The corridor narrowed as they followed the flickering lights deeper into Block C.
Every step sounded too loud — shoes scraping against dusty tiles, breath echoing off peeling walls. The silence felt deliberate, as if the building itself were waiting for them to reach a specific place.
Their phones buzzed again.
Proceed to Evidence Room — Adjacent to Lecture Hall 3.
Orientation Phase 2.
Ravi let out a hollow laugh. “Phase 2? Bro, whoever’s running this has way too much free time.”
But no one answered.
Because the door at the end of the hallway stood open.
Light spilled out — steady, bright, surgical.
Arjun pushed it slowly.
The room inside looked nothing like an abandoned classroom.
Metal tables lined the center. Old projectors hummed softly. A large notice board covered one wall — filled with photographs, printouts, and pinned documents arranged with unsettling precision.
In the middle of the room sat five neatly stacked folders.
Each labeled with one of their names.
Nisha stepped back. “No. I’m not touching that.”
Meera moved closer anyway, drawn by something she couldn’t explain. She opened the top file — Arjun’s.
Ragging complaint forms.
Signed.
Stamped.
Official college letterhead.
Dates from second year.
Underlined passages described late-night “orientation sessions” — forced confessions, locked classrooms, humiliation games disguised as bonding exercises.
Arjun’s stomach tightened. “We… we stopped after that one week,” he said quietly.
Ravi opened his own folder.
Inside were printed drafts of apology letters.
Typed by him.
Never sent.
Lines crossed out, rewritten.
“I didn’t think it would go that far…”
“We were just following tradition…”
His hands trembled.
“How does anyone have this?” he whispered. “I deleted these.”
Meera found a USB drive taped to the inside of her folder. Without thinking, she plugged it into the dusty computer at the front desk.
The screen flickered to life.
A video file opened automatically.
A dim classroom. Block C. Same lecture hall from the photo.
The junior stood at the front — thin, nervous, eyes darting between unseen seniors behind the camera.
A voice from off-screen laughed.
Ravi’s voice.
“Say it louder. You’re not convincing anyone.”
The video froze.
Another file opened — a voice recording.
The same junior.
Breathing hard.
“Seniors… I said sorry… please don’t make me stay again…”
Nisha covered her mouth.
Arjun felt his chest tighten with a familiar, suffocating guilt he thought he’d buried long ago.
Another audio file played automatically.
This one addressing them by name.
“Arjun anna… you said it was just fun…”
“Meera akka… you watched and didn’t stop them…”
“Ravi… you locked the door…”
Ravi staggered back. “This is sick,” he said hoarsely. “Who’s digging this up?”
On another table lay journals — thin notebooks filled with shaky handwriting.
Meera flipped one open.
Pages described sleepless nights, panic attacks, fear of attending class. Drawings of locked doors. Lists of punishments. Words scratched so hard into paper they tore through to the next page.
At the bottom of one entry:
“I think they want me to disappear.”
Nisha shook her head violently. “Okay… this is revenge. Someone close to him is doing this. They found all this and—”
The projector behind them flickered on.
A digital folder opened automatically.
Evidence Log — Administrative Copy
Each file carried an official college seal.
Admin signatures.
Faculty approval codes.
Arjun stared. “These are internal documents,” he said quietly. “Not student files.”
Ravi frowned at the timestamps listed beside the recordings.
“Wait…” he muttered.
He zoomed in on one audio file.
Recorded: March 12 — 11:47 PM
The date sat heavy in the room.
The junior had died on March 8.
Four days earlier.
Ravi’s voice trembled. “How is there a recording from after he… after the incident?”
Meera scrolled frantically through more files.
Multiple recordings.
Multiple timestamps.
All dated days — even weeks — after the death.
Nisha’s breathing quickened. “That’s impossible.”
Arjun felt a chill crawl up his spine.
The system beeped.
A new file opened automatically.
A timeline chart.
Events listed in neat rows:
Complaint Filed.
Orientation Session.
Isolation Incident.
Final Evaluation.
The last entries were dated today.
Before they even arrived.
The lights flickered again.
Their phones buzzed in unison.
Evidence Phase Complete.
Proceed to Attendance Verification.
Ravi stepped away from the screen slowly, shaking his head.
“No,” he whispered. “This isn’t revenge. Revenge doesn’t fake timelines.”
Meera looked around the room — at the perfectly arranged files, the official signatures, the recordings that shouldn’t exist.
Her voice came out barely audible.
“Someone didn’t just collect this,” she said. “They built a story.”
Arjun stared at the timeline again — every event aligned too neatly, too perfectly, like a case study.
A reconstruction.
Not a memory.
Not justice.
A simulation.
The projector screen went black.
For a moment, their reflections stared back at them from the dark glass — small, trapped figures inside a room that felt less like evidence… and more like observation.
Nisha whispered the thought none of them wanted to admit.
“Wait…”
She swallowed hard.
“Someone is reconstructing this story.”