Akshat: "Umm, Nayan… can you tell me why you're sitting with Divyu?"
Divyu: "Oh, didn't he tell you, Akshat? We're dating."
Akshat: "Wtf is this??"
(Akshat felt a twinge of unease for no reason—maybe he was somehow… attracted to Divyu?)
"Do whatever you two want, just don't drag me into it, understood?"
Nayan: "Don't worry, bro. Everything will be fine."(Akshat imagined Nayan as a smirking frog 🐸.)
Akshat whispered silently, so no one could hear: "Idiots."
Just like that, Nayan and Divyu became a couple—the love of childhoods 🤣.
But… no one could imagine the greater destruction looming over them… in the form of a bioterror virus.
_____________________
(Year 2022)
Everyone is happy except me.
I was eleven when the lockdown began, and what I thought would last weeks stretched into two empty years.
Each day felt the same—quiet rooms, glowing screens, and a growing heaviness in my chest.
With nothing to distract me or make me feel alive during those two years of lockdown, I slipped into unhealthy habits. Late-night browsing slowly turned into a dependency on adult content.
My thoughts grew lewd and restless, my energy weaker, and sometimes it felt like the world outside wasn't the only thing locked down—something inside me was fading too.
"What the hell have I been doing all these days? I was just wasting myself and acting dumb, like I was low-key depressed. This feeling of being a loser pushed me away from my parents, my brother, and my relatives… I didn't even know what I was doing. I wanted to become powerful, but instead I became trash no one likes. Maybe in the next life—
No. I have to be better. There is no next life."
That's another story of my life, but when I reached my classroom, everything suddenly changed. Everyone saw a completely different personality in me, and I couldn't even risk revealing my real self out of shame.
_____________
[Year 2022 mid]
At 7:00AM, Akshat enters the classroom and find that everyone he once sees as a child hits the puberty.
Nayan was staring at the notice board when he heard a voice.
"Nayan? Is that you?"
He turned and smiled. "Akshat! It's been two years!"
"Yeah… HOVID lockdown felt endless,"
Akshat said. "You've changed."
"So have you," Nayan laughed. Then his smile faded a little.
Akshat noticed. "Everything okay?"
Nayan shrugged. "Divyu and I broke up during lockdown. We barely talked… things just faded."
"Oh… I'm sorry," Akshat said.
"It's okay," Nayan replied. "It hurt, but I guess we both changed."
The school bell rang.
Akshat grinned. "New start then?"
Nayan nodded. "Yeah. New start."
They walked to their diffrent classes showing their seperate ways..
End of ch 7
To be continue...
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