Chapter 9: The Survivor

The Coimbatore sun hung heavy in the afternoon sky as the team’s SUV pulled up outside CR College of Arts and Commerce. The quiet buzz of student chatter faded as Pranav, Mitra, Thameem, and now Murali, who had flown down from Hyderabad, stepped onto the college grounds.

“This is where it all began,” Pranav muttered.

They made their way straight to the Principal’s office, flashing their IDs and a thick envelope of photographs. Murali kept silent, alert, his mind still tangled with Saravanan’s mysterious death.

The principal, a soft-spoken man in his sixties, adjusted his glasses, peering at the photos.

“I remember these girls. They were good students. It’s heartbreaking…”

“We need class details. Batch, department, anything you can share,” Pranav said, his tone crisp.

As the principal skimmed through old logs and dusty files, he paused and opened an aging yearbook. “Here. You might want to see this.”

He laid the book flat. On the page, a wide photograph showed a group of vibrant, smiling students — standing against the background of a thatched village school. Most wore t-shirts with the college’s NGO logo.

Girls. Boys. Laughter frozen in time.

Pranav’s eyes narrowed.

Mitra counted softly under her breath. “Twelve girls. Five boys.”

Pranav’s voice cut through the air.

“Eleven of those twelve girls are dead.”

The room fell silent.

“This… was taken during an NGO education camp,” the principal explained, visibly unsettled. “Our college sends handpicked students—seniors and juniors—to villages to teach underprivileged children. It’s always mixed batches. This was five years ago. They lived together. Ate together.”

“Do you have their names and addresses?”

The principal opened the old admission register. “I can give you all the girls' details... but one stands out as per whatever I understood from your debrief on case sir — she’s the only one still alive. Her name is Nithiya.”

Pranav took a photo of the yearbook page and closed the file. “We’ll start with her.”

---

Inside the car, Thameem drove while Murali leaned over from the back seat, whispering, “Eleven out of twelve. What are the odds?”

“They’re not odds,” Pranav replied coldly. “They’re targets. A mission.”

He tapped the photo.

“This girl — Nithiya — she holds the missing piece. Whether she knows it or not.”

---

The house stood out like a monument in a modest lane — a two-storey villa, clean, symmetrical, guarded by trimmed hedges. The nameplate read: Mr. & Mrs. Aravind

“Pretty fancy for a teacher,” Murali muttered.

“Maybe her husband’s loaded,” Thameem offered.

They walked up. Pranav knocked.

The door creaked open. Nithiya, a woman in her early thirties with deep, tired eyes, stood before them in a simple saree.

“Yes?”

“Mrs. Nithiya? Chennai Police. We’d like to speak with you.”

Inside, the house felt calm. Lavish interiors. Family photos on the wall. A sense of comfort, almost... too calm.

She served tea, though her hands shook slightly.

“What is this about?”

Mitra placed the NGO photograph on the glass table.

“These girls… all of them… are dead. Except you.”

Nithiya’s face went pale. The cup slipped slightly from her hand.

“I-I knew about two of them. But all… eleven?”

Tears brimmed in her eyes. “So you’re saying I’m the only one left?”

“You are,” Pranav said. “And we believe the answers we’re looking for might be buried in the past. In that camp.”

“I wish I could help more. We were a close team, respected each other. But after the camp, everyone drifted apart.”

Pranav leaned forward, sharp.

“You said we. Who’s ‘we’?”

She hesitated.

“That man,” she said softly, pointing to the photo — to a tall, broad-shouldered boy in the back row.

His face was distorted — heavy folds of skin, misaligned features, as though melted. A rare craniofacial disorder, marked by asymmetry and facial disfigurement.

“That’s Aravind. My husband.”

Mitra looked closer. “What happened to his face?”

“He has a condition called Parry-Romberg Syndrome, sir. A progressive atrophy that affected the left side of his face. He was bullied a lot in school and college. But he’s the kindest soul I’ve ever met. He proposed me on last day of our college and I accepted, a year later we married. We’re happy.”

Murali leaned in. “He funded all this?”

“Yes. I had no idea he was wealthy when he was at college. After marriage, he built a school — in my name. He’s the principal now.”

Pranav nodded, tension rising under his calm voice.

“Can we meet him?”

Nithiya stood. “Let me call him.”

She walked into the hallway and dialed.

The team sat in silence, eyes tracing every corner of the home. Something felt off. Too much perfection. Too much distance between the past and present.

She returned.

“Sir, he said he can’t come now. It’s Annual Day at school. He’s busy. He said… he’ll come home after 5 PM.”

“That’s fine,” Pranav said, smirking. “We have all day. For Aravind.”

---

The sun outside was beginning to set. But inside the room, a different kind of darkness was slowly, silently rising.