Next morning at 6 a.m. sharp the bus rumbled to life, its engine low like a sigh. Morning light spilled through the hotel porch, catching on faces that looked a little older than they did just four days ago.
The trip was over.
But not the feelings.
Everyone boarded slowly—some still laughing, others hugging the teachers, a few blinking away sleepy eyes… or maybe just holding back tears.
Shankar sat by the window.
Savitri quietly took the seat next to him.
The breeze slipped in through the partly open glass. It felt like goodbye already.
They didn't speak at first.
Just watched the trees pass.
Varun and Meena were behind them, still going at it over something—probably a charger again. And the others had found their own pockets of the bus, heads leaned on shoulders, earphones shared, hands held.
Savitri finally spoke.
"I've never felt like this before…"
Shankar looked at her.
"This… ache. Like something is ending but also beginning."
She kept looking straight ahead.
"I've always been the quiet one. People think I'm okay with being alone. But the truth is… sometimes even when I'm surrounded by friends, I feel invisible."
Shankar didn't say anything.
Because he knew that feeling. Deeply.
The ache of being in a room full of voices, and yet only hearing your own.
She smiled faintly. "But this trip… it felt like for once, I was seen. I laughed more. I felt more. I made memories I didn't expect to make."
Shankar's throat tightened a bit. He hadn't expected this side of her—this vulnerability.
But it felt familiar.
"Next year… it's NEET," she said, voice softening. "No more trips. No more slowing down."
He nodded.
"Same. JEE. Class twelve won't be kind."
A silence hung between them.
Then she said something that caught him off guard.
"I want to study human emotions. Not just psychology. I want to understand why we feel… why we break… and how sometimes… people still smile through it all."
Shankar turned to her, a little stunned. His voice barely left him.
"I want to study space. Time. How it moves. Loops. Why some seconds feel like eternity… and some hours disappear in a blink."
She looked at him.
Not laughing. Not judging. Just listening.
"Maybe," she whispered, "if you ever figure out how to travel back in time… tell your younger self to become friends with me earlier."
That line… hit him like gravity.
He blinked, trying not to smile too much.
Then reached into his bag and pulled something out.
A neatly wrapped book.
The Firefly.
Savitri looked at it, then at him.
"You got this for me?"
"I saw it in a shop before the trip," he said, still not meeting her eyes. "Thought of you."
Her hands trembled slightly as she took it.
"I've wanted to read this," she whispered. "Since forever."
"I know."
She held it to her chest, "Thank you so much."
No more words. The silence spoke louder than anything else.
But of course—
"VARUN, JUST ADMIT YOU LOST IT!"
"MEENA, FOR THE LAST TIME—"
The whole bus burst out laughing.
Even Shankar chuckled. So did Savitri.
Laughter. Friends. Chaos.
A perfect ending.
As the sun dipped behind Siliguri's skyline, the bus pulled to a halt.
Everyone hugged their goodbyes.
But before Shankar could step out, Savitri touched his wrist.
She fumbled in her bag… then pulled out a small dream-catcher.
"For your space dreams," she said, cheeks a little pink.
He smiled, truly this time.
"Thanks. Maybe we can hang out sometime?"
She nodded, shyly.
"There's still half of summer left."
They waved. Nothing dramatic. Just… real.
And then he saw her—
Devi, standing by the gate, eyes darting, looking for only one face.
The moment she spotted him, her whole expression softened.
His younger uncle waved too.
Shankar walked up to them.
No big words.
Just a quiet, overwhelmed smile.
And when Devi wrapped her arms around him, the world paused.
Shankar was home.
The sky outside had turned deep indigo.
Shankar's room was just as he had left it—
Neat. Familiar. Silent.
Too silent.
He placed his bag on the chair. The same chair that used to hold his school uniform every morning.
The fan whirred softly overhead, stirring the papers on his desk. A half-solved physics worksheet fluttered slightly. Reality knocking again.
He sat on his bed.
Let out a long breath.
Then another.
The walls felt like they were closing in.
He reached into his pocket. The ring was still there—wrapped in the tissue he'd carefully folded around it. Warm. Not burning, but… aware. Like it was watching him somehow.
He stared at it.
"It wasn't a dream… was it?" he whispered to no one.
The room answered with silence.
He remembered the temple. The stone walls. The carvings. The questions.
He still had no answers.
His fingers grazed the ring. He didn't put it on.
Instead, he picked up the dream-catcher Savitri gave him and held it under the faint moonlight seeping in through the window. The threads danced in the breeze.
For some reason… it made him feel seen again.
He sat like that for a long while—ring in one hand, dream-catcher in the other. Between truth and dreams. Between questions and… possibilities.
Then he pulled out his old dusty diary. Not the one he used for school notes. The other one. The one he thought he'd never use.
He hadn't.
Some part of him must have known he'd need it again.
He opened to the first blank page.
And with shaky hands, he wrote:
"Entry 01 – The Ring of Truth."
"I don't know what I've found. I only know it wasn't just a trip. Something inside me… shifted."
"There's a weight on me. Like I've seen something I wasn't supposed to."
"If someone ever finds this… maybe they'll understand what I couldn't say."
"I think… I've stepped into something bigger than me."
He closed the diary.
The moonlight spilled across the floor. Outside, a lone night train howled in the distance. Somewhere out there, the world was moving on.
But inside that small room in Siliguri…
A boy sat quietly with a dream-catcher, a truth-bound ring, and the feeling that his journey wasn't over.
It had just begun.