"The wheel does not choose its turn,
nor the flesh its hour to burn.
Some falls are heavy, some are slight
but every fall rewrites the night."
The road had been smooth for miles, a ribbon of cracked asphalt unraveling through endless green. The van hummed, laughter buzzed, arguments flared and died, and the forest pressed close on either side like it had been stitched there just for them.
No one expected it to end in a heartbeat.
The squirrel appeared first—an impossible flash of silver darting from the underbrush. The driver cursed and wrenched the wheel left.
"WHAT THE FU—"
The rest never came.
The van shrieked as tires scraped gravel, the weight of eight bodies slamming sideways at once. Someone's head cracked glass, someone else's ribs met a seat edge. The world spun in a blur of leaves and metal. They hit something—wood, stone, earth—and the tempo traveler folded, rolled once, twice, then landed with a final bone-deep crunch.
Then came silence.
Not just silence, but that ringing silence that presses against the skull, heavier than noise.
Abhay opened his eyes first.
The smell of iron and petrol flooded his nose, sharp and raw. He blinked once, twice. The van's roof leaned sideways like a crushed tin, glass glittered across the floor, and blood dripped steadily from a torn upholstery seam.
He was standing outside already. How he'd gotten out, he couldn't quite remember—one moment swallowed by chaos, the next standing on damp earth, the van groaning behind him as it settled into its broken angle.
He raised his hands. Not a cut. Not a bruise. His clothes, spotless.
It was odd, but his mind moved past it. Maybe he'd been thrown clear. Maybe he was just lucky.
Inside, the dream was bloodier.
"Uhh—ahh—" Kabir groaned, dragging himself up from a twisted seat. His forehead had split open in a shallow cut, blood mingling with dust. He tried to laugh but it broke into a cough. "We… we didn't… holy shit."
"Help me—my leg—" Saanvi clutched her ankle, teeth gritted as she tried to move. Her face was pale, but when she pulled her hand away, there was no blood. Just pain.
Priya leaned against a shattered window frame, her lipstick smudged and a thin cut tracing her cheek. She stared at her trembling hands, whispering, "No, no, no…" until Rohit grabbed her arm and shook her.
"Oi! You're alive! We're alive, damn it!" Rohit wheezed as he spoke, clutching his ribs. His breathing was shallow, painful, but he was grinning through it.
Meghna coughed, hair tangled with leaves, her diary half-torn and pressed to her chest. "Someone elbowed me. Who elbowed me?" Her voice was shaky but conscious.
"I think it was the impact," Yashpal muttered, blood dripping from his split lip. He spat red into the dirt and tried to grin. "At least I didn't die."
Diya wasn't laughing. She was checking herself over methodically—arms, legs, chest—her touch clinical and careful, as if she was afraid of what she might find.
The laughter that followed was broken, fragile, like glass barely holding together.
Abhay turned back once, his eyes falling on the driver. The man's chest had folded against the steering wheel, eyes wide, lips parted. No breath rose from him. Blood ran down the wheel spokes in tiny rivulets.
He was gone.
"Driver's dead," Abhay said flatly, though no one had asked. The words felt heavy.
The group went quiet. Priya looked away quickly. Rohit muttered something under his breath. Saanvi closed her eyes and whispered a small prayer. Meghna held her torn diary tighter, as if it could protect her from what she'd just heard.
Only Kabir spoke. "We… we survived that. We actually survived that." His laugh came out shaky but real. "Holy hell, we're… lucky."
The word hung in the air. Lucky.
No one wanted to ask why the driver hadn't made it. Why their injuries—painful, bleeding, but not life-ending—seemed almost merciful in their mildness. Why Abhay had walked away completely untouched. But no one voiced it. They were alive. That was enough.
They climbed out one by one, movements stiff and careful. Saanvi leaned on Diya, wincing as her ankle protested each step. Priya limped beside Rohit, her hand pressed to her cheek where the cut was already beginning to clot. Yashpal swore under his breath as he straightened his back, but his movements were deliberate, testing. Meghna kept her diary clutched to her chest, her other hand reaching out to steady herself against the van.
Abhay walked ahead. His shadow stretched long in the fading light.
The forest waited.
It wasn't like any of them had pictured it. No sound of birds. No insect hum. Even the wind had stilled, as though the trees themselves were holding their breath. A mist curled low around their ankles, pale and reluctant, creeping forward with them as they stepped into the clearing.
They walked in silence for a while, the sound of their own breaths and shuffling feet louder than anything else.
The crash had stolen their energy, leaving behind only disbelief and the raw edge of having survived something terrible.
Then, through the mist, something appeared.
At first it was just stone.
A cracked arch standing alone, draped in moss, Sanskrit letters etched deep across its face. Small bells dangled from each side, unmoving.
And beyond it—light.
"Look," Saanvi whispered, almost forgetting her pain.
Through the arch stretched Bhairavpur. A village alive in the dying day.
Smoke rose from distant chimneys. Clay lamps glowed in windows. Children ran laughing down a dirt path. A woman balanced a basket of grain against her hip as she smiled at a shrine. Voices drifted, warm and kind, carrying the cadence of a home long loved.
Priya gasped, hand rising to her mouth. "It's beautiful."
Meghna's eyes shone despite the bruises darkening her cheek. "I didn't expect it to feel so… warm."
Kabir grinned through his bloodied face, though the expression looked pained. "Told you. Told you we'd make it."
They were still moving when they stepped through the arch. Still smiling when villagers greeted them with nods and offers of water. Still believing when a turbaned man gave them directions to a schoolhouse where travelers usually stayed.
Relief poured over them like sunlight after a storm.
All except Abhay.
He looked once, just once, over his shoulder. Back at the arch, where the mist swirled thicker than before.
For a moment—just a moment—he thought he saw something. A figure, maybe. Or just a shadow. But when he blinked, there was nothing there. Just mist and trees and the fading light.
Abhay turned back to his friends, who were already moving toward the village, already lost in the warmth of it, already forgetting the crash, already forgetting the driver.
He said nothing.
But as he followed them toward the schoolhouse—toward the waiting lights, toward the smiling villagers, toward the place that felt so welcoming and so wrong—something cold settled in his chest.
He couldn't remember the driver's face.
He couldn't remember what the driver looked like, couldn't recall a single feature. It was as if that face had never been there to begin with, as if the driver had always been just a voice, just a pair of hands on a wheel.
He didn't have any memories with the driver. None at all.
So how did he know what had happened to him?
"Not every survivor is spared.
Not every village breathes.
Sometimes what welcomes you
with warmth is only the silence
teaching you how to grieve."