It was the first day of my 10th board exams. Exam fever had completely taken over me, and the very first exam was English.
My English teacher was an ex-military officer, and she was from Uttarakhand. She was the head of my house, Willows, and we used to chitchat a lot during assembly sessions. Later, the school stopped assembly sessions for Grade 10 students. Everyone used to hate those assemblies except me, because I enjoyed talking with her.
On the day of the exam, it was around 7:30 in the morning, and I was staring at the railing in front of my class. Somehow ma'am noticed me in the crowd and came up to me, calling my name. I was so lost in my thoughts, but not because of the exam.
Earlier that morning, when I called my parents to talk and get their wishes, I realized there was something wrong with my mom's voice. I could also sense something happening in the background, but she hung up, telling me to call later.
Then I called my grandpa—not to ask what was wrong, but simply to take his wishes. He answered while riding his bike. I could hear the wind rushing past him. He said he would be there in five minutes and then hung up. He must have mistaken me for someone else, and I didn't bother calling again.
Next, I called my aunt.
At that moment, I got to know everything.
After hearing what she said, I forgot literally everything that was going on around me. All I could think about was my uncle, who had died that very morning due to liver cancer.
After that, everything felt paused.
I was walking alone downstairs to my classroom, wondering how this could even be possible. Every morning when I was in Grade 4, I used to walk around the balcony of my home and watch him cleaning his bike. He would ask me a hell of a lot of the same questions every day. Suddenly, all those questions hit my mind after such a long time. Before that moment, I had never recalled them. They just appeared.
I sat at my desk, staring at the railing.
I felt a gentle pull on my shoulder. It was my English ma'am.
I didn't tell her about the death. I don't know why. But she understood that I was nervous about something. She asked me to close my eyes and kept saying something, but nothing went into my head. Yet when I opened my eyes, I didn't feel the same as before.
From the school to the exam center, I was sitting next to her along with Joshik, but I didn't say anything about my uncle's death. If they didn't respond the way I expected, it might ruin my exam, and I didn't want that to happen.
I told ma'am that I would do great in the exam, but I needed to speak to her afterward. Otherwise, it felt like my brain would fall out of my skull.
Her face looked more tense than mine.
Then I left for the exam.
And then I got some unexpected attention from Sanvi.
The exam was three hours long, but strangely I couldn't feel the pressure of it. Something else had already taken over my mind.
While I was trying to recall answers from the chapter Footprints Without Feet, a sudden memory flashed through my mind.
It was from 2015.
I had been playing with the handle of a paint bucket when something suddenly splashed into my eye. The pain was unbearable. Everyone around me was too scared even to look at me.
But my uncle wasn't.
He immediately took me to the hospital. If he hadn't been there that day, I might have lost my eye.
I still remember the way he spoke to me the entire time—calmly and carefully—making sure I wouldn't panic.
All those memories came back within a single second.
Before I realized it, tears had started falling from my eyes. The question paper in front of me slowly became blurry. My nose felt blocked, and my chest felt heavy.
And then—
I had lost all those thoughts.
I could feel myself in a pool.My feet went cold.Everything went blank in a split second.
Slowly, the noise started turning into silence.
I found a path—as if I could jump into the past, into all those mesmerizing moments of my life. And I began moving through them.
Fog started rising from the water, and everything slowly turned into a deep white. It became so thick that I couldn't open my eyes, and suddenly I felt intense heat.
The water began to drain.
My instincts were creating a space for a break.Everything started returning to normal.
But I was drifting away from that window I had always dreamed of reaching.
A sharp pain rose in my stomach.An unfamiliar sensation spread through my hand.
And then—
"I heard a whisper from beside me."
It was Sanvi.
"Twenty-five minutes left. You've hardly written anything."
My pen started moving faster than a bullet train.
Everyone had finished their exam, and I could sense someone staring at me from outside, but I was in such a rush to completely fill the booklet.
Finally, when I lifted my head and looked around the hall, it was empty. I was lucky that at that moment the invigilator didn't say a word, and I managed to finish writing.
After closing my pen and grabbing my things from the table, I looked outside the classroom. But the corridor was already empty.
On the stairs, I saw Sanvi waiting for someone. I was walking slowly. Then we made eye contact. I just walked past her and said nothing—not even a thank you.
Not because I didn't care.
I was just too nervous to start the conversation, and I knew I would probably say something weird.
When I looked back at her, her face had turned pale red. She seemed so familiar, like someone I had seen before.
The words finally came out of my mouth.
"Thanks."
She simply smirked and walked away. At the end, she smiled for no reason. I felt annoyed during the smirk and awkward during the smile.
Sanvi pushed me into a constant state of overthinking because I couldn't figure out a single thing about her.
Now all I could think about was who she really was.
Later, I asked myself if she was doing this on purpose—just to conquer my mind.