Maya adjusted her headset and forced a professional smile no one could see.

  “Yes sir, I understand your concern. It will take only twenty-four hours. Our technician will resolve the issue for you. Thank you for calling AirFlow. Please leave a rating.”

  Click.

  She removed the headset slowly and leaned back. Another complaint about internet speed. Slow. Unstable. Unbearable. The same script. The same promise.

  She stood up to get coffee.

  “Hey, Maya!”

  She froze.

  Vijay was standing near the hallway, hands in pockets, smiling like he had no deadlines in this world.

  “How did you get in?” she asked. “Aren’t you supposed to be in your so-called important meeting?”

  “I postponed it,” he said proudly. “Three days left. We should walk home together while we still can.”

  Four years. That’s how long it took to convince both families. Four years of persuasion, arguments, emotional blackmail, and compromise. Now the wedding was finally happening.

  They walked toward the exit, laughing about something trivial. Then they stopped. The glass doors were no longer transparent.

  Black.

  A thick wall of black smoke stood outside like a curtain pulled over the world. Someone tried pushing through it. He bounced back as if it were solid. Panic spread instantly. The windows began darkening too. One by one, the smoke swallowed them. The building dimmed into a suffocating twilight. People screamed. Phones fell. Chairs toppled.

  Then, CRACK.

  The ceiling split open. Concrete rained down. Silence followed. Everyone looked up. The sky above was clear. Blue. Peaceful. For one long minute, nothing happened. Then he appeared.

  A boy. Around nineteen. He stepped into the broken opening and jumped down. He landed hard. The floor cracked slightly beneath him.

  No one moved. His eyes glowed red. He wore a black hooded jacket.

  He smiled. “Hello, AirFlow.”

  The name echoed. Fear froze the room. He tilted his head.

  “Are you guys from AirFlow?”

  Vijay stepped forward despite shaking legs. “Yes… but who are you?”

  The smile vanished. “For the past eight months,” the boy said calmly, “I’ve been complaining about my internet speed.”

  No one breathed.

  “It sucks like hell. But what did you do?”

  “We’re customer service,” Vijay said quickly. “We forward complaints to higher authorities. Nothing is in our hands.”

  The boy’s lips curled. “Every time I called… I received one sentence.”

  He mimicked the tone perfectly. “Within twenty-four hours our technicians will resolve your issue.”

  A desk behind him began to rise. People gasped.

  “And here I am. Eight months later.” His voice cracked. “The internet still sucks.”

  The desk smashed into the ground. Wood shattered.

  “If you can’t fix it, just say you can’t. But you lie. Lie. Lie. Lie.”

  The lights flickered violently. “I hate lies.”

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  The building trembled. A woman cried, “Please don’t hurt us!”

  He looked at her. And in one swift motion, lifted her by the neck. There was a sharp snap. Her body fell. Chaos exploded. People rushed toward the exit. The black smoke held firm.

  “Easy,” he said softly. “Don’t panic.”

  Maya collapsed to her knees. “Why punish us? We’re innocent.”

  He stared at her. Recognition flickered. “Oh.”

  A smile. “You’re the one I just spoke to.”

  Maya’s blood ran cold.

  “You said my issue would be resolved tonight.”

  Vijay pulled her behind him. "Please. Don’t hurt her. I’m begging you.”

  The boy floated upward. Feet leaving the ground. “This is just the beginning,” he said. “Soon, very soon, this incident will spread like wildfire.”

  “What incident—” The explosion swallowed the sentence. The building vanished in flame and dust. No survivors. Not even an ant.

  Less than a minute later, the news reached the President of AirFlow Telecom. Mr. Pratap Singh Rana stood up from his desk.

  “What do you mean the entire building exploded?”

  No trace of RDX. No gas leak. No device. No recorded entry. No explanation. The government labeled it terrorist attack. The Maharashtra administration handed the case to the CBI. Pune became a national headline overnight.

  Was it corporate sabotage? Foreign interference? Cyber-terrorism? Theories multiplied. Evidence did not.

  The Central Bureau of Investigation headquarters did not panic. It calculated.

  Inside a sealed conference room on the fourth floor, a large digital screen displayed the remains of the AirFlow building in Pune. Smoke. Rubble. Emergency responders moving like ants across concrete debris.

  Director Anant Mehra stood at the head of the table, hands clasped behind his back.

  “How long after the blast did we receive confirmation?” he asked.

  “Forty-seven seconds, sir,” replied Joint Director Raghav Bedi. “Local control room escalated immediately.”

  “Casualties?”

  “Total structural collapse. No survivors.”

  Silence settled heavily in the room. Mehra turned toward the screen showing thermal imaging taken minutes before collapse.

  “No chemical signatures?”

  “Forensics confirms no RDX. No TNT. No fuel accelerants. No gas leak,” Bedi said. “Structural failure was internal and instantaneous.”

  A younger officer, Aditi Rao, adjusted her glasses and spoke carefully.

  “Sir, satellite feed shows something unusual.”

  The screen shifted. Footage zoomed into the rooftop seconds before the explosion. The ceiling fractured from the inside. Not from impact. From pressure.

  “Inward force,” she continued. “Not outward.”

  Mehra’s eyes narrowed.

  “So the blast originated from within the building… without explosive residue.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Another officer cleared his throat.

  “Sir, the intelligence bureau is suggesting foreign interference. Possibly cyber warfare linked to telecom infrastructure.”

  Mehra shook his head slowly. "No nation collapses a building without leaving a signature.”

  He walked closer to the screen. “Pull internal CCTV.”

  The footage played. Smoke filling corridors. Panic. Employees running. Then static.

  “Why the blackout?” Mehra asked.

  “Every camera failed simultaneously. No power cut recorded.”

  The room grew quiet again. Aditi hesitated before speaking. “There’s… one more thing.”

  She switched to a slowed frame extracted from a damaged internal camera. For less than half a second, just before static, A silhouette. Mid-air. Eyes glowing. The image was grainy. Distorted. Almost unreal.

  Someone in the room let out a faint breath.

  “Enhance,” Mehra ordered.

  The image sharpened slightly. A human figure. Hovering.

  “This is fabricated,” one officer said quickly. “Digital corruption.”

  “Run metadata analysis,” Mehra replied calmly. “Check for tampering.”

  Minutes passed.

  “No manipulation detected, sir.”

  The Director stared at the frozen frame. “Circulate this to no one,” he said quietly. “Not IB. Not media. Not even Home Ministry.”

  “But sir...”

  “Until we know what we’re dealing with, this is an internal anomaly.”

  He turned toward the team. “Let’s hope this is a misinterpretation.”

  Raghav met his eyes. “If it isn’t… we’re looking at a national-level threat.”

  And somewhere beyond the smoke, a nineteen-year-old boy watched the news coverage and smiled.