Rajasthan had a way of keeping secrets.
It didn't announce danger—it let it arrive quietly.
Amar Veer Randhawa returned to his hometown after eight years. Eight years of silence, distance, and a past buried carefully. To the people here, he was just another man who came back quietly, renting a small house opposite the old, abandoned haveli that everyone avoided.
During the day, he blended in. Evening walks, short conversations, normal life. Calm, polite, unremarkable.
But nights were different. Nights reminded him that some pasts never die—they just wait.
That Tuesday evening, as the desert heat clung to every street, Amar noticed something.
A light. One narrow window of the haveli burned with a steady yellow glow.
Not flickering. Not weak. Intentional.
His hand froze mid-sip of chai. His face betrayed nothing, but his instincts screamed. Some things had a pattern that only trained eyes could see.
Seven seconds. Then it vanished.
Too precise to be coincidence.
Elsewhere in the same town, Shivangi Thakur noticed it too.
She had been scrolling through her phone, pretending to read messages, when her thumb froze mid-screen. Seven seconds.
No panic crossed her face. Only a quiet acknowledgment.
"So… ab," she whispered.
Shivangi locked her phone, tucked it into her bag, and tied her hair back. She didn't hurry. She didn't run. Some signals didn't need confirmation—they demanded action.
Amar stepped away from the window, finally allowing his mind to consider the possibilities. He had returned for peace, distance, and forgetting. The desert and the town offered none.
Neither Amar Veer Randhawa nor Shivangi Thakur knew how the night would end. But they understood one thing, without words:
Some missions didn't restart with orders.
They restarted with a signal that should not exist.