The monsoon had no mercy. It hammered against the tall glass windows of the Crime Branch headquarters, a relentless, drumming white noise that grated on Inspector Tanish Dahije's nerves.
Inside the briefing room, the air was stale, smelling of ozone and burnt coffee. Tanish stood before the investigation board, his eyes tracing the red yarn that connected four names, four photographs, and four nightmares.
Mahesh Navale. Krishna Waghmare. Sachin Kale. Sarthak Jadhav.
Four different lives. One lived in a luxury flat; another in a cluttered suburban bungalow. One was a contractor; another a bank manager. No shared phone calls. No mutual friends on social media. No financial overlap.
"How is this possible?!" Tanish's voice cracked through the room like a whip. He slammed a forensic file onto the mahogany table, sending loose papers flying.
The junior officers shrank back. They hadn't seen the "Academy Golden Boy" lose his cool before. But Tanish hadn't slept in forty-eight hours. The dark circles under his eyes looked like bruises. He wasn't just looking for a killer; he was looking for a pattern, and the pattern was a ghost.
He turned back to the board, staring into the dead eyes of the victims. Every single one of them had the same expression. It wasn't the wide-eyed shock of a sudden attack, nor the twisted grimace of pain.
It was recognition.
They hadn't died wondering who was killing them. They had died knowing why.
"They knew him," Tanish whispered, his voice barely audible over the thunder. "They were waiting for him."
The breakthrough didn't come from a high-tech lab or a decrypted hard drive. It came from a breathless constable carrying a yellowed, water-damaged folder.
"Sir! The school!"
Tanish spun around, his predatory instincts instantly sharp. "Talk."
"I went through the primary education records," the constable panted, laying the file open. "It's buried deep because they moved to different junior colleges, but look... 2018 to 2025. St. Jude's International."
Tanish scanned the lists. There it was. Batch of 2025.
By 2:00 PM, police vehicles surrounded the St. Jude's campus. Under the command of the Crime Branch, the surviving members of the Batch of 2025 had been summoned. They stood in the center of the muddy football field, looking less like a reunion and more like a funeral procession.
Tanish walked the line, holding up the crime scene photos. "You all knew them," he said, his voice cold. "And one by one, they are being harvested. Who's next?"
The silence was heavy. He saw the terror in their eyes—they weren't mourning; they were waiting for their turn.
"The register, Principal," Tanish commanded.
The elderly principal began the roll call. One by one, names were called. One by one, shaky voices responded "Present."
"Who is missing?" Tanish asked suddenly.
"Yukta… Yukta Sharma," a voice whispered.
Before Tanish could react, a silver sedan smashed through the rusted school gates, fishtailing wildly before slamming to a halt. Yukta Sharma tumbled out, smelling of cheap gin and expensive perfume.
"You blind idiot!" she shrieked at the gatekeeper.
Tanish was on her in three strides, his grip like iron. "Your friends are being slaughtered, and you turn up like this?"
Yukta looked at him with a lazy, lopsided smile. "Yeah… people dying. Blood everywhere. Art, right?"
SLAP.
The sound echoed off the stone walls. Yukta's head snapped to the side. The crowd gasped. Tanish didn't move his hand. He loomed over her. "You think this is a joke?"
Yukta slowly turned her face back to him. The drunken bravado was gone. "I don't think it's funny, Inspector," she whispered. "I think it's inevitable."
As Yukta was led away, her haunting laughter was swallowed by the roar of a sudden thunderclap. The remaining students of the Batch of 2025 stood like statues in the mud, their umbrellas shivering in the wind. Tanish watched them, his mind churning. He didn't see classmates; he saw a jury that had already delivered a secret verdict years ago.
"The rain isn't going to stop, Inspector," a voice cracked.
Tanish turned to see the Principal. The old man looked as though he had aged a decade in the last hour. His skin was sallow, and his eyes kept darting toward the heavy, gothic oak doors of the main administrative building.
"The ground is no place for the truth," the Principal whispered, his breath hitching. "There is something... something that was left for you. Not by the living, I fear."
Tanish signaled his team to maintain the perimeter. He followed the old man through the darkened corridors of St. Jude's, where the portraits of past scholars seemed to watch them with judgmental eyes. Every footstep echoed like a heartbeat against the cold stone floors.
They reached the end of a narrow hallway, stopping before a door that smelled of floor wax and ancient dust. The Principal fumbled with a heavy brass key, his hands shaking so violently the metal rattled against the lock.
"I tried to ignore it," the Principal breathed as the door groaned open. "I tried to tell myself it was a prank. But then the murders started matching the names."
He stepped aside, gesturing toward the corner of the room where a relic of the past sat waiting.
Inside the shadows of the room, the air felt even colder. The principal stood by a rusted metal mailbox—an old suggestion box that hadn't been touched in years.
With a trembling key, he opened it. Inside lay four sealed white envelopes.
Tanish donned his latex gloves and pulled one out. Across the front, the name Mahesh was written in beautiful, elegant calligraphy. He opened it. Inside was a card. No signature. Just three words written in a shade of red that Tanish knew wasn't ink:
JUSTICE WAS DONE
"Who delivered these?" Tanish growled.
"I… I don't know," the principal stammered. "They just... appeared. One for each of them, on the morning after they died."
Tanish stepped into the hallway. He saw Yukta leaning against a pillar, lighting a cigarette. She was staring at the rain with a thousand-yard stare.
"This was always going to happen," she muttered as Tanish approached. "It's our destiny."
"What happened in 2025, Yukta?" Tanish demanded.
Before she could answer, two of her former classmates rushed over, pulling her away. "She's drunk, sir. Ignore her."
Yukta let out a sharp, jagged laugh as they dragged her off. "Hide all you want! You can't skip this attendance!"
As Tanish watched them disappear, he didn't see the old peon approach the principal. He didn't hear the whispered conversation that followed.
"Sir…" the peon whispered. "Wasn't that boy also in this batch? The one from the basement?"
The principal's face turned the color of ash. He slammed his hand on the desk. "Never say his name! Not in this school! Not ever!"
"But… do you think it's him?"
The principal looked out at the remaining students. They looked like silhouettes in the rain—fragile, guilty, and marked for death.
"I don't know if it's his hand holding the blade," the principal whispered. "But I know one thing."
He looked at the empty chairs in the hallway.
"This is the last attendance of Batch 2025."