Krishna kept staring at the transfer letter for several seconds, unable to believe what he was reading.
His tired mind still hadn't fully caught up with reality. Just a little while ago, he had been asleep in his chair, exhausted after running around outside in the heat. Now suddenly, without any warning, a department transfer letter had been placed in his hands as casually as if this were some ordinary paperwork.
It made no sense.
A strange frustration rose inside him, and without wasting another second, Krishna grabbed the camera from the desk and hurried after Sanjay Verma. His heartbeat had already started rising. At this moment, he only had one thought in his head. If Sanjay saw the photos, then at least this misunderstanding could be cleared. He had not spent the entire day sleeping uselessly. He had actually gone out, noticed something suspicious, and documented it.
"Sir…"
Krishna stopped a few steps behind him, holding the camera tightly.
Sanjay turned and looked at him with the same unreadable expression.
Krishna quickly switched on the camera and stepped closer.
"Sir, mujhe lagta hai koi misunderstanding hui hai. Main aaj assignment ke liye bahar gaya tha aur—"
Sanjay's eyes moved toward the camera screen.
Then he interrupted him calmly.
"Uski zarurat nahi hai."
Krishna stopped mid-sentence.
For a second, he frowned in confusion.
"Sir?"
Sanjay's expression remained completely cold.
"Jo tum dikhane aaye ho… woh main pehle hi dekh chuka hoon."
The words landed so suddenly that Krishna didn't react immediately.
He just stood there, staring at Sanjay.
His fingers tightened around the camera.
That answer made no sense.
How?
He had taken those photos himself.
The camera had been right there beside his desk.
Then how had—
His thoughts stopped halfway.
A strange heaviness settled in his chest.
But before Krishna could even ask anything, Sanjay took a step closer.
His voice remained calm, but the words hit much harder this time.
"Tumhe shayad samajh nahi aa raha tumhari problem kya hai."
Krishna stayed silent.
"Problem photos nahi hain."
Sanjay glanced toward the television screens where the warehouse incident was still dominating every news channel.
"Problem yeh hai ki tumne suspicious activity dekhi, samjha ki matter normal nahi hai… aur phir bhi tumne kuch nahi kiya."
Krishna instinctively tried to respond, but the words never came out.
Because he already knew what Sanjay was saying.
"Tum directly kisi senior ke paas ja sakte the. Crime desk ko inform kar sakte the. Kisi ko alert kar sakte the."
Sanjay paused for a moment.
Then his next words landed even harder.
"Lekin tum wapas aaye… camera rakha… aur so gaye."
Krishna's jaw tightened.
A hot wave of anger rose inside him instantly.
But the worst part was—
He couldn't deny it.
That was exactly what had happened.
At that time, he had only thought he would handle it later. He had assumed the matter could wait a little. He had been exhausted, irritated, and too mentally drained to think clearly.
But now, standing here, none of those excuses felt strong enough.
The more he thought about it, the heavier his own mistake started feeling.
This wasn't some small oversight.
This was negligence.
Krishna slowly lowered the camera in his hand.
His frustration was still there. His confusion was still there. Somewhere inside him, countless questions were rising all at once.
But beneath all of that—
There was also an uncomfortable truth he could not escape.
If he had acted immediately…
Maybe things would have been different.
Sanjay looked at him for one final second before speaking in the same cold tone.
"Transfer letter sign karke bhej dena."
Then he turned and walked away.
Krishna remained standing there in complete silence, holding the camera in one hand and the transfer letter in the other, while the noise of the newsroom continued around him.
But for the first time since waking up—
None of that noise reached him.
Krishna remained standing in the same spot for a long time after Sanjay left.
The noise of the newsroom had returned to normal around him. Phones were still ringing, people were moving from one desk to another, televisions were still shouting breaking news, but none of it mattered to him anymore. His eyes stayed fixed on the transfer letter in his hand while the same thoughts kept circling inside his mind again and again. In a place like this, one mistake was enough to destroy months of hard work. News didn't wait for people to think later.
Slowly, Krishna returned to his desk and sat down heavily in his chair.
He placed the camera beside him and leaned back, rubbing his forehead beneath his glasses. The anger inside him had not disappeared, but it had changed shape. Earlier, he had been angry because nothing made sense. Now the truth was much uglier. No matter what had happened around him, he had still made a serious mistake. He should have informed someone immediately. Instead, he had chosen to deal with it later. That "later" had destroyed everything.
After sitting there silently for several more minutes, Krishna finally stood up.
There was nothing left for him to do here today. His head felt heavy, his body was exhausted, and staying in this office any longer would only make him think about the same thing repeatedly until his brain gave up entirely. Without speaking to anyone, he picked up his bag and started walking toward the exit of the floor.
His attention wasn't on where he was going.
Which was exactly why—
THUD.
Krishna collided directly with someone turning the corner.
The impact wasn't strong, but enough to make both of them stop abruptly.
Krishna immediately stepped back.
"Sorry, meri galti thi. Dhyaan nahi tha."
The reply came instantly.
"Dhyaan nahi tha?" a girl snapped sharply. "Chaar aankhen leke ghoom rahe ho, phir bhi saamne dekh ke nahi chal sakte?"
Krishna blinked behind his glasses.
Before he could say anything, she continued, clearly in no mood to be reasonable.
"Upar se aaj ka din already bakwaas chal raha hai. Bas yahi reh gaya tha."
Krishna frowned slightly.
Technically, she had been just as distracted.
She had turned the corner fast enough to crash into him too.
But one look at her face was enough to tell him this was absolutely not the right moment to point that out unless he had suddenly developed suicidal tendencies.
So Krishna simply exhaled softly and moved aside.
The girl muttered one last irritated curse under her breath and walked past him without even looking back.
Krishna watched her disappear down the corridor for a second before lightly shaking his head and continuing toward the exit.
The girl walking away was Anjali.
Her face still carried the frustration of everything that had happened since afternoon. First the chaos at the warehouse, then being dragged to the police station, followed by endless questioning as if she were some criminal instead of someone who had nearly gotten trapped in that madness herself.
The same questions had been thrown at her repeatedly.
Why was she at the warehouse?
How had she reached there?
Did she know anyone involved?
After hearing the same nonsense again and again, her patience had completely broken. The moment she got the chance, she walked out without informing anyone and came straight to News 24.
And now, after everything she had already gone through — some distracted idiot wearing glasses had walked straight into her.
Honestly, for her, the day clearly still wasn't done torturing people.
—
Night had completely swallowed the city by the time he arrived.
The police barricades that had filled the area earlier were gone. The shouting, ambulance sirens, flashing media vans, and human noise had all disappeared as if none of it had ever happened. What remained now was only silence. A heavy, unnatural kind of silence that made even the ruined warehouse feel less like a place and more like the remains of something cursed.
Above, a full moon hung in the dark sky.
Its pale white light spilled across the broken remains of the warehouse, making the destruction look even worse. Half-collapsed walls stood like dead skeletons. Broken iron rods jutted out from shattered concrete like exposed bones. Pieces of debris lay scattered everywhere, and whenever the cold night wind passed through the wreckage, loose metal somewhere inside let out faint creaking sounds.
The place felt dead.
But not empty.
A lone figure stood near the ruins.
Completely motionless.
From head to toe, he was covered in black. A long dark cloak covered his entire body, moving slightly whenever the wind touched it. A deep hood cast heavy shadows over his face, while the black cloth covering beneath it hid everything except his eyes.
He slowly looked around the destroyed area without saying a word.
His eyes moved over the broken walls.
The shattered concrete.
The deep crater in the ground.
The marks left behind by terrifying force.
Every part of this place carried evidence of violent destruction.
And yet—
The figure remained completely calm.
After a few moments, he took a slow step forward.
The sound of his boots against broken concrete echoed strangely in the silence.
Then another step.
And another.
As he walked deeper into the ruins, the wind suddenly grew stronger, carrying dust across the floor like restless ash. Somewhere above, a broken metal sheet shifted with a sharp scraping sound that tore through the silence.
Still, the man didn't stop.
He finally reached the center.
The place where the fight had happened.
Moonlight fell directly over the crater there.
For several long seconds, he simply stood there, staring at it.
Then his gaze slowly shifted toward a nearby collapsed section of the warehouse.
His visible eyes narrowed slightly.
When he finally spoke, his voice was low, calm… and somehow far more disturbing than shouting would have been.
"Matlab…"
A brief silence followed.
The wind moved through the broken structure again.
"Tum abhi bhi zinda ho."
END OF THE CHAPTER