Everybody close your eyes

The Pattern Begins

Sameer’s funeral took place two days later.

Aanya remembered almost none of it clearly.

Only fragments.

The white flowers near the entrance.

The low murmur of voices.

The way Sameer’s mother kept thanking people for coming, as though she were hosting a gathering instead of standing through the worst day of her life.

The photograph beside the flowers had been taken three years earlier. Sameer was grinning at the camera, sunglasses pushed up into his hair.

He looked annoyingly alive.

Aanya hated the photograph for that.

She stood beside Mira, saying very little.

Across the room, Kabir was talking quietly to Rohan. Tara was with Sameer’s sister. Naina had been helping his parents since morning.

Dev stood near the back, hands folded in front of him.

Arjun had arrived alone.

Ishaan came last.

Nobody commented on it.

For the first time since college, all of them were in the same room and nobody knew what to say.

The group chat had gone silent after Sameer’s death.

No jokes.

No photographs.

No pointless arguments.

His last message still sat there beneath the others.

Time is a social construct.

Nobody had sent anything after it.

Aanya had opened the chat several times and closed it again.

At the funeral, she kept thinking about the birthday party.

Not the whole evening.

Only insignificant things.

Sameer complaining about dying first.

Sameer filming everyone.

Sameer stealing chips from the kitchen.

Sameer calling her a murderer before going upstairs.

Things that had been funny because everyone had assumed there would be another time to hear them.

Mira touched her arm.

“You okay?”

Aanya nodded automatically.

“No.”

Mira didn’t ask again.

Afterwards, they gathered outside near the parking area.

Nobody suggested it. They simply ended up together.

Rohan broke the silence first.

“Police said it was the bike?”

Kabir glanced towards him.

“They’re still checking.”

“I thought they said he lost control.”

“That’s the preliminary version.”

Rohan frowned.

“What else would it be?”

Kabir shrugged.

“Could be mechanical. Could be road conditions. Could be anything.”

Aanya looked at him.

“You spoke to the police?”

“Sameer’s sister asked me to help with the insurance paperwork.”

“Of course she did,” Tara said. “You’re a lawyer. You people can’t even attend funerals without being assigned forms.”

Kabir gave her a tired look.

Normally he would have replied.

He didn’t.

Leena stood a little apart from them.

Aanya had barely spoken to her since the accident.

“You left early after the party?” Aanya asked.

Leena looked at her.

“No. I stayed.”

“Right.”

Aanya rubbed her forehead.

Everything about that night felt strangely distant now.

“I don’t remember anything properly.”

“You don’t have to,” Naina said.

She had joined them without Aanya noticing.

“Your brain is probably still processing it.”

Ishaan exhaled.

“Can we not psychoanalyse grief in a parking lot?”

Naina looked at him.

“I wasn’t.”

“Sounded like it.”

“Then don’t listen.”

Sameer would have laughed at that.

The thought landed between them without being spoken.

Ishaan looked away.

They left separately.

Nobody suggested meeting again.

Four days passed.

People returned to work because work did not care that someone had died.

Aanya answered emails.

Attended meetings.

Pretended to listen when colleagues complained about deadlines.

Every few hours, she would remember Sameer and lose track of whatever she was doing.

Mira called twice.

Kabir once.

Leena not at all.

The group chat remained silent.

Then, on Thursday night, Ishaan posted a message.

This is depressing. Sameer would hate this silence.

Nobody replied for almost a minute.

Then Tara wrote:

True. He’d also complain that nobody was talking about him enough.

Rohan sent:

He’d probably create a fake account and praise himself.

For the first time in days, Aanya smiled.

Ishaan replied:

Exactly. So can we please not turn this group into a memorial page?

Kabir sent:

Agreed.

Then Naina:

Agreed. But nobody is allowed to die for at least fifty years.

Rohan:

Very controlling.

The conversation continued for twenty minutes.

Not normally.

But enough.

That night, Aanya slept properly for the first time since the accident.

The following evening, Ishaan did not reply to anyone.

Nobody noticed.

That was the problem with adult friendships.

Silence had too many explanations.

Work.

Traffic.

Bad mood.

Dead phone.

Sleep.

A person could disappear for twenty-four hours without becoming missing.

By Saturday morning, Tara sent him a message directly.

No response.

At noon, she called.

Nothing.

By evening, she was irritated rather than worried.

At eight, she called Aanya.

“Have you spoken to Ishaan?”

“Not since the group chat.”

“Me neither.”

“So?”

“He was supposed to send me something.”

“What?”

“A contact. He said he’d send it yesterday.”

Aanya sat up.

“And?”

“And Ishaan forgets birthdays. He does not forget things he says he’ll do in twelve hours.”

Aanya stared at the wall.

“You called him?”

“Five times.”

“Maybe he’s out.”

“His phone is ringing.”

Aanya paused.

That was not necessarily strange.

But after Sameer, ordinary things no longer felt entirely ordinary.

“Should we call someone near him?”

“I already called Kabir. He’s driving there.”

Aanya’s stomach tightened.

“I’m coming.”

“Aanya—”

“I’m coming.”

Ishaan lived on the sixth floor of an apartment building on the other side of the city.

By the time Aanya arrived, Kabir was already there.

So was Tara.

The three of them stood outside Ishaan’s door.

Kabir had called the building manager, who was on his way with a spare key.

“Maybe he’s sleeping,” Aanya said.

Tara looked at her.

“For thirty hours?”

“I’m just saying.”

Kabir knocked again.

“Ishaan!”

Nothing.

He pressed the doorbell.

They could hear it inside.

No movement followed.

The building manager arrived, annoyed at first.

Then Kabir explained.

The man’s expression changed.

“I cannot open without permission.”

Kabir’s voice hardened.

“His friends haven’t heard from him. His family lives in another city. We’ve been calling him. If he’s injured inside, do you really want to spend the next hour discussing policy?”

The manager hesitated.

Then unlocked the door.

The smell hit them before anything else.

Not death.

Gas.

Faint but unmistakable.

Kabir immediately raised a hand.

“Don’t switch anything on.”

The manager froze.

Tara covered her nose.

“Ishaan?”

Kabir stepped inside.

Aanya followed before he could stop her.

The apartment was quiet.

The curtains were drawn.

A half-empty glass sat on the dining table.

A laptop was open beside it.

The screen was black.

“Ishaan!”

Nothing.

They found him in the bathroom.

Kabir saw him first.

Then turned around immediately.

“Aanya, don’t.”

But she already had.

Ishaan was lying on the floor near the shower.

Still.

His skin had a strange grey pallor to it.

For one impossible second, Aanya expected him to open his eyes and complain that they had broken into his apartment.

He didn’t.

Tara backed into the hallway.

“No.”

Kabir took out his phone.

“Get outside. Both of you.”

Aanya didn’t move.

“Kabir—”

“Now.”

Something in his voice made her listen.

The ambulance came.

Then the police.

Then questions.

A malfunction in the water heater was suspected.

Possible carbon monoxide exposure.

An accident.

Again.

That word again.

Aanya sat on the pavement outside the building with Tara beside her.

Neither spoke.

Kabir came out nearly forty minutes later.

His face looked different.

Not devastated.

Not exactly.

Concentrated.

“What did they say?” Tara asked.

Kabir sat down across from them.

“They think the heater malfunctioned.”

Aanya stared at him.

“So that’s it?”

“They’re checking.”

Tara let out a strange laugh.

Not amusement.

“Another accident.”

Kabir looked at her.

“Apparently.”

No one said anything after that.

Aanya suddenly felt cold.

Sameer.

Now Ishaan.

Two people in less than a week.

She remembered Ishaan at the farmhouse.

This is somehow your fault.

Sameer laughing beside him.

Welcome to the afterlife.

Her stomach turned.

“Stop,” she whispered.

Tara looked at her.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

Aanya stood.

“I need to go home.”

Kabir watched her leave.

Mira received the news at 10:14 p.m.

She read Tara’s message twice.

Then called Aanya.

No answer.

Naina.

No answer.

Finally, she called Kabir.

He picked up on the fourth ring.

“Hey.”

His voice sounded exhausted.

“Is it true?”

“Yes.”

Mira sat down slowly.

“What happened?”

“Likely carbon monoxide poisoning.”

Silence.

Then Mira said, “Kabir.”

Something in her voice made him straighten.

“What?”

She did not know why the thought had come to her.

Maybe because shock made the mind search for patterns.

Maybe because the memory of the birthday had been sitting too close to the surface.

“Sameer died first.”

Kabir said nothing.

Mira swallowed.

“In the game.”

Still nothing.

“And Ishaan…”

Her voice dropped.

“He was second.”

On the other end of the line, Kabir stopped breathing for a moment.

Mira immediately regretted saying it.

“That sounds insane.”

“Yes.”

“It’s just a coincidence.”

“Probably.”

Neither of them sounded convinced.

Mira closed her eyes and tried to remember.

The circle.

The rain.

Leena’s voice.

Sameer first.

Ishaan second.

Then—

Her eyes opened.

“Who was third?”

Kabir answered too quickly.

“Tara.”

Mira stood.

Neither spoke.

They both understood the same thing at the same time.

Somewhere across the city, Tara Kapoor was alone in her apartment.

And neither of them knew whether the game had ended when they left the farmhouse.