University campus, 9:12 a.m. – 4:30 p.m.
Mitra stood outside the Electrical Engineering block like a golden retriever who had wandered into an IIT exam hall by mistake.
He stared at Madhu's timetable and actually whimpered.
"Advanced Circuit Theory… Power Systems… Electromagnetic Fields… Microprocessors…"
He scratched his head so hard his hair stood up like he'd been electrocuted.
"I thought 'fields' meant cricket fields."
His own timetable (World Mythology & Folklore, 3rd year, attendance strictly optional) was crumpled in his pocket like a bad joke.
Different years. Different branches. Different planets.
Plan A: share classes → dead on arrival.
Plan B ignited instantly.
Mitra's face split into the kind of grin that could power a small city.
"No problem! I'll just become his friend the old-fashioned way!"
He bounced toward the canteen, radiating so much warmth that two pigeons forgot how to fly and face-planted into a neem tree.
Meanwhile, Madhu spent the entire day performing Olympic-level stalker evasion:
Duck into the central library → success
Hide in the third-floor boys' washroom for twenty-five minutes → success
Take the emergency staircase that smells like dead dreams → success
Accidentally end up in the girls' hostel back gate and almost get murdered by the warden aunty → worth it
By 4:30 p.m. he was drenched in sweat, lungs burning, convinced the neon-yellow giant was the Institute's new bio-weapon:
Code name "Sunshine Terminator".
Madhu's flat, 8:15 p.m.
Madhu burst through the door ready to barricade it with the sofa, the fridge, and possibly his mother's ego.
Instead, he stopped dead.
At the dining table sat the six-foot walking sunbeam sat cross-legged on a morha,
drinking tea from his mother's sacred chipped cup (the one she threatened to disinherit him over),
being hand-fed aloo posto by said mother while his father nodded like a proud peacock.
"Madhu beta! You didn't tell us you made such a sanskaari, strong, polite friend!"
His mother actually had tears of joy in her eyes.
"He carried all the groceries in one trip, fixed the pressure cooker whistle, and said my posto is better than his own mother's!"
Mitra looked up, mouth full, and waved with the enthusiasm of a Labrador who'd just been told it's park time.
"Hello, friend!"
Madhu's soul left his body and hovered near the ceiling fan.
"Do I even know you?" he squeaked.
Mitra swallowed, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and grinned.
"You're already friends with Tārā and Amrita-didi, right?
Transitive property of friendship: we're automatically besties!"
He spread his arms wide enough to hug the entire building.
"Name's Mitra. Pleasure!"
Madhu's brain performed an emergency shutdown and restart.
His mother swatted him with her pallu.
"Don't stand there like a tube-light! Go sit! Your friend has been telling us about your 'group project' in the village. So brave, all of you!"
Mitra's eyes twinkled with pure, chaotic mischief.
Forty kilometres away
A pink ice-cream van with a giant smiling bunny drove smoothly through the night.
Inside: five unconscious schoolgirls on stretchers, IV lines dripping strawberry-scented sedative.
Shabonti's red ribbon fluttered from her limp hand like a surrender flag.
Outside the tuition centre, 9:47 p.m.
The laughter in the flat died the moment the wall clock crossed 9:30.
"Shabonti is never this late," Madhu's mother whispered, suddenly small.
Phone calls to the tuition teacher went unanswered.
Madhu and Mitra exchanged one look (no words, just pure understanding).
They were out the door in three seconds flat.
They sprinted the three streets to the tuition centre.
The lane was deserted.
Even the stray dogs had vanished.
Only one thing lay in the middle of the road:
a single red ribbon with white polka dots,
the one Madhu had tied in Shabonti's hair that morning while teasing her that she looked like a birthday present.
He picked it up with fingers that had gone ice-cold.
On the inside, black marker still wet:
Your sister is in our custody.
Come to the address below.
Come alone.
If anyone follows, she stops breathing.
A tiny black device stitched into the satin blinked once.
A hologram flickered into existence above Madhu's palm:
Shabonti was strapped to a steel chair in a blinding white room.
Her head lolled to the side, red ribbons loose in her hair.
A digital timer beneath her feet:
03:00:00
02:59:59
02:59:58…
Madhu made a sound like a wounded animal.
He turned and ran.
A hand of warm iron clamped around his wrist.
Mitra's usual sunshine was gone.
His eyes burned literal gold, pupils narrowed to furious slits.
"You are not going alone," he said, voice shaking with the effort of staying human.
"They'll kill her!"
"They will try," Mitra growled.
Golden light leaked from his skin, making the streetlamp above them flicker.
"You walk in the front door and are the perfect bait.
I'll be the surprise party crashing through the roof, walls, whatever it takes."
For the first time, Madhu saw the god inside the goofy giant (ancient, furious, terrifyingly calm).
Mitra forced the smile back on, but it looked painful now.
"Go save your sister, new guy.
I've got the rest."
He let go, ruffled Madhu's hair one last time like everything was still normal,
then melted into the shadows of the alley.
Madhu clutched the ribbon until the plastic device cut his palm and drew blood.
The hologram timer dropped to 02:56:44.
He ran toward the glowing red dot on the map, toward the place that had his little sister's heartbeat on a countdown.
Behind him, for exactly three heartbeats,
golden footprints burned on the pavement
before the night swallowed them whole.
Somewhere underground, Dr. Anahita Saha watched the live feed of Madhu running straight into her web.
She raised a glass of something thick and red.
"To family bonds," she toasted the empty lab.
"They make the best triggers."
The timer on Shabonti's chair ticked louder