So, once every 28 years, the entire kingdom gathers for the Festival of Helion, where the sacred flame is carried by the temple priest, from the temple down to the harbor, symbolising the protection of Pyrrhos over both land and sea.

But time has been working quietly against them.

The temple, built generations ago, faces the sea directly. Salt and winds have eaten into the stone. The outer layers look fine from a distance, but the deeper structure has weakened. Cracks have formed where moisture seeps in, and parts of the foundation have begun to shift ever so slightly.

Now, there are just months to go before the next Helion festival. And the temple’s priest, Ikaros notices the wearing off of their sacred temple - the one that the entire kingdom bends in reverence to.

He immediately orders the restoration of the magnificent temple - a task that would easily take over a year!! With the Helion festival just months away, he orders to bring in craftsmen and workers from the neighbouring kingdoms in masses to get things done quickly.

This news reaches the ears of one such smaller kingdom of skilled craftsmen scattered along the outer edges of Thamyrion - named Aithyra, the followers of Asteria - the god of wind.

Lysandor, one of Aithyra’s best stonemasons and sculptors, volunteers for the same! And in the next few days, a wide array of architects, carpenters, terracotta roofers, sculptors, mural painters, plasterers and ironworkers from all around Thamyrion and its neighbouring towns gather in front of the Temple of Pyrrhos.

However, Ikaros’ eye fell on Lysandor. And soon after he learns of him, the decision is immediate - Lysandor will not work on the temple!

There’s no argument, no spectacle. Just a boundary being enforced.

“You, who bow to a thing that cannot even hold its own shape, thought yourself worthy to step into the house of Pyrrhos?” - That’s how Ikaros sees it.

The contractor, Dikaios, listens and nods. He understands how deeply this belief runs. He doesn’t argue. Or at least not there, not in front of the temple steps, where even a disagreement can feel like disrespect to Ikaros.

But later, away from the main courtyard, when the workers begin sorting tools and marking sections, he calls Lysandor aside.

“There’s a pillar,” he says. “Back side. There are no carvings left worth preserving. No one goes there. The visible work is happening at the front - all the columns, steps, and the entrance where the procession will pass during Helion. That’s where Ikaros spends his time”

He was right - the rear pillar existed only to hold weight.

Lysandor accepts it with a nod, and gets to work without taking any offense.

The restoration begins in earnest. The temple rises back into form, stones are cut to fit tightly, interlocked into one another with precision, every joint is sealed, every surface is smooth and polished. It looks strong, the way the people of Thamyrion have heard of it, in countless tales.

At the back, the work looked different - the air is quieter, and fewer workers pass through. Lysandor notices that the pillar he has been assigned to is worn unevenly. Years of salt have eaten into the bottom half of it. As a result, the lower stones have begun to lose their natural grip on each other, and over time, pressure has been pushing unevenly through its base.

However, no one addressed it because the damage was not visible from the ceremonial side. Lysandor realises that he has to work differently. He does not try to force the pillar back into its original condition by replacing the damaged blocks with new blocks. He instead studied how the weight moves through it, where pressure gathered and where the stone resists too sharply instead of distributing it.

With this knowledge, he introduces controlled spacing within the lower structure, the ones that allow pressure to pass through without concentrating in one point. He subtly redistributes the load path beneath the pillar so that the weight no longer rests entirely on the most damaged section of stone. With that, most of the force is carried deeper into the foundation, into parts of the rock that have remained stable.

It is not a visible change. If anything, it looks less finished than the rest of the temple. But no one notices it either, for it is only the back.

In parallel, the rest of the temple begins to feel complete again, restored in appearance and order. The people speak of Helion as if nothing can interrupt it now.

Ikaros believes the same. With the ceremony in just few more days, he stands in front of it proud. And the Festival of Helion is declared ready to proceed!! Preparations for the festival fill the streets, offerings are arranged, routes are cleared, and rituals are rehearsed.

But fate has other plans in store. The night before the final consecration, the sea behaves differently. It was unusually still. And exactly by midnight, the silence breaks - a distant rupture forms far out at the sea.

People near the harbour know what it was - it was a Tsunami!!

Before people could realise, it comes as a single, overwhelming movement of water that devours everything in its path. It reaches Thamyrion’s coast as a wall of force.

The harbor is the first to vanish beneath it. The ships are overturned, and some, carried inland as if weight no longer matters.

In no time, without warning, the wave moves toward the ridge - and the temple is struck directly. The columns fracture at their bases. The entrance structures collapse inward as water forces its way through the sealed gaps. And because, the stones are locked too tightly, they begin to transfer energy instead of absorbing it. Each failure triggers the next, creating a chain of collapse that moves through the temple entirely.

The destruction is total in its progression. And when it ends, silence returns.

The sea has pulled back, leaving the ridge exposed and broken.

What remains of the temple is scattered across the cliffside. The front is gone. The inner sanctum is exposed, fractured, no longer intact. Stones lie scattered in directions. People gather slowly, standing at a distance, trying to understand what is left of something they believed would endure anything.

Ikaros arrives. He walks through the ruins, devastated at the entire structure in shackles, except for one - a pillar still standing at the back. It was not untouched. Its surface was scarred, marked by impact and pressure from multiple directions. But it did not break.

Ikaros stands before it for a long time. The kingdom sees this as a miracle. Eventually, he places his hand against the stone, kneels, touches the surviving stone, and says quietly: “The Flame protects what remains pure”.

The flame is carried down from that pillar to the harbor as it always is. As people watch the ceremony, Dikaios stands at a distance, supressing a grin, knowing where the real change was made.

Lysandor is already gone. He has already left with the workers, before the sea reached the ridge.

We just end quietly with no reveal to Ikaros about what actually happenned.

In the post credits scene, we show Lysandor back in Aithyra, where he sits with a small group of people, drawing geometric figures in the sand, teaching children the basics of sculpting. As they leave, a tide slowly washes part of it away, but the structure of what he drew remains visible beneath the water.

We close on that image, and the narrator asks the audience a simple question: “We spend lifetimes naming enemies, drawing borders between belief and belonging. But how often are we already standing safely on foundations built by the very people we refuse to see? And if the ones you refuse to see stopped building beneath you, how long would your world last?”

Interlude 1:

When the story ended, the cab remained quiet for a few moments. Veerendra didn’t respond immediately. His gaze stayed outside the window, but his attention had clearly shifted inward. The story had not been the dramatic one he expected, but something about it had settled in slowly.

He began to think through what he had just heard, not as someone evaluating a pitch, but as someone processing an idea. The way the story was structured stood out to him first. It did not rush into its message. Instead, it allowed the world to build gradually before revealing its deeper layer. He appreciated Armaan for how there was no attempt to force a conclusion or tell the audience what to feel. The meaning came later, almost as an afterthought, which made it more effective. It allowed viewers to introspect and arrive at the idea on their own.

He also recognised how the story avoided taking a direct stance. It did not label anyone as right or wrong. Instead, it placed the audience in a position where they had to reflect on their own assumptions. That approach, in his experience, was far more powerful than making a direct argument.

The final thought of the story lingered in his mind as well. The idea that people often reject or overlook those they depend on felt familiar in a way he couldn’t immediately place. It was not new, but the way it was presented made it harder to ignore.

There was a subtle shift in his engagement after that. What had started as a way to pass time had begun to hold his attention. He found himself wondering if there was more, but this time not out of politeness, it was out of genuine curiosity.

Armaan replied “Yes, I’ve got three other scripts”.

Veerendra was delighted, now that he had a distraction, and something to think about for the rest of the journey.

Armaan continued, “The next story is setup during the Russo-Japanese war”.

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Story 2:

We start with a shot of the violent grey skies - with smoke clouds drifting across the frame, lit from within by distant flashes of artillery.

On top of it, we display the text “1904, the Korean Peninsula”

As the text fades away, the camera holds for a moment, then it begins to descend through the fog and smoke.

It eventually descends onto the ground - snow covered trenches, wooden fortifications splintered apart, bodies scattered across the battlefield. There is chaos all around.

Amidst those scattered bodies, there is a soldier, face half-buried in the cold, slushy snow on the ground. His uniform is torn, soaked through. There’s a smear of blood across his cheek, mixing with melting snow. His fingers twitch, barely.

Around him, the battle is still alive - there are commands being shouted in two different languages. There is a relentless firing of bullets from both sides without a pause. But none of it reaches him fully anymore.

To him, the sounds begin to dull, collapsing into a high, endless ringing. His breath becomes the loudest thing he can hear.

His eyes begin to flutter. The last thing he sees is the sky breaking apart into fragments of white and grey, as he slowly closes his eye.

Then, we fade to black, which is all that the soldier could see. We cut the scene here.

When he wakes, it’s quiet. Too quiet.

The first thing he notices is the wooden ceiling - uneven, with cracks that let in thin lines of pale light.

He finds himself on an old wooden cot. Just as he tried to recollect things, the pain arrives, slowly, in different parts of his body.

He tries to move. He can’t. His arm is bandaged, his leg too.

As he tries to adjust himself, he knocks off a glass of water by the side of the cot.

This noise brings in someone into the room.

He is young. Younger than expected. Short hair, tired eyes. And he carries a rifle as well with him, although it feels more like a prop than a threat. He doesn’t say anything at first. Just watches.

The soldier realised that the man was a guard, left in charge of the prisoners of war, out of which he was the only one alive.

The soldier swallows, and with a dry voice whispers “Where…?”

The guard hesitates, then replies “Busan”. “Tsozan” he adds, using the word his side uses for that town in Korea.

And just like that, the lines are drawn - a Russian soldier, captured by the Japanese during the Russo-Japanese war in Busan, which served as Japan’s main entry port and logistical base for moving troops and supplies into Mainland Korea and Manchuria, where the war was fought.

The room is small and isolated. Just a few wooden structures surrounded by wire and wind.

The first days move fast. Too fast to process - Food comes, water follows, bandages are changed.

Surprisingly, there was no cruelty or interrogations. It appeared as if the soldier was just brought in to be used as a hostage later.

Orders are given somewhere outside, but the guard is always there.

They speak only when necessary - with single words and gestures.

But one day, the prisoner hums his favourite song - even he doesn’t realise he is doing it.

It was a soft tune, something that doesn’t belong to war.

The guard notices the contrast.

“What is that?” he asks.

The prisoner shrugs. “Song.”

The guard tilts his head “From… home?”

“Yeah.”

After that, the questions come a little easier.

“Name?” the guard asks

“Victor,” the prisoner says.

The guard tries. “Bi-ku-to-reu.”

Victor almost smiles “Close”.

The guard nods, then says, “Yukio”.

They repeat the names a few times, adjusting pronunciation, smiling like a child each time they get it right.

Simple conversations follow, and days stack on top of each other.

Day fifteen.

The rain doesn’t stop.

Mud everywhere. The cold creeping in.

They start speaking more - not because they want to, but because silence is getting heavier.

The words come slowly.

Broken Russian and broken Japanese from both ends. And gestures filling the gaps.

One night, out of curiousity, Yukio asks “You… army long?”

Victor shakes his head, pauses and gasps “Wasn’t my choice.”

Yukio frowns. “Army sends you. You come.”

Victor replies with his head down “You think I wanted this?”

Yukio doesn’t respond immediately.

Victor exhales slowly, and says “Before this… I taught music.”

Yukio tilts his head. “Music?”

Victor taps his fingers against the wooden frame beside him. A simple rhythm. Even spacing.

“Like this.”

Yukio watches, then tries to copy it. Misses the timing.

Victor adjusts the pace. Slower.

This time, Yukio gets closer.

Then Yukio asks, “Children you teach… they listen?”

Victor almost laughs “No”, “They’d rather run outside,” Victor continues. “Or talk. Or do anything except sit still.”

Yukio nods, like that makes perfect sense.

Amidst trying to copy, Yukio almost forgot how they got to this part of the conversation.

He snaps back to the question: “Why you here then?”

Victor gives a short answer “Orders.”

Yukio frowns “You follow?”

Victor looks at him “You don’t?”

Yukio doesn’t answer right away. Then, quietly, “If I don’t… someone else comes. Maybe worse.”

Victor nods. “Same.”

It’s not an argument. It’s not even agreement. Just recognition.

By the fifth week, routine has weight.

Victor taps rhythms against the wall. Yukio repeats them, sometimes getting it right, sometimes not.

They start using words more. Filling in gaps.

“Cold today,” Yukio says once.

Victor nods. “Colder back home.”

Yukio almost smiles. “I don’t believe.”

Victor shrugs. “You wouldn’t.”

Yukio leans back slightly against the wall, adjusting his grip on the rifle. “Where… home?”

Victor takes a moment. Not because he doesn’t understand, but because he hasn’t thought about it in a while.

“Near a lake. A fishing town called Bryansk” he says.

Yukio listens carefully, imagining things together.

“Family?” he asks.

Victor nods and replies “Mother. Younger sister. My father died in war”. A faint pause.

Yukio watches him for a second. Then, quieter, “You miss?”

Victor lets out a short breath. “Yeah.”

It sits there between them.

Yukio looks down at his hands. Flexes his fingers once.

“I had a brother” he says.

Victor looks up.

“Older” Yukio continues. “He worked at the docks. Strong and always loud.”

A small, almost invisible smile passes across his face. “He always says I cry too much.”

Victor listens.

“He left before me”, Yukio adds. “Sent north. I don’t know where now.”

Victor nods slowly. “You think he’s okay?”

Yukio shrugs, but it’s not careless. It was a painful “I don’t know”.

For a moment, the war feels very far away.

After that day, the conversations change.

They don’t just talk to fill silence anymore. They talk because there’s something to say.

Victor hums more often now. Sometimes full melodies. Sometimes fragments.

Yukio listens, then tries to follow. He can’t match the tune, but he keeps the rhythm.

And just like that, a dozen weeks pass by. The air feels different - less of the biting cold.

The snow outside had started to thin, leaving behind wet ground and patches of exposed earth.

The routine doesn’t feel like a routine anymore. It feels… stable.

One fine evening, the conversation drifts back without warning.

“Your side says we are enemy,” Yukio says.

Victor nods “Ours says the same.”

Yukio looks at him. “But you… not like that.”

Victor gives a small, tired smile. “Neither are you.”

Yukio exhales slowly.

“Then why they say?” he asks.

Victor thinks about it. Longer this time.

“I don’t know,” he says honestly. “Maybe it’s easier.”

“Easier?” Yukio repeats.

“To fight someone you don’t understand.”

Yukio nods, very slightly.

A couple of weeks later, the wind outside has softened. The air carries a hint of warmth now.

Yukio walks in, quieter than usual.

Victor notices immediately. “Something wrong?”

Yukio shakes his head, but it’s not convincing.

After a moment, he says, “They say war ending soon.”

Victor blinks “You sure?”

Yukio nods “Officers talk.”

Victor leans back slightly, processing that.

Yukio looks at him. “You go back?” he asks.

Victor doesn’t answer right away.

“Yeah” he says eventually. But it doesn’t sound like relief.

The last days move faster than all the ones before.

Not because anything changes.

But because now, every moment feels like it’s about to end.

They still talk. Still share small pieces of themselves.

Victor hums one last tune.

Yukio listens, memorizing the rhythm without realizing it.

Fifteen weeks in - Yukio stands in front of Victor, holding a piece of paper.

Orders of all prisoners to be released.

“You go,” he says.

Victor nods. The room feels smaller than ever.

“What about you?” Victor asks.

Yukio shrugs. “Stay.”

A pause.

Victor looks around - the walls, the cot, the space that somehow became familiar.

Then back at Yukio, speechless for a minute.

“Yukio,” Victor says.

Yukio looks up.

Victor hesitates, then asks, “If… no war… what you do?”

Yukio thinks about it. Properly.

Then, “Maybe work at docks again.” A faint pause. “Maybe teach someone… what I know”

Victor smiles. Not faint this time. “I think you’d be good at it”.

Yukio nods once, as Victor picks up his things and walks to the door. He stops and turns back. For a second, neither of them speak.

Then Yukio says, quietly, “Bi-ku-to-reu.”

Victor looks at him. Yukio taps twice on the wooden wall. The same rhythm Victor taught him weeks ago. Victor listens, nods, and taps it back.

Something settles in that exchange. Something neither of them tries to name.

Victor steps outside.

The light feels different. Wider. Almost unfamiliar.

He takes a few steps, then stops.

Turns back one last time.

Yukio is still there, in the doorway - not as a guard, but as a friend he may never be meeting again.

They don’t wave, they don’t say goodbye. Because neither of those things feels enough.

From there, we cut to a wide shot of the battlefield in Busan. The sky has cleared. The ground is calmer now, moving like nothing ever disturbed it.

And as the screen slowly fades to black, the question settles in, we end with the narrator saying “If two people are taught to see each other as enemies before they even meet… who decided they were supposed to be enemies in the first place?”

Interlude 2:

The second story drew him in differently. This time, his attention was more immediate, more focused on the characters than the setting. This could be a much simpler story to direct honestly - on a smaller scale and a smaller budget, but with the same impact as the first.

This time as well, he gave his opinions: Firstly, it did not try to expand beyond what was necessary. Secondly, that kind of writing, he knew, was difficult to sustain without losing depth, and this one did it perfectly. Third, the story did not attempt to justify the transformation between the characters. It simply showed that implicitly in the conversations happening, in a way that felt natural.

And again, it did not try to convince the audience of anything directly. Instead, it created a situation where the audience would arrive at their own understanding.

The question at the end stayed with him longer than expected. It did not offer an answer. It left something open, something that required thought beyond the story itself.

He began to reflect on how easily people accept divisions without questioning their origins. It was a thought that rarely surfaced in everyday conversations, but once it did, it was difficult to ignore.

At this point, his engagement had shifted completely. He was no longer passively listening. He was anticipating what would come next, assuming that there was more to follow.

He jokingly asked Armaan “Is the third story also going to be along the same concept? About divisions within people”.

Armaan smiled and replied with “No. the next one is going to be something inspired by Mulan”

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Story 3:

We start with a wide, sweeping shot of a lush green mountain forest somewhere in ancient China. High in the mountains, the forest stretched in every direction, deep and unbroken. The trees stood tall and close together, their leaves forming a thick green canopy that softened the light into something gentle and cool. Moss covered stones and roots alike, and the ground gave slightly underfoot, rich with years of fallen leaves. Small streams move quietly through it all, slipping over rock and earth, their sound never loud but always present. Bamboos leaned and brushed together in the breeze, insects hummed somewhere out of sight, and now and then a bird’s call would echo and disappear just as quickly.

Tucked within a break in the trees, almost easy to miss if you didn’t know where to look, the village rested. Its rooftops peeked out from the green, blending into the mountainside, as though it had grown there alongside the forest rather than being built at all.

We use a morph cut to focus towards this village, where life moves with a steady rhythm. Wooden homes with curved tiled roofs stand close together, smoke rising in thin spirals from their chimneys. Children run along narrow dirt paths, elders sit outside weaving baskets, and farmers return from terraced fields carved into the hills. It feels peaceful, almost untouched by time.

However, in this village, there is one tradition that no one questions. A fourth daughter is considered a misfortune - a bad omen for the entire village. And so, every fourth girl child is taken, to a cliff at the edge of the forest on the next full moon night, and left there to whatever fate follows. No one remembers when it began, and no one dares to ask why it continues.

As this tradition is explained to the audience as a voiceover, the camera zooms in to one particular home, where Yu Shunhua, a basket weaver in her mid 20s, and her husband, Yu Zeyin, a rice farmer, and their three daughters are having their supper. Their lives appear no different from anyone else’s. All, until that fateful night. Under the pale glow of a full moon, a child is born in the household - a fourth daughter!!

Shunhua holds the baby close, her breath uneven, while Zeyin stands frozen, caught between fear and something far stronger. They both know what the village expects, they both know what will happen if they abide to the rules. The baby cries softly, unaware of the count that has already sealed her fate. However, Zeyin and Shunhua take a wild call that night - they name her Yu Wuming, a name that means “Unbound to destiny”. It was not just a name, it was a decision - to raise her in the shadows, unbeknownst from the rest of the village.

They prepare a small basket filled with discarded cloth, broken pottery, and terracotta toys, right about the size of a newboarn. Under the cover of night, they carry it to the cliff, just as the tradition demands, and throw it into the waterfall beneath it.

They return to their village by dawn, and inform the village about leaving their daughter on the cliff. As the village continues to believe what it has always believed, Yu Wuming grows up in the shadows of her home.

Her world is small, defined by wooden walls and narrow corridors where sunlight only visits in fragments. She learns early that her footsteps must be soft, her voice softer. The outside world, to her, exists only in glimpses through cracks in wooden shutters or in the distant sounds of laughter she is never part of. There are no games, no wandering beyond the doorway, no festivals for her, no laughter spilling in from the streets, no names called out in play and no moments where she forgets what she is not supposed to be.

Her world may be small but not empty. She wakes up before dawn to have a bath in the river without being caught by the villagers. From there on, she learns from her mother how to fetch water, how to grate vegetables and how to clean fishes. She helps her mom in cooking meals subsequently. Post meals, most of her day is spent on cleaning and maintenance. She washes utensils, scrubs pots, wipes surfaces, and helps keep the house organized. Yu Zeyin, upon reaching back home, sometimes teaches her to fix small things around the house and handle tools. Occasionally, when the night stretches long, he puts her to sleep by narrating bedtime stories in a low voice, careful to keep them contained within the walls.

The house becomes her entire world, not because she chooses it, but because it is the only place where she is allowed to exist. And her sisters are taught to never utter a word about Yu Wuming outside the walls as well.

Years pass like this, unremarkable in the way that survival often is.

Outside, the village continues unchanged - seasons roll over the mountains, harvests come and go, people exchange the same small pieces of conversation that never seem to lead anywhere new, they follow the same routines, the same beliefs and there is still the same quiet acceptance of things no one questions anymore.

But all of a sudden, without any any sign of danger, havoc breaks loose and the village descends into disarray.

It starts with a single household where a kid vomits after drinking water. At first, it is treated like an ordinary passing sickness. But within a day, his body begins to weaken, the skin begins to dull into a faint greyish tint, and a sharp shift in tone.

Soon, another family shows the same signs, then another. Within days, similar scenes appear elsewhere in the village. Entire families are struck down, collapsing under relentless vomiting, severe dehydration, and the chilling discoloration that creeps across the skin.

Smoke stops rising from chimneys, doors remain closed long after sunrise, the sounds of daily life begin to fade, replaced by a silence that feels heavier than before. Entire families disappear from the rhythm of the village overnight. Where there was once laughter and chatter, there is now only the occasional creak of wood and the distant echo of wind moving through empty spaces.

On the flipside, inside the Yu household, things continue the way they always do. Nobody falls sick. Yu Wuming at first, she accepts it as nothing more than luck or coincidence. But as days pass, the contrast becomes harder to ignore. Outside, the world is collapsing in silence, yet inside, nothing changes at all.

She keeps thinking about it through her meals, and everyday chores.

One noon, she goes to the washing basin after her family has finished their lunch. She is met with the usual scene - pots being stacked, and the bowls rinsed. Her hands naturally reach for the stove to gather the thin layer of wood ash left behind. She mixes it with water and begins scrubbing, just as she has done countless times before. The ash helps the oil to coagulate easily, leaving the clay surfaces clean in a way plain water could never.

It is in the middle of this motion that something interrupts her.

Her hand slows, then stops entirely, the bowl half-rinsed in front of her. She does not drop it or step away, but for the first time, she is no longer simply cleaning another bowl. She is looking at it - the ash, the water, the way everything separates and clears so effortlessly.

She brings it to her mother carefully, explaining what she has seen, not with certainty, but with enough clarity to be taken seriously. Yu Shunhua listens, her expression unreadable, but her attention unwavering.

They decide to try something - Yu Shunhua shares the idea with a neighbor she believes will listen. It was just a suggestion to use wood ash when cleaning utensils.

The neighbor’s family follows it, not because it sounds convincing, but because there is little left to lose. To her surprise, those who were already sick begin to recover faster than expected, their strength visibly returning back to their bodies. And the illness didn’t return to their household ever since.

Since then, the idea begins to spread. One home tells another, then another, no announcements, no declarations of discovery, just small changes repeated across households desperate for anything that might help.

And slowly, the village begins to shift - the sickness loosens its hold, fewer new cases appear, and more people recover. The village springs back to life!

What no one in the village realises, at least not in those terms, is what the ash is actually doing. Wood ash contains alkaline salts, and it raises the pH on the surfaces of utensils, making them less hospitable for many harmful microorganisms. It also helps loosen and settle organic residues where pathogens thrive.

However, the village was more bothered about the answer to another question - now how, but who. Who gave this idea? Villagers gather at the center of the village out of a shared need for answers.

Amongst the gathering, Yu Shunhua steps forward. The people around her glance at each other, the village is filled with murmuring noises and a quiet confusion, sensing that something unusual is about to happen.

Shunhua looks over them once, then calls someone forward, in a clear, steady voice, loud enough to reach everyone in the crowd.

From behind her, Yu Wuming steps into the open.

The sunlight touches her fully for the first time in her life, unfamiliar to her face, but not unwelcome. The crowd shifts, confusion passing through them first, followed by the realisation of who she is. Or rather, what she was supposed to be.

Yu Shunhua does not dress it in careful words. She tells them plainly. This is her fourth daughter. The child that the village has believed had been left at the cliff. And she is the reason their homes are no longer filled with the sick.

The village does not respond immediately.

There is no applause, no sudden transformation of belief into celebration. Just a stillness that spreads outward, deeper than any silence that came before.

Because now, they are not facing an idea. They are facing a person. Someone who should not exist according to everything they have accepted without question.

And in that moment, something far more difficult settles in - the realisation of what those unquestioned beliefs have cost them, not just now, but for years beyond memory.

No one argues. No one tries to defend the tradition that brought them here. There is nothing left to say that could make it stand.

The truth is already standing in front of them, breathing, real, undeniable.

We slowly cut to the cliff at the edge of the village, the same place where the ritual has always ended. The wind moves through it just as it always has, carrying nothing but the sound of leaves brushing against stone.

We fade to black, with the audio of children, laughing heartily, reflecting the ones who could have been laughing by now, if not for the tradition.

And over the darkness, we bring a voiceover: “People defend tradition not because it’s right, but because it’s familiar. The moment you stop questioning tradition, it starts controlling you. Respect the past, but don’t let it handcuff the future”.

Interlude 3:

This story impacted him in a different way though. It did not introduce something unfamiliar. It just embodied something that already existed, something people chose not to question.

He understood what the story was trying to say. That part was clear to him. The idea that several traditions go unquestioned, and that people follow them out of familiarity rather than logic. He had seen it happen in multiple times, in different forms, in different places. But understanding it did not mean agreeing with it completely.

In his mind, traditions were not always about control. They were also about continuity. They gave people a structure to hold on to, especially in situations where uncertainty could lead to bigger problems. Not everything that continued over time was wrong simply because it wasn’t questioned.

He began to think about how easily people criticise something from the outside without considering why it existed in the first place. There are systems that may seem restrictive, but they also prevent chaos in ways that are not immediately visible. That complexity, he felt, was missing from the story.

At the same time, he couldn’t dismiss it entirely. The discomfort it created was real, and that meant there was some truth in it. The story had pointed at something valid, even if it simplified the reasoning behind it.

He found himself caught between two thoughts. One part of him acknowledged that blind acceptance of tradition could be harmful. Another part of him believed that rejecting it entirely without understanding its role could be equally careless.

By the end of that reflection, his engagement had shifted again. He was no longer just absorbing the ideas. He was pushing back against them, testing them, trying to find where they held and where they didn’t.

That was new. Until now, he had mostly agreed. This time, he wasn’t fully convinced, and that made him more attentive to what might come next.

He told Armaan “Proceed with the final story”.

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Story 4:

We start with a shot of the water - dense, dark blue, heavy with humid air pressing low over a restless South Atlantic. The year is 1974. The camera glides forward, cutting through a thin mist that clings stubbornly to the sea, and then begins to rise.

When the camera rises, we reveal an island - a dark, volcanic one, wrapped in a faint mist that never quite clears. Steam rises faintly from fissures in the rock, and the terrain is uneven, sharp, and hostile. Sailors and fishermen who passed near it gave it names that never quite agreed with each other - “La Sentinelle Noire”, meaning “The Black Sentinel” and “Naraka Isle” - a place of suffering. The island belonged to Tristan da Cunha, a highly isolated group of islands between South America and Africa, far enough that no regular route touches it. The only creatures that sail here are schools of silvery fishes migrating. Ships do come through these waters only a handful of times a year, and even then, there is no dilly-dally.

From there, we zoom into a cargo vessel cutting through the same waters. It carries equipment, supplies, and around a dozen passengers. On board is Taro, a technician, contracted for a temporary assignment at a remote communications outpost further south. Another person on board is Seraphina, a researcher studying migratory seabirds. Her work has taken her across coastlines and islands, tracking patterns that stretch across continents. This voyage is one segment of a longer journey, one of many stops she has planned to understand how these birds navigate such vast distances between hemisphere and still return to the same places.

Life on the ship settles into a rhythm. Taro spends long hours below deck and near the communication arrays, running diagnostics, recalibrating systems. Seraphina remains mostly above deck, moving between some vantage points depending on the time of day, logging bird activity, wind direction, and subtle changes in movement patterns that only she seems to notice.

They notice each other in passing during the early days of the voyage. He notices that she is always at the railing just before dusk, writing in a small notebook, pausing at regular intervals to scan the horizon. And she notices that he checks the same panel thrice every morning and twice every evening, even when nothing appears to be wrong. There is one brief attempt at conversation early in the journey, a few exchanged words that quickly reveal the gap between them - they do not speak the same language! After that, they return to their separate routines, acknowledging each other only through passing glances and a few smiles.

Days pass quickly. But one fine evening, the first signs of trouble arrive. The barometer begins to fall steadily, which is something that the crew notices before the passengers do. The wind changes direction in a way that forces constant minor adjustments to the ship’s heading. Clouds build low and dense, the sea begins to rise, and the ship starts to roll more noticeably, its movements getting slower but deeper with each hour passing, forcing everyone on board to adjust their footing. All of a sudden, grey clouds take over, followed by an intense thunderstorm.

Taro is called to assist with communication systems when interference begins to disrupt outgoing signals. There is plain static, transmissions break mid-sentence, and attempts to reach nearby vessels fail repeatedly. Above deck, Seraphina is caught in the worsening conditions, amongst other passengers who are in a state of complete chaos - securing loose cargo, reinforcing fastenings, shouting instructions that are barely audible over the wind.

Before anyone can react, a large wave strikes the side of the vessel with enough force to send water across the deck, knocking over unsecured equipment and forcing several member on board to the ground. Another follows almost immediately, hitting from a slightly different angle, disrupting the ship’s attempt to stabilise. The rhythm of the sea is no longer predictable. Waves come in uneven intervals, some larger than the last, each one testing the limits of the vessel.

Inside, systems begin to fail in sequence. The generators cut out, backup systems engage, lighting flickers, communication drops completely for several minutes before returning in fragments. Taro works through it, but even he can tell the situation is slipping beyond what routine fixes can manage. So, the call is taken - they can no longer be there, and lifeboats should be the only way out.

The entire crew is rushed into the three lifeboats on the ship. Somehow, Taro and Seraphina are pushed into the same lifeboat with two others and a handful of supplies. There is no time to choose placement, no time to coordinate beyond immediate survival. Their boat is lowered. The rope line snaps under tension, releasing them abruptly into open water. To the trio, the ship remains visible for a short time through the lightning flashes, before distance and weather swallow it completely.

The storm continues through the course of the night, separating what remains of the crew, scattering lifeboats, and erasing any sense of direction. By the time morning arrived, the sea has calmed down, and the lifeboat drifted, damaged but afloat, with only Taro and Seraphina, both being carried by the ocean currents toward a place neither of them intended to reach - the Tristan da Cunha. The others were gone, either taken by the night or scattered beyond sight.

By the time, their lifeboard is washed up to the shore, they are disoriented as well. Upon reaching the island, they drag what they can from the broken lifeboat - sealed food packets, a knife, a coil of rope, and an emergency radio unit that looks intact but refuses to come alive. The equation was simple - two people, who not speak the same language - they need to survive with the little they have, until someone comes for rescue.

Initially, they keep distance from each other even while standing on the same stretch of ground, each guarding what they picked up, each scanning for threats the other might bring, as bringing the number down to one might seem like a better way to survive with the limited resources in hand. There is a quiet selfishness in those moments, the instinct to survive narrowing their world down to one person at a time. But within a few hours, the weight of the situation pushes them out of that isolation.

Hunger arrives faster than expected, and thirst even faster. The sealed packets are counted, and divided amongst ourselves. Fixing the emergency radio becomes Taro’s first priority, for that’s the only way to contact the rest of the crew, if they ever managed to survive, or worse, the last resort to contact any other humans at all. It has been through hours of exposure to saltwater - so Taro opens it up carefully, checks connections, tries to dry out the internal components. He adjusts, rewires, tests again. Nothing.

Eventually they give up on the radio and try to coordinate between themselves. Initially, Taro tries short, direct phrases to communicate. And Seraphina responds with words that mean nothing to him. For a while, it only adds to the frustration, each of them retreating into their own methods of thinking. But somehow, their survival instincts kick in - Taro points, demonstrates, repeats. She observes, adapts, and responds in kind. They begin to coordinate stuff, right from securing what little they have.

They dismantle parts of the lifeboat - the plastic lining, metal strips, anything that can serve a second purpose. Seraphina gathers dry plant matter from higher ground where the humidity is slightly less intense. Fire takes time, multiple failed attempts, and visible frustration from both sides before it finally holds. When it does, they both sit near it longer than necessary.

Food becomes the next challenge. The island offers just enough to keep them going, but not without effort. Seraphina identifies certain fruits and berries, testing cautiously. She gestures warnings for the ones that are unsafe. Taro focuses on tools, shaping a crude spear from a straight branch, reinforcing it with fragments from the lifeboat. Small animals move through the undergrowth - quick, alert, and difficult to catch. His first few attempts fail, costing energy they cannot afford to waste. Eventually, he adjusts, learns patterns, and succeeds. The shift is immediate.

Water is never guaranteed. Rain helps, but it is inconsistent. They collect it whenever they can, using stretched material and improvised containers. On drier days, they ration carefully, marking levels with scratches on a rock surface near where they store it. There are disagreements here and there, like one reaching for more than the other expects. But even those moments begin to settle into an understanding.

They soon, even find a cave to shelter themselves. Days pass, and routine forms. It is not discussed, but it becomes consistent. Mornings are for water and checking what remains of their supplies. Midday is for food - gathering, hunting and grilling. Evenings are for reinforcing their shelter, improving it in small ways. Taro focuses on structure, strengthening weak points, finding ways to keep the interior dry despite the constant moisture in the air. Seraphina focuses on improving efficiency, identifying which areas of the island yield the most with the least risk.

Amidst all of this, Taro returns to the radio repeatedly, each time convinced there is something he missed. He cleans connections again, adjusts wiring, even tries repositioning it at higher points in the hope of catching a signal. Seraphina watches these attempts closely, not understanding the mechanics but understanding the intention. Eventually, she begins to assist in the ways she can - like holding components steady, pointing out small details he might have overlooked.

Things are not always smooth though, there are still moments of tension, like a failed hunt or a missed signal. In those moments, the lack of language becomes more noticeable. They cannot argue properly, cannot explain, cannot resolve. But those moments pass faster each time. One steps in when the other falters, and the cycle continues. They move around each other with a familiarity that feels practiced. A glance is enough to signal agreement, and a gesture carries more meaning than entire sentences might have before. The boundaries they set in the beginning slowly dissolve without being acknowledged. What started as two individuals trying to survive separately becomes a shared effort that neither questions anymore.

Months pass by, with a shared understanding. Then, one morning, something changes. A shape appears far out on the water. It takes time to confirm, both of them staring longer than necessary before reacting. It was a boat - a small one, moving steadily, but not close enough to notice them yet. At that moment, everything shifts into urgency. They gather what they can use for signaling - fabric, flagposts, anything that can catch attention. Taro works to produce smoke, adjusting the fire to create a thicker, darker plume. Seraphina positions herself at a higher point, waving, moving, doing anything to break the monotony of the landscape.

The boat changes course - nobody knew which of their methods caused it to, but it did. The boat arrives on their island!! They understand the situation quickly, and realise that these two could be the survivors of the storm that they heard of in the news a few months ago. Just as Taro and Seraphina are relieved that they are out of this hellhole, the members on the boat come with a constraint neither of them wanted or expected. The boat was already carrying weight close to its limit. So, the captain says that only one of them can be taken safely, as the sea ahead is unpredictable, and the margin for error is too thin.

For the first time since they arrived, the conflict returns. But this time, it is not born out of selfishness or fear for one’s own survival, like it used to be. This time, it moves in the opposite direction. Their gestures lose their rhythm, their signals break down, and what replaces them is insistence - each of them pushing the other forward, each refusing to step ahead themselves. They argue without a shared language, but the meaning is unmistakable. It is no longer about surviving here. It is about who gets to leave, and neither of them is willing to choose themselves.

Taro points toward the boat, then firmly toward Seraphina, shaking his head when she resists. Seraphina does the same in return, her movements redirecting the decision back at him. There is frustration in it, but also something deeper - an unwillingness to accept a future that comes at the cost of the other being left behind. They circle the same argument again and again, neither giving ground.

But the decision is forced before either can win. Taro breaks the stalemate in the only way he can - he turns to the captain and speaks in the limited shared language he can manage, his tone urgent, deliberate. He gestures toward Seraphina, making it clear that she needs to go, and if one of them has to lose, he will decide that it is him. Seraphina realises what he has done. There is an immediate reaction of confusion, followed by refusal. She steps back, tries to correct it, tries to pull the decision back into something shared. But time does not allow it. The crew moves quickly, responding to what they believe is a clear choice. They guide her toward the boat before she can undo it, before the moment slips entirely.

She looks back at him, searching for something that can hold the weight of everything they have built without words. He does not look away. He gives a single, steady gesture - not forcing reassurance, but offering it anyway.

The boat pulls away.

For a long time, Taro does not move. He stands at the edge of the island, watching until the boat dissolves into the horizon and until the sound of the engine disappears into the sea. Only then does he turn back, not toward the island, but toward the space they had shared.

The absence is immediate. Everything remains where it was - the fire, the tools, the markings they had made. But something essential has been taken out of it.

The days that follow are heavier, not because survival becomes harder, but because it becomes quieter. There is no one to anticipate his movements anymore, no second pair of hands adjusting things before they fail. He continues the routines, but now they feel like echoes of something larger. He still checks the radio, still climbs to higher ground to search for signals, still maintains the fire with the same care. It is no longer just about staying alive. It becomes about holding onto something that should not be lost.

Time stretches. Weeks become months, and the systems they built together evolve. But Taro refuses to replace them entirely. Some things are left exactly as they were, preserved in a way that does not make sense for survival alone. A marking on the rock remains untouched. A section of the shelter is never expanded. The place where they used to sit near the fire is always kept clear.

Finally, 97 days since Seraphina left, another ship appears. Taro notices it immediately, and he rebuilds the signal fire, sending up smoke that rises thick into the humid air. And the ship notices him as well - it reaches the shore, asks him to get in, and begins preparing to leave. Taro turns to the island one last time, his eyes scan the island for the last time, tracing the cave, the fireplace, the markings and the systems that had once meant survival, and even something more. There is a hesitation in his movement, a moment where it feels like he might step back instead. The boat pulls away, and this time, he is the one watching the island dissolve into the horizon. The journey carries a quiet weight, like the closure of something that was never meant to end this way.

On the ship, the world outside begins to return in fragments - he listens to his language back after months, he eats good food after long, he has company to spend time with. After 10 days of travel, he is brought to some port along the South American coast. And when they dock, Taro steps off slowly. At first, no one pays attention. He looks like another survivor of rough waters, another name without a story yet. But then a dock worker carrying crates stops mid step, stares at him, squints his eye, and calls out a name in disbelief - “Taro?”

Taro looks at him and nods confused. The reaction spreads quickly, a few more voices join in, discussing stuff among themselves. Taro looks at the discussion unaware of what is happenning, until someone mentions a name he hasn’t heard in a while - Seraphina. He tries to blend in with the crowd to understand what is going on. He hears people say that they have seen notices about him posted in multiple harbours, along coastlines stretching across South America. The pieces begin to connect out loud and clear.

Seraphina had reached Colombia three months ago. There, she had described Taro to anyone who would listen - his height, his build etc. She carried sketches, rough but precise, showing the island, the systems they had built, the places he might still be. She did not stop there - she moved along the coast, from one port to another, speaking to sailors, fishermen, cargo crews - anyone who would travel those waters. She handed out signs with his name and description, asking them to watch for smoke signals, unusual structures, any sign of life on islands that were usually ignored.

Overtime, she gathered volunteers, formed small search groups, each responsible for covering different stretches of ocean near Tristan da Cunha and along the southern Atlantic routes. She had also convinced people to fund these efforts - such as local businesses, shipping companies, and even individuals who were moved by the story, and providing food, fuel and equipment - all arranged through a network she kept expanding. Messages were passed between ports, notes left behind for crews arriving days later, a chain of communication that stayed alive even after she moved to other ports.

As Taro listens to all of these, in absolute disbelief, one of the men brings out a worn piece of paper, folded carefully. It carried Taro’s name, a rough sketch of his face, and instructions written in multiple languages. At the bottom is a contact - a port in Colombia. The instructions say that if Taro is found, no matter where, send word through the nearest port, and it will reach her through them.

A message is sent that same day. It moves through the channels she built - passed from one port to another. And before long, Seraphina receives the message, and arrives at the port in another fishing boat, accompanied by fishermen.

She steps onto the dock with the same urgency that carried her through all those three months, scanning faces until she finds the one she never stopped looking for. For a moment, neither of them move. The distance between them closes without hesitation after that. There are no perfect words waiting for them. There never were. The understanding remains, stronger now, despite not having a shared language. There is relief, and something deeper - something that held through absence, through uncertainty, through effort that never slowed down.

As Taro and Seraphina look at each other, with tears in their eyes, we fade to the ocean once more, the same stretch of water that once held them apart.

And we end with the narrator saying “When two people can love each other and build trust without language, without shared past, without anything common between the two, what exactly do we think is so important before we let people belong to each other?”

Interlude 4:

When the fourth story ended, Veerendra didn’t sit in silence for long this time. He adjusted slightly in his seat, letting out a small breath, as if something felt complete at that moment. There was no visible resistance in him now, no need to push back or question anything deeply.

The story felt straightforward to him -two people meeting without anything in common, finding a way to understand each other, and building something meaningful out of it - it didn’t feel like a challenge to his thinking. It felt like something he could accept without needing to dissect it.

He saw it more as a human story than anything else. Something simple about connection, about people finding their way despite differences. It didn’t ask him to question systems or beliefs directly, so it didn’t trigger the same kind of internal debate.

In fact, there was a sense of appreciation in the way he received it. He seemed to enjoy the clarity of it, the way it didn’t complicate itself beyond what it needed to say. It felt complete on its own terms, and as something that audiences would connect with easily, because of how naturally it unfolded. There was nothing forced about it, nothing that demanded effort to understand.

He leaned back after that, more at ease than he had been during the previous story. The discomfort from earlier had settled, replaced by a quieter satisfaction.

Climax:

The time passed really quickly in the cab, as it neared its destination. The rhythm of the drive began to settle back into normal, as Veerendra began shifting his attention toward the work waiting ahead. The stories had ended, and in his mind, the journey had served its purpose.

For a brief moment, neither of them spoke. The road ahead was clear, and the cab slowed gradually as they approached the drop point. As it slowed down, Armaan broke it. He said, simply and without hesitation, “Sir, I and your daughter Preethi have been in love with each other for the last few years, and we want your permission to get us married”.

The words landed abruptly, cutting through the calm that had settled after the stories. There was no change in tone leading up to it. It arrived out of the blue, almost as if it belonged to a different conversation entirely. Veerendra’s reaction was immediate. The stillness in his posture shifted, his expression tightening.

He dismissed it firmly. The reasoning came naturally, almost instinctively. His thoughts moved quickly to what he believed mattered. Armaan being a Muslim and Preethi being a Hindu - this was not something he could agree to. Additionally, there were differences in their economic status, background and family expectations, and even the stability of Armaan’s income. To him, these were not small concerns. They were practical realities, and very clear reasons to reject him.

However Armaan didn’t interrupt this time, he just smirked. Because he knew he didn’t have to argue directly. He simply had to turn back whatever Veerendra had already said during the drive back at him.

Because the same ideas he had agreed with in the stories, now stood in contrast to his refusal: The divisions people create, the way traditions go unquestioned, the idea that external factors shouldn’t decide everything - all of it had made sense earlier. But now, it seemed different.

Veerendra went silent. The certainty he had spoken with moments earlier, had now disappeared into the void. There was a pause, not because he didn’t have reasons, but because those reasons no longer felt as complete. He looked ahead, then away, and in his mind, he was trying to separate what he believed from what he had already accepted.

Armaan then added something - he never was a director! And this meeting was not accidental. Preethi had known about the trip. She had made sure this was the cab that Veerendra would get into. She had trusted that this was the only way she could make him listen without interruption.

Veerendra went numb. The realisation came slowly, piece by piece. The stories, the way the conversation had unfolded - none of it had been random. He leaned back slightly, processing it, with an involuntary, unexpected smile on his face.

He thought about the patience it must have taken to plan something like this, and the clarity it required to approach something so personal without forcing it directly. And the fact that Armaan and Preethi had chosen this way - not confrontation, not persuasion, but understanding, in the language he knew the most - filmmaking.

He didn’t give a direct answer. Instead, he let the moment settle, acknowledging that this wasn’t something to decide in passing. As the cab came to a complete stop, he reached for the door, then paused for a brief second before stepping out.

He opened the door and got out, adjusting his hair by the reflection on the cab’s window like he usually did. But instead of walking away right away, he asked the cab to stop, turned back at Armaan, and mentioned that he would be back home by the weekend. He invited Armaan to come by then, over lunch, for it would be easier to sit and talk there, with the two of them.

However, it didn’t sound like an invitation. It came naturally, as if the decision had already settled somewhere along the drive. He gave a small nod, a wide smile, and walked away.

Because at its core, democracy rests on a single, fragile assumption: that the collective decision of the majority is a reliable path to good outcomes.

Why should that be true?

If you gathered a thousand random people and asked them how to perform a cardiac surgery for you, would you lay down on the table? If you filled a stadium and asked the crowd to design an aircraft for you, would you believe the final blueprint would fly? If you assembled a crowd and asked them to restore a centuries old painting, would you expect the artwork to survive intact? If you asked a room full of random people to defuse a bomb, would you have a peaceful night’s sleep in the same room? If you stood in a marketplace and asked strangers to code a cryptographic security for a bank, would you store your savings under those rules?

Of course not.

So why does this logic suddenly become acceptable when the stakes are infinitely higher - when the question is not about a machine or a building, but about the direction of an entire nation or a state?

By letting a marketplace vote on the shape of a key, you would end up with something that fits every opinion, but opens no lock at all. Because, democracy doesn’t test for understanding. It doesn’t filter for competence. It doesn’t reward depth.

It counts. That’s all it does.

It reduces one of the most complex tasks imaginable - governing a society, to a simple numbers game. It assumes that if enough people agree on something, that thing must carry weight. But agreement is not evidence. Consensus is not correctness. Popularity is not proof.

If ten thousand people confidently believe something false, democracy doesn’t correct them. It empowers them.

That is not a minor flaw. That is the foundation of the very idea of democracy.

You might say, democracy gives power to the people. That sounds noble until you ask a sharper question: Which people? The informed or the uninformed? The thoughtful or the impulsive? The patient or the reactive? Because democracy does not distinguish between them. It treats a deeply considered decision and a careless guess as identical inputs. It gives equal authority to someone who understands policy consequences and someone who votes based on a catchy slogan they heard ten minutes ago.

Imagine a courtroom where expert’s opinion and random shouting from the audience carried the same weight. Imagine a hospital where trained surgeons and bystanders voted on how to proceed with an operation. Imagine boarding a flight where passengers collectively decide how to land the plane.

That is not called fairness, that is called insanity.

But again, the logic changes when it comes to democracy.

And yet, this is exactly how nations are run.

We pretend that giving everyone an equal say somehow transforms unequal understanding into equal wisdom. It doesn’t. It simply hides the imbalance behind a moral narrative. The truth is far less comforting: in a democracy, the uninformed do not just participate. They dilute.

They don’t need to dominate the conversation to shape the outcome. They only need to exist in larger numbers. And in democracy, these numbers, are everything.

A policy that requires ten minutes to explain will lose to a slogan that takes five seconds to chant. A reform that takes ten years to show results will lose to a benefit that appears tomorrow. A leader who speaks honestly about trade-offs will lose to one who promises everything at once.

Okay, let’s take this example of two political parties, one of who claim to invest in the quality of education and the effects will be noticed in the next two decades. The other says that they would invest in some dam or metro construction project, whose effects will be noticeable immediately. Guess what the people would choose in practical cases? The second. And even if they pick the first, they wouldn’t notice the changes during that period, and would switch to the second, claiming that the first one is inefficient. And when this happens, even the educational reforms that happened in the last tenure, would revert to normalcy.

A simpler thing to ask - if you ask a child to pick between ice cream and vegetables, the child would pick ice cream instantaneously. Yeah, that’s what would reward them on the short term. And what if you ask them the same question every day? They’ll pick the ice cream every day as well. But, the rational option - the healthier, and the more nutritious one, that gets discarded.

Democracy rewards these short term goals, over the long term goals. And if the system responds more strongly to emotional triggers than to rational arguments, then emotional triggers will dominate. If the system rewards visibility over substance, then visibility will replace substance.

Of course, you don’t get good governance from a system that incentivises performance over competence. You get spectacle. But it is not the thunder that grows the flower, it is the rain. It is not the applause that guides a ship, it is an efficient captain who does.

Now the next flaw - the idea of choice. People speak as if elections are moments of freedom, where citizens carefully evaluate options and select the best path forward. But how real is that choice? A significant number of voters don’t even know the names of the people who represent certain political parties, they don’t even know the ideologies. And worse, they don’t even know that certain people who are the face of these political parties are no more. They cling behind the name of the political party or the logo.

And in most cases, the options are not real options. It is having to pick the least uncomfortable, the best of the worst. That is not freedom, that is damage control. And when someone refuses to play that game, they would choose NOTA, saying that “none of these are acceptable”. Guess what happens to them? They are mocked.

As if rejecting bad choices is somehow weaker than accepting them. That’s like being handed a plate of burnt food and being told you must eat it because those are the only options available. And when you refuse, people laugh at you instead of questioning why the food is burnt in the first place.

Then the next day, the same burnt food is served again. Why wouldn’t it be? No one forced the kitchen to improve. NOTA, in its current form, is not power. It is frustration made visible but ineffective, it is the system allowing you to protest without allowing you to disrupt. A real system of accountability would fear rejection. It would respond to it. It would be forced to correct itself. Democracy, as it stands, absorbs rejection and continues. That is not strength, that is indifference. Silence toward the unworthy is louder than applause for the flawed.

And there is this another sect of people who say “You are wasting your vote by voting for NOTA”, or “Your NOTA makes no difference. Even if they are the majority, the second best one comes to power”. To those people, take the example of grade 10 board exams. Someone who scored 36% would get the same result “Passed” as someone who scored 95%. The results are the same, but the guy who barely passed, would be the one who would introspect, saying that “If I continue being like this, I might fail in grade 12”. And the one who scored 95%, he might get lethargic, claiming that he’d succeed no matter what he does. And that is exactly where these numbers fail. The best opinion in such cases is not having an opinion.

A vote is not a ritual to be completed, it is a thing to be earned. NOTA is what happens when no one earns it or deserves to earn it. A person won’t and can’t decorate mediocrity with their consent just so that others can feel better about their participation.

Back to square one, the question remains the same: Why should everyone have an equal say in something they may not understand?

We don’t apply this principle anywhere else. We don’t let untrained individuals perform surgery in the name of equality. We don’t let anyone walk into a cockpit and take control because they have a stake in the journey. We don’t remove standards from the defence forces, or the space force, because excluding the unqualified would be “unfair”. So why does politics operate on the opposite logic? Why is the one domain that affects everything - economy, law, security, education, also the one domain where qualification is considered offensive? This is not compassion. It is contradiction.

Democracy does not fail because people are evil. It fails because it assumes people are something they are not - Perfectly rational, consistently informed, immune to manipulation, willing to think long-term. No, they are not.

And this is where the argument reaches its most uncomfortable edge: If a system gives equal power to unequal understanding, then it will always drift toward the lowest level of thinking, and reduce to the masses. That is how complex nations get reduced to simple slogans. That is how serious policy gets replaced by emotional theatre. That is how the long term future of millions is quietly traded for short term satisfaction.

And here is the part people don’t like hearing: a large portion of voters do not vote for the nation. They vote for themselves. Not in the enlightened sense of aligning personal growth with national growth, but in the narrowest possible way: “What do I get?”, not “What works?” or “What sustains?”, but just “What benefits me, right now?”

And when millions of such decisions stack together, you don’t get leadership. You get a deal, a transaction. That becomes a marketplace where votes are exchanged for comfort, where policies are reduced to giveaways, and where the future is chipped away piece by piece to satisfy the present.

A nation cannot sail like that. A nation is not a kitchen where everyone throws in ingredients they like. It needs a recipe, balance, restraint. But if every taste gets priority, the dish doesn’t improve. It gets ruined. It’s like ten cooks adding sugar, salt, spice, oil, whatever they prefer, without even understanding the dish.

This is why the idea of qualified voting cannot be ignored - not as punishment or as exclusion, but as a responsibility. In my humble opinion, there should be a criteria that voters must meet certain needs to vote. Because, a vote is not just a right. It is power. And power, like everywhere else in life, is earned.

You don’t hand over a loaded weapon to someone who doesn’t understand what it can do. You don’t give control of a machine to someone who has never learned how it works. You don’t let anyone walk into a control room and start pressing buttons just because they feel involved. And a system that demands nothing from its participants cannot expect anything meaningful from its results.

Now comes the emotional counter argument: “What about the underprivileged? What about those who didn’t get the chance to learn? Are you taking away their rights?” It sounds powerful. But look deeper. Not every vote strengthens a nation. Some of these votes nullify the votes of the learned and the deserving voters, for their values are going to be the same. And when millions of such votes pile up, they don’t create balance, they create pressure and tilt the system.

And here is something even more important: Voting is not the only way to shape a society. People act as if the moment you limit voting, you silence voices. That is simply not true. History has already shown otherwise. There were times when groups did not have voting rights, yet they shaped the direction of entire nations through protest, organisation, and influence. Women in the United States pushed strongly for alcohol prohibition before they even had full voting rights. They were not powerless. Because power is not just a vote, it is voice, action, and influence.

And that is the part democracy conveniently ignores - it convinces people that power begins and ends at the ballot box. That without a vote, you are voiceless. That without a vote, you are irrelevant. That is not empowerment, that is dependency. A vote is the final act. Influence is everything that comes before it.

No one is silenced by being unqualified. They are only being told one thing: earn the right to decide. That is not oppression, that is expectation. We demand it everywhere else. We demand it in science, in medicine, in law, in engineering. We demand preparation before power. But in democracy, we remove the preparation and still hand over the power. And building a system on that assumption is like building a bridge on sand and acting surprised when it shifts.

If anything, a system that requires qualification does not weaken society, it strengthens it. Because it sends a message that participation is not a ritual, it is a responsibility. That influence is not automatic, it is earned. That decisions which shape millions of lives cannot be made casually, impulsively, or blindly. Because a nation is not a moment. It is a direction. And direction cannot be decided by those who cannot see beyond the next step.

So the question is no longer whether everyone deserves a voice. They do. The question is whether every voice should carry the same weight in decisions that demand understanding, discipline, and foresight.

And if we are honest, the answer is uncomfortable. Because equality sounds noble. But when applied blindly, it can become destructive. A system that treats all input as equal will never produce consistently intelligent output. A system that refuses to filter will always be vulnerable. And a system that fears asking people to qualify for power will always be ruled by those least prepared to use it.

So no, limiting voting is not silencing people. It is drawing the line between presence and participation, between impulse and insight. Because in the end, this is not about taking power away, it is about protecting what power is supposed to do.

And if a system bows to every impulse, it does not stand for anything.

It is tea, aka chai.

Across cities, towns, and railway platforms, the country stretches, yawns, and reaches for tea like it is written into the Constitution. Here, mornings don’t begin until someone dramatically slurps chai and declares, “Now I feel alive”.

Offices run on tea, friendships are built over chai, life updates and office politics are discussed over tea. From auto drivers to software engineers to random uncles at a street corner, they all seem to agree that life is basically one long break between cups of tea.

And then there’s coffee. From the filter coffees to modern, aesthetic, overpriced cafes, this country also acts as a haven for another sect of people.

In such a country, right in the middle of these two powerful empires, we exist - a third sect of people, rejecting both of them, existing as a quiet rebellion.

And when someone offers you tea or coffee and you say no, you don’t just refuse a beverage, you reject an entire civilisation, you reject the entire culture. You’ve just broken an unspoken rule. You’ve stepped out of a rhythm that billions follow without question.

And you know what we do despite knowing this - we refuse it anyways!! No hesitation, no second thoughts, no “maybe just one sip”. No social pressure strong enough to bend that decision.

We don’t speak against chai lovers, we don’t speak against coffee lovers, we don’t speak against those who say “I need this to survive”, we are not loud about it, we don’t give TED Talks on why caffeine is overrated, we don’t try to convert anyone. But just the fact that we exist… it apparently is more unsettling.

You can just see it in people’s faces. That brief pause when you say, “I don’t drink tea or coffee”, their brain tries to process it like they are looking at a terrorist who escaped prison. Like they stare at us as if they wanna ask us “What do you even mean? You just wake up and start your day just like that?”

And then you decide to make it worse. When everyone orders six cutting chai and two filter coffee, you step up and say with zero reluctance, “One pineapple juice for me”.

That’s the moment they start their arsenal of questions: “Are you lactose intolerant? You’ve never tried coffee in you life? Not even once? What exactly are you doing with your life?” And that’s when we hit them with it - we casually reply “Nothing. I’m just... fine”.

That’s the part they can’t digest. Not the milk, not the juice, not even the Horlicks or Boost. It’s the fact that we don’t need something external to kickstart our existence. No drama. No dependency. No morning bargaining for a beverage.

Of course, society tries to pull us back in. It always does.

There’s always that one friend who insists, “You just haven’t had good coffee.” As if somewhere out there is a magical cup waiting to convert us into addicts. They drag you to aesthetic cafés with soft lighting, order something complicated, with words that sound like a chemistry experiment, and look at us, expecting transformation, which never happens and probably never would.

But before you get me wrong here, we’re not trying to avoid keeping up, we’re not trying to avoid being fit in, and we’re not even trying to stand out. We just don’t bend. That’s all there is to it.

Our day doesn’t need start with a cup of coffee, the day starts because we decided it does. That’s it. No ceremony required. And they somehow have an issue with it.

And when they can’t convince us, they use their next weapon - they’ll joke about it. They’ll call you a kid for drinking milk. They’ll act like you missed out on some rite of passage. Like adulthood is incomplete without developing a mild addiction to bitterness.

Let them.

Because while they are riding waves of caffeine highs and inevitable crashes, we are the flat line that never dips.

And growing up isn’t always about adding dependencies. Sometimes, it’s about realising you don’t need them in the first place.

Because somewhere between the first cup and the fifth, between “just one more” and “I can’t function without this”, there is this quiet dependency that settles in.

And we feel that our mornings do not wait for a stimulant to begin, our conversations do not need a cup to flow, our energy does not arrive in installments.

It’s already there - unborrowed and uninterrupted.

Maybe that is why it feels unsettling to others.

Not because we are doing something extraordinary.

But because we are not participating in something ordinary that everyone else quietly depends on.

And in a country that runs on chai and coffee, we just wake up and start.

Before we get into the actual thing, here is a small intro: I am working on a project based off using Machine Learning for Phylogenetic tree construction as part of my university’s capstone project, and thought of writing an intro for the same. But my philisophical lens totally deviated it away from the actual idea that I can no longer use this for academic purposes. So, here it is:

Actual version:

விடியலின் மெல்லிய வெளிச்சம் பூமியின் மீது விழும் போது, ​​இந்த உலகத்தின் அதிசயம் தன்னை தானே திறந்து காட்டுகிறது. ஆம், நாம் வாழும் இந்த உலகம் பிரபஞ்சத்தில் சுழலும் ஒரு கல் மற்றும் அல்ல - அதன் படர்ந்து விரிந்த பரப்பளவு பல்வேறு பிராணிகள் பயணம் செல்லும் ஓர் ஒய்வற்ற ஓடை. அதன் அகன்ற ஆகாயமும், ஆர்கலி எழுபும் ஆழ்கடலும், அடர்ந்த ஆரணிகளும், அடங்காத அருவிகளும், ஆயிரக்கணக்கான ஜீவராசிகளின் வசிப்பிடம் மட்டுமல்ல, இவை அனைத்தும் ஒரு அமிதியான அதிசயத்தின் ஆட்டம். நுட்பமான நுண்ணுயிரிகள் முதல் மேகத்தை மிஞ்சும் மிருகங்கள் வரை, சிறகுகள் சூழ்ந்த சிட்டு குருவிகள் முதல் சிறையில்லாத சிங்கங்கள் வரை, பொலிவான பூக்கள் முதல் மல்லல் மரங்கள் வரை, மின்னல் போல் மின்னும் மீன்கள் முதல் வர்ணஜாலமே வியக்கும் வண்ணத்து பூச்சிகள் வரை, ஒவ்வொரு உயிரியின் தனித்துவமான தாளத்தில் துடிக்கும் ஒரு இசை இதில் எதிரொலிக்கிறது.

இந்த பெரும் ஓடலில், ஒரு நாள் மனிதன் விதையாய் முளைத்தான். வந்தான், வென்றான், சென்றான், என சொல்லும் அளவிற்கு, அவன் கைகள் கருவிகளை அமைத்தன, அவன் சிந்தனை சொற்களை செம்மொழியாக செதுக்கியது. நெருப்பின் நாடியை நொடி நீட்டி அமைக்க பார்த்தான், கடலின் ஆழத்தை அளக்க நினைத்தான், மலையின் உயரத்தை தொட முயன்றான், பகலை பிரித்து நேரம் என்று அழைத்தான், கலைகளை கற்று கற்களில் கூட கோட்டைகளை கட்டினான், சூரியனின் சக்தியை சுண்டுவிரலில் சுவைக்க பார்த்தான், மின்னலில் மின்னும் மின்சாரத்தை மெய்ப்பொருளாக மாற்றினான், இதயத்திலே ஒரு இயந்திரத்தாய் இயக்கினான், இதயங்களை இணைக்கும் இணையத்தை கொண்டு வந்தான், வானொலி அலைகளை வீட்டின் வாசலில் கொண்டுவந்தான், அனுவின் சக்தியை அறிவினால் அடக்கினான், நிலவின் மேல் நடிக்க துடித்தான், அவன் சிந்தனையின் சிறகுகளால் சிகரங்களை அடைந்தான். அவன் பார்வை முன்னோக்கி சென்றது, அவன் பாதை பல இடங்களை சேர்ந்தது.

அனால் அண்டத்தின் அமைப்பை அறிவாற்றலுடன் புரிந்து கொண்ட அவன் ஒரு கேள்வியை கேட்க மறந்து விட்டான்: பல உயிர்கள் சங்கமித்த இந்த நெடுஞ்சுற்றில், அவன் இடம் என்ன? இந்த இணைப்பின் இடையில், அவன் உறவு என்ன? மறந்துவிட்டானா, அல்லது மறுத்து விட்டானா? சில சமயங்களில் அந்த கேள்விகளை அவன் கேட்கவில்லை, பல சமயங்களில் கேட்க விரும்பவில்லை.

ஏனெனில் “நான் யார்? எங்கிருந்து வந்தேன்?” என்ற ஆபத்தான கேள்வியின் விடை அவனை உயர்த்தாது, தாழ்த்தி மட்டுமே விடும். தன்னை தானே புத்திசாலியான உயிரி என முடி சூட்டி, நாகரிகம் கொண்ட, இயற்கையை வென்ற அந்த தலைக்கனம் வாடிவிடுமோ என்னமோ? உயர்ந்த உயிரி என பிற உயிரினங்களை வெளியே வைத்து தனக்கு மட்டுமே கட்டிய கோட்டை ஒரேய நொடியில் தரைமட்டம் ஆகிவிடுமோ என்னவோ? அத்துடன் உயிரிகளின் வரிசையில் இறுதியில் வந்து உச்ச நிலையை எட்டியதாக எண்ணி தனக்கென ஒதுக்கிய மகுடமும் அரியாசனமும் மறைந்து விடுமோ என்னமோ? நாமும் பரிணாம வளர்ச்சியின் தொடரில் கடந்த காலத்தையும் எதிர் காலத்தையும் இணைக்கும் ஒரு மெல்லிய கயிற்றில் நடனமாடும் ஓர் தனித்துவமற்ற உயிரினம் எனும் உண்மையை அவன் மனம் ஏற்றுக்கொள்ள மாறுகிறதோ என்னமோ? இத்தகைய உண்மையை ஆய்வு செய்து அறியும் அளவுயிர்க்கு உயர்ந்து விட்டோமா? அல்லது இவ்வுண்மையை ஆய்வு செய்து தான் அறியும் அளவிற்கு மடிந்து விட்டோமா? விஞ்ஞானத்தை விரிவாக்கி விண்வெளி செல்லும் அளவிற்கு வளர்ந்து விட்ட வேட்டைக்காரனும் வில்வித்தைக்காரனும் வெறும் விளக்கற்ற, விளக்கமற்ற வேடிக்கைக்காரனாக மாறி விடுவானோ?

அனால், வேறுபாடுகள் மறந்த அந்த இடத்தில தான் கேள்வியும் மாறுகிறது. “நான் யார்?” என்பதிலிருந்து, “நாம் எங்கே இணைகிறோம்” என. அதன் பதில் கல்வெட்டிலோ காகிதத்திலோ அல்ல. நம் உடல்களிலேயே பாதிக்கப்பட்டுள்ளது. நம் மரபணுவின் ஒவ்வொரு பகுதியும் நாம் தேவைக்கு ஏற்ப, பல தலைமுறைகளாக நடந்த மாற்றங்களின் நினைவுச்சின்னம். நான்கு எழுத்துக்கள் மட்டுமே வைத்து வடிவமைக்கப்பட்ட இவ்வரலாற்றுப்பக்கங்களை கண்களாலோ கருவிகளாலோ கண்டறிய முடியாத காரணத்தினால், கணினிகளின் உதவியை நாடுகிறோம் - மரபணு எனும் நூலை நூலகமாய் மாற்ற. நாம் உருவாக்கிய கருவிகளை கொண்டு, நாம் எப்படி உருவாகினோம் என்ற மரபணுவில் மறைவாக மறைவடக்கம் செய்யப்பட்ட மர்மத்தை முடிச்சவிழும் முயற்சி தான் இது!

Transliteration:

Naam or payanam, ulagam or paadhai

Vidiyalin melliya velicham bhoomiyin meedhu vizhum bodhu, indha ulagathin adhisayam thannai thaane thirandhu kaattugiradhu. Aam, naam vaazhum indha ulagam prapanjathil suzhalum oru kal mattrum alla - adhan padarndhu virindha parappalavu palveru piraanigal payanam sellum or oivattra odai. Adhan aganra aagaayamum, aarkali ezhuppum aazhkadalum, adarndha aaranigalum, adangaadha aruvigalum, amaidhiyana malai medugalum, aayirakkanakkaana jeevaraasigalin vasippidam mattumalla, ivai anaithum oru amaidhiyaana adhisayathin aattam. Nutpamaana nunnuyirigal mudhal megathai minjum mirugangal varai, siragugal soozhndha sittu kuruvigal mudhal siraiyilladha singangal varai, polivaana pookal mudhal mallal marangal varai, minnal pol minnum meengal mudhal varnajaalame viyakkum vannathu poochigal varai, ovvoru uyiriyin thanithuvamaana thaalaththil thudikkum oru isai idhil edhirollikiradhu.

Indha perum oodalil, oru naal manidhan vidhaiyaai mulaithaan. Vandhaan, vendraan, sendraan, ena sollum alavirkku, avan kaigal karuvigalai amaiththana, avan sindhanai sorkkalai semmozhiyaaga sedhukkiyadhu. Neruppin nadiyai nodi neetti amaikka paarthaan, kadalin aazhathai alakka ninaiththan, malaiyin uyarathai thoda muyandraan, pagalai pirithu neram endru azhaithaan, kalaigalai katru karkalil kooda kottaigalai kattinaan, sooriyanin sakthiyai sunduviralil suvaikka paarththaan, minnalil minnum minsaarathai meiporulaga maattrinaan, idhayathile oru iyandhirathai iyakkinaan, idhayangalai inaikkum inayathai kondu vandhaan, vaanoli alaigalai veetin vaasalil konduvandhaan, anuvin sakthiyai arivinaal adakkinaan, nilavin mel nadakka thudithaan, avan sindhanaiyin siragugalaal sigarangalai adaindhaan. Avan paarvai munnokki sendradhu, avan paadhai pala idangalai serndhadhu.

Aanal andathin amaippai arivaatraludan purindhu konda avan oru kelviyai ketka marandhu vittaan: Pala uyirgal sangamitha indha nedunjchutril, avan idam enna? Indha inaippin idayil, avan uravu enna? Marandhuvittaana, alladhu maruththu vittaana? Sila samayangalil andha kelvigalai avan ketkavillai, pala samayangalil ketka virumbavillai.

Yenenil “Naan yaar? Engirundhu vandhen?” endra aabathaana kelviyin vidai avanai uyarthaadhu, thaazhthi mattume vidum. Thannai thaane buthisaaliyaana uyiri ena mudi sootti, naagarigam konda, iyarkaiyai vendra andha thalaikanam vaadividumo ennamo? Uyarndha uyiri ena pira uyirinangalai veliye vaithu thanakku mattume kattiya kottai orey nodiyil tharai mattam aagividumo ennavo? Aththudan uyirigalin varisaiyil irudhiyil vandhu ucha nilaiyai ettiyadhaaga enni thanakkena odhukkiya magudamum ariyaasanamum maraindhu vidumo ennamo? Naamum parinaama valarchiyin thodaril kadandha kaalathaiyum edhir kaalathaiyum inaikkum oru melliya kayittril nadanamaadum or thanithuvamattra uyirinam enum unmaiyai avan manam yetrukolla marukkiradho ennamo? Ithagaiya unmaiyai aaivu seidhu ariyum alavuirkku urarndhu vittoma? Alladhu ivvunmaiyai aaivu seidhu dhaan ariyum alavirkku madindhu vittoma? Vingyaanathai virivaaki vinveli sellum alavirkku valarndhu vitta vettaikaaranum vilvithaikaaranum verum vilakattra, vilakkamattra vedikkaikaaranaaga maari viduvaano?

Aanal, verupaadugal marandha andha idathil dhaan kelviyum maarugiradhu. “Naan yaar?” enbadhilirundhu, “Naam enge inaigirom” ena. Adhan badhil kalvettilo kaagidhathilo alla. Nam udalgalileye padhikkappattulladhu. Nam marabanuvin ovvoru pagudhiyum naam thevaikku yerpa, pala thalaimuraigalaaga nadandha maatrangalin ninaivuchinnam. Naangu ezhuthukkal mattume vaithu vadivamaikkapatta ivvaralaatruppakkangalai kangalaalo karuvigalaalo kandariya mudiyaadha kaaranathinaal, kaninigalin udhaviyai naadugirom - marabanu enum noolai noolagamaai maatra. Naam uruvaakiya karuvigalai kondu, naam eppadi uruvaaginom endra marabanuvil maraivaaga maraivadakkam seiyapatta marmathai mudichavizhum muyarchi dhaan idhu!

Translation:

We are a Journey, and the World is our Path

When the faint rays of dawn fall upon the Earth, the wonders of the world unveil themselves before us. Yes, the world that we inhabit is not a mere rock drifting through space - its widespread expanse is a restless stream upon which numerous creatures set their sail. Its vast skies, the roaring depths of the ocean, dense jungles, unruly waterfalls, serent valleys by the mountains are not just a home to thousands of organisms, they are a silent, ceaseless dance of wonders. From intricate microbes to mighty beasts that soar over the clouds, from sparrows clothed in soft feathers to untamable lions, from glowing flowers to lush trees, from fishes that glimmer like strokes of lightning to butterflies that could humble even the rainbows, the planet resonates with the rhythm, of every organism, that beats with its own pulse.

In this endless race of existence, man once sprouted like a seed. He came, he saw, he conquered, for his hands crafted tools, and his thoughts crafted languages. He wanted the fire to dance to his tunes, he thought of measuring the seas, he dared to scale the great mountains, he divided the day and called it time, he learnt arts, and raised fortresses of mere stones, he drew the power of the sun to his fingertips, he gave life to the electricity born off the lightning, with the pulse of his heart he commanded machines, he brought the internet to bring hearts together, he brought radio waves to every doorstep, he learnt to tame the power of an atom, he made reckless attempts to walk on the moon. And on the wings of his thoughts, he soared to unimaginable heights. His vision ever reached beyond the horizons, and that bore him to the farthest corners of the world.

Despite all this, he who through his intellect understood the structure of the cosmos, forgot to ask one question: In this sanctuary of species, where does he stand? Among these countless woven connections, where does he bond? Did he forget to ask this? Or did he choose not to? In some moments, he did not ask. In most others, he did not wish to.

Because, the question of “Who am I? Where did I come from?” is a perilous one. Its answer wouldn’t uplift him, but rather push him down. He crowned himself as the most intelligent species that has learnt to civilise itself and conquer nature itself - would that ego wither away? Will that fortress he built for himself claiming to be the superior species and leaving every other outside its walls, crumble onto the ground? Will that self proclaimed throne and the sceptre he held on to in the belief that he was the latest and loftiest in the great procession of life not dissolve into dust? Does his heart refuse to settle down at the realisation that that he is but another singular species spending its fleeting hour dancing upon a slender thread that binds the past to the present in the immeasurable design of things? Are we wise enough let our research reveal that every organism is bound in one living web? Or are we dumb enough to realise such a fundamental fact only through research? Will the archers and hunters, proud of having advanced so far to call themselves an extraterrestrial species, stand exposed as just another ordinary, meaningless creatures playing the part of jokers before the vast tribunal of time?

But in this phase where all differences are fade into oblivion, the question itself changes. It is no longer “Who am I”, it becomes “Where do we all converge?”. Its answers aren’t in inscriptions or on paper, it is embodied within ourselves. Every piece of our DNA is a memorial of generations of changes that we have accumulated as per our needs. Those pages of history written with just 4 letters aren’t visible to our eyes or tools. So, we turn to the computer, to turn the strands of our DNA into a library. This is an attempt to demystify the hidden secrets encoded in our DNA, and understand how we were created, using something which we ourselves have created.

But then one afternoon, two people entered the backwoods from opposite ends of the path. They never stood together. Yet the same moments passed through both of them. And that made me realise that there are two kinds of magic in this world - one belongs to him, the scientist, and the other to her, the artist.

I could just see a flock of birds flying above the trees. But he noticed its formation - the V shape which narrowed and widened, but never collapsed, with each bird riding the upwash created by the wingtip vortices of the one ahead, reducing the induced drag. And she on the other hand noticed the birds carrying no map, yet belonging everywhere across the open sky, as a symbol of their free will to hover across the heavens.

Minutes later, I saw the shade near the fallen trunk. Mushrooms had pushed through the soil! Well, it just was an ordinary sight. But he crouched; he saw the mycelial network threading through the decaying organisms underneath, with its enzymes breaking lignin and cellulose into nutrients that cycled from death back into growth without interruption. And to her, the mushrooms looked like umbrellas and domes for some miniature fantasy woodland creatures.

Next to it, I saw some ants crossing the path in a narrow line. Again, he crouched, and traced the pheromone trail guiding them - a distributed chemical map constantly reinforced and optimised at each iteration to guide other ants. She watched the same procession too, but saw a procession of patient travelers, tracing fragile highways no larger than a breath, like river of ink flowing over stone.

Soon, in a butterfly that moved between some flowers, he noticed its structural colouration, the microscopic scales diffracting wavelengths into patterns more beautiful than any pigment could achieve. And she saw fragments of stained glass fluttering by, like a living jewel that trades permanence for grace, a floating fragment of artistry, as if the sky briefly tried to paint itself and forgot to hold the brush steady

As it landed on a flower, pollen drifted through a shaft of light. He watched its Brownian motion, collisions with air molecules sending it along unpredictable paths aiding dispersal of its species. But she watched golden confetti thrown into the air as if it wanted to celebrate the Earth, and scatter its beauty across the vast planet.

Soon as the clouds began to gather, he observed the convection currents lifting warm air upward, moisture condensing into visible structures governed by the Navier Stokes equations. And she watched pale ghosts chase the sunlight like a fleet of silent ships that moved across the horizon.

As darkness approached, fireflies appeared. While he admired the luciferin reaction producing light with minimal thermal loss and the timed pulses that functioned as coded biological signals, she saw scattered lanterns blinking across the dusk as if the night were writing messages in morse code.

As evening deepened, he remained to watch the sky redden with Rayleigh scattering filtering shorter wavelengths along the longer atmospheric path. And she stayed for the same glow, a gentle signal that the day released everything it had held, and giving a gentle promise to everything that woke up to its call.

And that was when I realised something important “The way you choose to see the world, creates the world around you”. As I kept pondering the essence of this statement, the wind strengthened, and I was carried away with it - as a leaf, unsure whether my fall would become a law or a lyric.

Wonder without Wisdom becomes Wandering

Questioning without Quality becomes Quibbling

Observation without Openness becomes Obscurity

Inquiry without Imagination becomes Insipid

Imagination without Investigation becomes Illusion

Search without Skepticism becomes Superstition

Inquiry without Integrity becomes Ignorance

Exploration without Ethics becomes Exploitation

Theory without Testing becomes Triviality

Facts without Falsifiability become Folklore

Reason without Replication becomes Rumor

Proof without Peer-review becomes Propaganda

Experiment without Evaluation becomes Entertainment

Science without Scrutiny becomes Speculation

Answers without Analysis becomes Absurdity

Discovery without Doubt becomes Dogma

Fascination without Follow-through becomes Futility

Innovation without Integrity becomes Infamy

Life without Learning becomes Languishing

Wonder without Work becomes Wishing

Progress without Prudence becomes Peril

Freedom without Foresight becomes Futility

Outreach without Objectiveness becomes Obstruction

Truth without Transparency becomes Tyranny

Science without Soul becomes Sterility

A few weeks ago, I came across the theme song of the Tamil film Veeram (which literally means ‘Valour’). But before I say anything, I admit - I haven’t watched the film, and the way I first encountered the song was not so different from the way most things reach us now. It was just briefly woven into a fanmade edit for a sporting team, and that lasted only for a few seconds. But something inside me asked me to keep replaying the song. Not because I understood the words, but because something about it stayed behind, long after the sound faded.

Yeah, I couldn’t understand a word of what was being sung. But eventually, curiousity took over, and when I eventually looked up the lyrics, I realised that might have been the point. The language was dense, deliberate, rooted in a kind of Tamil that doesn’t show up often, and almost never comes with direct interpretations. So I did the only thing that made sense: I tried to unpack it myself as there barely any translations available.

And that changed the way I viewed the song ever after. Somewhere along the way, I realised the song had been circling a question from the start: “What is valour?”, and I’ve decided to share the answer to what with you guys here.

Here is the link for the song if you want to listen to it beforehand:

1. Ratha gaja thuraga padhaadhigal ethirppinum adhakkalam purinthidum veeram

• Ratha = Chariot corps

• Gaja = Elephant (elephantry)

• Thuraga (thuragam) = horseback army (cavalry)

• Padhaadhigal = On foot army (infantry)

  Note: Basically, these denote the four military divisions common in ancient India, together called the chaturanga

• Edhirpinum = If they oppose

• Adhakkalam = Porkalam = Battlefield

• Purindhidum = Entering

• Veeram = Valour

Full line: “To walk into a battlefield with all four armies standing against you, that is valour”

2. Ivan madha bujam irandum malai ena ezhundhida serukkalam sitharidum veeram

• Ivan = His

• Madha = Mad

• Bujam = arms (refers to biceps)

• Irandum = both

• Malai ena = like the hills

• Ezhundhida = rise

• Serukkalam = A battlefield where clans fight purely out of vengeance or for pride (not for territorial expansion or for wealth)

• Sidharidum = Shatters

• Veeram = Valour

Full line: “When his biceps rise like two hills and the battlefield fractures beneath him, that is valour.”

3. Saga manithan oru thuyar ena kasindhadhum agam pathari ezhum veeram

• Saga manidhan = An equal person

• Oru thuyar = a period of grief

• Ena kasindhadhum = after leaking/after venting out

• Agam = inside

• Padhari = in a panic/explosively

• Ezhum = rises/boils

• Veeram = valour

Full line: “When an equal man bares his grief with you, whatever rises inside of you, that is valour”

4. Thugal alavum pagai pugal ingu thavarena kaapparanaai nirkkum veeram

• Thugal = Particle

• Alavu = size

• Pagai(var) = rival

• Pugal = enter/infiltrate

• Ingu = here

• Thavarena = is a mistake

• Kaapparan = Kaakum paran = Guarding watch tower (or pillar)

• Nirkkum = standing

• Veeram = valour

Full line: “Standing like a pillar on guard, letting not even a particle of your rival pass through, as if it were a sin, that is valour”

5. Thani arima pola endha tharunamum thaakkidum perum veeram

• Thani = Lone

• Arima = Lion

• Pola = like a

• Endha tharunamum = at any moment

• Thaakidum = attacking

• Perum = Great

• Veeram = Valour

Full line: “The readiness to strike at any moment, like a lone lion, that is valour”

6. Sigai thoda ninaithavan siram vizhum tharayinil eedinai illa veeram

• Sigai = Hair

• Thoda = touch

• Ninaippavan = one who thinks

• Siram = head

• Vizhum = fall

• Tharayinil = on the ground

• Eedinai illa = Unmatchable

• Veeram = Valour

Full line: “To make even your strand of hair untouchable that one who even dares to touch it ends up falling into the ground, that valour is second to none”

7. Pala dhisaigalum thigaithidum, paarthavai padhaithidum, sarithiram viyanthidum veeram

• Pala dhisaigal = Many directions

• Thigaithidum = will be stunned

• Paarthavai = The ones seen

• Padhaithidum = Panic

• Sarithiram= History

• Viyandhidum = awestruck (in admiration)

• Veeram = Valour

Full line: “When the directions themselves are stunned, when eyes panic at the sight of him, and history itself is left in awe, that is valour”

8. Erithalalaai nindru edhirigal alarida samarinil thimiridum veeram

• Erithalal = Eriyum thalal = Burning fire

• Nindru = Standing like a

• Edhirigal = Enemies

• Alarida = scream

• Samarinil = in a battlefield

• Thimiridum = With temerity

• Veeram = Valour

Full line: “Standing with temerity in a battlefield, like a blazing fire and leaving enemies screaming, that is valour”

9. Bayam enum sol ingu parichayam illai ada, paramporul varam thandha veeram

• Bayam enum sol = The word called ‘fear’

• Ingu parichayam illai = is unfamiliar here

• Paramporul = The supreme being

• Varam = Blessing

• Thandha = given

• Veeram = valour

Full line: “For the word ‘fear’ to be utterly unfamiliar, that sort of valour is a blessing bestowed by the supreme being”

10. Kadum punalae modha varum velaiyilum kali puram thani veeram

• Kadum = Mighty

• Punal = Flood (of enemies)

• Modha varum velayilum = Even at the times when they come towards you

• Kali = Unflinching

• Puram = Outside

• Thani veeram = Valour that stands out

Full line: “As enemies charge like a flood, to stand unflinched before them, that is a different level of valour”

Listening to the song without understanding it felt fun, exciting, but vague. Once I read the lyrics and pieced them together myself, it started to land differently. I could hear the thought in every note, the way the words gave shape to the energy I’d felt instinctively. It made me realise that part of what I’d loved all along was the story hidden in plain sight, and suddenly the song felt bigger, stronger, and more unforgettable.

But before we dive into what I want to say, let me introduce myself. I watch sports whenever I find the time to. Not as a spectator, not as a critic, but as someone whose attention somehow bends towards it, just like a compass’ needle bends towards the North. I have watched over a dozen sports in my life, have watched five different sports in stadiums, and have witnessed myself turn into a total maniac when the Olympic games kick off, to an extent that people mute my WhatsApp statuses (which would otherwise be filled with heaps of updates from every single sport there is). There is a kind of magic here. Not the magic of victory, not the magic of miracles, but the magic of attention itself. My heart beats with the uncertainty of every game. My brain thrives on the prediction and recalculation, the anticipation and the release.

Although I call myself a fan now, there was a time I wore the mask of a fanatic - a loon who fought with words as fiercely as with feeling, a goon who would bleed for his team. I have defended teams like a warrior fights for his kingdom, I have belittled other teams, I have let victories and defeats carve themselves into my identity, I have worn jerseys with pride as if I have won a trophy myself. So yes, I know both the rush of tribalism and the sting of obsession.

But over time, that heat waned away for the better. My attention shifted from proving to observing, from winning to understanding, from self to the system. I began to see effort in every player, the beauty in every struggle, the rise after every fall, dawn after every dusk, the patterns across sides and scores alike. And that was about me.

Getting back to the question: Why do you care so much about a game? Why does it matter if a team wins or loses? I mean it is a fair question. After all, it’s just a game, right? It is a group of people, or rather strangers, doing something they’ve trained their whole lives to do, and we’re sitting there, on our beds, feeling invested in their success or failure. I do understand why it sounds strange to few. But I just wonder, what is happening in our brains when we tune into these matches? What makes watching sports feel so deeply satisfying, and why do people who watch them always say that those who don’t seem to be missing something?

I pondered this question for a while, and then began to draw the links. I realised that the game is a mirror, not of the world, but of the mind itself - what it loves, what it fears, what it cannot resist. I began to understand that my attraction to sport was not sentimental, but architectural. My mind is drawn to systems that evolve under constraint. And a sport is one of the cleanest such systems humans have built - there are clear and well defined rules, there is a limited time, there are finite agents, and more importantly there are immediate consequences. This is not entertainment in the shallow sense. It is a controlled environment where complexity unfolds at a pace the brain can comfortably track.

When I watch a match, my attention does not scatter. It narrows. And psychologically, this matters. Because most modern cognitive fatigue comes not from effort, but from ambiguity. Like why do you feel bored working on something, say an assignment? It is not because you have to put in effort, but because the work you do rarely has visible endpoints; It lacks a clear scoring system and the progress is often abstract. Sport, on the other hand, it offers continuous feedback. Every action alters the state of the system in a way that is legible. And the brain excels at tracking the changes in states, especially when they are fast, rule bound, and socially meaningful. That is why hours pass unnoticed during a game, while fifteen minutes of work can feel draining.

On the other hand, people who do not watch sports often have a different tolerance profile for uncertainty and structure. They tend to prefer environments where meaning is internally generated rather than externally imposed. For them, the clarity of a match may feel artificial. The outcome does not affect their lived reality, so the mental investment appears inefficient. But for someone deeply invested in sport, the appeal lies in simulated consequence. The brain reacts to observed competition in a way that closely resembles direct involvement. Not because one believes they are responsible for the outcome, but because the mind is continuously modelling alternatives - “If only this pass had been earlier”, “If only the playing XI included XYZ”, “If only the formation were different”, “If only XYZ had caught the ball”. This constant updating of hypothetical states keeps the brain engaged in causal reasoning. In effect, sport becomes a live case study in decision making under pressure, replayed hundreds of times across seasons.

However, this same mechanism explains why obsession distorts judgement. When identification becomes too strong, evaluation turns asymmetric. Evidence supporting one’s side is processed fluently, while contradictory information encounters resistance. Losses are attributed to external factors. But wins are framed as proof of inherent superiority. They are the outcomes of a brain defending a narrative it has incorporated into its sense of self. I recognise this now because I have lived it. And my earlier arguments were not about defending my team, but about preserving coherence in my own identity. Those outside sport often see this distortion clearly. From their vantage point, emotional volatility tied to uncontrollable events looks unnecessary. And again, they are correct. Sport offers no durable advantage. It does not improve income, health, or status by default. Its value is cognitive, not instrumental. When that distinction is missed, attachment hardens into dependency.

What changed for me was a shift in what I was extracting from the experience. I stopped needing the outcome to affirm anything about me. My focus moved to structure, adaptation, and constraint. Watching became analytical rather than defensive. I now appreciate competence on both sides, recognise failure without resentment, and see patterns that repeated regardless of the colour of the jersey. And today, to my eyes, a stadium resembles a laboratory more than a battlefield.

People who never engage with sports are not missing truth. Their life remains just as rich, just structured differently. They may miss this particular simulation of uncertainty, but they can gain depth elsewhere. They may cultivate complexity through literature, research, craft, or introspection instead. Their emotional stability may fluctuate less. Their sense of meaning may rely more on internally generated narratives. They are less likely to argue passionately about things they cannot change, which is frankly an underrated life skill. Neither side is better. They simply have different ways of standing in front of the same uncertainty. Anyways, at the end of the day, the match ends, the crowd disperses, and the table resets. And what remains is not the score, but the quiet knowledge of how the mind chose to watch, and what it hoped to find while doing so.

So when someone asks me now, what sort of joy does watching 22 strangers give you, I answer that it is the joy of proximity without possession. Of being near consequence without being bound to it. The match passes, the structure collapses, and what lingers is the quiet recognition of how easily the brain can confuse observation with ownership. And that need not necessarily come from a sport. It could also come from watching two raindrops race on a window lol